Alden was wearing a pair of robin’s-egg blue trousers, which were palpably new, as the creases were still sharply visible, although a trifle tight in spots. The newness of the trousers did not correspond with the rest of his raiment, which was far from new.
“Aw, there can’t nobody stand an egg on end,” declared Oscar, turning back to the bar.
“Can if yuh know how,” said Tommy. “Gimme the aig.”
Oscar passed one of them to Tommy, who drew up his sleeves in imitation of a magician. He placed the egg on end, holding it with the forefinger of his left hand.
“Now, you’ve gotta watch it close, Oscar. This is just a trick of balancin’, and it don’t stay on end very long.”
The fact of the matter was, Tommy was almost too drunk to even keep his own balance. Oscar hunched down behind the bar in close proximity to the egg, his eyes intent on the egg itself. And with a swift motion of his right palm, Tommy came down upon the egg with crushing force, and the contents of the egg just squirted out into the face of the interested Oscar.
He staggered against the back bar, one hand clawing at the mess on his face. It wasn’t an overly fresh egg. Then he drew back his right hand and flung the other egg at Tommy’s head, but his aim was poor, possibly due to his eyes being full of egg at the time, and the egg hit Alden Marsh square in the belt-buckle and sagged down in a yellowish mass over his robin’s-egg blue pants.
For several moments Alden Marsh looked down at his pants, a queer expression in his eyes. Then he sniffed audibly. The egg was probably older than the one Oscar was digging out of his eyes. Alden Marsh was just a little drunk, but not drunk enough to brook any such an insult. He reached for his gun, but too late; Tommy Simpson had jerked him sideways, throwing him off his balance, taken the gun and headed for the front door, while behind him went Bad News and Ole Olsen, whose grandfather had discovered America.
Alden Marsh was mad. In fact, he was so mad that he stood in the middle of the saloon and told the wide world all about Tommy Simpson, not considering that Oscar, the barkeep, had thrown the egg. Possibly he blamed Tommy for not getting hit with the ancient bit of hen-fruit. While the cursing didn’t hurt Tommy, who had faded from the scene, it served as sort of a blow-off for Alden. He bought himself a drink and considered the future.
The pants didn’t belong to him; they belonged to Terry Ione, and Terry wasn’t there when Alden took them. A nail in the corral fence had ruined Alden’s overalls, and there wasn’t another pair around the ranch; so he took Terry’s new pants. Robin’s-egg blue didn’t look well with that glazing of egg-yolk; it looked like a weak sunset in a midday sky. Alden sighed and decided to kill Tommy Simpson.