my pardner. It's a hot night. I disremember any sich weather before on
the Bar."

He paused a moment, but nobody volunteering any other meteorological
recollection, he again had recourse to his pocket-handkerchief, and
for some moments mopped his face diligently.

"Have you anything to say on behalf of the prisoner?" said the Judge
finally.

"Thet's it," said Tennessee's Partner, in a tone of relief. "I come
yar as Tennessee's pardner,--knowing him nigh on four year, off and
on, wet and dry, in luck and out o' luck. His ways ain't aller my
ways, but thar ain't any p'ints in that young man, thar ain't any
liveliness as he's been up to, as I don't know. And you sez to me,
sez you,--confidential-like, and between man and man,--sez you, 'Do
you know anything in his behalf?' and I sez to you, sez I,--
confidential-like, as between man and man,--'What should a man know of
his pardner?'"

"Is this all you have to say?" asked the Judge impatiently, feeling,
perhaps, that a dangerous sympathy of humor was beginning to humanize
the court.

"Thet's so," continued Tennessee's Partner." It ain't for me to say
anything agin' him. And now, what's the case? Here's Tennessee wants
money, wants it bad, and doesn't like to ask it of his old pardner.
Well, what does Tennessee do? He lays for a stranger, and he fetches
that stranger; and you lays for _him_, and you fetches _him_; and the
honors is easy. And I put it to you, bein' a fa'r-minded man, and to