nough to get the habitually apologetic
crooks out of his knees, he would be tall; but so in the habit was he of
repressing himself in the marital presence that Leander passed for middle
height. He waited on the table at breakfast with the dumb submissiveness
of a trained dog that has been taught to give pathetic imitations of human
servility. But no sooner had his lady left the room than Leander began
quite brazenly to call attention to himself as a man and an individual,
coughing, rattling his dishes, and clearing his throat. Mary and the fat
lady, out of very pity, responded to these crude signals with overtures
equally frank, and Leander ventured finally to inquire if they aimed to
spend the night at his brother's ranch, it being the next mess-box between
here and nowhere. They admitted that his brother's ranch was their next
stopping-place, and Leander went through perfect contortions of apology
and self-effacement before he could bring himself to ask them to do him a
favor. It would have taken a very stern order of womankind to refuse
anything so abject, and they blindly committed themselves to the pledge.

"Tell him I send my compliments," he whispered, and, looking about him
furtively, he repeated the blood-curdling request.

"Is that all?" sniffed the fat lady, at no pains to conceal her
disappointment.

"It's enough, if it was known, to raise a war-whoop and stampede this yere
family." His glance at the door through which his wife had disappeared was
pregnant with meaning.

"Family troubles?" asked the fat lady, as a gourmet might say "Truffles."

"Looks like it," said Leander, dismally. "Me and Johnnie don't ask for
nothin' better than to bask in each other's company; but our wives insists
on keepin' up the manoeuvres of a war-dance the whole endoorin' time."

"So," said the fat lady, as a gourmet might tell of a favorite way of
preparing truffles, "it's a case of wives?"

"Yes, marm, an' teeth an' nails an' husbands thrown in, when they get a
sight of each other's petticoats."

"I've known sisters-in-law not to agree," helped on the fat lady, by way
of an encouraging parallel.

"While I deplores usin' such a comparison to the refinin' and softenin'
inflooance of wimmen, the meetin' of the Dax ladies by chanst anywheres
has all the elements of danger and excitement that accompanies an Injun
uprisin'."

The travellers looked all manner of encouragement.

"You see, my wife's a great housekeeper; her