Page:The Cow Jerry (1925).pdf/281

 on his voice, which Angus Valorous knew was nothing but the noise of a swelling bluff.

"All the fightin' you ever was in! You wouldn't fight a cracker!"

Goosie cackled suddenly, shrilly, over this witty taunt. Mrs. Cowgill's sense of humor was not as keen as her daughter's; she rebuked Angus for his impertinence.

"I'll not have you around here insultin' the guests," she declared.

Angus turned to her, his jaw slewed, his naturally contemptuous and lofty expression obscured by a snarl.

"Aw, what's it to you!" he said. "Let him stop insultin' me if he don't want to git his head knocked off!"

"If that kid gits any fresher," said Banjo discursively, as if he spoke in an aside for the public in general, "they'll have to split him and salt him down."

Goosie had another laugh, for she was an impartial young lady, to whom the refinements of wit from any source were irresistible.

"I don't want to hear any more of you insultin' the guests," Mrs. Cowgill corrected Angus again, in her sharp, hard manner of warning and threat. It was a sound so familiar in the ears of Angus that it did not cause the slightest fear for his important job.

Angus snorted, expressive of his disdain for both employer and guest, made one of his quick dashes indoors as if he had heard some kind of alarm. Presently Pap Cowgill came sauntering in his rolling, indolent: gait out of the dark from the direction of the depot.