The other's jaw fell and his brow corrugated with self-reproach. "Well, if that don't show what a thick-head I am! I thought ye was all right er I'd gone on with ye. Nobody c'd 'a' walked straighter ner talked straighter. Said ye was goin' to leave Canaan fer good and didn't want nobody to know it. Said ye was goin' to take the 'leven-o'clock through train fer the West, and told me I couldn't come to the deepo with ye. Said ye'd had enough o' Canaan, and of everything! I follered ye part way to the deepo, but ye turned and made a motion fer me to go back, and I done it, because ye seemed to be kind of in trouble, and I thought ye'd ruther be by yerself. Well, sir, it's one on me!" "Not at all," said Joe. "I was all right." "Was ye?" returned the other. "DO remember, do ye?" "Almost," Joe smiled, faintly. "ALMOST," echoed Happy, shaking his head seriously. "I tell ye, Joe, ef I was YOU--" he began slowly, then paused and shook his head again. He seemed on the point of delivering some advice, but evidently perceiving the snobbishness of such a proceeding, or else convinced by his own experience of the futility of it, he swerved to cheerfulness: "I hear the boys is all goin' to work hard fer the primaries. Mike says ye got some chances ye don't know about; HE swears ye'll be the next Mayor of Canaan." "Nonsense! Folly and nonsense, Happy! That's the kind of thing I used to think when I was a boy. But now--pshaw!" Joe broke off with a tired laugh. "Tell them not to waste their time. Are you going out to the Beach this afternoon?" The little man lowered his eyes moodily. "I'll be near there," he said, scraping his patched shoe up and down the curbstone. "That feller's in town agin." "What fellow?" "'Nashville' they call him; Ed's the name he give the hospital: Cory--him that I soaked the night you come back to Canaan. He's after Claudine to git his evens with me. He's made a raise somewheres, and plays the spender. And her--well, I reckon she's tired waitin' table at the National House; tired o' me, too. I got a hint that they're goin' out to the Beach together this afternoon." Joe passed his hand wearily over his aching forehead. "I understand," he said, "and you'd better try to. Cory's laying for you, of course. You say he's after your wife? He must have set about it pretty openly if they're going to the Beach to-day, for there is always a crowd there on Sundays. Is it hard for you to see why he's doing it? It's because he wants to make you jealous. What for? So that you'll tackle him again. And why does he want that? Because he's ready for you!" The other's eyes suddenly became bloodshot, his nostrils expanding incredibly. "READY, is he? He BETTER be ready. I--"