“Well, gosh-ding my melts!” says Zeke Humphreys. “You ain't proud of yourself, nor nothin', are you?”
“No prouder nor what I got a right to be,” says Bud Peevy, “considerin' what I done.”
“Oh, yes, you be!” says Zeke Humphreys. “You been proudin' yourself around here for weeks now all on account o' that decidin' vote business. And anybody might 'a' been a Decidin' Vote. A Decidin' Vote don't amount to nothin' 'longside a Centre of Population.”
“Where would your derned population be if I hadn't went and saved this here country for 'em?” asks Bud Peevy.
“Be?” says Zeke. “They'd be right where they be now, if you'd never been born nor heard tell on, that's where they'd be. And I'd be the centre of 'em, jist like I be now!”
“And what air you now?” says Bud Peevy, mighty mean and insultin'-like. “You ain't nothin' but a accident, you ain't! What I got, I fit for and I earnt. But you ain't nothin' but a happenin'!”
Them seemed like mighty harsh words to Zeke, for he figgered his glory was due to him on account of the uprighteous life he always led, and so he says:
“Mister, anybody that says I ain't nothin' but a happenin' is a liar.”
“1 kin lick my weight in rattlesnakes,” yells Bud Peevy, “and I've done it afore this! And I tells you once again, and flings it in your face, that you ain't nothin' but a accidental happenin'!”
“You're a liar, then!” says Zeke.