show her temper?"

"Show her temper?" echoed Abner vacantly.

"Yes--in course, I mean when you and Mrs. Byers was--was--one? You know
the di-vorce was for in-com-pat-ibility of temper."

"But she got the divorce from me, so I reckon I had the temper," said
Langworthy, with great simplicity.

"Wha-at?" said Mr. Byers, putting down his glass and gazing with drunken
gravity at the sad-eyed yet good-humoredly tolerant man before him.
"You?--you had the temper?"

"I reckon that's what the court allowed," said Abner simply.

Mr. Byers stared. Then after a moment's pause he nodded with a
significant yet relieved face. "Yes, I see, in course. Times when you'd
h'isted too much o' this corn juice," lifting up his glass, "inside
ye--ye sorter bu'st out ravin'?"

But Abner shook his head. "I wuz a total abstainer in them days," he
said quietly.

Mr. Byers got unsteadily on his legs and looked around him. "Wot might
hev bin the general gait o' your temper, pardner?" he said in a hoarse
whisper.

"Don't know. I reckon that's jest whar the incompatibility kem in."