Senor Johnson gazed with distaste into his cup.
"This coffee would float a wedge," he commented sourly.
"She's no puling infant," agreed the cheerful Jed.
"And this!" went on the Senor, picking up what purported to be
plum duff: "Bog down a few currants in dough and call her
pudding!"
He ate in silence, then pushed back his chair and went to the
window, gazing through its grimy panes at the mountains, ethereal
in their evening saffron.
"Blamed Chink," he growled; "why don't he wash these windows?"
Jed laid down his busy knife and idle fork to gaze on his chief
with amazement. Buck Johnson, the austere, the aloof, the grimly
taciturn, the dangerous, to be thus complaining like a querulous
woman!
"Senor," said he, "you're off your feed."
Senor Johnson strode savagely to the table and sat down with a
bang.
"I'm sick of it," he growled; "this thing will kill me off. I
might as well go be a buck nun and be done with it."
With one round-arm sweep he cleared aside the dishes.
"Give me that pen and paper behind you," he requested.
For an hour he wrote and destroyed. The floor became littered
with torn papers. Then he enveloped a meagre result.
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