In his fury Hiram grabbed her chair and tipped it forward violently in order to dump her off his sacred porch. She flew out into space with a flutter of skirts, landed as lightly as a cat, and pirouetted on one toe, crooking her arms in the professional pose that invites applause.
“This is the first time Signora Rosyelli, champion bareback rider, ever tried to ride a mule,” she chirped, “but you see she can do it and make her graceful dismount to the music of the band. I’ll be at the tavern down here two days, ready to listen to any kind of talk that combines pleasure and profit. After that you take your own chances.”
She tossed to each of them a kiss from her finger-tips and went switching jauntily down the road.
“That beats Tophet and repeat!” remarked Simon after a time. He had watched her nearly out of sight.
Hiram held his peace.
“What are you goin’ to do?” his friend inquired falteringly at last.
“Fight her!” roared Hiram, leaping to his feet and striding up and down the porch. “Fight her clear’n to the high, consolidated Supreme Court aggregation of the United States, or whatever they call it!”
“Nobody has ever beat her out yit, except Delly-bunko, and we ain’t in his class,” sighed Simon, with much despondency.
“You don’t think, do you, that I’m goin’ to set down and lap my thumb and finger and peel her off ten thousand dollars?’”
“Well, it’s lucky that you’ve got a brother that’s the smartest lawyer in the county,” said Peak, with an attempt at consolation. “He has showed that much out pretty plain, even to me. I never see him manage anywhere, except in town meetin’, but I——”