“‘My good intentions had soured on their stomachs. The pair of them done more things with me in one-half minute than a monkey could think of in one-half a month. Most of my scratches and eighty per cent. of the cuts is healed. They spoiled that bed of posies by dragging me over them, and I put the fence a little out of plumb by trying to regain some of the dignity that ought naturally to belong to a man. That is to say, I took hold of the fence and tried to stand up, but me and two of the pickets hit the middle of the road. I carried those pickets with me just because I was dazed.
“‘I turned up at the hotel still holdin’ ’em, and all the male citizens there assembled expressed their surprise in one voice. Them nice waiter-ladies got rags and things, and patched me up the best they could. The hotel man loaned me two drinks, and it seemed as if somewhere in the back part of me, where the real “Long John Brown” had took to the brush during the scrimmage, there was a stir, and by-and-by I come to.
“‘Immejitely I whooped up them steps to my room, packed my grip and come down front again. I ain’t braggarty a bit when I say them people was sorry to see me go, and coaxed me to try another whirl.
“‘They almost had me, when down the street in the distance here come that fine-built, up-standing female and the little dark-complected man, and I heard the woman holler to a neighbor that they was out to catch an eight-foot-high, bow-legged critter, with hair and whiskers like a billy-goat, that had broke into their house without cause or reason, smashed all the crockery, knocked the stove into junk and inflicted upon their persons some injuries they could show, and some they wouldn’t.
“‘I turned to the crowd at the bar, and says, “That is the piece of beautiful domestic life I tried to help. Are you fellers now goin’ to stand for me?”—and them fellers put down their glasses, and walked so fast they got jabbed in the doorway, lightin’ out of that.
“‘One lad says to me, “You know I’m your friend, but—”
“‘“Yes,” I says, “I know you are my friend, and you know that nothing could hurt my feelings worse than to see a friend of mine get hurt, so you are putting out where it ain’t likely to happen.”
“‘“Yes,” he says, kind of hurried. “That’s it. That lady’s run for mayor of this town twice without anybody asking her, or saying anything about it. She’s elected herself twice, only casting one vote. We keep the City Hall doors locked all the time. I meant to tell you that the town wasn’t really run. She is, you might say, a determined character,” and, he says, in a greater hurry yet, “Good-by.”
“‘The barkeeper had took down cellar, so I says “Good-by” to my reflection in the lookin’-glass and skipped out the back way, behind barns and sheds and barrels, so that lady couldn’t see me, and hid in an empty coal-bin at the station until it come time for my train, and here I be,’ says John. ‘Here I be, Scraggsy, old man; and, while I ain’t in no way convinced but what domestic felicity is the one thing on earth, yet I wish I hadn’t been so biggoty, and had asked you a few facts concerning the female species before I started to put my notions into practice.’
“‘Goin’ to stay quiet on the ranch now?’ I asked him.