"Why, that 'un that killed that dog o' yours, and put you to sleep before the crowd, and that 'un that sent Mamie Orrick to Gawd knows where. But shucks! Drop it, Jim. I wouldn't have allooded to it, on'y I thought you'd see the fun of the thing." It takes a philosopher to perceive humor in taunts at his own personal courage, and Mr. Hackley, with three drinks of the Ottoman's choicest beneath his tattered waistcoat, was not that kind of man at all. He leaned forward against the bar with a belligerence suggesting that he wished to push it over, pinning his pleasant-spoken host to the wall, and pounded the top of it till the glasses tingled. "Fill her up with the same!" he ordered loudly, looking suddenly, and for the first time, very much like the rough-looking customer who had tackled Peter Maginnis in defense of his dog. "An' I'll have you know, _Mister_ Ryan--I'll have you know, my fine, big, bouncin' buck, that Jim Hackley ain't afeared of anythink that walks." Ryan filled her up again, though this time more conservatively. He was a keen man and an excellent judge of what was enough. "Shuh! Don't _I_ know that, Jim! Why, after that big bloke licked the stuffin' out of you the other night, the boys said: 'Well, that's the last o' that little differculty! Jim Hackley'll never foller that up none,' they says. And what'd I say?" "Well, what'd you say?" "I says, 'Hell!' I says. 'You boys don't _know_ Jim Hackley!'" "I'll interdooce myself to 'em!" said Hackley savagely. "And whoever says that Maginnis licked me's a liar. You hear me? Tripped my toe on a rock, I did, and banged all the sense outen my head--" "I understand, Jim," interrupted Ryan suavely. "Just what I told the boys. O' course, just between you an me, I have been kinder took by surprise that you've waited so long to get your evens. Why, this morning when the piece came out in the _Gazette_, tellin' the whole town that the feller's side-partner was that yellow cur-dog Stanhope, I says to the boys, first thing: 'Boys, we gotter watch Jim Hackley mighty careful to-day,' says I. 'I'm afeard there'll be gun-play before sunset.' 'Gun-play!' says they. 'F'om Hackley! Hell,' says they. 'You boys,' says I, 'don't know old Jim like I do!' And then o' course,--he, he!--as the whole day slipped by and nothin' doin' at all--why, o' course, I won't deny that they ain't been jollyin' me some." Hackley leaned far over the bar, and shook his fist in the boss's face. "I ain't a man," he shouted, "to be pushed an' a-nagged at in a deal like this. I takes my time, I makes my plans, I decides on the ways I'll do it. Do yer pipe to that? An' now I've got ever'think fixed and I'm ready. Do yer see!" The boss, who had retreated a step before that menacing fist, glanced out of the window and instantly started, this time with an amazement that was genuine. "Why, blast my eyes," he cried, raising a pudgy arm, "if there ain't that dog Stanhope now!"