"And you've been saying things about me. You've got to quit it. Only a dirty coward would talk about a girl as you do." She stamped her foot and her pudgy hands were clenched into hard little knots. It was a cheap kind of fury, a flimsy bit of drama, but tragedies have grown out of even a lesser degree of unbridled temper. O'mie was a monkey to whom the ludicrous side of life forever appealed, and the sight of Lettie as an accusing vengeance was too much for him. The twinkle in his eye only angered her the more. "Oh, you needn't laugh, you and Marjie Whately. How I hate her! but I've fixed her. You two have always been against me, I know. I've heard what you say. She's a liar, and a mean flirt, always trying to take everybody away from me; and as good as a pauper if Judson didn't just keep her and her mother." "Marjie'd never try to get Judson away from Lettie," O'mie thought, but all sense of humor had left his face now. "Lettie Conlow," he said, leaning toward her and speaking calmly, "you may call me what you please--Lord, it couldn't hurt me--but you, nor nobody else, man or woman, praist or pirate, is comin' into this store while I'm alone in controllin' it, and call Marjie Whately nor any other dacent woman by any evil names. If you've come here to settle me, settle away, and when you get through my turn's comin' to settle; but if you say another word against Marjie or any other woman, by the holy Joe Spooner, and all the other saints, you'll walk right out that door, or I'll throw you out as I'd do anybody else in the same case, no matter if they was masculine, feminine, or neuter gender. Now you understand me. If you have anything more to say, say it quick." Lettie was furious now, but the Conlow blood is not courageous, and she only ground her teeth and muttered: "Always the same. Nobody dares to say a word against her. What makes some folks so precious, I wonder? There's Phil Baronet, now,--the biggest swindle in this town. Oh, I could tell you a lot about him. I'll do it some day, too. It'll take more money to keep me still than Baronet's bank notes." "Lettie," said O'mie in an even voice, "I'm waitin' here to be settled." "Then let me alone. I'm not goin' to be forever tracked 'round like a thief. I'll fix you so you'll keep still. Who are you, anyhow? A nobody, poor as sin, living off of this town all these years; never knowing who your father nor mother is, nor nobody to care for you; the very trash of the earth, somebody's doorstep foundling, to set yourself up over me! You'd ought to 'a been run out of town long ago." "I was, back in '63, an' half the town came after me, had to drag me back with ropes, they was so zealous to get me. I wasn't worth it, all the love and kindness the town's give me. Now, Lettie, what else?"