eat it! Go home, all of
you! Gosh a'mighty, can't a feller lick his own wife without--Here!
Leggo my arm! What in thunder are you tryin' to do, Lou Banks?"

"I'm going to take you over to my house and put your feet in a hot
mustard bath, and--"

"No, you ain't! Leggo, I say! Fer the Lord's sake, Officer, chase 'em
away!"

"Move on, now--move on, all of you," commanded the Marshal, waving the
revolver in lieu of his well-known night-stick. "What you got to say to
me, Lucius?" he asked as the women fell back.

"Do you think they c'n hear?"

"Not unless you whisper loudern' that."

"Well, say, I want you to do me a favour. I want you to take me up to
the jail an' lock me in."

"You--you want to be locked in?"

"I don't care whether you put it that way er to lock all these fool
women out. It's all the same to me. I ain't had a minute's peace for
nearly two months. I--"

"Why don't you go in your own house an' stay there?" demanded Anderson.

"That don't seem to help any. They come to call on me so often you'd
think I was a preacher or a doctor. An' what's more, my wife's beginnin'
to get her dander up. I c'n see what's comin'. If she ever--gee, it will
be awful!"

"Then you hain't murdered her yet? I understood you had."

* * * * *

Vicious Lucius looked over his shoulder and drew closer to the Marshal.

"This here strain is gittin' to be too much fer me, Mr. Crow. I can't
keep it up much longer. I'm breakin' down. I been thinkin' it over, an'
I can't see any way out of it except to go to jail fer a month er two."

"What's the charge?" inquired Marshal Crow.

"There won't be any. I'll do it fer nothing. It won't cost you a cent to
arrest me."

"That ain't what I mean. What I mean is what offence have you committed?
What law have you broke?"

"Well, it's purty hard to say."

"What charge will your wife make ag'inst you? Somebody has to make one,
you know."

"That's just it. She won't make any charge against me--positively not.
So I've got to do it myself. You've had a lot of experience. What fer
sort of a charge would you say I ought to bring?"

"Against yourself? It ain't regular, Lucius."

"How about insanity? Wouldn't that be a safe sort of complaint? I been
actin' mighty queer lately."

"I should say you had. Ain't you goin' to resist arrest?"

"No, I'm askin' fer it. If you don't want to be seen walkin' through the
streets with me, I'll go on ahead an' wait