But Mr.Babbitt, although a trifle paler than when he entered the shop, was not more yielding.
"I'm particular who I set down along of," he declared.

"I'd as soon set down with a--a rattlesnake as I would with some humans." Captain Sam was not pale, far from it.
"Skunks are always afraid of snakes, they tell me," he observed, tartly.

"A rattlesnake's honest, anyhow, and he ain't afraid to bite.

He ain't all bad smell and nothin' else." Babbitt's bristling chin beard quivered with inarticulate hatred.
Winslow sighed resignedly.
"Well," he asked, "you don't mind the other--er--critter in the menagerie sittin', do you?
Now--now--now, just a minute," he pleaded, as his two companions showed symptoms of speaking simultaneously.

"Just a minute; let me say a word.