feel chagrined.

"'You'll pardon us, Ma'am,' returns Enright, soft an' depreecatory,
tryin' to get her feelin's bedded down, 'which you'll shore pardon us
if in our dullness we misreads your sentiments. You see, the notion
gets somehow proned into us that you wants this party. Which if we
makes a mistake, by way of repa'rin' that error, let me say that if
thar's any one else in sight whom you preefers, an' who's s'fficiently
single an' yoothful to render him el'gible for wedlock,'--yere Enright
takes in Boggs an' Texas with his gaze, wharat Texas grows as
green-eyed as a cornered bobcat--'he's yours, Ma'am, on your p'intin'
him out.'

"'Which I don't want to marry no one,' cries the widow, commencin' to
sob. 'An' as for marryin' him speshul'--yere she glances at the
bridegroom postmaster in sech a hot an' drastic way he's left
shrivellin' in his own shame--'I'd sooner live an' die the widow of
Dead Shot Abner Baker than be the wife of a cornfield full of sech.'

"Everybody stares, an' Enright takes a modicum of Old Jordan.

"'You don't deeserve this none,' he says at last, turnin' to the
postmaster bridegroom. 'Onder the circumstances, however, thar's
nothin' left for me to do as cha'rman but deeclar' this yere weddin' a
misdeal.'

"Texas is plumb disgusted.

"'Don't some folks have nigger luck, Dan?' he says.

"Later, after thinkin' things up an' down in his mind, Texas takes
ombrage at Enright's invitin' Dead Shot's widow to look him an' Boggs
over that a-way, an' take her pick.

"'Which sech plays don't stand ace-high with me, Sam,' Texas
says--'you tryin' to auction me off like you does. Even a stranger,
with a half-way hooman heart, after hearin' my story would say that I
already suffers enough. An' yet you, who calls yourse'f my friend,
does all that lays in your callous power to thrust me back into
torment.'

"'Texas,' replies Enright, like he's bore about all he can, 'you
shorely worries me with your conceit. If you-all won't take my word,
then go take a good hard look at yourse'f in the glass. Thar's never
the slightest risk, as everybody but you yourse'f sees plainly, of
that lady or any other lady takin' you.'

"'You thinks not?' asks Texas, plenty incensed.

"'Which I _knows_ not. No lady's lot ain't quite that desp'rate.'

"'Well,' returns Texas, after a pause, his face expressin' his
soreness, 'I'm yere to say, Sam, I don't agree with you, none
whatever. You forgets that I've already been t