Trabue looked at Miller, who stood leaning in the doorway, and laughed. “Well, I reckon he might call it that. That chap owned the town two days ago. He got blind, stavin' drunk, an' wanted to whip us from one end o' the place to the other. The marshals are afraid of 'im, for they know he 'll shoot at the drop of a hat, an' the butt of it was stickin' out o' his hippocket in plain sight. Was you thar, Rayburn? Well, it was better 'n a circus. Day before yesterday thar was a sort o' street temperance lecturer in front o' the Johnston House, speakin' on a dry-goods box. He had a lot o' gaudy pictures illustratin' the appearance of a drinkin' man' s stomach an' liver, compared to one in a healthy condition. He was a sort of a snide faker, out fer what he could git dropped in a hat, an' Pole was sober enough to git on to his game. Pole stood thar with the rest, jest about able to stand, an' that was all. Finally, when the feller got warmed up an' got to screechin', Pole begun to deny what he was sayin'. As fast as he'd make a statement Pole would flatly deny it. The feller on the box didn't know what a tough customer he had to handle or he'd 'a' gone slow. As it was, he p'inted a finger o' scorn at Pole an' helt 'im up fer a example. Pole wasn't sober by a long shot, but you'd 'a' thought he was, fer he was as steady as a post. He kept grinnin', as cool as a cucumber, an' sayin', 'Now you know yo' re a-lyin', stranger--jest a-lyin' to get a few dimes drapped in yore hat. You know nobody's stomach don't look like that durn chromo. You never seed inside of a drinkin' man, an' yo' re the biggest liar that ever walked the earth.' This made the crowd laugh at the little, dried-up feller, an' he got as mad as Old Nick. He begun to tell Pole his liver was swelled from too much whiskey, an' that he'd bet he was jest the sort to beat his wife. Most of us thought that ud make Pole jump on 'im, but he seemed to enjoy naggin' the feller too much to sp'ile it by a fight. A nigger boy had been carryin' round a bell and a sign advertisin' Webb's auction sale, an' stopped to see the fun. Pole heerd the tinkle of the bell, an' tuck it an' begun to ring it in the lecturer's face. The harder the feller spoke the harder Pole rung. It was the damnedest racket ever heerd on a public square. Part of the crowd--the good church folks--begun to say it was a disgrace to the town to allow a stranger to be treated that away, sence thar was no law agin public speakin' in the streets. They was in fer callin' a halt, but all the rest--the drinkin' men, an' I frankly state I was one--secretly hoped Pole would ring 'im down. When the pore devil finally won I felt like yellin' hooray, fer I glory in the pluck even of a dare-devil, if he's a North Georgian an' white. The lecturer had to stop without his collection, an' went off to the council chamber swearin' agin the town fer allowin' him to be treated that away. Thar wasn't anything fer the