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Rh "It appears like," continued Roy, "you might n't have time enough to get where you're goin'."

"Few of us have," replied Ump. "About the time a feller gits a good start, somethin' breaks in him an' they nail him up in quarter oak."

"Life is short," murmured the tavern-keeper, retiring behind a platitude as a skirmisher retires behind a stone.

Ump bent the prongs of the fork against his plate. "An' yit," he soliloquised, "there is time enough for most of us to do things that we ought to be hung for."

Roy withdrew to the fastnesses of the kitchen, re-formed his lines and approached from another quarter. "If I was Mr. Ward," he opened, jerking his thumb toward Ump, "I 'd give it to you when you got in."

The hunchback poured out his coffee, held up the saucer with both hands and blew away the heat. "What for?" he grunted, between the puffings.

"What for?" said Roy. "Lordy! man,