, wantin' which the whole frame-work of soci'ty would
go leanin' sideways, same as that Eyetalian tower you shows me the
picture of the other day. Why, if everybody in the world was to go
tellin' the trooth for the next hour ninety-nine folks in every
hundred would be obleeged to put in the rest of their lives hidin'
out.

"Do I myse'f ever lie?

"Frequent an' plumb cheerful. I bases life on the rooles laid down by
that sharp who advises folks to do unto others as others does unto
them, an' beat 'em to it. Believin', tharfore, in handin' a gent his
own system, I makes it my onbreakable practice to allers lie to liars.
Then, ag'in, whenever some impert'nent prairie dog takes to rummagin'
'round with queries to find out my deesigns, I onflaggingly fills him
to the brim with all forms of misleadin' mendac'ty, an' casts every
fictional obstruction in his path that's calc'lated to get between
his heels an' trip him up. I shore do admire to stand all sech
inquirin' mavericks on their heads, an' partic'ler if they're plottin'
ag'in me.

"An' why not? A party that a-way, as I some time ago instructs you,
ain't got no more right to search my head than to search my warbags,
an' a gent who may lock a door may lie. Which, if you'll go off by
yourse'f an' think this yere over, you'll see that it's so, an' so
with a double cinch.

"Thar's statements, too, which, speakin' technical, might be regyarded
as lyin' which don't in jestice class onder no sech head. For
spec'men, when Dick Wooten, upon me askin' him how long he's been
inhabitin' the Raton Pass, p'ints to the Spanish Peaks an' says, 'You
see them em'nences? Well, when I pitches camp in this yere gully them
mountings was two holes in the ground,' I don't feel like he's lyin'.
I merely remembers that he steals the bluff from old Jim Bridger,
grins an' lets it go at that.

"Likewise, I'm sim'larly onaffected towards that amiable multitoode
who simply lies to entertain. These yere latter sports in their
preevar'cations is public ben'factors. You-all can spread yourse'f
out in the ca'm shadow of their yarns, same as if it's the shade of a
tree, an' find tharin reefreshment an' reepose.

"While the most onimag'native of us, from Peets to Cherokee, ain't
none puny as conversationists, the biggest liar, ondoubted, who ever
comes romancin' into Wolfville is Enright's uncle, who visits him that
time. Back in Tennessee a passel of scientists makes what this yere
relative of Enri