"Thar ain't no guessin' 'bout it, Belle. Thar—you needn't cry 'bout it," he replied.
"You was awful drunk, Freme," she went on. "There warn't no one could handle ye 'cept me. They was tryin' to get ye upstairs and to bed, but ye was uglier 'n sin."
"Pshaw—I want to know," drawled the giant sheepishly. "Didn't none git hurted, did they?"
"None 'cept Ed Munsey; ye throwed him downstairs."
"Ed ain't hurted, be he?" he asked in alarm.
"His shoulder was swelled bad when he come back to work," she confessed. She nodded to the door behind the bar and the splinters sticking through its panel.
"Gosh all whimey!" he exclaimed; "who done that?"
"You done it, Freme; you was crazy drunk. There warn't none of 'em could handle you 'cept me, I tell ye. I spoke to ye and ye come 'long with me back inter the kitchen and set there lookin' at me strange-like for most an hour. Arter I got my dishes washed I took ye up to the little room at the end of the hall."
The Clown scratched his head as if trying to remember.
"Warn't it Ed that throwed that buffalo hide over me?" he asked after a moment of useless research.