"Heard about Hermy bein' married, Bud?" he enquired.
"Married? You're a liar! Hermy married? It's not so!"
"'S right!" nodded Soapy. "She's married th' millionaire guy as got shot—you know—got shot in that wood—you'll remember, Bud!"
M'Ginnis sank into a chair and fell to biting his nails, staring blindly before him.
"Is—this—straight goods?" he enquired thickly, without altering his gaze.
"Sure! Y' see, she nursed him through his sickness, Bud—kind of did the piller-smoothin' an' brow-strokin' act. Oh, I guess she comforted him quite some."
M'Ginnis stared before him, worrying his nails with sharp white teeth.
"Ravenslee's a well man again, I hear, an' they're honeymoonin' at his place on the Hudson—devotion ain't the word, Bud! 'S funny," said Soapy, "but th' bullet as downed this guy drove Hermy into his arms. 'S funny, ain't it, Bud?"
With a hoarse, inarticulate cry that was scarcely human, M'Ginnis sprang from his chair, his quivering fists up-flung. For a moment he stood thus, striving vainly for utterance, then wrenched loose his neckerchief, while Soapy methodically lighted a new cigarette from the butt of its predecessor.
"Easy, Bud, easy!" he remonstrated gently, when M'Ginnis's torrent of frenzied threats and curses had died down somewhat. "If you go on that way, you'll go off—in a fit or something an' I shouldn't like t' see ye die—that way!"