"'It ain't that I'm timorous neither, nor yet assoomin' airs,' this yere Billy says to me when he brings it up himse'f how he don't go over to 'Doby's, 'but I'm never no hand to set 'round an' visit free an' easy that a-way with the posterity of a gent which I has had cause to plant. This yere ain't roodness; it's scrooples,' says Billy, 'an' so it's plumb useless for me to go gettin' sociable with 'Doby's wife.'
"It's crowdin' close on two years after the infant's born when 'Doby an' Billy gets up their feud which I speaks of at the beginnin'. Yere's how it gets fulminated. Billy's loafin' over by the post- office door one evenin', talkin' to Tutt an' Boggs an' a passel of us, when who comes projectin' along, p'intin' for the New York Store, but 'Doby's wife an' Willyum. As they trails by, Willyum sees Billy—Willyum can make a small bluff at talkin' by now—an', p'intin' his finger at Billy, he sags back on his mother's dress like he aims to halt her, an' says:
"'Pop-pa! Pop-pa!' meanin' Billy that a-way; although the same is erroneous entire, as every gent in Wolfville knows.
"'Which if Willyum's forefinger he p'ints with
is a Colt's forty-four, an' instead of sayin' `Poppa!' he onhooks the same at Billy direct, now I don't reckon Billy could have been more put out. 'Doby's wife drags Willyum along at the time like he's a calf goin' to be branded, an' she never halts or pauses. But Billy turns all kinds of hues, an' is that prostrated he surges across to the Red Light an' gets two drinks alone, never invitin' nobody, before he realizes. When he does invite us he admits frank he's plumb locoed for a moment by the shock.
"'You bet!' says Billy, as he gets his third drink, the same bein' took in common with the pop'lace present, 'you bet! thar ain't a gent in camp I'd insult by no neglect; but when Willyum makes them charges an' does it publicly, it onhinges my reason, an' them two times I don't invite you-alls, I'm not responsible.'
"We-alls sees Billy's wounded, an' tharfore it's a ha'r-line deal to say anythin'; but as well as we can we tells him that what Willyum says, that a-way, bein' less'n two year old, is the mere prattle of a child, an' he's not to be depressed by it.
"'Sech breaks,' says Dan Boggs, 'is took jocose back in the States.'
"'Shore!' says Texas Thompson, backin' Boggs's play; 'them little bluffs of infancy, gettin' tangled that a-way about their progenitors, is regarded joyous in Laredo. Which thar's not the slightest need of Billy bein' cast down tharat.'
"'I ain't sayin' a word, gents,' remarks Billy, an' his tones is sad. You-alls means proper an friendly. But I warns the world at this time that I now embarks on the spree of my life. I'm goin to get drunk an' never hedge a bet; an my last requests, the same bein' addressed to the barkeep, personal, is to set every bottle of bug- juice in the shebang on the bar, thar to repose within the reach of all ontil further orders.'