Magpie turns and squints at me.
“She’s gone, Ike.”
“De-mised?”
“De-parted.”
“Kinda busts up the show, don’t it, Magpie?”
“Like ⸺ it does!”
“How comes she to de-part thataway?” asks Dirty.
Magpie flops the meat and sets it on the back of the stove. Then he sets down on a bunk and combs his mustache.
“You ain’t heard, have yuh, Ike? No. Well, here’s the how of it all. You left hereabout the time that all the married womin are faunchin’ around, organizin’ a vigilance committee to hang their own husbands, didn’t yuh? Well, Wick and Pete and Old Testament and Art Wheeler and Judge Steele decides that Piperock and posterity needs ’em more than jealous wives do, so they up and orates that for th’ interests of the furtherance of Piperock they’re goin’ to stick to their original idea of learning the latest thing in dances.
“Them womin combines against such proceedings, and locks their doors against said husbands, with the result that we puts up bunks in the Mint Hall for all them errant husbands. Miss Harrison hangs on to her room at the hotel and Mrs. Holt enlists with the belligerent wives and hives up at Judge Steele’s.