“What you done to Myra?” he says, spraying spit for about twenty feet. “What you gone an’ done to her, Nick?”

I didn’t say anything, being busy dodging the spit. He went stumbling over to Myra, and she took him into her arms, glaring at me.

“You beast! Now look what you’ve done!”

I said, what the heck, I hadn’t done nothing. Far as I could see, Lennie was pretty near always bawling and slobbering. “About the only time he ain’t,” I said, “is when he’s sneaking around town, peeking into some woman’s window.”

“You—you bully!” she said. “Faulting poor Lennie for something he can’t help! You know he’s as innocent as a lamb!”

I said, “Yeah, well, maybe.” Because there wasn’t much else to say, and it was getting close to train time. I started toward the hall door, and she didn’t like that, me walking out without so much as a beg-pardon, so she blazed away at me again.

“You better watch your step, Mr. Nick Corey! You know what will happen if you don’t!”

I stopped and turned around. “What will happen?” I said.

“I’ll tell the people in this county the truth about you! We’ll see how long you’ll be sheriff then! After I tell them you raped me!”

“I’ll tell you right now what will happen,” I said. “I’d be run out of my job before I could say scat.”

“You certainly would! You’d better remember it, too!”

“I’ll remember,” I said, “an’ here’s something for you to remember. If I ain’t sheriff, then I got nothing to lose, have I? It don’t make a good gosh.damn about anything. And if I ain’t sheriff, you ain’t the sheriff’s wife. So where the heck will that leave you—you and your half -witted brother?”

Her eyes popped and she sucked in her breath with a gasp. It was the first time I’d spoken up to her for a long time, and it kind of took the starch out of her.

I gave her a meaningful nod, and went out the door. When I was about halfway down the stairs, she called to me.

She’d moved real fast, throwing on a robe and working up a smile. “Nick,” she said, kind of cocking her head to one side, “why don’t you come back for a few minutes, hmmm?”

“I guess not,” I said. “I’m kind of out of the mood.”

“We-el. Maybe, I could get you back in the mood. Hmmmm?”

I said I guessed not. Anyways, I had to catch a train, and I’d have to grab a bite to eat first.

“Nick,” she said, sort of nervous-like. “You—you wouldn’t do anything foolish, would you?Just because you’re angry with me.”

“No, I wouldn’t,” I told her. “No more’n you would, Myra.”

“Well. Have a nice day, dear.”

“The same to you ma’am,” I said. And then I went on downstairs, into the courthouse proper, and out the front door.

I almost took a header as I came out into the dusky haze of early morning. Because the danged place was being painted, and the painters had left their ladders and cans scattered all over everywhere. Out on the sidewalk, I looked back to see what kind of progress they’d been making. The way it looked to me, they hadn’t made hardly any at all in the last two, three days—they were still working on the upper front floor—but that wasn’t none of my butt-in.