each and every
one of whom will be expected to bring her a bag of peanuts.

"'That listens all right,' says this lad, 'providing she likes peanuts.'

"'Providing she likes 'em?' I says. 'Son,' I says, 'if that bull ever
has to take the cure for the drug-habit, it'll be on account of peanuts.
If you don't think she likes peanuts, a dime will win you a trip to the
Holy Lands,' I says. 'Why,' I says, 'Emily's middle name is _Peanuts_.
Offhand,' I says, 'I don't know precisely how many peanuts there are,' I
says, 'because if I ever heard the exact figures, I've forgot 'em, but
I'd like to lay you a little eight to five that Emily can chamber all
the peanuts in the world and then set down right where she happens to
be, to wait for next year's crop to come onto the market. That's how
much she cares for peanuts,' I says.

"Well, that convinces him, and he hurries off to write his little piece
about Emily's peanut reception. The next day, which is Friday, the
announcement is in both the papers. Saturday after lunch when I strolls
round to the show-shop for the matinee, one glance around the corner
from the stage entrance proves to me that our little social function is
certainly starting out to be a success. The street in front is lined on
both sides with dagos with peanut-stands, selling peanuts to the
population as fast as they can pass 'em out; and there's a long line,
mainly kids, at the box-office. I goes on in and takes a flash at the
front of the house through the peephole in the curtain, and the place is
already jam full. If there's one kid out there, there's a thousand, and
every tiny tot has got a sack of peanuts clutched in his or her chubby
fist, as the case may be. And say, listen: there's a smell in the air
like a prairie fire running through a Georgia goober-king's plantation.

"I goes back to where Emily is hitched, and she's weaving to and fro on
her legs and watering at the mouth until she just naturally can't
control her own riparian rights. She's done smelt that smell too.

"'Honey gal,' I says to her, 'it shore looks to me like you're due to
get your fullupances of the succulential ground-pea of the Sunny
Southland this day.'

"She's so grateful she tries to kiss me, but I ducks. All through her
turn she dribbles from the chin like a defective fire-hydrant, and I
can tell that she ain't got her mind on her business. She's too busy
thinking about peanuts. When she's got through and taken her bows, the
m