"But you have not yet told me how you got into the row," said Lamar; "I wish to know the whole story—come, let us have it?"
"Well, it's soon told. As I was telling you, the black-leg chap and I went to the circus, and we had'nt set long in the pit before there was a young gal come in, and set on one end of the same bench. She was'nt so ugly neither, but I took pity on her because she looked like a country gal, and there was no women settin near her. After a while, three chaps come down from the boxes above, and set right down by the gal, and began to push one another over against her; at last the one next her, and he was the same chap you saw in the stage yesterday morning, only he had on them green specks—well, he put his arm round her, and called her his dear, and all that; well, you see, I had heard tell of these city gals, and I thought if she was pleased it was none of my business; but presently I heard her sobbing and crying, with her apron up to her eyes, and she told them they were no gentlemen, or they would not treat a poor girl so away from home. So the Irish whiskey, or old Kentuck, I don't know which, began to rise in my throat. I jumped up and raised the war-whoop. 'Old Kentuck for ever!' said I; and with that, I took the back of my hand and knocked the chap's hat off, and his 'sculp' went with it. Call your soul your own, said I; he jumped up and gin me a wipe with that little black switch across the nose; it had hardly cleverly touched me, afore I took him a sneezer, between the two eyes, glasses and all; he dropped over like a rabbit when you knock 'em behind the head; I rather suspicion he thought a two year old colt's heels had got a taste of his cocoanut.
"Then the other two took it up, and both on 'em seized me, and swore they would carry me to the police office; but I took 'em at cross purposes, for while one of them held the collar of the old home-made, I fetched the other a kick that sent him over the benches a rip roaring, I tell you. The other little chap was hangin on to me like a leech to a horse's leg; I jist picked him up and throwed him into the ring upon the sand, for I did'nt want to hurt him: but then the real officers come up and clamped me. I wished myself back in old Kentuck bad enough then; but while they held me there, like a dog that had been killen sheep, the little gal came up to me, and said she would go and bring her father, to try and get me off; and then she asked me where I lived,—I told her in old Kentuck; then she asked me where I put up, and I put my mouth to her ear and told her; and I could hardly get it away again without givin her a smack, for she would pass for a pretty gal even in old Kentuck; well, this morning, her and her father were here by times to thank me, and the old man invited me to stop at his house as I go home; it's on the same road we came down yesterday."
"Did the girl go to the circus by herself?" asked Lamar.
"No; the old man stopped at the door to buy a ticket, and she went on, and lost him."
"But you have not told me how you came by this scalp," said Lamar, taking up the large black scratch with curled locks.
"Oh! you see, I grabbled that in the scuffle, and slipped it into my pocket."
"How did you get away from the officers?"
"Oh! that's the way I lost the old 'home-made;' you see they began to pull me over the benches, and I told 'em I would walk myself if they would let me, and so they did, but they held on to my coat. I kept pretty cool until they got outside of the house, and then a crowd gathered round, and they began cologueing together, until I saw my way out a little, and then I jist slipped my foot behind one of 'em and pushed him down, and tumbled the other feller over him, and then I showed them a clean pair of heels. They raised the whoop—and I raised my tail like a blue-lick buck, for you see I had'nt much coat to keep it down;—dash me if it was'nt tail all the way to the collar, and stood out straight behind like it was afraid of my pantaloons. I made a few turns to throw 'em off the trail, and then with a curly whoop, and a hurrah! for old Kentuck, I got to my own door, where I found the black-leg chap. Now you know the whole business, and I suppose you can tell me whether there is any danger of their finding me out in that little excuse for a coat that blasted tailor, who was so stingy with his cloth, made me."
"I should suppose there was none in the world. Have no fear on that head; there is not a magistrate in town who would not honour you in his heart for what you did."