Page:West of Dodge (1926).pdf/141

 "Are ye waitin' to have an aperation perfarmed on ye, Ryan?" he inquired with mocking solicitude, a gleam of humor in his light-blue eyes, over which his thin chalky eyebrows arched so sharply he seemed always on the point of exclamatory astonishment.

"I'm mindin' me own business," Ryan replied coldly.

"Oh, I thought the hard life ye lead had broke ye down, and ye'd come in to have y'r appendoolix cut out. Take it aisy, man; take it aisy. It's too much y're tryin' to do, holdin' up the dochter's office with the broad of your back agin it for hours at a time that way."

"I'm waitin' to sweep out the legs and arrums of ye, and throw them on the doomp," Ryan returned, equally high in his sarcasm. "There'll be nothing left of you but the stoomp when the dochter's through with ye to-day, Mickey me lad."

"O-o-oh, is that so?" said Mickey, comfortable in his distinction of being crippled and on full time. "Well, if ye ever take hold of an arrum of mine that's been coot off, Jackie me son, ye'll get the worst wallop ye ever felt since the cow kicked ye through the hedge. There'll still be enough stame left in me mimber to lay ye out cowld, man."

Ryan ignored the slur on that strength and endurance which he had stressed as so broadly essential to that trying situation of his but a few minutes before. He turned his back to fit it squarely against the end of the car, implying as plainly as a man could without words that he had no wish for further traffic in chaff with Mickey Sweat. He even allowed the straw-boss to go on his way when the doctor had finished with him, never turning an eye to acknowledge his parting shot.