proned into
Dan--ropes at Peets concernin' this topic:

"'Whatever do they teach in colleges, Doc?' asks Dan.

"'They teaches all of the branches," retorts Peets.

"'An' none of the roots,' adds Colonel Sterett, 'as a cunnin' Yank once
remarks on a o'casion sim'lar.'

"No, the Colonel an' Peets don't go lockin' horns in these differences.
Both is a mighty sight too well brought up for that; moreover, they
don't allow to set the camp no sech examples. They entertains too high
a regyard for each other to take to pawin' about pugnacious, verbal or
otherwise.

"The Colonel's information is as wide flung as a buzzard's wing.
Thar's mighty few mysteries he ain't authorised to eloocidate. An'
from time to time, accordin' as the Colonel's more or less in licker,
he enlightens Wolfville on a multitoode of topics. Which the Colonel
is a profound eddicational innocence; that's whatever!

"It's one evenin' an' the moon is swingin' high in the bloo-black
heavens an' looks like a gold doorknob to the portals of the eternal
beyond. Texas Thompson fixes his eyes tharon, meditative an' pensive,
an' then he wonders:

"'Do you-all reckon, now, that folks is livin' up thar?'

"'Whatever do you think yourse'f, Colonel?' says Enright, passin' the
conundrum over to the editor of the _Coyote_. 'Do you think thar's
folks on the moon?'

"'Do I think thar's folks on the moon?' repeats the Colonel as ca'mly
confident as a club flush. 'I don't think,--I knows.'

"'Whichever is it then?' asks Dan Boggs, whose ha'r already begins to
bristle, he's that inquisitive. 'Simply takin' a ignorant shot in the
dark that away, I says, "No." That moon looks like a mighty lonesome
loominary to me.'

"'Jest the same,' retorts the Colonel, an' he's a lot dogmatic, 'that
planet's fairly speckled with people. An' if some gent will recall the
errant fancies of Black Jack to a sense of dooty, I'll onfold how I
knows.

"'It's when I'm crowdin' twenty,' goes on the Colonel, followin' the
ministrations of Black Jack, 'an' I'm visitin' about the meetropolis of
Looeyville. I've been sellin' a passel of runnin' hosses; an' as I
rounds up a full peck of doubloons for the fourteen I disposes of, I'm
feelin' too contentedly cunnin' to live. It's evenin' an' the moon is
shinin' same as now. I jest pays six bits for my supper at the Galt
House, an' lights a ten cent seegyar--Oh! I has the bridle off all
right!--an' I'm romancin' leesurly along the st