“--that Laramie wido’ promised you--’ “Shucks!” “--only her doctor suddenly ordered Southern climate and--” “Shucks! You’re a false alarm.” “--so nothing but her lungs came between you. And next you’d most got united with Cattle Kate, only--” “Tell you you’re a false alarm!” “--only she got hung.” “Where’s the wives in all this? Show the wives! Come now!” “That corn-fed biscuit-shooter at Rawlins yu’ gave the canary--” “Never married her. Never did marry--” “But yu’ come so near, uncle! She was the one left yu’ that letter explaining how she’d got married to a young cyard-player the very day before her ceremony with you was due, and--” “Oh, you’re nothing; you’re a kid; you don’t amount to--” “--and how she’d never, never forgot to feed the canary.” “This country’s getting full of kids,” stated the old man, witheringly. “It’s doomed.” This crushing assertion plainly satisfied him. And he blinked his eyes with renewed anticipation. His tall tormentor continued with a face of unchanging gravity, and a voice of gentle solicitude: “How is the health of that unfortunate--” “That’s right! Pour your insults! Pour ’em on a sick, afflicted woman!” The eyes blinked with combative relish. “Insults? Oh, no, Uncle Hughey!” “That’s all right! Insults goes!” “Why, I was mighty relieved when she began to recover her mem’ry. Las’ time I heard, they told me she’d got it pretty near all back. Remembered her father, and her mother, and her sisters and brothers, and her friends, and her happy childhood, and all her doin’s except only your face. The boys was bettin’ she’d get that far too, give her time. But I reckon afteh such a turrable sickness as she had, that would be expectin’ most too much.” At this Uncle Hughey jerked out a small parcel. “Shows how much you know!” he cackled. “There! See that! That’s my ring she sent me back, being too unstrung for marriage. So she don’t remember me, don’t she? Ha-ha! Always said you were a false alarm.” The Southerner put more anxiety into his tone. “And so you’re a-takin’ the ring right on to the next one!” he exclaimed. “Oh, don’t go to get married again, Uncle Hughey! What’s the use o’ being married?” “What’s the use?” echoed the bridegroom, with scorn. “Hm! When you grow up you’ll think different.” “Course I expect to think different when my age is different. I’m havin’ the thoughts proper to twenty-four, and you’re havin’ the thoughts proper to sixty.” “Fifty!” shrieked Uncle Hughey, jumping in the air. The Southerner took a tone of self-reproach. “Now, how could I forget you was fifty,” he murmured, “when you have been telling it to the boys so careful for the last ten years!”