“I 'm a fool! And I don't want you to be Mary -in' me, either. If Dick chooses to let you get him drunk and make a beast and a fool of him and drag him up before the Court like a—a—like that drunkard, Jim Turkle, what don't know how to behave himself seemly in Court, and Circuit Court at that—he may; but I 'll let you know, I'm not goin' to do it. I don't mean the Judge to think my husband's a thing like that. I mean to set him right. And I 'll tell him you are nothing but an old gambler who spends your time ruinin' young men, and braggin' as how you can bluff anybody.”
“Mary!—ur—Mrs. Creel!” gasped the Sheriff.
She stalked by him wiping her eyes, and marched straight to the door; but the Sheriff was too quick for her. His office, his reputation, everything hung on his pacifying her. He sprang to the door and, standing with his back against it, began to apologize in so humble a tone that even the angry wife could not but listen to him.
He said everything that any mortal could have said, and declared that he would do anything on earth that she might ask.
She reflected, and he began to hope again. When their eyes met, hers were still hard, but they were calmer.
“I know you think you are making a fool of me,” she began, and then as he protested she shut him up with a sharp gesture.
“Yes, you do, you think so; but you are not. There is but one thing I will accept in apology.”
“What is that!”
“You are to make Dick your deputy.”
“But, M——”