I got split like this.
Come to this town with seven hundred dollars, to make a start. Five
hundred of that's my money, and two hundred m' wife saved up--and she
was that proud and trustin' in me!" He stopped for a full minute,
workin' his teeth together. "Well, I ain't much. I took to boozin'
and tryin' to put the faro games out of business. Well, I went
shy--quick. The five hundred was all right," he says, kind of defiant.
"Man's got a right to do what he pleases with his own money; but . . .
but . . . well, the girl worked hard for that little old two hundred.
God Almighty! I was drunk! You don't s'pose I'd do such a thing
sober?" turning to us, savage. "That ain't no excuse, howsomever," he
goes on, droppin' his crop. "Comes to the point when there's nothin'
left, and then I get a letter." He begun taking things out of his
pockets, dropping 'em from his big tremblin' hands. "It's somewheres
here--ain't that it? My eyes is no good."
He hands me a letter, addressed to Martin Hazel, in a woman's writing.
"Well, that druv me crazy. So help me God, sir, I ain't pleadin' for
no mercy--I'll take my medicine--but I didn't know no more what I was
doin' when I jumped your horse than nothin'. I only wanted to get away
from everybody. I was crazy. You read 'em that letter," says he,
taking hold of me. "See if it wouldn't drive any man crazy."
Now, there's no good repeatin' the letter.
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