A passive hypochondria, born of their isolation, was the last ludicrously pathetic touch to their situation.
The immediate cause of this commotion felt the necessity of an explanation.
"It would have been just as easy for you to have stayed outside with your business leg, instead of dragging it into private life in that obtrusive way," retorted the Right Bower; "but that exhaustive effort isn't going to fill the pork barrel.

The grocery man at Dalton says--what's that he said ?" he appealed lazily to the Judge.
"Said he reckoned the Lone Star was about played out, and he didn't want any more in his--thank you!" repeated the Judge with a mechanical effort of memory utterly devoid of personal or present interest.
"I always suspected that man, after Grimshaw begun to deal with him," said the Left Bower.

"They're just mean enough to join hands against us." It was a fixed belief of the Lone Star partners that they were pursued by personal enmities.
"More than likely those new strangers over in the Fork have been paying cash and filled him up with conceit," said Union Mills, trying to dry his leg by alternately beating it or rubbing it against the cabin wall.
"Once begin wrong with that kind of snipe and you drag everybody down with you." This vague conclusion was received with dead silence.

Everybody had become interested in the speaker's peculiar method of drying his leg, to the exclusion of the previous topic.

A few offered criticism, no one assistance.
"Who did the grocery man say that to ?" asked the Right Bower, finally returning to the question.
"The Old man," answered the Judge.
"Of course," ejaculated the Right Bower sarcastically.
"Of course," echoed the other partners together.