“Buck up—­’the worst is yet to come,’” he shouted, and laughed with an exaggeration of cheerfulness.  “You can’t ever tell when death or matrimony’s goin’ to get a man.  By hokey, seems like there’s no dodgin’ either one.”

Ford lifted a bloodshot eye to the other.  “And I always counted you for a friend, Bill,” he reproached heavily.  “Sandy says I licked you good and plenty.  Well, looks to me like you had it coming, all right.”

“Well—­I got it, didn’t I?” snorted Bill, his hand lifting involuntarily to his nose.  “And I ain’t bellering, am I?” His mouth took an abused, downward droop.  “I ain’t holdin’ any grudge, am I?  Why, Sandy here can tell you that I held one side of you up whilst he was leadin’ the other side of you home!  And I am sorry I stood there and seen you get married off and never lifted a finger; I’m darned sorry.  I shoulda hollered misdeal, all right.  I know it now.”  He pulled remorsefully at his wet mustache, which very much resembled a worn-out sharing brush.

Ford straightened up, dropped a hand upon his thigh, and thereby discovered another sore spot, which he caressed gently with his palm.

“Say, Bill, you were there, and you saw her.  On the square now—­what’s she like?  And what made me marry her?”

Bill pulled so hard upon his mustache that his teeth showed; his breath became unpleasantly audible with the stress of emotion.  “So help me, I can’t tell you what she’s like, Ford,” he confessed.  “I don’t remember nothing about her looks, except she looked good to me, and I never seen her before, and her hair wasn’t red—­I always remember red hair when I see it, drunk or sober.  You see,” he added as an extenuation, “I was pretty well jagged myself.  I musta been.  I recollect I was real put out because my name wasn’t Frank Ford—­By hokey!” He laid an impressive forefinger upon Ford’s knee and tapped several times.  “I never knew your name was rightly Frank Ford Cameron.  I always—­”

“It ain’t.”  Ford winced and drew away from the tapping process, as if his knee also was sensitive that morning.

“You told her it was.  I mind that perfectly, because I was so su’prised I swore right out loud and was so damned ashamed I couldn’t apologize.  And say!  She musta been a real lady or I wouldn’t uh felt that way about it!” Bill glanced triumphantly from one to the other.  “Take it from me, you married a lady, Ford.  Drunk or sober, I always make it a point to speak proper before the ladies—­t’other kind don’t count—­and when I make a break, you betcher life I remember it.  She’s a real lady—­I’d swear to that on a stack uh bibles ten feet high!” He settled back and unbuttoned his steaming coat with the air of a man who has established beyond question the vital point of an argument.

“Did I tell her so myself, or did I just let it go that way?” Ford, as his brain cleared, stuck close to his groping for the essential facts.

“Well, now—­I ain’t dead sure as to that.  Maybe Rock’ll remember.  Kinda seems to me now, that she asked you if you was really Frank Ford Cameron, and you said:  ‘I sure am,’ or something like that.  The preacher’d know, maybe.  He musta been the only sober one in the bunch—­except the girl.  But you done chased him off, so—­”