“What you goin’ to do?” I says.
“Jest go ahead and mind my own business,” says Catty, “and let the marshal do the doin’.”
“Um!” says I.
“Um nothin’!” says he. “You watch.... Now I got to git after them ladders and that paint.”
“Hadn’t you better be seeing about this other thing first?” I says.
Catty looked at me a second, and he looked just like a fellow who had made up his mind and wasn’t going to change it. He looked like he would fight and fight hard. “I’m goin’ to act jest like that marshal never came here at all,” says he. “When does your newspaper come out?”
“To-night,” says I. “Most gen’ally it comes out Thursdays, when it don’t come out Fridays or Saturdays or Mondays. It hain’t what you call reg’lar. Editor has to go fishin’, or he loses his bottle of ink, or he hain’t got money to git his paper out of the express-office, or somethin’ else.”
“We’re goin’ to the printin’-office,” says Catty.
“What if that there town marshal comes back while you’re gone and starts chasin’ me away?” says Mr. Atkins.
Catty laughed. “Don’t run no farther ’n you have to, Dad, and run slow. I’ll catch up.”