hairs turned bottom up, at
me in my hard-work costume, and at his own rig.

"Really, you know, really--I--I don't quite understand," he says.
"Where--what--"

"Oh, you're ahead," says I. "I wouldn't swear to the score; but it's
your odds."

This didn't seem to satisfy him, though. He kept on lookin' around, as
though he'd lost something. I guessed he was hunting for that blasted
cane.

"See here," says I. "You get the decision, and there ain't goin' to be
any encore. I've retired. I've had enough of that game to last me until
I'm as old as you are, which won't be for two or three seasons on. If
you're dead anxious for more, you wait until Mr. Gordon comes back and
challenge him. He's a sport."

But Sir Peter seemed to be clear off the alley. "My good man," says he,
"I--I don't follow you at all. Will you please tell me where I am?"

Now say, how was I to know where he thought he was? What was the name of
that place--Briskett Arms? I didn't want to chance it.

"This is the same old stand," says I, "right where you started an hour
ago."

"But," says he--"but Lord Winchester?"

"He's due on the next trolley," says I. "Had to stop off at the
gun-factory, you know."

Ever try to tear off a lot of extemporaneous lies, twenty to the minute?
It's no pipe. Worse than being on the stand at an insurance third
degree. I couldn't even refuse to answer on advice of counsel, and in no
time at all he had me twisted up into a bow-knot.

"Young man," says he, "I think you're prevaricating."

"I'm doin' me best," says I; "but let's cut that out. P'raps you'd feel
better if you wore the bucket awhile."

"Bucket?" says he. And I'll be put on the buzzer if he didn't throw the
bluff that he'd never had the thing on his head.

"Oh, well," says I, "you've got a right to lie some if you want to. It's
your turn, anyway. But let me swab you off a little."

He didn't kick on that, and I was gettin' busy with warm water and
towels when the door opens, and in drifts Mr. Gordon with three well-fed
gents behind him.

"Great cats!" says he, throwin' up both hands. "Shorty, what in blazes
has happened?"

"Nothin' much," says I. "We've been playin' a little shinny."

"Shinny?" says he, just as though it was something I'd invented.

"Sure," says I. "And Sir Peter won out. As a shinny player he's a bird."

Then the three other ducks swarms in, and the way they powwows around
there for a few minutes was enough to make a curtain scen