Jabez savvied this to the queen's taste, an' he got gentle an' lovin' to Barbie, an' did all he could to square himself; so that poor old Dick wasn't much more'n a memory, which is one o' the complications absence is apt to cause after it gets tired o' makin' the heart grow fonder.
But hang it, I didn't like this Englishman more than the law required. The' didn't seem to be much harm to him; but he had washy eyes, an' he was too blame oily an' gentle. I never heard him swear all through it, an' it ain't natural for a real man to stand on his back for eight weeks without havin' a little molten lava slop over into his conversation. It was all I could do to keep from stickin' a pin into him.
"Barbie," I sez one day, as innocent as an Injun, "I over-heard our honored guest tell you that a girl by the name of Alice LeMoyne put a crack in his heart over the water."
"Yes," sez she, with a sigh.
"It don't seem to be a popular name," sez I. "I've met lots o' women who wasn't called Alice LeMoyne."
"It is probably French," sez she.
"It does sound like a circus, that's a fact," sez I. "Well, you break it to him gently that Alice LeMoyne is dead. Don't ask me any questions, but do be careful not to shock him, he seems purty high strung."
You might as well use sarcasm on a steer as on a woman; Barbie went up to Hawthorn with her eyes full o' pity, while I waited below an' made up pictures o' the crockadile tears he'd pump up for her. All of a sudden she gave a shriek. I hit the stairs, goin' forty miles an hour, an' there was Barbie with her hands clasped, lookin' down at the Englishman.
Well, he was enough to make a snake shriek. He was layin' there with his head jerked back, his eyes wide open an' pointin' inwards, an' lookin' altogether like the ancient corpse of a strangled cat. His hands was doubled up tight, an' the' was a little froth on his lips. I'd never seen nothing like that before, so I threw some water in his face. That's about all the rule I know for any one who is missin' cogs, an' I poured enough water on him to please a duck. He didn't respond for some several minutes, an' when he did come out of it he looked loose all over. I helped Barbie get some dry stuff under him, an' then I went down, wonderin' what kind o' dynamite for him they'd been in that name I'd sent up.
I tried to convince Barbie that his wires were all mixed up an' he wasn't healthy; but she argued that it showed a loyal nature to be so affected by mention of his old sweet-heart, an' tried to pump me for where I had picked up the name. It looked too much like a chance shot to me; as this guy had only been among us a few years, an' I gathered from Bill Hammersly that the Alice LeMoyne I was springin' had journeyed on, some several years earlier.