All at once he broke out a-laughing.
"I'll take care of him," says he. "I wouldn't take a thousand for that dog. They didn't want to keep him, but I said they'd have to. That was a good fight they had in the house," says he, and laughed again.
Bonnie Bell she got red, and says she:
"I'm awfully sorry. That dog of ours is a terror to fight. We can't break him of it any way. I hope you'll apologize to your people," says she—"that is, if they wouldn't take it wrong of us to have it mentioned. I don't know."
"Oh, no; I guess that'll be all right," says he. "I've been with 'em so long, you see, I can kind of make free about it. If you feel bad about it I'll tell 'em; but it wasn't your fault."
"It would be just like that bunch of yours," says she, "not to let on that they had heard from us that I was sorry. I oughtn't to say it maybe, but——"
"Well now," says the hired man, frank-like enough, "that's just the way I feel. I often tell the old man, myself, that he ain't so much—he come from Iowa once when he didn't have a cent to his name, and yet he puts on more side now than anybody else on the street."
"Did you ever dare to say that to him?" says Bonnie Bell.
"I certainly did, and more than once. I ain't afraid to say anything to either one of 'em," says he. "They don't dare say much to me. I know too much about 'em. But, say now—about that fight," says he. "I want to tell you that new dog we've got is some peach. Give him a year or so and he'll eat up that pup of yours."
"He never seen the day he could and he never will!" says Bonnie Bell. "If you feel that way about it——"