"Well, then, it's for love. He's in love with their sister. Now, _that's_ something I _don't_ wonder at. I am, too. So are a lot of us." He smiled at the cub, who frowned away. "Now, by natural fitness, he's got ground for hope. I ain't got a square inch. She ain't on my claim. Next week my face'll be to the setting sun. So what do I do but go to him--this was before her young brother died--which I almost loved the brother too--and s'I, 'Mr. Courteney, I've saw the sun go down and moon come up on this thing three times running, and every time and all between I've stood it, seeing you stand it. And I've studied it. And I see your fix. But most of us don't; so somebody's got to indorse you. Now, being a Kentuckian, not blue-grass but next door, I feel like doing it. You've _got_ to play two hands and you _can't_ play but one. Well, I'll play the one you can't. I'll fight them twins.'" "Well, of all--and he accepted?" "Now, you know he didn't. He said it would be absolutely impossible. But he said it the funniest way--! It made me see the size of him for the first time. And, senator, he's life-size. But I reckon you knowed that before I did. He took me by the button-hole, just as I'm holding you now, and talked to me as majestic as a father sending his boy off to school, and at the very same time and in the very same words as sweet as a girl sending her soldier to war." "And he convinced you?" "No, we was interrupted and couldn't talk it out. Well, I can't go back to him and resume, no more'n a wildcat bank. For one thing, I wouldn't take him from her." "You don't mean they're together now?" "Now, no, but by spells, yes. Bound to happen--so many of us so willing. I'd try to talk the thing out with this young man and Mr. Watson, but they all feel alike. Reckon it does 'em credit, but--well--I'd like to talk it out with you and the general. I think we can dispense with the boat's consent. Don't you?" "Oh, Lord, man, what have I got to do with that?" "Hold your horses, senator. I look at it this way: If the twins hadn't been too busy pecking at Mr. Hugh I'm just the sort o' man they'd 'a' pecked at, and hence I have a good moral right to waive their not doing it and take the will for the deed." "Nonsense, my good friend; good joke, nothing more." "Hold on; there's this anyhow: If Mr. Hugh _could_ accept their invitation maybe he'd take me for his second; and what does second mean if it don't mean that if, after all, something should force him to drop out I could drop in?" "Oh," laughed the senator, freeing his buttonhole by gentle force and edging away, "very well; but the twins! They're out! Look at _their_ fix; _they_ can't fight now."