gave them an entertaining likeness to two plethoric and overfed spiders.

"Ef I concluded to pass over my lines to a friend and take a pasear
up yer this evening," said Bill, eying Jeff sharply, "I don't know
ez thar's any law agin it! Onless yer keepin' a private branch o' the
Occidental Ho-tel, and on'y take in fash'n'ble fammerlies!"

Jeff, with a rising color, protested against such a supposition.

"Because ef ye ARE," said Bill, lifting his voice, and crushing one of
the overgrown spiders with his fist, "I've got a word or two to say to
the son of Joe Briggs of Tuolumne. Yes, sir! Joe Briggs--yer father--ez
blew his brains out for want of a man ez could stand up and say a word
to him at the right time."

"Bill," said Jeff, in a low, resolute tone--that tone yielded up only
from the smitten chords of despair and desperation--"thar's a sick woman
in the house. I'll listen to anything you've got to say if you'll say it
quietly. But you must and SHALL speak low."

Real men quickly recognize real men the world over; it is only your
shams who fence and spar. Bill, taking in the voice of the speaker more
than his words, dropped his own.

"I said I had a kepple of words to say to ye. Thar isn't any time in the
last fower months--ever since ye took stock in this old shanty, for the
matter o' that--that I couldn't hev said them to ye. I've knowed all
your doin's. I've knowed all your debts, 'spesh'ly that ye owe that
sneakin' hound Parker; and thar isn't a time that I couldn't and
wouldn't hev chipped in and paid 'em for ye--for your father's sake--ef