89. But Jenkins puts a thief within his stomach that
steals away his business ability, so that when I asked for them nickels
he merely replied: 'Take the damned Yankee skin-tricks away, with my
thanks.'
"I have noted in my travels that the person to pass immoral money on us
is the agent whose mind is absorbed in selling you a diamond ring, that
nothing but his desire to get rid of would drive him to sell; so in
this case I dropped them nickels into the grateful and quiverin' hand
of that paralytic, drew my man and--here we are," says Ag.
It was the first time I ever saw a gang of full-grown men blush at the
same time.
Nobody had nothin' to say except Ag, who threw the lapel of his coat
back and addressed the meeting.
"Gentlemen," says he, "as I have mentioned before, our paralysed friend
has fled, departed, skinned out, screwed his nut far, far from here.
Don't blaspheme in the very face of the Almighty by trying to be more
ridiculous than you already are. If you arrive warm and distracted,
the few remaining inhabitants of Lost Dog will hold the dead moral on
you the rest of your days. Cool off and wipe the word 'map' from your
minds; turn from the villainies of man to the stark forces of nature;
see where Squaw Creek has forced her remorseless and semi-fluid way
through the mighty rampart of these Gumbo hills."
"I wish you would hush," said a puncher. "Leggo, Ag!"
"Here's where you get the worth of your money," says Ag.
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