Which if you'll excuse me half a minute I'll ramble outside and sluice off some of the dust.

If I'd known you was here I wouldn't of thought of comin' in here like this." The lady with the defective eyes glared fiercely at him.

Her judgment wavered two ways.

Her first inclination was to hold that the fellow was jibing at her covertly, and she followed her original impulse far enough to clasp a neighboring sugar-bowl in a large, capable hand.

A second and more merciful thought entered her brain and stole slowly through it, like a faint echo in a great cave.
"You don't have to make yourself pretty to talk to me," she said thoughtfully.