“’Never does I b’ar witness to as many as seven contemporaneous remainders but once; and then thar’s cause.  It’s in a poker game; an’ the barkeep brings the dealer a cold deck onder a tray whereon he purveys the drinks.  Which the discovery of this yere solecism, as you-all well imagines, arouses interest, earnest an’ widespread like I deescribes.  I counts up when the smoke lifts an’ finds that seven has sought eternal peace.  Commonly two is the number; three bein’ quite a shipment.  Shore, it’s speshul sickly when as many as seven quits out together!

“‘Bein’ timid an’ ignorant I takes good advice.  It’s in the Oriental.  Thar’s that old gray cimmaron hibernatin’ about the bar whose name is Jeffords.

“’"Be you-all conversant with that gun you packs?” asks Jeffords.

“‘I feels the hot blush mountin’ in my tender cheeks, but I concedes I ain’t.  “Pard,” I replies, “speakin’ confidenshul an’ between gent an’ gent, this yere weepon is plumb novel to me.”

“’"Which I allows as much,” he says, “from the egreegious way you fidges with it.  Now let me pass you-all a p’inter from the peaks of experience.  You caper back to the tavern an’ take that weepon off.  Or what’s as well, you pass it across to the barkeep.  If you-all goes romancin’ ’round with hardware at your belt it’s even money it’ll get you beefed.  Allers remember while in Arizona that you’ll never get plugged—­onless by inadvertence—­as long as you wander about in onheeled innocence.  No gunless gent gets downed; sech is the onbreakable roole.”

“‘After that I goes guiltless of arms; I ain’t hungerin’ for immortality abrupt.

“’Old Jeffords is shore right; in the Southwest if you aims to b’ar a charmed life, never wear a six-shooter.  This maxim goes anywhere this side of the Mississippi; east of that mighty river it’s the other way.

“‘Bein’ nimble-blooded in them days, I’m a heap arduous about the dance-hall.  I gets infatyooated with the good fellowship of that hurdygurdy; an’ even after I leaves Tucson an’ is camped some miles away, I saddles up every other evenin’, rides in an’, as says the poet, “shakes ontirin’ laig even into the wee small hours.”

“‘Right yere, gents,’ an’ Dave pauses like he’s prounced on by a solemn thought, ’I don’t reckon I has to caution none of you-all not to go repeatin’ these mem’ries of gay days done an’ gone, where my wife Tucson Jennie cuts their trail.  I ain’t afraid of Jennie; she’s a kind, troo he’pmeet; but ever since that onfortunate entanglement with the English towerist lady her suspicions sets up nervous in their blankets at the mere mention of frivolities wherein she hears my name.  I asks you, tharfore, not to go sayin’ things to feed her doubts.  With Tucson Jennie, my first business is to live down my past.’

“‘You-all can bet,’ says Texas Thompson, while his brow clouds, ’that I learns enough while enjoyin’ the advantages of livin’ with my former wife to make sech requests sooperfluous in my case.  Speshully since if it ain’t for what the neighbours done tells the lady she’d never go ropin’ ’round for that divorce.  No Dave; your secrets is plumb safe with a gent who’s suffered.