Roughing It
After supper a woman got in, who lived about fifty miles further on, and
we three had to take turns at sitting outside with the driver and
conductor. Apparently she was not a talkative woman. She would sit
there in the gathering twilight and fasten her steadfast eyes on a
mosquito rooting into her arm, and slowly she would raise her other hand
till she had got his range, and then she would launch a slap at him that
would have jolted a cow; and after that she would sit and contemplate the
corpse with tranquil satisfaction–for she never missed her mosquito; she
was a dead shot at short range. She never removed a carcase, but left
them there for bait. I sat by this grim Sphynx and watched her kill
thirty or forty mosquitoes–watched her, and waited for her to say
something, but she never did. So I finally opened the conversation
myself. I said:
“The mosquitoes are pretty bad, about here, madam.”
“You bet!”
“What did I understand you to say, madam?”
“You BET!”
Then she cheered up, and faced around and said: