Freme started in again, unconscious of the girl’s anxiety—­too drunk to notice anything in fact: 

  “She used to live in Stove-pipe—­”

He stopped short and looked at the girl with a half-drunken leer, then wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his red shirt.

“Ham an’ eggs, fried pork, tea or coffee, mince or apple pie,” rattled the girl, holding the dishes under Freme’s nose.

Skinner leaned back, tried to fix his gaze upon her, lurched in his chair and slid heavily to the floor.  Such breaches of etiquette were not infrequent occurrences at Morrison’s.

The men filed out, crowding around the red-hot stove in the bar-room.  When Belle burst in again to clear the table, the Clown lay snoring flat on his back.

By daylight Monday morning Morrison’s hotel held but a single guest—­the rest, penniless by Sunday night, had gone back to work.  The Clown, with a dollar still in his pocket, remained.  When the others had gone he came down softly in his sock feet from his room and drew up a chair to the stove in the stagnant and deserted bar-room.  The room had not yet been either swept or aired.  Then he rose, opened the door leading to the porch and let in the tingling frosty air and the sunlight.  For a long time he played with the kitten under the stove, but he did not take a drink.  He had promised Belle that he would not, and she had kissed him as a reward.  A new light shone in the girl’s eyes as she busied herself with the dishes in the kitchen beyond the bar-room—­now and then she sang to herself the refrain of a popular song.  Finally she opened the door of the kitchen and entered the bar-room.  The next moment the Clown placed his great paw of a hand about her slim waist.

“I hain’t took no drink,” he said shakily, with an embarrassed laugh.

She looked up at him.

“I knowed you wouldn’t, Freme,” she answered searching his blood-shot blue eyes.  “You promised, Freme, and—­you know I’ll marry ye,” she said, “jest as I said I would if ye’ll only keep to what ye promised.  I guess we kin be as happy as most folks,” she added, smiling bravely through tears.

“Thar ain’t no guessin’ ’bout it, Belle.  Thar—­you needn’t cry ’bout it,” he replied.

“You was awful drunk, Freme,” she went on.  “There warn’t no one could handle ye ‘cept me.  They was tryin’ to get ye upstairs and to bed, but ye was uglier ’n sin.”

“Pshaw—­I want to know,” drawled the giant sheepishly.  “Didn’t none git hurted, did they?”

“None ’cept Ed Munsey; ye throwed him downstairs.”

“Ed ain’t hurted, be he?” he asked in alarm.

“His shoulder was swelled bad when he come back to work,” she confessed.  She nodded to the door behind the bar and the splinters sticking through its panel.

“Gosh all whimey!” he exclaimed; “who done that?”

“You done it, Freme; you was crazy drunk.  There warn’t none of ’em could handle you ’cept me, I tell ye.  I spoke to ye and ye come ‘long with me back inter the kitchen and set there lookin’ at me strange-like for most an hour.  Arter I got my dishes washed I took ye up to the little room at the end of the hall.”