"A kind of a moral monitor, Blackburn," grinned Lawler. "Some folks need them. If you're thinking of getting one——"
"Bah!" Blackburn's eyes were vitriolic with disgust. "I sabe what you are hintin' at when you gas of morals—which I'm a heap acquainted with because I ain't got none to speak of. But I'm plumb flabbergasted when you go to connectin' a battleship with anything that's got a whole lot to do with morals. Accordin' to my schoolin', a monitor is a thing which blows the stuffin' out of——"
"A monitor of morals could do that," gravely said Lawler. "In fact, according to the best authorities, there have been many monitors who have blown the stuffing out of the reputations of their charges."
Blackburn gulped. He was puzzled, and his eyes were glazed with the incomprehension which had seized him. Twice again as he watched Lawler's grave face he gulped. And then he eyed Lawler belligerently.
"I reckon them monitors is eastern. I've never seen one galivantin' around these parts."
"They're a lot eastern," assented Lawler. "I've never seen one, but I've read about them in books. And once my mother saw one—she tells me the East raises them by the hundred."
"That accounts for it," declared Blackburn; "anything which comes from the East is likely to be a heap shy on hoss sense."
He now squinted at Lawler, watching him keenly.
"Accordin' to report Joe Hamlin ought to go around draggin' one of them monitors."
Blackburn shrewdly noted the quickening of Lawler's eyes, and the dull red that stole into his face.