Immediately one of the leaners regained the perpendicular, departed a pace from the wall, rolled his tobacco neatly into one cheek, and remarked:
"We've stood it long enough—the bottom's clean out of the pan, Mr. Chairman. Scrabblegrab's declined bitters from half the fellers in camp, an' though his gray old topknot's kept 'em from takin' satisfaction in the usual manner, they don't feel no better 'bout it than they did."
The speaker subsided into his section of wall, composed himself into his own especial angles, and looked like a man who had fully discharged a conscientious duty.
From the opposite wall there appeared another speaker, who indignantly remarked:
"Goin' back on bitters ain't a toothful to what he's done. There's young Curly, that went last week. That boy played his hand in a style that would take the conceit clean out uv an angel. But all to onct Curly took to lookin' flaxed, an' the judge here overheard Scrabblegrab askin' Curly what he thort his mother'd say ef she knew he was makin' his money that way? The boy took on wuss an' wuss, an' now he's vamosed. Don't b'lieve me ef yer don't want ter, fellers—here's the judge hisself."
The judge briskly advanced his spectacles, which had gained him his title, and said:
"True ez gospel; and when I asked him ef he wasn't ashamed of himself fur takin' away the boy's comfort, he said No, an' that I'd be a more decent man ef I'd give up keards myself."
"He's alive yit!" said the first speaker, in a tone half of inquiry and half of reproof.
"I know it," said the judge, hastening to explain. "I'd lent my pepperbox to Mose when he went to 'Frisco, an' the old man's too little fur a man uv my size to hit."
The judge looked anxiously about until he felt assured his explanation had been generally accepted. Then he continued: