“You ain’t green at all,” I says. “And I’m shore sorry you feel the way you do. ’Cause I hoped mebbe you’d fergit our little trouble and bury the hatchet–long as we’re both workin’ fer the same thing.”
“What thing, I’d like t’ know?”
“Why, gittin’ Miss Macie Sewell elected the prettiest gal.”
Fer a bit he didn’t say nothin’. Then he made some remark about a gal’s name bein’ “handed ’round town,” and that a votin’ contest was “vulgar.”
Wal, he put it so slick that I didn’t just git the hang of what he was drivin’ at. Just the same, I felt he was layin’ it on to me, somehow. And if I’d ’a’ been shore of it, I’d ’a’ put some more risin’s on to his face.
Wisht now I had–on gen’ral principles. ’Cause, thinkin’ back, I know just what he done. If he didn’t, why was him and that Root-ee Judge talkin’ t’gether so long at the door of Silverstein’s Hall–talkin’ like they was thick, and laughin’, and ev’ry oncet in a while lookin’ over at me?
I drummed up a lot of votes that afternoon. Got holt of Buckshot Milliken, who wasn’t feelin’ more’n ordinary good. Ast him how he was. He put his hand to his belt, screwed up his mug, and said he felt plumb et up inside.
“Buckshot,” I says, “anybody else ’d give you that ole sickenin’ story about it bein’ the nose-paint you swallered last night. Reckon you’ wife’s tole you that a’ready.”
“That’s what she has,” growls Buckshot.
“Wal, I knowed it! But is she right? Now, I think, Buckshot,–I think you’ve got the bliggers.” (Made it up on the spot.)