old
Dick wasn't much more'n a memory, which is one o' the complications
absence is apt to cause after it gets tired o' makin' the heart grow
fonder.

But hang it, I didn't like this Englishman more than the law required.
The' didn't seem to be much harm to him; but he had washy eyes, an' he
was too blame oily an' gentle. I never heard him swear all through it,
an' it ain't natural for a real man to stand on his back for eight
weeks without havin' a little molten lava slop over into his
conversation. It was all I could do to keep from stickin' a pin into
him.

"Barbie," I sez one day, as innocent as an Injun, "I over-heard our
honored guest tell you that a girl by the name of Alice LeMoyne put a
crack in his heart over the water."

"Yes," sez she, with a sigh.

"It don't seem to be a popular name," sez I. "I've met lots o' women
who wasn't called Alice LeMoyne."

"It is probably French," sez she.

"It does sound like a circus, that's a fact," sez I. "Well, you break
it to him gently that Alice LeMoyne is dead. Don't ask me any
questions, but do be careful not to shock him, he seems purty high
strung."

You might as well use sarcasm on a steer as on a woman; Barbie went up
to Hawthorn with her eyes full o' pity, while I waited below an' made
up pictures o' the crockadile tears he'd pump up for her. All of a
sudden she gave a shriek. I hit the stairs, goin' forty miles an hour,
an' there was Barbie with her hands clasped, lookin' down at the
Englishman.

Well, he was enough to make a snake shriek. He was layin' there with
his head jerked back, his eyes wide open an' pointin' inwards, an'
lookin' altogether like the ancient corpse of a strangled cat. His
hands was doubled up tight, an' the' was a little froth on his lips.
I'd never seen nothing like that before, so I threw some water in his
face. That's about all the rule I know for any one who is missin' cogs,
an' I poured enough water on him to please a duck. He didn't respond
for some several minutes, an' when he did come out of it he looked
loose all over. I helped Barbie get some dry stuff under him, an' then
I went down, wonderin' what kind o' dynamite for him they'd been in
that name I'd sent up.

I tried to convince Barbie that his wires were all mixed up an' he
wasn't healthy; but she argued that it showed a loyal nature to be so
affected by mention of his old sweet-heart, an' tried to pump me for
where I had picked up the name. It looked too much li