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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77793 ***
+
+
+
+
+                           CONVERSATION
+
+                         By J. Frank Davis
+
+
+Of all the twenty-odd legal justifications for homicide in Texas, the
+second most common is the epithet which is never spoken by gentlemen in
+the presence of ladies except on the New York stage. There were no
+ladies in front of the Somersworth post office when Jim Begley
+culminated a sharp quarrel over a horse-trade by speaking this epithet
+distinctly and viciously to Newt Shaw; and Newt, under all the rules and
+precedents, was justified in his immediate action, which was to draw a
+forty-five revolver, place the muzzle of it against Begley’s stomach and
+begin shooting. He fired three rapid shots.
+
+This would have seriously discommoded Begley if he had not been wearing
+a metal breastplate beneath his vest. It bruised him somewhat even as it
+was, and made him stagger as he pulled his own pistol. He didn’t pull it
+as fast as he might have been expected to, some of the witnesses said
+afterward--they thought it had caught in his holster, although others
+gave him credit for deliberately letting Newt get so much of a start
+that there could be no question as to his having the right to kill Newt,
+which he did with one shot as soon as he got the gun out.
+
+The coroner’s jury had no difficulty in reaching its decision. Another
+of the twenty-odd justifications, naturally, is self-defense, and as a
+juryman said succinctly during their brief deliberation: “If a man aint
+shooting in self-defense when another man has a pistol stuck in his ribs
+and it’s smoking, then there aint no meaning to the English language.”
+
+So the jury turned Jim Begley loose; the lodge buried Newt, and the
+incident closed for the moment with a few mildly-spoken but admonitory
+remarks by the sheriff as he gave Begley back his gun.
+
+“Newt wa'n't exactly what you could call a leading citizen,” he said.
+“He aint as much a loss to the community as some would be. But if ever
+you should happen to kill a man that was popular, in just that way-- I
+wouldn’t do it too many times, Begley. I don’t know, if I was you, as
+I’d go to do it _any_ more times--not with a breastplate on.”
+
+“The breastplate is off--from now on,” Begley said.
+
+“I’ll pass the word around,” the sheriff told him. “I’d be kind of hurt
+if you should ever make me out a liar about that.... So would you.”
+
+“You can trust me, Sheriff,” Begley assured him.
+
+“Yes suh. And watch you!”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+That might have ended it--Somersworth being one of those Texas towns
+where personal criticism is soft-pedaled in the interest of public and
+private health--if Curly Stewart hadn’t been seriously in love with
+Mamie Goodale, who had black hair and blue eyes and was the junior
+biscuit-shooter at the Eagle House dining-room.
+
+Curly, until Jim Begley struck town, had seemed to be sitting pretty
+with Mamie, but now he wasn’t sitting pretty with her; he wasn’t sitting
+with her at all; Begley was. Almost every night, after the dishes were
+washed at the hotel, and always, on Saturday nights, at the picture
+show. Curly had cared very little for Newt Shaw, but now he felt a
+distinct personal resentment over his killing. He almost succeeded in
+convincing himself that Newt had been a friend of his.
+
+He touched upon the subject of Newt and Begley and the ethics of
+breastplates, in general conversation, to a number of people. He touched
+upon it to Mamie one night when he was the last man in to supper at the
+hotel, and his language was not tactful.
+
+“Jim Begley coming round tonight, as usual?” he asked.
+
+“What if he is?”
+
+“He aint the right kind,” Curly said. “It aint that I’m jealous or
+anything--oh, yes, cuss it, of course I am! But there’s more than that.
+I don’t admire to see you running round with a feller like him. He aint
+the kind for you.”
+
+“Is that so?” replied Mamie.
+
+“He’s yellow. Any man that’ll put on a breastplate when he isn’t going
+to fight but one man is yellow. The whole town thinks it. The only
+reason they don’t say so is because they aint looking for trouble.”
+
+“You must be,” said Mamie.
+
+“No, I aint. I aint no gun-fighter, and you know it.”
+
+“You’re a good talker.”
+
+“You can’t marry him, Mamie. Now, listen--”
+
+She interrupted him.
+
+“I aint aimin’ to marry anybody, not at this minute. When I do, though,
+he’ll have to be good at something more than conversation.”
+
+“At dirty killings, maybe,” Curly retorted. “All right, go to it and
+marry him. You’ll find he aint got no real sand.”
+
+“Who aint?” growled Jim Begley, behind them.
+
+“I aint got no gun on,” Curly told him. “Seeing as you asked, I was
+speaking of you.”
+
+“And it’s safe to, when you aint,” Begley said. “But have one on the
+next time I see you. I’ve been hearing some of the things you’ve been
+saying about me. Now you’ll back ’em up, or get out of the county. This
+town’s got too small for both of us.”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mamie, her eyes wide, spoke not a word. “I'm leaving on the Number Eight
+tonight for San ’Tonio; got some business there that’ll take two days,”
+went on Begley. “I’ll be back Saturday mawnin’. When you and me meet,
+you’d better come a-smokin’, because I will.... If you’ve got any sense,
+you wont be here when I get back. Go get you another place to live
+in--if you want to live a’tall. Hear me?”
+
+Curly’s mouth was dry. In all his twenty-two years he had never shot at
+a man, and he had hoped he never would have to. He ought to have known
+his free conversation might lead to this, yet now it came as a shock. He
+swallowed hard and said lamely: “I hear you.”
+
+“For your last thought--if you see fit to stay here till I get back,”
+Begley sneered, “you can remember that it don’t pay to be too
+talkative.... Nothing else you want to say, suh?”
+
+“No,” Curly replied. He was perfectly aware that he was making a weak
+showing, and he couldn’t help it. He knew Jim Begley’s ability at
+gunplay and he knew his own. He could shoot straight, but he couldn’t
+draw fast, and Begley could do both.
+
+Yet, as he left the dining-room--and wondered just what the look in
+Mamie’s eyes meant--he knew he was not going to leave town.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+He avoided speech with Mamie throughout Thursday and Friday. He cleaned
+his revolver and reloaded it carefully, though he knew he would probably
+never have a chance to fire it.
+
+The sheriff came to him on Friday night.
+
+“I hear you and Jim Begley had a few words,” he said. “I can arrest him
+when he gets off the train and put him under a peace bond, if you say
+so.”
+
+“I'd stand great in this town after that, wouldn’t I?”
+
+The sheriff, who liked Curly, showed relief. “Good!” he said. “He wont
+have any breastplate on. And I’ll be handy to see fair play.” He added:
+“Don’t let anything scare you. Keep your nerve. He may not keep his. I
+aint at all sure he’s got anywhere near as much as he wants folks to
+think he has. He was asking quite a number, before he left town, night
+before last, about your shooting--and he seemed right anxious. I gather
+all the boys spoke highly of you.”
+
+“That’s good,” Curly said, wholly unable to look cheerful. “Maybe
+they’ll attend in a body, with flowers.”
+
+“Son,” said the sheriff, “barring me and one other, the folks around
+town don’t know whether you are quick on the draw or not--and neither
+does Begley. And I think his gun did stick when he killed Newt Shaw, and
+he’ll remember that--he can’t help it. If you could bust his nerve--”
+
+“What with? Conversation?” Curly asked bitterly.
+
+The sheriff smiled grimly. “Well, that’s been done,” he said. “And
+between you and me, Mamie Goodale was saying a little while ago--to me,
+confidential--that she believed you could do it. You’re some
+talkative--but conversation aint all you’ve got.”
+
+“Did Mamie say that?”
+
+“She said she believed so.”
+
+Curly grinned, naturally, for the first time in two days. “Thanks,
+Sheriff,” he said. “Maybe I can think up something.”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+They met at noon, Curly and Jim Begley, in the little plaza in front of
+the post office, both coatless, both with holstered pistols at their
+thighs, well forward, within easy reach of swinging right arms. And to
+the surprise of all the well-out-of-range spectators and the horror of
+Curly’s friends, he spread his hands and lifted them, and thus in a
+position which forbade Begley’s shooting unless he wanted to face a
+charge of Murder, walked swiftly toward him. Begley stopped and waited,
+tense.
+
+His hands still raised, Curly began to talk when he was yet thirty feet
+from his enemy. His voice was clear and carrying, and untremulous.
+
+“Say, I’m tired of packing this gun,” he said. “I aint in the habit of
+doing it, and it’s heavy, and I don’t like it, hot weather like this.
+Maybe there’s a misunderstanding. Maybe when you heard I said things
+about you, you didn’t hear it straight. I want to tell you just what I
+said. Maybe when I’m through, you wont figure it’s necessary for us to
+have any trouble at all.”
+
+Apologizing! Quitting! Jim Begley’s pose relaxed. His face, somehow,
+registered intense relief.
+
+“Go ahead. I’ll listen,” he said tolerantly, almost smiling.
+
+“You can’t draw while my hands are up,” Curly reminded him. “When I get
+through talking, you can go after your pistol if you still want to,”--he
+was four feet away now, and he stopped, his eyes on Begley’s,--“an’ be
+deader’n hell before you get your hand halfway to it! And your face’ll
+look as scared as Newt Shaw’s did when you got him. Remember how he
+looked? Remember how he must have felt? That’s how you’ll look. That’s
+how you’ll feel--if you ever start your hand after your gun. All I said
+about you around this town was that you were a dirty, lyin’,
+double-crossin’, breastplate-wearin’, cowardly low-down whelp. If you
+heard I said anything worse than that, you was misinformed.”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Begley’s mind adjusted itself to the changed situation slowly and
+painfully. He looked into Curly’s eyes. They were hard, unflinching,
+boring. He looked at Curly’s right hand. It was well out and shoulder
+high, but its fingers were bent, ready to clutch as it came down to the
+gun. It had two feet farther to go than Begley’s hand. If Begley started
+first--and if his gun didn’t catch in the holster-- The odds were all
+against Curly, but he looked as though he was satisfied with that.
+Worse, he sounded so.
+
+“Well!” Curly snapped. “What are you waiting for? Let’s go!”
+
+Slowly, Jim Begley’s hands went out from his sides, shaking, and he
+muttered: “I don’t want no trouble.”
+
+Trying successfully to keep his own hand from trembling, Curly took
+Begley’s pistol from its holster.
+
+“I’ll turn this over to the sheriff,” he said. “He’ll give it to you
+when you take the next train out of town. Which way--east or west?”
+
+“Why--why, the--the Number Four east, I reckon,” Begley stammered. “I--I
+got some business that’s--going to take me permanent to San ’Tonio,
+anyway.”
+
+
+[Transcriber’s note: This story appeared in the April, 1930 issue
+of _The Blue Book_ magazine.]
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77793 ***
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+<!DOCTYPE html>
+<html lang="en">
+<head>
+<meta charset="UTF-8">
+<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
+<title>The Coast Guardsman</title>
+<style>
+  body { margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; line-height: 1.25; }
+  p { text-indent: 1.15em; margin-top: 0.1em;
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+           text-align: center; display:block }
+  figure.center70 { margin-left: 10%; width: 80%; }
+  figure img { width: 100%; height: auto; }
+  .center { text-align: center; }
+  .tn { text-indent:0; margin-top: 2em; border:none;
+        border-top: 1px solid silver; font-size:0.9em; }
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+  .tac { text-align: center; }
+</style>
+</head>
+<body>
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77793 ***</div>
+<figure class="center70">
+  <img src="images/illus-fpc.png" alt="two men preparing for a shootout">
+</figure>
+<div class='titlepage'>
+<h1>CONVERSATION</h1>
+<div class='tac'>By J. Frank Davis</div>
+</div>
+<p>Of all the twenty-odd legal justifications for homicide in Texas, the
+second most common is the epithet which is never spoken by gentlemen in
+the presence of ladies except on the New York stage. There were no
+ladies in front of the Somersworth post office when Jim Begley
+culminated a sharp quarrel over a horse-trade by speaking this epithet
+distinctly and viciously to Newt Shaw; and Newt, under all the rules and
+precedents, was justified in his immediate action, which was to draw a
+forty-five revolver, place the muzzle of it against Begley’s stomach and
+begin shooting. He fired three rapid shots.</p>
+<p>This would have seriously discommoded Begley if he had not been wearing
+a metal breastplate beneath his vest. It bruised him somewhat even as it
+was, and made him stagger as he pulled his own pistol. He didn’t pull it
+as fast as he might have been expected to, some of the witnesses said
+afterward—they thought it had caught in his holster, although others
+gave him credit for deliberately letting Newt get so much of a start
+that there could be no question as to his having the right to kill Newt,
+which he did with one shot as soon as he got the gun out.</p>
+<p>The coroner’s jury had no difficulty in reaching its decision. Another
+of the twenty-odd justifications, naturally, is self-defense, and as a
+juryman said succinctly during their brief deliberation: “If a man aint
+shooting in self-defense when another man has a pistol stuck in his ribs
+and it’s smoking, then there aint no meaning to the English language.”</p>
+<p>So the jury turned Jim Begley loose; the lodge buried Newt, and the
+incident closed for the moment with a few mildly-spoken but admonitory
+remarks by the sheriff as he gave Begley back his gun.</p>
+<p>“Newt wa'n't exactly what you could call a leading citizen,” he said.
+“He aint as much a loss to the community as some would be. But if ever
+you should happen to kill a man that was popular, in just that way— I
+wouldn’t do it too many times, Begley. I don’t know, if I was you, as
+I’d go to do it <em>any</em> more times—not with a breastplate on.”</p>
+<p>“The breastplate is off—from now on,” Begley said.</p>
+<p>“I’ll pass the word around,” the sheriff told him. “I’d be kind of hurt
+if you should ever make me out a liar about that.... So would you.”</p>
+<p>“You can trust me, Sheriff,” Begley assured him.</p>
+<p>“Yes suh. And watch you!”</p>
+<hr class='tb'>
+<p>That might have ended it—Somersworth being one of those Texas towns
+where personal criticism is soft-pedaled in the interest of public and
+private health—if Curly Stewart hadn’t been seriously in love with
+Mamie Goodale, who had black hair and blue eyes and was the junior
+biscuit-shooter at the Eagle House dining-room.</p>
+<p>Curly, until Jim Begley struck town, had seemed to be sitting pretty
+with Mamie, but now he wasn’t sitting pretty with her; he wasn’t sitting
+with her at all; Begley was. Almost every night, after the dishes were
+washed at the hotel, and always, on Saturday nights, at the picture
+show. Curly had cared very little for Newt Shaw, but now he felt a
+distinct personal resentment over his killing. He almost succeeded in
+convincing himself that Newt had been a friend of his.</p>
+<p>He touched upon the subject of Newt and Begley and the ethics of
+breastplates, in general conversation, to a number of people. He touched
+upon it to Mamie one night when he was the last man in to supper at the
+hotel, and his language was not tactful.</p>
+<p>“Jim Begley coming round tonight, as usual?” he asked.</p>
+<p>“What if he is?”</p>
+<p>“He aint the right kind,” Curly said. “It aint that I’m jealous or
+anything—oh, yes, cuss it, of course I am! But there’s more than that.
+I don’t admire to see you running round with a feller like him. He aint
+the kind for you.”</p>
+<p>“Is that so?” replied Mamie.</p>
+<p>“He’s yellow. Any man that’ll put on a breastplate when he isn’t going
+to fight but one man is yellow. The whole town thinks it. The only
+reason they don’t say so is because they aint looking for trouble.”</p>
+<p>“You must be,” said Mamie.</p>
+<p>“No, I aint. I aint no gun-fighter, and you know it.”</p>
+<p>“You’re a good talker.”</p>
+<p>“You can’t marry him, Mamie. Now, listen—”</p>
+<p>She interrupted him.</p>
+<p>“I aint aimin’ to marry anybody, not at this minute. When I do, though,
+he’ll have to be good at something more than conversation.”</p>
+<p>“At dirty killings, maybe,” Curly retorted. “All right, go to it and
+marry him. You’ll find he aint got no real sand.”</p>
+<p>“Who aint?” growled Jim Begley, behind them.</p>
+<p>“I aint got no gun on,” Curly told him. “Seeing as you asked, I was
+speaking of you.”</p>
+<p>“And it’s safe to, when you aint,” Begley said. “But have one on the
+next time I see you. I’ve been hearing some of the things you’ve been
+saying about me. Now you’ll back ’em up, or get out of the county. This
+town’s got too small for both of us.”</p>
+<hr class='tb'>
+<p>Mamie, her eyes wide, spoke not a word. “I'm leaving on the Number Eight
+tonight for San ’Tonio; got some business there that’ll take two days,”
+went on Begley. “I’ll be back Saturday mawnin’. When you and me meet,
+you’d better come a-smokin’, because I will.... If you’ve got any sense,
+you wont be here when I get back. Go get you another place to live
+in—if you want to live a’tall. Hear me?”</p>
+<p>Curly’s mouth was dry. In all his twenty-two years he had never shot at
+a man, and he had hoped he never would have to. He ought to have known
+his free conversation might lead to this, yet now it came as a shock. He
+swallowed hard and said lamely: “I hear you.”</p>
+<p>“For your last thought—if you see fit to stay here till I get back,”
+Begley sneered, “you can remember that it don’t pay to be too
+talkative.... Nothing else you want to say, suh?”</p>
+<p>“No,” Curly replied. He was perfectly aware that he was making a weak
+showing, and he couldn’t help it. He knew Jim Begley’s ability at
+gunplay and he knew his own. He could shoot straight, but he couldn’t
+draw fast, and Begley could do both.</p>
+<p>Yet, as he left the dining-room—and wondered just what the look in
+Mamie’s eyes meant—he knew he was not going to leave town.</p>
+<hr class='tb'>
+<p>He avoided speech with Mamie throughout Thursday and Friday. He cleaned
+his revolver and reloaded it carefully, though he knew he would probably
+never have a chance to fire it.</p>
+<p>The sheriff came to him on Friday night.</p>
+<p>“I hear you and Jim Begley had a few words,” he said. “I can arrest him
+when he gets off the train and put him under a peace bond, if you say
+so.”</p>
+<p>“I'd stand great in this town after that, wouldn’t I?”</p>
+<p>The sheriff, who liked Curly, showed relief. “Good!” he said. “He wont
+have any breastplate on. And I’ll be handy to see fair play.” He added:
+“Don’t let anything scare you. Keep your nerve. He may not keep his. I
+aint at all sure he’s got anywhere near as much as he wants folks to
+think he has. He was asking quite a number, before he left town, night
+before last, about your shooting—and he seemed right anxious. I gather
+all the boys spoke highly of you.”</p>
+<p>“That’s good,” Curly said, wholly unable to look cheerful. “Maybe
+they’ll attend in a body, with flowers.”</p>
+<p>“Son,” said the sheriff, “barring me and one other, the folks around
+town don’t know whether you are quick on the draw or not—and neither
+does Begley. And I think his gun did stick when he killed Newt Shaw, and
+he’ll remember that—he can’t help it. If you could bust his nerve—”</p>
+<p>“What with? Conversation?” Curly asked bitterly.</p>
+<p>The sheriff smiled grimly. “Well, that’s been done,” he said. “And
+between you and me, Mamie Goodale was saying a little while ago—to me,
+confidential—that she believed you could do it. You’re some
+talkative—but conversation aint all you’ve got.”</p>
+<p>“Did Mamie say that?”</p>
+<p>“She said she believed so.”</p>
+<p>Curly grinned, naturally, for the first time in two days. “Thanks,
+Sheriff,” he said. “Maybe I can think up something.”</p>
+<hr class='tb'>
+<p>They met at noon, Curly and Jim Begley, in the little plaza in front of
+the post office, both coatless, both with holstered pistols at their
+thighs, well forward, within easy reach of swinging right arms. And to
+the surprise of all the well-out-of-range spectators and the horror of
+Curly’s friends, he spread his hands and lifted them, and thus in a
+position which forbade Begley’s shooting unless he wanted to face a
+charge of Murder, walked swiftly toward him. Begley stopped and waited,
+tense.</p>
+<p>His hands still raised, Curly began to talk when he was yet thirty feet
+from his enemy. His voice was clear and carrying, and untremulous.</p>
+<p>“Say, I’m tired of packing this gun,” he said. “I aint in the habit of
+doing it, and it’s heavy, and I don’t like it, hot weather like this.
+Maybe there’s a misunderstanding. Maybe when you heard I said things
+about you, you didn’t hear it straight. I want to tell you just what I
+said. Maybe when I’m through, you wont figure it’s necessary for us to
+have any trouble at all.”</p>
+<p>Apologizing! Quitting! Jim Begley’s pose relaxed. His face, somehow,
+registered intense relief.</p>
+<p>“Go ahead. I’ll listen,” he said tolerantly, almost smiling.</p>
+<p>“You can’t draw while my hands are up,” Curly reminded him. “When I get
+through talking, you can go after your pistol if you still want to,”—he
+was four feet away now, and he stopped, his eyes on Begley’s,—“an’ be
+deader’n hell before you get your hand halfway to it! And your face’ll
+look as scared as Newt Shaw’s did when you got him. Remember how he
+looked? Remember how he must have felt? That’s how you’ll look. That’s
+how you’ll feel—if you ever start your hand after your gun. All I said
+about you around this town was that you were a dirty, lyin’,
+double-crossin’, breastplate-wearin’, cowardly low-down whelp. If you
+heard I said anything worse than that, you was misinformed.”</p>
+<hr class='tb'>
+<p>Begley’s mind adjusted itself to the changed situation slowly and
+painfully. He looked into Curly’s eyes. They were hard, unflinching,
+boring. He looked at Curly’s right hand. It was well out and shoulder
+high, but its fingers were bent, ready to clutch as it came down to the
+gun. It had two feet farther to go than Begley’s hand. If Begley started
+first—and if his gun didn’t catch in the holster— The odds were all
+against Curly, but he looked as though he was satisfied with that.
+Worse, he sounded so.</p>
+<p>“Well!” Curly snapped. “What are you waiting for? Let’s go!”</p>
+<p>Slowly, Jim Begley’s hands went out from his sides, shaking, and he
+muttered: “I don’t want no trouble.”</p>
+<p>Trying successfully to keep his own hand from trembling, Curly took
+Begley’s pistol from its holster.</p>
+<p>“I’ll turn this over to the sheriff,” he said. “He’ll give it to you
+when you take the next train out of town. Which way—east or west?”</p>
+<p>“Why—why, the—the Number Four east, I reckon,” Begley stammered. “I—I
+got some business that’s—going to take me permanent to San ’Tonio,
+anyway.”</p>
+<div class="tn">Transcriber’s note: This story appeared in the
+April, 1930 issue of <i>The Blue Book</i> magazine.</div>
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77793 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
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+This book, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for eBook #77793
+(https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77793)