He came slowly across the room and almost fell over the table in seating himself. The sheriff grunted disgustedly, and it irritated the tall one.
“Ain’t I good enough t’ set here?” he asked indignantly. “Whazza matter ’ith me, I’d crave t’ know. Yesshir, I’d crave a li’l information, tha’s what I’d crave.”
“Yo’re goin’ to crave a punch in the nose, if yuh don’t sober up,” declared the sheriff.
“Thasso?”
The tall one looked drunkenly at Hashknife and Sleepy. Satisfied with his inspection he turned back to the sheriff.
“My God, Lonnie, yuh wouldn’t jump on to me, wouldja?” he asked tearfully. “I’m one of yore mos’ val’able friends. I’d do anythin’ for you, Lonnie—you sawed-off, bat-eared, bug-headed cross between a—Lonnie, I like you, and yore cruel words cuts me to the quick, that’s what they do.”
“Yeah, I’ll betcha.”
The sheriff turned and introduced his deputy, “Cloudy” Day, to Hashknife and Sleepy.
“He ain’t worth a damn to me,” declared the sheriff. “I dunno how I stand for him. He keeps sober in Caliente, ’cause he’s got a wife that whales hell out of him for drinkin’; but when he gits up here he forgets her.”
“Noshir.” Cloudy shook his head. “Ain’t true. I defy myshelf to get that drunk, and I ain’t curshed with a big mem’ry. My wife is a shister of our estimable sheriff, and”—Cloudy grinned widely—“if he didn’t give me a job, he’d have to board both of us; so he makes me earn m’ keep.”