"Gimme one of them good cigarettes!" pipes the Kid to me. He lights it and looks over at friend Joe. "The first thing," he says, puffin' away; "the first thing, is this—just how much do you think of this dame, all jokes aside?"
Joe turns around and straightens up, for once in his life lookin' like the real thing.
"I love her!" he says. That was all—but the way he pulled it was a plenty!
The Kid grunts and tosses away the pill. Then he walks over to Joe and slaps him on the back.
"Listen!" he says. "You ain't a bad guy at that. I'm gonna give you somethin' I never took in my life—advice! Why don't you lay off lyin' about yourself, kid? Why don't you can that four-flush thing?"
The effect of them simple words on Joe was remarkable. He swung around on us so quick that we both ducked, thinkin' he was comin' back with a wallop—but his hands was sunk so deep in his coat pockets they liked to pushed through the linin' and his face was as hard and white as an iceberg.
"Because!" he shoots out through his teeth. "Because I can't!"
Y'know the change was so sudden, I remember lettin' out a little nervous laugh, and then sidesteppin' a vicious left the Kid sent at me. Scanlan had turned as serious as the other guy.
"What d'ye mean, you can't?" he says, grabbin' Joe by the arm and holdin' him fast. Joe's face showed how hard he was fightin' to keep from fallin' apart.
"You won't understand!" he answers in a hard voice. "But I'll tell you. The thing has grown upon me until I cannot shake it off! I guess I was born a liar and probably four-flushed my nurse when I was three days old. When I was a boy, my incessant lying, although it harmed no one but myself, kept me in countless scrapes. As I grew older, the habit grew stronger and I lost girls, jobs, friends and opportunities with breath-taking rapidity. Time after time I have sworn to rid myself of the thing and speak nothing but the undiluted truth, and the first time I open my mouth I find myself unconsciously telling the most astounding falsehoods about myself with an ease that nauseates me!" He tore himself loose from the Kid and kicked a innocent tomato can down the canyon. "I know I'm nothing but a big four-flusher," he winds up, "and I can't help it!"