“Up to her my eye! Ye gotta crowd ’em, amigo—ye gotta crowd ’em right up ag’in th’ fence. They like it.”
“How do you know they do? You’re a great one to talk.”
“Oh, I’ve had my little spells o’ wranglin’ with ’em. I’ll bet ye a strip o’ whang leather Jack Montgomery’s crowded her.”
“He’s asked her to marry him, if that’s what you mean.”
“And she ain’t done it yet, has she? No, she ain’t. An’ why? ’Cause she’s waitin’ for you to buck up an’ show a little savvy. Say, Tony, ye make me sick as a drenched mule.”
“I’ve tried to be a little dignified in the matter,” Joshua defended.
“I’ll tell th’ cockeyed world ye have!” scoffed California Bill. “Dignified! God! Who ever heard o’ love bein’ dignified? Say, that’s th’ best one I ever heard. Nobody on earth but you could have sprung that, Tony. If there’s anything on earth that ain’t dignified, it’s love. A man c’n get drunk an’ fall in a mud puddle, an’ get up an’ walk off dignified. A pallbearer might stub his toe an’ sprawl ’round till even the corpse laughed, but he’d be dignified ’longside a real he-man in love. Say, ye’re a reg’lar howl!”
“It’s strange,” mused Joshua, a little stiffly, “that you failed to call my attention to all this until Madge was out of the mountains.”
“Hell’s afire, man!—I thought it was all settled between you two long ago! I never dreamed ye was such a sucker!”
“She longs for money,” said Joshua. “She halfway wants me to give up my astronomy, and I can’t do that.”