Page:Lords of the Housetops (1921).pdf/228

 more particularly low down ever since that there beauty in the corner had the cheek to sneak in among us?"

"That's so!" exclaimed Slippery Jim. "Monty is ugly enough to spoil the luck of a blind nigger."

"You see," continued Simpson, "thishyer beauty is like the Apostle Jonah. While he was aboard ship there wasn't any sort of luck, and at last the crew took and hove him overboard, and served him right. There's a mighty lot of wisdom in the Scriptures if you only take hold of 'em in the right way. My dad was a preacher, and I know what I'm talking about."

"That's more than the rest of us does," retorted Slippery Jim. "We ain't no ship's crew and Monty ain't no apostle. If you mean we ought to heave him into the creek, why don't you say so?"

"It wouldn't do him any harm," replied Simpson. "He's a dirty beast, and this camp hasn't no call to associate with men that's afraid of water, except, of course, when it comes to drinking it."

"I'm as clean as any man here," said Monty, stirred for the moment to indignation. "Mining ain't the cleanest sort of work, and I don't find no fault with Simpson nor any other man if he happens to carry a little of his claim around with him."

"That'll do," said Simpson severely. "We don't allow no such cuss as you to make reflections on gentlemen. We've put up with your ugly mug altogether too long, and I for one ain't going to do it no longer. What do you say, gentlemen?" he continued, turning to his companions, "shall we trifle with our luck, and lower our self-respect any longer by tolerating the company