Page:Leon Wilson - Ruggles of Red Gap.djvu/313

Rh as right as a church. She couldn't fool me a minute if she wasn't. Don't you suppose I been around and around quite some? Just because she likes to have a good time and outdresses these dames here—is that any reason they should get out their hammers? Ain't she earned some right to a good time, tell me, after being married when she was a silly kid to Two-spot Kenner, the swine—and God bless the trigger finger of the man that bumped him off! As for the poor old Judge, don't worry. I like the old boy, but Kate Kenner won't do anything more than make a monkey of him just to spite Jackson and his band of lady knockers. Marry him? Say, get me right, Bill—I'll put it as delicate as I can—the Judge is too darned far from being a mental giant for that."

I dare say she would have slanged me for another half-hour but for the constant strain of keeping her voice down. As it was, she boomed up now and again in a way that reduced to listening silence the ladies at several distant tables.

As to the various points she had raised, I was somewhat confused. About the Honourable George, for example: He was, to be sure, no mental giant. But one occupying his position is not required to be. Indeed, in the class to which he was born one well knows that a mental giant would be quite as distressingly bizarre as any other freak. I regretted not having retorted this to her, for it now occurred to me that she had gone it rather strong with her "poor old Judge." I mean to say, it was almost quite a little bit raw for a native American to adopt this patronizing tone toward one of us.

And yet I found that my esteem for the Mixer had