"My good gosh!" he muttered again. "My old mahala she tell me Old Lady
Pettengill go off early this morning; but I think she make one big
mistake. Now what you know about that?" He smiled winningly now and
became a very old man indeed, the smile lighting the myriad minute
wrinkles that instantly came to life. Again he ruefully surveyed the
morning's work. "I think that caps the climax," said he, and grimanced
humorous dismay for the entertainment of us both.
I opened my cigarette case to him. Like his late critic, Pete availed
himself of two, though he had not the excuse of a pipe to be filled. One
he coyly tucked above his left ear and one he lighted. Then he sat
gracefully back upon his heels and drew smoke into his innermost
recesses, a shrunken little figure of a man in a calico shirt of gay
stripes, faded blue overalls, and shoes that were remarkable as ruins.
With a pointed chip in the slender fingers of one lean brown hand--a
narrow hand of quite feminine delicacy--he cleared the ground of other
chips and drew small figures in the earth.
"Some of your people cut up in a fight down at Kulanche last night," I
remarked after a moment of courteous waiting.
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