"Get out, what's one kiss?" laughed Allen.
"I've seen a big jack-pot of trouble opened by chippin' in just one kiss," wisely remarked the Sheriff.
Sage-brush, at this point, announced decisively: "The bride has got to be kissed."
Slim tried to break through the group and enter the house, thinking that by making such a move he would divert their attention, and that in the excitement of the wedding he could avoid kissing the bride, an ordeal which to him was more terrible than facing the worst gun-fighter in Arizona.
"I deputize you to do the kissin' for me," he said to Parenthesis, who had laid his hand shoulder to detain him.
"No, siree," the cowboy replied. "Every man does his own kissin' in this game." Slim half-turned as if undecided. Suddenly he turned on his heel, started for the corral. "I'll wait outside," he shouted.
"No, you don't!" cried his companions. He turned to face a semicircle of drawn revolvers. He looked from one man to another, as if puzzled what move to make next. Allen was annoyed by the sheriff's actions, taking it as an insult that he would not kiss his daughter, although he had started to twit the Sheriff in the beginning.
"You ain't goin' to insult me and mine that way. No man sidesteps kissin' one of my kids," he said angrily.
Slim was plaintively apologetic: "I ain't kissed a female since I was a yearlin'."
"Time you started," snapped Polly.