“Do!” I exclaimed. “Do. It isn’t everybody who can, even when they try.”
He grunted. “Huh! I ain’t never tried much. Didn’t have to. Things just kind o’ seem to happen when I’m around.”
“Did you lie just now?” I asked.
“Lie? When?”
“Didn’t you fix up the ending?”
“Fix up nothin’! That’s what them two old junipers actually did.”
“You’ll remember,” I persisted, “you forbade me the other day to ‘monkey with the facts,’ when I told you I didn’t like the ending of Bellyful’s adventure in Repose Valley.”
“Sure! Us Western men don’t care about fixed-up things when we know how things are—when we’ve been the things ourselves. And will you tell me”—Scipio grew earnest—“what’s the point of a book lyin’ about life the way more’n half of ’em do? The way I wouldn’t let y’u do about Bellyful?”
“Oh, our sincere and pious public is determined that virtue shall triumph in print, anyhow—and that nothing naked is true until draped.”
“Not me. I don’t want any of them bib-and-tucker-and-safety-pin stories they hand you out. What made y’u think I’d lied?”