He was in Dutchy’s, same as afore. But not so loaded, this time, and a blamed sight uglier. Minute he seen me, his back was up! “Here, you snide puncher,” he begun, “you tryin’ to arrest me? Wal, blankety blank blank,” (fill it in the worst you can think of–he was beefin’ somethin’ awful) “I’ll have you know that I ain’t never ’lowed no man t’ put the bracelets on me.” And his hand went down and begun feelin’ fer the butt of a gun.
“Look oudt!” whispers Dutchy. “You vill git shooted!”
But I only just walked over and put a’ arm ’round Hank. “Now, come on home,” I says, like I meant it. “’Cause y’ know, day after t’-morra another Eye-Opener has got to rise t’ the top. Hank, think of Bergin!”
He turned on me then, and give me such a push in the chest that I sit down on the floor–right suddent, too. Wal, that rubbed me the wrong way. And the next thing he knowed, I had him by the back of the collar, and was a-draggin’ him out.
I was plumb wored out by the time I got him home, and so Chub, he stayed t’ watch. I went back to the deepot. And I was still a-settin’ there, feelin’ lonesome, and kinda put out, too, when here come Buckshot Milliken towards me.
“I think Hank oughta be ’shamed of hisself,” he says, “fer the way he talks about you. Course, we know why he does it, and that it ain’t true––”
“What’s he got t’ say about me?” I ast, huffy.
“He said you was a ornery hoodlum,” answers Buckshot, “and a loafer, and that he’s a-goin’ t’ roast you in his paper. He’d put Oklahomaw on to you, he said.”
“Huh!”
“And you been such a good friend t’ Hank,” goes on Buckshot. “Wal, don’t it go to show!”