yourse'f, Dan, an' yet we don't go 'round breakin' the information
off in you every tinic you makes a queer play. An' you must b'ar
with Cape, an' them caprices of his.' "'I ain't denyin' nothin','
declar's Dan. 'I'm the last longhorn in Wolfville to be revilin' old
Cape, an' refoosin' him his plain American right to go pirootin'
'round among his eyes as suits his taste. But I'm a mighty nervous
man that a-way, an' Cape knows, or oughter know, how, as I states,
I'm nacherally all onstrung, an' that his carryin's on with them
eyes gives me the fantods. Onder all the circumstances, I claims his
conduct is ornery, an' not what a invalid like me has a right to
expect.'

"No; Dan never says nothin' to Cape; or does anythin' 'cept talk to
Enright an' the rest of us about how he can't stand Cape shiftin'
them eyes. An' it ain't affectation on the part of Dan; he shorely
feels them shifts. Many a time, when it's go to be red eye time with
Cape, an' as the latter is scroop'lously makin' said transfers, have
I beheld Dan arise in silent agony, an' go to bite hunks outen a
pine shelf that is built on the Red Light wall.

"'Which that ornery Cape,' says Dan, as he picks the splinters from
his mouth after sech exercises, 'would drive me as locoed as a
coyote if I don't take refooge in some sech play like that.'

"But, as I su'gests about this term 'ornery;' it depends a lot on
who uses it, an' what for. Now Dan never refers to old Cape except
as 'ornery;' while Enright an' the rest of us sees nothin' from soda
to hock in Cape, doorin' them few months he mingles with us, which
merits sech obloquys.