“’This terrifies him; he begins to believe in the evil innocences of opals.  He presents the jewelry to a bar-keep, who puts it up, since his game limits itse’f to sellin’ licker an’, him bein’ plenty careful not to drink none himse’f, his contracted destinies don’t offer no field for opals an’ their malign effects.  In less time than a week, however, his wife leaves him; an’ also that drink-shop wherein he officiates is blown down by a high wind.

“‘That bar-keep emerges from the rooms of his domestic hopes an’ the desolation of that gin mill, an’ endows a lady of his acquaintance with this opal ornament.  It ain’t twenty-four hours when she cuts loose an’ weds a Mexican.

“‘Which by this time, excitement is runnin’ high, an’ you-all couldn’t have found that citizen in Socorro with a search warrant who declines to believe in opals bein’ bad luck.  On the hocks of these catastrophes it’s the common notion that nobody better own that opal; an’ said malev’lent stone in the dooal capac’ty of a cur’osity an’ a warnin’ is put in the seegyar case at the Early Rose s’loon.  The first day it’s thar, a jeweller sharp come in for his daily drinks—­he runs the jewelry store of that meetropolis an’ knows about diamonds an’ sim’lar jimcracks same as Peets does about drugs—­an’ he considers this talisman, scrootinisin’ it a heap clost.  “Do you-all believe in the bad luck of opals?” asks a pard who’s with him.  “This thing ain’t no opal,” says the jeweller sharp, lookin’ up; “it’s glass.”

“‘An’ so it is:  that baleful gewgaw has been sailin’ onder a alias; it ain’t no opal more’n a Colt’s cartridge is a poker chip.  An’, of course, it’s plain the divers an’ several disasters, from the loss of that kyard gent’s bank-roll down to the Mexican nuptials of the ill-advised lady to whom I alloodes, can’t be laid to its charge.  The whole racket shocks an’ shakes me to that degree,’ concloods Enright, ‘that to-day I ain’t got no settled views on opals’, none whatever.’

“‘Jest the same, I thinks it’s opals that’s the trouble with Dave,’ declar’s Boggs, plenty stubborn an’ while the rest of us don’t yoonite with him, we receives his view serious an’ respectful so’s not to jolt Boggs’s feelin’s.

“Goin’ back, however, to when Dave sets up the warble of ‘Bye O baby!’ that a-way, we-all, followin’ Enright’s s’licitation for our thoughts, abides a heap still an’ makes no response.  Enright asks ag’in:  ’What do you-all think?’

“At last Boggs, who as I sets forth frequent is a nervous gent, an’ one on whom silence soon begins to prey, ag’in speaks up.  Bein’ doubtful an’ mindful of Enright’s argyment ag’in his opal bluff, however, Boggs don’t advance his concloosions this time at all emphatic.  In a tone like he’s out ridin’ for information himse’f, Boggs says: 

“‘Mebby, if it ain’t opals, it’s a case of straight loco.’

“‘While I wouldn’t want to readily think Dave locoed,’ says Enright, ‘seein’ he’s oncommon firm on his mental feet, still he’s shore got something on his mind.  An’ bein’ it is something, it’s possible as you says that Dave’s intellects is onhossed.’