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 "Well, I tell you, Hartwell," said he, "I was just a thinkin', you know, that maybe you'd better go on ahead, or let me go on ahead, you know. You know, you ain't in very good standin' here in Cottonwood, Hartwell, and it's apt to hurt my business to be seen out with you, you know."

He hummed and hawed a good deal in getting it out, and shifted from leg to leg like an embarrassed schoolgirl. Texas felt the blood come hot into his face, and his scorn for this chicken-headed shaver of gritty chins knocking at his teeth for utterance. He held himself in with an effort, and managed to speak without a tremor, although he flavored his words with a dash of contempt which was lost on Noggle as completely as a drop of his perfume would have been overwhelmed in a barrel of tar.

"I wouldn't take a shave away from you for a million dollars, or more," Texas said. "I'll go ahead, for I'm in a hurry to go to bed. It'll count more for you to have folks think you're chasin' me than that I'm a chasin' you."

"All right, Hartwell. A man's got to look out for number one, you know, specially if he's got a wife dependin' on him."

Hartwell did not feel that he could be trusted to make comment on that plea. He hurried off toward the hotel, where he was in earnest conversa-