| GUNFIGHTER | This town ain’t big enough fer the both of us! |
|---|---|
| PEDESTRIAN | I’m sure it is. |
| GUNFIGHTER | What?! Who in tarnation does you think you is? ‘Cause one thing’s for sure; This town ain’t big enough fer… |
| PEDESTRIAN | Wait a moment. Clearly, both of us seem to occupy this road quite comfortably. So the town, which definitively exceeds a road within it in size, must necessarily also have room enough for both of us to inhabit it. |
| GUNFIGHTER | Eh?... you think y’er real smart, there, huh boy? |
| PEDESTRIAN | I’m simply clarifying my conviction that this town can easily accommodate we two individuals. I mean, it already has a population of several hundred. |
| GUNFIGHTER | Clarifyin’! Now see here, Mr. This-street’s-sufficient-physical-capacity-demonstrates-a-properly-capacious-town,-as-this-town’s-capacity-must-include-and-indeed-exceed-that-of-said-street, I’ll not tolerate yer nonsense, see?!, ‘cause This town just ain’t big enough fer the both of us, nor fer that bleedin’ long name I just giv’n ye! |
| PEDESTRIAN | Hold on…you understand, yet disagree with, my argument? |
| GUNFIGHTER | Ye bet’cha, whelp! Is you sayin’ I’m stupid or some’pin’? If so, then This town ain’t… |
| PEDESTRIAN | It’s just I can’t see how someone can seriously disagree. I mean, the town’s plenty large for two individuals arbitrarily chosen from a population of several hundred. |
| GUNFIGHTER | Now see here! Yer folly lies in the presumption of the town’s capacity having only the physical aspect. However, in the popular colloq’lism “This town ain’t big enough fer the both of us”, the word “big” is describin’ dominance, rather than just rude phys’cal dimensions. If two indivi’jals git it in they heads that they wanna own this here town, to be them proverb’al “biggest fish”, so to speak, then their interests’ll nec’arly conflict, seein’ how the dominance of each is mu’chally exclusive. |
| PEDESTRIAN | But, uh… |
| GUNFIGHTER | Dominance must be possessed by one or t’other! So This town ain’t big enough fer… |
| PEDESTRIAN | But I aspire to no dominance! So I demand no share of your sphere of power. Thus, we can coexist, with myself in the humbler position! |
| GUNFIGHTER | Wait… you isn’t Basin Bill, the famous outlaw? |