ou try to sick any girls on me, or I'll take to the tall
timber. I'm no lady's man, not a little bit."

Then the explosion came. For a minute I thought one of them 'Frisco ague
spells had come east. The Major turns plum color, blows up his cheeks,
and bugs his eyes out. When the language flows it was like turnin' on a
fire-pressure hydrant. An assistant district attorney summin' up for the
State in a murder trial didn't have a look-in with the Major. What did I
mean--me, a rough-house scrapper from the red-light section--by buttin'
into a peaceful community and insultin' the oldest inhabitants? Didn't I
have no sense of decency? Did I suppose respectable people were goin' to
stand for such?

Honest, that was the worst jolt I ever had. All I could do was to sit
there with my mouth ajar and watch him prancin' up and down, handin' me
the layout.

"Say," says I, after a bit, "you ain't got me mixed up with Mock Duck,
or Paddy the Gouge, or Kangaroo Mike, or any of that crowd, have you?"

"You're known as Shorty McCabe, aren't you?" says he.

"Guilty," says I.

"Then there's no mistake," says he. "What will you take, cash down, for
this property, and clear out now?"

"Say, Major," says I, "do you think it would blight the buds or poison
the air much if I hung on till Monday morning? That is, unless you've
got the tar all hot and the rail ready?"

That fetched a grunt out of him. "All we desire to do, sir," says he,
"is to maintain the respectability of the neighborhood."

"Do the other folks over there feel the same way about me?" says I.

"Naturally," says he.

"Well," says I, "I don't mind telling you, Major, that you've thrown the
hooks into me good an' plenty, and it looks like I'd have to make a new
book. I didn't come out here' to break up any peaceful community; but
before I changes my program I'll have to sleep on it. Suppose you slide
over again some time to-morrow, when your collar don't fit so tight, and
then we'll see if there's anything to arbitrate."

"Very well," says he, does a salute to the colors, and marches back
stiff-kneed to tell his crowd how he'd read the riot act to me.

Now, say, I ain't one of the kind to lose sleep because the conductor
speaks rough when I asks for a transfer. I generally takes what's comin'
and grins. But this time I wa'n't half so joyful as I might have been.
Even the sight of Mother Whaley's hot biscuits and hearin' her singin'
"Cushla Mavourneen" in the kitchen