Hiram had been sunk in reverie, but this unfortunate remark brought him out of it.
“Hain’t I told you never to mention my brother to me except when I ask you to?” he demanded fiercely. “I don’t want any man that I ain’t spoke to for four weeks slung into my face. Hain’t I goin’ to take to the ro’d again to get rid of him? If he was the last lawyer on God’s footstool he couldn’t take a case for me.”
He resumed his striding.
“Why don’t you and she git married, and we’ll all live here happy ever after?” suggested Peak, wistfully, following a period of pondering. “If it was in a book it would end off like that—sure pop!”
“Well, there ain’t no book to this, not by a dum-sight!” replied Hiram tartly.
“But it would settle one thing, and you ain’t hitched up in any other direction,” persisted Simon stubbornly, yet warily. Hiram’s renewed visits up country since he had so definitely and precipitately retired from town affairs in Palermo had again been stirring the jealous fears of the anxious old “grafter.” He feared the widow Abilene Snell with the fear of the bird that sees the hunter approaching its nest.
“I thought I told you never to twit me on that point again,” snarled Hiram, trying to be calm.
“I ain’t twittin’,” expostulated Simon. “If you hadn’t got so touchy lately you would see that I ain’t twittin’. But if you ain’t no idee of gittin’ married up country, why, you——”
“You—shet—up!” shouted Hiram, with a wag of his head for each word.
Long silence followed.