“Why, who is this fellow that seeks to create a disturbance?” blustered the little man, his fiery whiskers beginning to bristle and squirm again. “He should be sat upon.”
The country youth turned on him.
“I wish yeou’d tackle the job, yeou condemned little red-whiskered runt;” he shot at the blusterer with such suddenness that the little man staggered back and put up his hands, as if he had been struck. “Yeou are another meddler! I’d eat yeou, an’ I’d never know I’d hed a bite!”
“This is very unfortunate, madam,” purred the gallant man at the veiled woman’s side. “I am extremely sorry that you have had such an unpleasant experience. Now, if that creature——”
He designated Ephraim by the final word, and Gallup cut him short right there.
“Yeou’re the cheapest one of the hull lot, old oil-smirk!” he flung at the speaker. “Such fellers as yeou are more dangerous to real ladies than all the young mashers goin’, fer yeou are a hypocrite who pretends to be virtuous.”
The man gasped and tried to say something, but seemed stricken speechless.
Now the cock-eyed man was aroused once more. He seemed on the point of making a swing at somebody or something. He pushed his face up close to Ephraim, but still his rebellious eye seemed looking in quite another direction.
“If you want any trouble here,” he said, hoarsely, “I’ll attend to you. I can do that very well.”
Ephraim looked at him, began to smile, broke into a grin, and burst into a shout of laughter.