That little wretch, Raynor, called yesterday and his babble set me
almost wild. He never runs down--that is to say, when he exterminates a
score of reputations, more or less, he does not pause between one
reputation and the next. (By the way, he inquired about you, and his
manifestations of interest in you had, I confess, a good deal of
_vraisemblance._.) Mr. Raynor observes no game laws; like Death (which
he would inflict if slander were fatal) he has all seasons for his own.
But I like him, for we knew each other at Redhorse when we were young.
He was known in those days as "Giggles," and I--O Irene, can you ever
forgive me?--I was called "Gunny." God knows why; perhaps in allusion to
the material of my pinafores; perhaps because the name is in
alliteration with "Giggles," for Gig and I were inseparable playmates,
and the miners may have thought it a delicate civility to recognize some
kind of relationship between us.
Later, we took in a third--another of Adversity's brood, who, like
Garrick between Tragedy and Comedy, had a chronic inability to
adjudicate the rival claims of Frost and Famine. Between him and misery
there was seldom anything more than a single suspender and the hope of a
meal which would at the same time support life and make it
insupportable. He literally picked up a precarious living for himself
and an aged mother by "chloriding the dumps," that is to say, the miners
permitted him to search the heaps of waste rock for such pieces of "pay
ore" as had been overlooked; and these he sacked up and sold at the
Syndicate Mill. He became a member of our firm--"Gunny, Giggles, and
Dumps" thenceforth--through my favor; for I could not then, nor can I
now, be indifferent to his courage and prowess in defending against
Giggles the immemorial right of his sex to insult a strange and
unprotected female--myself. After old Jim struck it in the Calamity and
I began to wear shoes and go to school, and in emulation Giggles took to
washing his face and became Jack Raynor, of Wells, Fargo & Co., and old
Mrs. Barts was herself chlorided to her fathers, Dumps drifted over to
San Juan Smith and turned stage driver, and was killed by road agents,
and so forth.
Why do I tell you all this, dear? Because it is heavy on my heart.
Because I walk the Valley of Humility. Because I am subduing myself to
permanent consciousness of my unworthiness to unloose the latchet of Dr.
Barritz's shoe. Because, oh dear, oh dear, there's a cousin of Dumps at
this hotel! I haven't spoken to him. I never had much acquaintance with
him,--but do you suppose he has recognized me? Do, please give me in
your next your candid, sure-enough opinion about it, and say you don't
think so. Do you suppose He knows about me already, and that that is why
He left me last evening when He saw that I blushed and trembled like a
fool under His eyes? You know I can't bribe _all_ the newspapers, and I
can't go back on anybody who was civil to Gunny at Redhorse--not if I'm
pitched out of society into the sea. So the skeleton sometimes rattles
behind the door. I never cared much before, as you know, but now--_now_
it is not the same. Jack Raynor I am sure of--he will not tell Him. He
seems, indeed, to hold Him in such respect as hardly to dare speak to
Him at all, and I'm a good deal that way myself. Dear, dear! I wish I
had something besides a million dollars! If Jack were three inches
taller I'd marry him alive and go back to Redhorse and wear sackcloth
again to the end of my miserable days.