"I left the sheriff part of me in my own pastures." Dick wrung my hand limp. "I don't aim to ride herd on the local criminals heah, so the hatchet is buried, and the chiefs get nose-paint. Miss Blossom, ma'am, we only aspire to drink to the toast of beauty." He filled up generous. "I look towards you, ma'am."
"I du despise a flatterer," says Miss Blossom, but I saw her blush.
"Wall, to resume," said Dick, "this lady's guest, Miss Hilda Jameson, of Norfolk, in old Virginie, is entitled to her own habits. She is wounded most unfortunate all day, but all night she's entitled to bulge around in a free country studying moonlight effects."
"She's due to be whipped," says Miss Blossom, mighty wrathful.
"On scenes of domestic bliss it is not my purpose, ma'am, to intrude. I only allude to the fact that this young lady was pervading Main Street late last night, happy and innocent, in a gale of wind, which it blew off her hat."
"Good gracious!"
"Yes, ma'am; and naturally the hat being pinned, her hair was blown off too."
"It blew off!"
"Perhaps, ma'am, this ha'r doesn't fit, and the best thing would be to shoot the party who made—the ornament. The young lady, of co'se, was in no way to blame if it flew down the street and she after it. I rise to observe that Deputy-Marshal Pedersen, being a modest man, was shocked most dreadful, and——"
"Oh! Oh!" Miss Blossom went white as the tablecloth.