“Do you mean to say ’at you back the Friar up in this?” demanded Horace.
“Do I look like a fool?” sez I. The Friar’s eyes were on me, and I knew they were cold; but I pertended not to notice him.
“You don’t look like a fool; but you act like one,” sez Horace, gettin’ riled.
“You can’t blame me, Horace,” I sez in my most drawly voice, “because the Friar cares more for havin’ his own way than he does for human life.”
“What do you mean by that?” demanded the Friar.
“Oh, nothin’,” sez I, “except that if you go down there, it shows Prometheus up at once, we’d all have to go along to save Promotheus, and this would start a fight, with us to blame; and no one knowin’ what the woman is, or how she stands in the matter. She seems perfectly satisfied with Ty Jones; and no matter how it turned out, all of us who survived would have to leave the country. I don’t intend to argue with you, or to cross you in any way; but I do intend to stand by Promotheus, as it was me who first put the idee into his head.”
I sympathized with the Friar, I knew that he wasn’t himself. To find the woman he loved in the hands of the man who hated him, after all the years he had been in suspense about her was enough to tip any one off his balance; and I also knew the Friar. He had trained himself for eternity so long that some of his earthly idees weren’t sound, and the surest way to bring him to himself was to let him bark his knees a time or two. Some imported hosses carry their gaze so high they can’t see their footin’ but after they’ve stepped into a few prairie-dog holes, they learn to take a little more interest in what they’re treadin’ on.
The Friar came over and looked down at me. “I shall wait until Promotheus comes up here, and then he can stay; and I shall go down,” said the Friar in the voice a man uses when he thinks it’s wrong to show the sarcasm he can’t help but feel. “Have you any objection to this?”
“I have no objection to anything you choose to do, Friar,” I said, finishin’ my supper.
“Do I understand that you approve?” sez he.