“Yes, sir,” sez I, up clear and decided.
“Is a woman calling herself Anna Clark at your house?”
I wuzn’t a-goin’ to fight for Annie with any pewter weepons of untruth. No, I wuz a-goin’ to fight with the two-edged sword of Eternal Truth and Jestice, and I took ’em out and whetted ’em (as it were), and sez I, sharp and keen—
“Yes, sir!”
“Well,” sez he, lookin’ dretful defiant and mad at me, “she is my wife, and I hereby forbid you harboring her, for I will pay no debts of her contracting.”
“Like as not,” sez I coolly, “as you never paid any of your own.”
He kinder blushed up some, but he went on some as if he wuz a-rehearsin’ a piece he had learnt:
“She has left my bed and board!”
Then I waved that sword of Truth agin that I had been a-whettin’, and sez I—
“It wuz her bed. Her mother gin it to her for her settin’ out, and picked every feather in it from her own geese and ganders. I got it from Annie’s own lips, and you sold it for drink. As for the boards,” sez I candidly, for even in the midst of the fiercest battle with the forces of wrong I must be jest to my foe, and so sez I—