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Fiddles, by F. Hopkinson Smith
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Title: Fiddles 1909
Author: F. Hopkinson Smith
Release Date: December 3, 2007 [EBook #23698]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FIDDLES ***
Produced by David Widger
FIDDLES
By F. Hopkinson Smith
1909
This is Marny's story, not mine. He had a hammer in his hand at the time and a tack between his teeth.
"Going to hang Fiddles right under the old fellow's head," he burst out. "That's where he belongs. I'd have given a ten-acre if he could have drawn a bead on that elk himself. Fiddles behind a .44 Winchester and that old buck browsing to windward"--and he nodded at the elk's head--"would have made the village Mayor sit up and think. What a picturesque liar you are, Fiddles"--here the point of the tack was pressed into the plaster with Marny's fat thumb--"and what a good-for-nothing, breezy, lovable vagabond"--(Bang! Bang! Hammer at play now)--"you could be when you tried. There!"
Marny stepped back and took in the stuffed head and wide-branched antlers of the magnificent elk (five feet six from skull to tips) and the small, partly faded miniature of a young man in a student cap and high-collared coat.
I waited and let him run on. It is never wise to interrupt Marny. He will lose the thread of his talk if you do, an