“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 added with badly concealed anxiety.

“I reckon:  there’s the decree,” returned Abner, with his usual resigned acceptance of the fact.

“Mrs. Byers wuz allowin’ ye wuz thinkin’ of a second.  How’s that comin’ on?”

“Jest whar it was,” returned Abner.  “I ain’t doin’ anything yet.  Ye see I’ve got to tell the gal, naterally, that I’m di-vorced.  And as that isn’t known hereabouts, I don’t keer to do so till I’m pretty certain.  And then, in course, I’ve got to.”

“Why hev ye ’got to’?” asked Byers abruptly.

“Because it wouldn’t be on the square with the girl,” said Abner.  “How would you like it if Mrs. Byers had never told you she’d been married to me?  And s’pose you’d happen to hev bin a di-vorced man and hadn’t told her, eh?  Well,” he continued, sinking back resignedly against the tree, “I ain’t sayin’ anythin’ but she’d hev got another di-vorce, and from you on the spot—­you bet!”

“Well! all I kin say is,” said Mr. Byers, lifting his voice excitedly, “that”—­but he stopped short, and was about to fill his glass again from the decanter when the hand of Abner stopped him.