“Why should they?” I wanted to know. “Besides,” says I, “there wouldn’t be no votes cast in a election to pick Wicksville’s handsomest man. There hain’t no sich thing.” It made me mad to have Mark fooling with me like that when things was so serious. “Jest look at the men that live here,” says I. “There hain’t enough handsomeness in Wicksville to keep a self-respectin’ scarecrow from dyin’ of disgust.”
“It hain’t the han’someness that is,” says Mark, “it’s the han’someness that homely folks thinks there is.”
“Huh!” says I.
“Plunk,” says Mark, patient-like, “have I got to draw a picture of this thing?”
“I guess you have,” says I.
“Well,” says he, “there’s half a dozen old coots here that set consid’able store by their looks. There’s Chet Weevil, eh? How about him?”
“Runs to yaller neckties,” says I.
“Always s-s-stoppin’ to look in the glass, hain’t he?”
I was beginning to get a glimmer of light, so I just nodded and didn’t say anything.
“And there’s Chancy Miller—always w-w-wearin’ a flower in his buttonhole, hain’t he?”