And he yelled up a little, “The girl I’m engaged to, Miss Dora Peak; or that is,” sez he, “I’ve considered it the same as an engagement, though perhaps it hasn’t quite reached that point.”
“Oh,” sez I, “you mean Dora; well, she is not here jest now.”
“And,” he sez, his red face growin’ redder and his kinder bloodshot eyes dartin’ angry gleams, “I have heard all about your treacherous conduct, and I’ve come to settle with you.”
“You have, have you!” sez I, and I turned over the sock I wuz a-mendin’ and attackted it in a new place.
“Yes,” sez he, “I’ve heard how you have encouraged the attentions of another man to the girl I wuz as good as engaged to, the girl I have paid attention to for years.”
Sez I calmly, a-lookin’ him over as if he wuz a banty rooster, “Have you paid attention to her exclusively?”
“I have never paid attention to another lady!” he yelled in quite a loud voice and shrill.
“Mebby not,” sez I, and I went on, “Dora can do as she pleases, but if I wuz a young girl,” sez I, “I wouldn’t accept the attentions of a man who divided his attentions between me and saloons, gamblin’ halls and horse races,” sez I.
“What do you mean?” he yelled out.
“Jest what I say,” sez I, a-gittin’ up and puttin’ in another stick of wood and a-seatin’ myself some nigher the wood-box, for I didn’t know what he might be led to do, for I could see as plain as anything that he wuzn’t quite himself, and you never can calculate what such a man may take it into his head to do. But I felt considerable easy when I had a good stout birch stick of wood right at hand, not that I wuz really ’fraid on him: dissipation had told on him so he looked considerable tottlin’ and shaky under all the outside veneer of fashion he’d put on; but how can you tell what a poor, miserable tike will take into his head? Why, dissipation jest onhinges all the moral and spiritual graces, all the manliness and self-respect and will-power, and jest lets ’em all tottle down into ruin, and I don’t believe he had many graces to onjint in the first place.