“Why?” asked Bright, who failed to see any connection between a cow, a stud and Ralston’s bad humour.
“The trouble with you, Bright, is that you’re so painfully literal,” returned Miner, who had got himself into a conversational difficulty. “Now I was thinking of a figurative cow.”
“What has that to do with it?” enquired Bright, inexorably.
“It’s very simple, I’m sure. Isn’t it, Jack?”
“Perfectly,” answered Ralston, absently, as he watched a figure that attracted his attention fifty yards ahead of him.
“There!” exclaimed Miner, triumphantly. “Jack saw it at once. Of course, if you want me to explain anything so perfectly idiotic—”
“Oh, don’t bother, I’m stupid to-day,” said Bright, completely mystified.
“What’s the joke, anyhow?” asked Ralston, suddenly realizing that Miner had spoken to him. “I said I understood, but I didn’t, in the least. I was thinking about that—about Slayback—and then I saw somebody I knew, and I didn’t hear what you said.”
“You didn’t lose much,” answered Miner. “I should be sincerely grateful if you’d drop the subject, which is a painful one with me. If anything can touch me to the quick, it’s the horrible certainty that I’ve pulled the trigger and that the joke hasn’t gone off, not even flashed in the pan, or fizzled, or sputtered and petered out, or even raised itself to the level of a decent failure, fit for immediate burial if for nothing else.”
“You’re getting a little mixed in your similes, Frank,” observed Bright.