of a woodpecker accented the loneliness. And then, almost magically as
it seemed, the thin veneering of civilization on the two men seemed to
be cast off like the bark of the trees around them, and they lounged
before each other in aboriginal freedom. Mr. Byers removed his
restraining duster and undercoat. Mr. Langworthy resigned his dirty
white jacket, his collar, and unloosed a suspender, with which he
played.
"Would it be a fair question between two fa'r-minded men, ez hez lived
alone," said Mr. Byers, with a gravity so supernatural that it could be
referred only to liquor, "to ask ye in what sort o' way did Mrs. Byers
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."
"And when she hove plates at your head, wot did you do?"
"She didn't hove no plates," said Abner gravely; "did she say she did?"
"No, no!" returned Byers hastily, in crimson confusion. "I kinder got
it mixed with suthin' else." He waved his hand in a lordly way, as if
dismissing the subject. "Howsumever, you and her is 'off' anyway," he
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