there's been a lot of unnecessary hard feeling between the
Morgans and the company, and we want to ask you to accept this to show
some of it's ended." De Spain put his left hand into his side pocket
and held out an unsealed envelope to Morgan. Duke, taking the
envelope, eyed it distrustfully. "What's this?" he demanded, opening
it and drawing out a card.
"Something for easier riding. An annual pass for you and one over the
stage line between Calabasas and Sleepy Cat--with Mr. Jeffries's
compliments."
Like a flash, Morgan tore the card pass in two and threw it angrily to
the floor. "Tell 'Mr.' Jeffries," he exclaimed violently, "to----"
The man that chanced at that moment to be lying in the nearest chair
slid quietly but imperiously out from under the razor and started with
the barbers for the rear door, wiping the lather from one unshaven
side of his face with a neck towel as he took his hasty way. At the
back of the shop a fat man, sitting in a chair on the high,
shoe-shining platform, while a negro boy polished him, rose at
Morgan's imprecation and tried to step over the bootblack's head to
the floor below. The boy, trying to get out of the way, jumped back,
and the fat man fell, or pretended to fall, over him--for it might be
seen that the man, despite his size, had lighted like a cat on his
feet and was instantly half-way up to the front of the shop,
exclaiming profanely but collectedly at the lad's awkwardness, before
de Spain had had time to reply to the insult.
The noise and confusion of the incident were considerable. Morgan was
too old a fighter to look behind him at a critical moment. No man
could say he had meant to draw when he stamped the card underfoot, but
de Spain read it in his eye and knew that Lefever's sudden diversion
at the rear had made him hesitate; the crisis passed like a flash.
"Sorry you feel that way, Duke," returned de Spain, undisturbed. "It
is a courtesy we were glad to extend. And I want to speak to you about
Nan, too."
Morgan's face was livid. "What about her?"
"She has given me permission to ask your consent to our marriage,"
said de Spain, "sometime in the reasonable future."
It was difficult for Duke to speak at all, he was so infuriated. "You
can get my consent in just one way," he managed to say, "that's by
getting me."
"Then I'm afraid I'll never get it, for I'll never 'get' you, Duke."
A torrent of oaths fell from Morgan's cracked lips. He tried to tell
de Sp
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