If he had up and slugged this Percival De Lacey that tried to give him the outside of the road, and had kept Alice in the grape-vine swing with the blind-bridle on, all would have been well.
The woman you want is sure worth taking pains for.
"'Send for me if you want me again,' says Redruth, and hoists his Stetson, and walks off.
He'd have called it pride, but the nixycomlogical name for it is laziness.
No woman don't like to run after a man.
'Let him come back, hisself,' says the girl; and I'll be bound she tells the boy with the pay ore to trot; and then spends her time watching out the window for the man with the empty pocket-book and the tickly moustache.
"I reckon Redruth waits about nine year expecting her to send him a note by a nigger asking him to forgive her.
But she don't.
'This game won't work,' says Redruth; 'then so won't I.'
And he goes in the hermit business and raises whiskers.
Yes; laziness and whiskers was what done the trick.
They travel together.
You ever hear of a man with long whiskers and hair striking a bonanza?
No.
Look at the Duke of Marlborough and this Standard Oil snoozer.
Have they got 'em?
"Now, this Alice didn't never marry, I'll bet a hoss.
If Redruth had married somebody else she might have done so, too.
But he never turns up.
She has these here things they call fond memories, and maybe a lock of hair and a corset steel that he broke, treasured up.
Them sort of articles is as good as a husband to some women.
I'd say she played out a lone hand.
I don't blame no woman for old man Redruth's abandonment of barber shops and clean shirts."
Next in order came the passenger who was nobody in particular.
Nameless to us, he travels the road from Paradise to Sunrise City.
But him you shall see, if the firelight be not too dim, as he responds to the Judge's call.
A lean form, in rusty-brown clothing, sitting like a frog, his arms wrapped about his legs, his chin resting upon his knees.
Smooth, oakum-coloured hair; long nose; mouth like a satyr's, with upturned, tobacco-stained corners.
An eye like a fish's; a red necktie with a horseshoe pin.
He began with a rasping chuckle that gradually formed itself into words.
"Everybody wrong so far.
What! a romance without any orange blossoms!
Ho, ho!
My money on the lad with the butterfly tie and the certified checks in his trouserings.
"Take 'em as they parted at the gate?
All right.
'You never loved me,' says Redruth, wildly, 'or you wouldn't speak to a man who can buy you the ice-cream.'
'I hate him,' says she.
'I loathe his side-bar buggy; I despise the elegant cream bonbons he sends me in gilt boxes covered with real lace; I feel that I could stab him to the heart when he presents me with a solid medallion locket with turquoises and pearls running in a vine around the border.
Away with him!
'Tis only you I love.'
'Back to the cosey corner!' says Redruth.
'Was I bound and lettered in East Aurora?
Get platonic, if you please.
No jack-pots for mine.
Go and hate your friend some more.
For me the Nickerson girl on Avenue B, and gum, and a trolley ride.'
"Around that night comes John W. Croesus.
'What! tears?' says he, arranging his pearl pin.
'You have driven my lover away,' says little Alice, sobbing: