One Way to Drown Sorrow


Ford walked up to the bar, with a smile upon his face which Sam
misunderstood and so met with a conciliatory grin and a hand extended
toward a certain round, ribbed bottle with a blue-and-silver label. Ford
waved away the bottle and leaned, not on the bar but across it, and
clutching Sam by the necktie, slapped him first upon one ear and next
upon the other, until he was forced by the tingling of his own fingers
to desist. By that time Sam's green necktie was pulled tight just under
his nose, and he had swallowed his gum--which, considering the size of
the lump, was likely to be the death of him.

Ford did not say a word. He permitted Sam to jerk loose and back into a
corner, and he watched the swift crimsoning of his ears with a keen
interest. Since Sam's face had the pasty pallor of the badly scared,
the ears appeared much redder by contrast than they really were. Next,
Ford turned his attention to the man beside him, who happened to be
Bill. For one long minute the grim spirit of war hovered just over the
two.

"Aw, forget it, Ford," Bill urged ingratiatingly at last. "You don't
want to lick anybody--least of all old Bill! Look at them knuckles! You
couldn't thump a feather bed. Anyway, you got the guilty party when you
done slapped Sam up to a peak and then knocked the peak off. Made him
swaller his cud, too, by hokey! Say, Sam, my old dad used to feed a cow
on bacon-rinds when she done lost her cud. You try it, Sam. Mebby it
might help them ears! Shove that there trouble-killer over this way,
Sammy, and don't look so fierce at your uncle Bill; he's liable to turn