“You are not cruising the plains for a lady-love! It is not, ‘I will wed a savage woman’? It is not for a Pawnee squaw that you go clad in skins and disdain the barber?”
“No. My business in Cosmos is not to be the father of half-breeds. But soberly, old fellow, I need peace after a life driven into premature foemanship. I need tranquillity to let my character use my facts. I want the bitter drawn out of me, and the sweet fostered. I yearn to be a lover.”
As he said this, we had approached the camp-fire. Jim Robinson, by this time quite at home, was making his accomplishments of use. He was debasing his audience with a vulgar song. The words and air jarred upon both of us.
“Nil humani a me alienum puto, I repeat,” said Brent, “but that foul stuff is not the voice of humanity. Let’s go look at the horses. They do not belie their nobler nature, and are not in the line of degradation. I cannot harden myself not to shrink from the brutal element wherever I find it; whether in two horse-thieves on the plains, or in a well-dressed reprobate of society at the club in New York.”
“Brutes in civilization are just as base, but not so blatant.”
“Old Pumps and the Don, here, are a gentler and more honorable pair than these strangers.”
“They are the gentlemen of their race.”
“It’s not their cue to talk; but if the gift of tongues should come to them, they would disdain all unchivalric and discourteous words. They do now, with those brave eyes and scornful nostrils, rebuke whatever is unmanly in men.”
“Yes; they certainly look ready to co-operate in all knightly duties.”
“One of those, as I hinted before, is riding down caitiffs.”