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Title: The Colognizing Of Kansas Author: Rex Beach * A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook * eBook No.: 2000581h.html Language: English Date first posted: June 2020 Most recent update: June 2020 This eBook was produced by: Walter Moore Project Gutenberg of Australia eBooks are created from printed editions which are in the public domain in Australia, unless a copyright notice is included. We do NOT keep any eBooks in compliance with a particular paper edition. Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing this file. This eBook is made available at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg Australia Licence which may be viewed online.GO TO Project Gutenberg Australia HOME PAGE
It seems like there ain’t but one way to beat a faro game,” said
Kink, “and that’s with an ax. I’ve tried them all, and
I never had no success but the oncet.”
“Did you ever break the bank?” I inquired.
“I did; with a stick of dynamite.”
We were putting the final touches to the last clean-up, blowing and weighing
the gold; Kink drying the wet dust and removing the black sand by blowing
it in a scoop, while I attended to the scales. Mrs. Martin had gone to town
for the mail, so we had full chance to adventure whither we chose, and our
fancies led us idly into the past.
“The play come up like this,” he continued. “I crow-hops
into Tularos one day, spurnin’ all things sordid and trivial, for
I have four hundred dollars of the realm, eight months of thirst, and a spiritual
cordiality for emotion and stimulus. I am that drawed and haggard with onwee
that the bartender remarks it.
“‘What’s doin’ in the way of episodes and distractions
of mind in this camp?’ says I.
“‘Nothin’,’ says he, ‘except faro and roulette
and stud poker.’
“‘Them devices is pueryle and meager. I want something vigorous
and man’s-size, something to turn my liver over. I’ve been dead
eight months. Ain’t you got no opery house or lynchin’s or rag-time
or feuds?’
“‘No,’ says he. ‘This here camp is sure a sylvan
refuge for the jaded. There ain’t even been a sheep-herder or a chink
massacreed since old man Stubbs had the treemors, and now that he’s
took the cure, the future looks dark and unengaging. There’s nothin’ but
them mercenary gamblin’ games.’
“I nosed around for an hour, but I never see such a stupefied camp,
and, bein’ that bulged out with hunger for emergencies, I am forced
agin the green cloth to save my mental balance.
“‘What’s the limit to this snare?’ I asks of the
invalid in the operating chair, having found the lay-out.
“‘A dollar,’ says he.
“‘Bein’ twenty-eight years old, with much of my life’s
work still undone, I ain’t got time to dribble along that-a-way,’ says
I. ‘I intend to annex your bank-roll quick, and spend it before the
coin goes out of date or the pictures is wore off of the bills, so if you’ve
got a hundred hid out anywhere, I’ll roll you for it, all in a lump.’
“He gropes into the drawer, listless and feeble, but collects a hundred
up into a pile and deals the cards. I lose, the first turn. He’s settin’ sideways
in his chair and don’t even onfurl his legs.
“‘This fluke only serves to postpone the evil day fer you,’ says
I. ‘Turn them fer another hundred.’ Again I lose.
“‘I had figgered on cleanin’ you up, hittin’ you
a belt with the surcingle, and lettin’ you go before this, but I don’t
begretch the waste of time. You aim to help me get some enthusiasms out of
life, don’t you? I appreciate your cooperation. Now, I got you. Let
her go.’
“I coppers the bullet and lets the filly run open, for a hundred each.
He pushes out the top card, and the next two lays queen, ace. He drags in
the hard-earned savings of my last four months without a symptom of joy in
his eye, then, when I sets back my chair, he yawns and says :
“‘If you happen into anything that will bust this monotony,
lemme know. I’m ’most dead.’
“Naturally, I am some paralyzed at havin’ my anticipations mire
down this-a-way inside of three minutes. Yes, I am left at the post, and
bein’ young, I am prone to anger. I frisks myself for loose change
wherewith to continue the carnage, while my indignities rise up in my nose,
but I am disappointed. I am let out complete, thinks I, till I find a lone
twenty-dollar gold piece in my vest pocket as I goes out the door. I turns
around.
“‘Here! You overlooked this one,’ says I, and I throws
it at him as hard as I can. Then I hikes out to the railroad track and sets
on a hand-car inventin’ synonyms fer the worst words I knowed. Talk
about blues, I am the human wiggle-stick.
‘It’s along about dark when I exhaust all the bad names in three
languages and recall the fact that I ain’t et none sence mornin’ I
goes back to the gamblin’ room and braces Mr. Dealer.
“I’m as holler as a gun-bar’l,’ says I. He hands
out a dollar, looking sour and grouchy, without even the compliments of the
season. The reluctant way he does it offends me, but I swallers my pride
for an appetizer and ambles into a grocery across the way to buy an ontree
of crackers and cheese; also a salad course of baloony sausage. After I’d
substituted my own for the baloony skin, I feel better. Havin’ had
the feast of reason, I crave the flow of soul. I hunger for the poets, so
I eat a pound of French mixed candies with verses on ’em.
“‘Are you the sport that lost the four hundred this afternoon?’ asks
the grocery-creature, full of pryin’ indecencies.
“‘No, sir; I am the isospondylous, malacopterygian sucker who
done so. Why?’
“‘Well, nothin’, only that’s a brace game.’
“‘A brace?’ says I.
“‘Sure, it’s a phony box.’
“‘Um-m!’ says I. ‘I might ‘a’ knowed
it from the way that tin-horn parted with this supper money. No square sport
will begretch a grub-stake to his victims. I begin to fear that my system
ain’t had its fill of excitations as yet, none whatever. I am goin’ to
squander that money over again, and I promise to enjoy it more the next time.’
“‘What do you mean?’
‘“Um-m!’ says I.
“While I am lookin’ about the store, I spies some pea-soup sticks.
Ever see ’em? They are split peas ground up like sawdust and wrapped
in greased paper; about eight inches long by an inch in diameter. They look
jest like ca’tridges of giant-powder, same size, same color and everything.
They’re mighty handy to pack on a trip. All you do is break off a piece
and boil it up. I’ve et cords and oceans of it. I have twenty cents
left, and I buy one soup ca’tridge, also about four inches of fuse.
‘“What time does Number Ten, the east-bound accommodation pull
out?’ I inquires of the man as I leaves.
“‘Ten o’clock,’ says he.
“‘Um-m!’ says I.
“At nine forty-five I stampedes into the gamblin’ joint, which
is filled like a spade flush. My hair is mussed up, my collar open, and my
eyes sort of riled and locoed. I stand around for a few minutes actin’ queer,
twitchin’ my muscles and lickin’ my lips, nervous, till I see
that the whole room has spotted my dishybilly, then I edges over to the galaxy
at the faro table where my dyspeptic crook is takin’ good money away
from some punchers.
‘“Gimme a light,’ says I to one of ’em, and when
I have it, I continues to the dealer:
“‘Do you still hunger fer excitement?’
“‘I smacks my lips over it,’ says he, and his eye is on
me, cold as a rattler, while he slips his hand into the gun drawer.
“‘Well, here it is,’ I yells, yankin’ out the roll
of pea-soup with the fuse hangin’ to it. I touches it off with the
blazin’ match, and it begins to sizzle.
“‘We’ll all go up in a bunch,’ I screams, in the
tones of a busted tug whistle, givin’ a laugh like the ravin’s
of John McCullough, that I heard in a phonygraph once.
“However, the dramatic polish of them merriments goes unheeded, because
the crowd is moved by one uncommon impulse, and the sound of their hoofs
is like the roar of thunder.
“Noise busted out of them cow-men like they’d blowed off a cylinder-head.
They didn’t holler, but horrid discord just pizened the air.
“In a gun fight, a man can hide back of the bar or crawl under the
stove or into the neck of a beer bottle, if he’s scared enough, but
sech protective stratagems is wholly vain agin dynamite.
“It appeared like everybody got a fair, honest start, because they
all run a dead heat to the door, where they met and wedged, then clawed their
way out into the night and far away.
“As for the dealer, a cold draught fanned my artificially fevered
brow from the window through which he had departed. He ran plum out of town,
wearin’ the window-sash for a necktie. Not a soul was left to tell
the tale.
“I scooped off the bank roll and stepped to the back door. There was
considerable currency lyin’ on the crap table, and silver glittered
on the wheel, but I passed them by. It was not fer me. I had busted the bank
and was content. For all I knew, the other games was on the square, and mine
was only a mission of vengeance.
“Five minutes later I climbed into a side-door Pullman on Number Ten,
just as she pulled out from the water-tank.
“Long about daylight, a brakey collected two dollars from me. You
see, it’s a custom out there for to charge the blanket-stiffs a regular
tariff.
“What’s a blanket-stiff? Why, he’s a half hobo that travels
with his beddin’ and is ‘ristocratic in his predilections for
box-cars instead of riding a brake-beam. Likewise, he cavils at the blind
baggage.
“Well, I’m jest gettin’ fixed to count my money, when
we pull into a siding in the foot-hills and stop. I hear a voice outside. “‘Whoa,
Balaam!’
“I see the head of a burro lookin’ in the car door, inquirin’ and
sleepy. Somehow, I allus want to laugh when I look a burro in the face, he’s
that simple and unassumin’ and ‘Have-you-used-Pear’s-soap?’ lookin’,
but I don’t do it, because I know he’s got me sized up, proper,
and has divined all my weaknesses and secret faults and is criticizing me
from my number twelve feet to my number six hat.
“This one is carryin’ a pack, and there’s a man with him.
The feller yanks off the pack-saddle, throws it in the car, then hists Mr.
Balaam in and clambers aboard himself. When I get a square look at him, I
reco’nize my old friend Mojave Mike Butters, the foot-racer. He’s
sure a baleful and horrible sight, all poverty-stricken and destitute, but
I don’t say nothin’, just hitch back into the gloom and snore,
while he puts his blankets in the other end of the car, leads the animal
over, and sets down. I’m holdin’ out on him a-purpose.
“We’re in a big, empty furniture car with both side and end
doors. Excelsior is all over the floor, which proves a godsend to Balaam,
for he thinks he’s struck some kind of blond bunchgrass.
“By and by the brakeman comes projectin’ through and sees Mike
in his corner, with the jack gorging himself all contented and pastural.
“‘How far you goin’?’ says he.
“‘End of the division,’ Mike answers.
“‘Two dollars apiece!’ says he. ‘We charge full
fare for mules.’
“‘Two dollars apiece!’ says Mojave. ‘I don’t
like your classifications, for Balaam ain’t a mule, nor I ain’t
a burro.’
“‘All right, call him a mockin’-bird, only give me four
dollars.’
“‘I ain’t got it.’
‘“What! Well, get out of this car. G’wan, now, before
I throw you out. What you mean anyhow, crawlin’ in here broke?’
“Mr. Brakeman is some wrathy, but Mike don’t move only to reach
out an’ get Balaam by the halter. The brute is still eatin’ succulent
bunches of excelsior, dreamy and amiable, while peace and friendship look
out of his brown eyes, and his tail swishes with content. All is sunshine
for Balaam.
“‘Out you go, you blamed hobo,’ says the railroad man,
makin’ for Mike.
“‘Look out! There ain’t goin’ to be doors enough
in this car for you,’ says Mike; and givin’ Balaam’s halter
a twist, he says, ‘H’ist, Boy!’
“Balaam h’isted. He throwed down his mouse-colored head, and
the whole back end of him come loose. He sure severed his connections and
cut his home ties. His little hoofs hit the brakeman in the stummick so that
the breath come out of him with a ‘Whoof!’ like the squawk of
an automobile horn. The gentleman riz up, laid both hands upon Balaam’s
tracks, and sat down hard in the other corner, then doubled up like he had
only one joint in his back, wrapped his arms around himself three times,
and began to kick like a hen with its head cut off, while he made little
gasping noises like wind leakin’ into an old pump.
“Mike scratched Balaam, and the little feller waggled his ears sagacious,
winkin’ at me, meanwhile chewin’ the juice out of another batch
of shavin’s that growed near by.
“‘You sound like you was ripe enough to pick,’ said Mike
to the railroader. ‘I don’t like ’em when they go “pank.”’
“It seemed like the man couldn’t reach no amicable settlement
with his breath, whatever, and it was ten minutes before he’d arranged
a satisfactory workin’ basis with it. Then he crawled out, hiccoughin’ cuss
words and threats all hashed up like a beef stew. In mebbe half an hour he
come back with his pardner, but Mike was intrenched behind Balaam. The men
had sticks and tried to storm him, but that donkey’s buttress was plumb
impregnable. Compared to him, Port Arthur was as easy of access as a political
meetin’, and Gibraltar had signs of ‘Welcome’ all over
it. I never see no real kickin’ before nor since. The air growed congested
and thick with it, and there was enough hoof in the atmosphere at any minute
to run a glue factory for a year. Mike was actin’ gunner’s mate,
findin’ the ranges and aimin’ him like a pivot gun, while the
little feller hitch-kicked, drop-kicked, place-kicked, punted, and kicked
goal from the field. He kicked the sticks out of their hands, he kicked the
taste out of their mouths, and if Mike had let him go, he’d have kicked
them so high they’d have starved before they lit. He kicked them together
into a pile, kicked them out the end door, and resumed his browsin’.
“‘How’s foot-racin’, Mike?’ says I, crawlin’ forth
from my retreat.
“‘Why, hello!’ says he, shaking hands. ‘I’ve
just been run out of a little town up here without my hat. Me and Balaam
is goin’ East. If you’re broke, too, I’ll let you ride
on my ticket — he’s good fer a carload.’
“‘We are quitting the West ourselves,’ says I,
tappin’ my wish-bone with dignity, for I feels the bank roll agin my
ribs and am filled with figgers of speech.
“‘We,”’ repeats Mike, inquisitive and suspicious. ‘You
say “we” like you had money. I seen it in a book oncet that only
three people is licensed to say “we,” — kings, editors,
and men with tapeworms. I add to it a man with great wealth. Which one of
the four are you? Do you mean to say you’ve got money on your disreppitable
person and stood by while me and Balaam worked our passage?’
“For repartee, I showed a roll the size of a clothes-bag and told
my story. We counted the money, and it totaled five hundred and twenty dollars,
to a cent: my original stake and the gambler’s hundred dollars which
I would have won from him if I hadn’t been cheated.
“‘This here is our opportunity to forsake the old life and acquire
honesties. We’ll go into business,’ says Mojave, declarin’ himself
in on the deal immediate. ‘I was cut out for them pursuits natural.
I got the ability.’
‘“Does it take that much of a stack to set in on this commercial
venture,’ I inquires. ‘I ben aimin’ to assuage this famine
fer fun that I’m bloated with.’
‘“It ain’t noways essential,’ Mike admits, ‘and
I’m considerable leery of over-capitalization, myself. S’pose
we lay by two hundred dollars fer business an’ spend the rest in wassail,
thus avoidin’ watered stock and sech perils. I’ve got a scheme
where that’s all we need.’
‘“As long as it’s honest, it gets my play,’ says
I; ‘but understand, I ain’t goin’ to corner none of the
great necessities of life with this money, nor squeeze the widders and orphans.’
‘“No, it’s simply the introduction of western modes and
civilization into the jungles of the decayin’ East. We’ll open
up in Kansas.’
“Thereupon he gave me the blue print of a plan that assayed eighteen
dollars to the ounce, bein’ a total rest from cow-punchin’.
“Well, it’s some three weeks later that the Butters-Martin Mastodon
Minstrels busts into Kansas and lays waste with delight every hamlet it plays.
It costs nary a cent to see it, which same appeals to farmers of all ranks.
Mike is lit up like a Dewey arch, a thousand candles strong, with a long,
fur-trimmed overcoat, pointed yaller shoes, tan gaiters, and a pearl-gray
felt hat. For a theatrical makeup, he has Henry Irving run under the bed.
“I am Papriky Carramba, the Arizona bandit. You see, I am some black,
anyhow, so I encase myself in a greaser habit of speech, a bewhiskered buckskin
suit, and am a dangerous desperado.
“Here’s the program. We open with a quartette by the niggers.
Oh, yes! I near forgot the niggers. We have four Senegambians from Topeka
that sing from all points of the compass to a common center. One of ’em
plays ‘Turkey in the Straw’ on the banjo, while the others dance.
They cost us fourteen a week.
“Well, after the music, the Mexikin desperado gives exhibitions of
throwing the bowie and pistol practice, after which we have more music, and
Mike does ‘marvelous, mystifyin’ feats of sleight of hand, too
bafflin’ for the mind, and too rapid for the eye.’ Then we have
some buck an’ wingin’ by the African team, after which Mike addresses
the pacified and radiant hay-diggers as follows:
‘“No doubt, ladies and gents, you have been delighted by our
educational entertainment, but to give fleetin’ pleasure ain’t
our only mission. We have a higher motive. It is a blessed privilege to make
the arduous path more pleasant, and we are here to conduce to them scenic
effects by abating the nuisances of life. One man may like music, and his
neighbor prefer the screech of a sled-runner on bare ground. This one may
have a sweet tooth, while his friend’s is holler, and the nerve exposed;
but, dear friends, all the world loves a sweet smell.
“‘We admire the jessamine and would fain preserve the fragrance
of the rose. Let us have done with the sordid scents of the stable and imported
cheese and tickle our tonsils with the breath of forest flowers. That, ladies
and gents, is our sacred errant amongst you. We are the distributin’ agents
of the Kansas Cologne Company, Unlimited. Remember, we have nothin’ to
sell, we only advertise the perfumery so that you can buy direct from your
local druggists. We simply charge a nominal price to cover the cost of the
bottles and the hand-painted labels, givin’ you the contents as free
as this program, which ain’t yet over.
‘“To conclude this evening’s entertainment, I propose
to spar three rounds with Señor Carramba, demonstratin’ in a
refined and gentlemanly manner the blows with which I won the title of Middleweight
Champeen of the World. This is not a brutal exhibition, but a clean and scientific
lesson in that greatest domestic accomplishment, the “man and womanly
art of self-defense.” It is endorsed by the leadin’ society ladies
of the great cities and has received the highest encomiums from prominent
divines. While we are changing to costumes, the four Moorish gentlemen will
pass amongst you with free samples of the cologne. After you have smelled
it, they will offer for sale the few remainin’ bottles. Remember, four
ounces for the ridic’lous sum of fifty cents, hardly enough to cover
the cost of the hand-painted labels. Only those parties retaining bottles
will be allowed to remain during the pugilistic symposium.’
“Well, sir, you never saw the likes. You’d ‘a’ thought
their sense of smell had laid out in the wet and got rusty. They couldn’t
get enough of it; four ounces for four bits — ridic’lous cheap,
too, when you consider that it stood us eight dollars an ounce in Topeka.
That is, the real stuff that the coons carried around did, but of course
the four-ounce bottles wasn’t quite so precious, bein’ as we
filled them with filtered water and soaked the corks in real cologne durin’ the
afternoons when we wasn’t busy. Yes, sir. They sure did like the smell
of them corked-up water bottles, and we was doin’ well.
“‘Quick sales and small profits, is our motto,’ says Mike. ‘We
make forty-nine cents a bottle, which is small enough, and we sail out of
a place as quick as possible. All it takes to run the biz is a barrel of
spring water and a little eight-dollar cologne to smell up the corks with.
It’s a secret process.’
“We used to drink Kansas cologne with our meals, it was that harmless,
and I guess we disposed of several thousand of the ‘few remainin’ bottles.’ Nobody
ever left the show before the fight, and they took home cologne to gladden
the dull hours after our departure.
“Every night Mike issued a challenge to meet and box all comers, but
of course nobody never took him up, except oncet.
“We had drifted through Kansas like a hint of sweet spring, disseminatin’ music,
magic, and pseudonymous filtered drinkin’ water till we had colognized
the whole state like Bill Penn back East, when one day we landed in a little
place called Fowler.
“It seemed like I noticed a good many familiar faces in the audience
that night, and I remarked about it to Mike.
“‘It looks like some of our former customers has drove over
from the last village. I wonder do they like the show, or have they become
so addicted to the cologne that they want more?’
“Our entertainment went off bully that night, every line a scream,
and the house as warm as an August camp-meetin’. Moreover, everybody
clinched with them four-ounce bottles, egregious, so they could stay and
see the fight.
“Me and Mike does our customary stunts, then he steps to the front
of the stage and issues his challenge to spar any man present for any sum.
Well, sir, I was near strangled at the sight of a farmer about six feet long,
who uplifts himself from the boosom of the populace. From the noise of the
merry villagers, I sort of detected a sub-rosy feelin’, as though he
was some local celebrity. The outline map of this David was ridic’lous,
however. He had a kind of long, lead-pipe symmetry to him, except at his
joints, where he bulged and looked like the main had been mended; just an
animated job of plumbing. ‘Mebbe he’s like consommé, thinks
I, ‘thin but good.’
“He was thickened up and turned over at both ends with the turriblest
lookin’ hands and feet soldered on that I ever see, and he displayed
his bashfulness by crackin’ his knuckles. He’d aggregate them
digits up into a parcel and wring them out with the rattle of musketry or
the sound of a man splittin’ kindling. Then, to cover his coyness,
he’d pull each one separate and make it pop. It reminded me of breakin’ an
armful of chair legs.
“He was open and simple to gaze at, though, and appeared to be incapable
of deceit, for you could look plumb into and through him by his nasal passages.
He was a double-bar’led lookin’ youth from the front, and meetin’ him
in the gloom I’d have felt like he had me covered with a breech-loader,
for his nose rar’d back and stared you right in the eye. Yes, that
was a strange probossy of his’n, and you felt that by flashin’ a
dark lantern down its dim and distant vistas you could see plumb back to
his secret soul. He seemed devoid of guile, absolute, and I thinks to myself:
‘“Plainly, this poor, bucolic party is too slow in wit and movement
to hit Mike with a handful of shot. It’s really a pity to wallop him’;
but I senses a sort of thrill through the audience and can hear ’em
shiftin’ their feet. We had to split the gloves to get them over the
protuberances this youth called hands.
“The Fowler Opery House ain’t built fer no Parsifal productions,
and what with the organ, the sleight of hand fixtures, and cologne boxes,
we are pinched for room on the stage; however, I place two chairs in opposite
corners and call the men out to the center to shake hands.
“Mike is in red tights, while the stranger has took off his shoes
and is in sock-feet, with his sleeves rolled up like he is out to beat a
carpet.
“‘Gentamen,’ says I, in my Mexikin simulations, ‘you
fighta t’ree min’ an’ resta one. Shaka han’. Time!’
“Say, this world is a place of sad surprises. There’s only one
thing so deceitful as appearances, and that’s other appearances.
“Mike comes forth, chin down, shoulder up, left foot straight, all
in perfect position and aggressive as a grizzly, while the home product hangs
his arms loose and sways back and forrad, lookin’ at Mike’s feet
like it is milkin’ time and he is afraid of bein’ kicked. Then,
of a sudden, he makes a motion with one glove like he is flaggin’ a
train. Mike parries and turns loose an upper cut for the farmer’s kitchen
that would have broke every dish in his pantry, but somehow the man happens
to be out when it arrives, and can’t receive it in person. He shifts
his feet at the right instant, and is an inch out of range. Mike drives up
with another assortment of wallops, but the Rube isn’t there to sign
for ’em. The lamplight grew muddy with Mike’s blows, when all
at once Mr. By-Heck reached down, picked up his right hand, piled his knuckles
up in a heap on it, and threw it at Mojave.
“It hit him abreast of the lower maxillaries and sounded like a butcher
beatin’ steak with a cleaver. When Mike struck the floor, he bounced,
and you’d ‘a’ thought it was a Seminole corn-dance from
the howl that rose from that audience. I didn’t count him out. He wouldn’t
have understood, and them obsequies would have been an extravagance.
“I steps to the front of the stage, liftin’ my voice. I am a
good loser, and a smile is always on my face, in adversity.
“‘Lady and genta,’ says I, ‘Señor Hiram Oates
winna de fight. Gongratulash—’ then I stops, for Hiram taps me
on the shoulder.
“‘You’re next, Papriky.’
“‘Me, what!’ says I.
‘“You’re next!’
‘“No sabe,’ says I, shruggin’my shoulders.
‘“Yes, ye dew. Get into them mittens, for I‘m goin’ to
clean up the whole caboodle of you, white, yeller, and black.’
“I appeals to the Roman populace with all the chili con carne accents
in my vocabulary, but their thumbs is down. A gray-bearded goat in the rear
of the hall hops up and cries:
‘“Hi-ram, kill the dago. The perfume ain’t no good.’
‘“Dago,’ says I, gettin’ sore, ‘I ain’t
a dago. I’m as white as you, you old dill pickle.’
‘“Do him up, Hi,’ says a motherly lady in the front row,
shakin’ her bonnet, ‘he ain’t no more of a Frenchman than
I be.’
“Well, sir I’m gettin’ pretty mad by this time. And yet
I don’t hanker none for Hiram and the pillows. No, I ain’t cast
in the heroic mold of a Roman Gladiolus, and the sands of the areeny
sets my teeth on edge, but I’m fairly forced into them boxin’ gloves,
and we go at it like we was killin’ snakes, Thinks I, ‘I’ve
got to rush this Kansas thistle off his feet. Mike was too gentle with
him!’ So I chop up the air around him and remove it to get more room.
I swing and jab and counter and cross, but I am unlucky in hittin’ the
places he had just left. That boy is too shifty to hit with a shotgun, which
is surely a pity, and somehow I don’t connect up with him none whatever.
Likewise, he don’t hit me, just keeps a glove in my eyes, or brushes
my hair with it, till I have suspicions that he is playin’ with me,
and that I’m bein’ put through my paces like a horse. I’m
gettin’ tired and wobbly in the legs, and in one of my rushes I run
into the organ leavin’ a kneecap and create certain discords on it
which don’t sound like the Maiden’s Prayer. Sweat is runnin’ into
my eyes, my lungs feel like they had oil tight shoes, while, like the rose
that was born to blush unseen, I have wasted all my efforts upon the desert
air.
“We have fought mebbe five minutes with never a single blow landed,
when I grow desperate and make a last appeal to the audience.
“‘Ladies and gents—’ I pants — ‘for
Heaven’s sake, stop this brutality,’ but the old man yells:
“‘Nothin’ but rain water, Hiram’; and then Hiram
commenced to go over me like a cooper hoopin’ a bar’l. He sounded
me all around to see if I had any holler spots, then he played a xylophone
solo on my short ribs, boxed the compass with short arm jabs, and hit me
from four directions at oncet so that I fell toward him. He stepped back,
shot one into my sink, then crossed to my butler’s pantry, and at last
I saw the pretty, pretty fireworks.
“Late that night me and Mike caught the local at the water-tank, and
when we was involved amongst the straw, he says, feelin’ the bumps
on his head tender and gingery:
“‘Them minstrels had just one weak point, Kink.’
“‘What was it?’ I groans.
“‘We’d ought to have kept Balaam.”
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