“Yes, your chances, dang you!” Garner retorted, with a laugh. “Do you know, my boy, that as a psychological proposition, the biggest, most earnest, most credulous-looking ass on earth is the man who comes to a strange town to do his courting and has nothing to do but that one thing, at stated hours through the day or evening, while everybody around him is going about attending to business. I've watched that fellow hanging around the office of the hotel, kicking his heels together to kill time between visits, and in spite of all I've heard about his stability and moral worth I can't respect him. Hang it, if I were in his place and wanted to spend a week here, I'd peddle cigars on the street--I'd certainly have _something_ to occupy my spare time. But I'll be flamdoodled if you didn't give him something to think about last night. Of all things, it strikes me, that could make a man like that sick--sick as a dog at the very stomach of his hopes--would be to see a former sweetheart of his fair charmer standing under shot and shell in front of her ancestral mansion protecting her servants from a howling mob like that, and later to see the defender, with the step of a David with a sling, come traipsing back victorious in her cause, all gummed up with blood and fighting still like hell to keep his friends from choking him to death in sheer admiration. She and Sanders may be engaged, but I'll be dadblamed if I wouldn't be worried if I were in his place.” “I wish you would let up, Garner,” Dwight said, almost angrily. “I know you mean well, but you don't understand the situation, and I have told you before that I don't like to talk about it.” “I _did_ want to tell you how it was rubbed in on him this morning,” Garner said, only half apologetically, “and if you don't care, I'll finish.” Carson said nothing. Spots of red were on his cheeks, and with a teasing smile Garner went on: “I had stopped to speak to her on the corner just now, when the Major and his Highness from Augusta joined us. The old man was simply bursting with enthusiasm over what you accomplished last night. According to the Major, you were the highest type of Southerner since George Washington, and the obtuse old chap kept turning to Sanders for his confirmation of each and every statement. Sanders was doing it with slow nods and inarticulate grunts, about as readily as a seasick passenger specifies items for his dinner, while Helen stood there blushing like a red rose. Well,” Garner concluded, as he kicked off one of his untied shoes to put on a slipper, “it may be cold comfort to you, viewed under the search-light of all the gossip in the air, but your blond rival is so jealous that the green juice of it is oozing from the pores of his skin.” “It isn't fair to him to look at it as you are,” Dwight said. “Under the same circumstances he could have taken my place.”