“What was you going to tell us uh while ago, in Lafe’s behalf?”
“Lafe tells me that if yuh can’t raise enough for uh stake out of old
man Swigert yuh can have his. He orates that he’s got enough for two
weeks in his cabin at the mine.”
“Cripes!” explodes Hair-Trigger. “Is that uh fact? I didn’t think we was
gone long enough for him to tell yuh all that. Is that right, Lafe?”
“Uh—uh—uh—uh—uh——”
“Nod or shake! Gosh A’mighty, man! Either do that or write it out.”
Lafe nodded.
Well, we has uh few more on each other, and then me and Hair-Trigger
goes after our rolling stock. Eveline has resented our inattention to
such details as dinner by eating up my coat. Eveline Ann’s ancestors
must uh been goats, ’cause he’ll nourish off anything he can get his lip
over. Red shirts is pie to that jackass. Anyway, I ain’t got no coat, so
I wails loud and long and kicks the jack in the floating ribs.
“Never get mad at uh burro or uh woman, Comanche,” advises Hair-Trigger.
“Give ’em all the credit in the world when they performs right, and
forgive ’em when they does things wrong. It’s their privilege and
inherited rights to do things wrong. Sabe?”
“You’d have Socrates skinned four ways from the jack if you’d keep
awake,” says I. “But philosophy don’t restore no coats. I pines uh heap
for that coat, Hair-Trigger.”
“Did I or did I not see uh coat hanging on the walls of the den of
iniquity we just left?” he wonders aloud. “Maybe I dreamed it, Comanche,
but I feels certain sure that on one uh them four walls I has observed
the top garment of the male sex. You might investigate, and thereby fill
uh long-felt want.”