business between me and Paisley Fish was ended forever. He knew how I
hated a talkative person, and yet he stampedes into the conversation
with his amendments and addendums of syntax. On the map it was Big
Spring Valley; but I had heard Paisley himself call it Spring Valley a
thousand times.

"Without saying any more, we went out after supper and set on the
railroad track. We had been pardners too long not to know what was
going on in each other's mind.

"'I reckon you understand,' says Paisley, 'that I've made up my mind
to accrue that widow woman as part and parcel in and to my
hereditaments forever, both domestic, sociable, legal, and otherwise,
until death us do part.'

"'Why, yes,' says I, 'I read it between the lines, though you only
spoke one. And I suppose you are aware,' says I, 'that I have a
movement on foot that leads up to the widow's changing her name to
Hicks, and leaves you writing to the society column to inquire whether
the best man wears a japonica or seamless socks at the wedding!'

"'There'll be some hiatuses in your program,' says Paisley, chewing up
a piece of a railroad tie. 'I'd give in to you,' says he, 'in 'most
any respect if it was secular affairs, but this is not so. The smiles
of woman,' goes on Paisley, 'is the whirlpool of Squills and
Chalybeates, into which vortex the good ship Friendship is often drawn
and dismembered. I'd assault a bear that was annoying you,' says
Paisley, 'or I'd endorse your note, or rub the place between your
shoulder-blades with opodeldoc the same as ever; but there my sense of
etiquette ceases. In this fracas with Mrs. Jessup we play it alone.