This is Marny's story, not mine. He had a hammer in his hand at the timeand 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 havedrawn a bead on that elk himself. Fiddles behind a .44 Winchesterand that old buck browsing to windward"--and he nodded at the elk'shead--"would have made the village Mayor sit up and think. What apicturesque liar you are, Fiddles"--here the point of the tackwas pressed into the plaster with Marny's fat thumb--"and what agood-for-nothing, breezy, lovable vagabond"--(Bang! Bang! Hammer at playnow)--"you could be when you tried. There!" Marny stepped back and took in the stuffed head and wide-branchedantlers of the magnificent elk (five feet six from skull to tips) andthe small, partly faded miniature of a young man in a student cap andhigh-collared coat. I waited and let him run on. It is never wise to interrupt Marny. Hewill lose the thread of his talk if you do, and though he starts offimmediately on another lead, and one, perhaps equally graphic, hehas left you suspended in mid-air so far as the tale you were gettinginterested in is concerned. Who Fiddles was and why his Honor the Mayorshould sit up and think; why, too, the miniature of the young man--andhe _was_ young and remarkably good-looking, as I well knew, having seenthe picture many times before on his mantel--should now be suspendedbelow the elk's head, would come out in time if I loosened my ear-flapsand buttoned up my tongue, but not if I reversed the operation......