t on, Mr.
Man,' says he. 'I'll bet a hoss you never acquired the right, title,
and interest in and to them clothes in Atascosa City.'

"'Why, no,' says I, being ready enough to exchange personalities with
this moneyed monument of melancholy. 'I had this suit tailored from a
special line of coatericks, vestures, and pantings in St. Louis. Would
you mind putting me sane,' says I, 'on this watch-throwing contest?
I've been used to seeing time-pieces treated with more politeness and
esteem--except women's watches, of course, which by nature they abuse
by cracking walnuts with 'em and having 'em taken showing in tintype
pictures.'

"'Me and George,' he explains, 'are up from the ranch, having a spell
of fun. Up to last month we owned four sections of watered grazing
down on the San Miguel. But along comes one of these oil prospectors
and begins to bore. He strikes a gusher that flows out twenty thousand
--or maybe it was twenty million--barrels of oil a day. And me and
George gets one hundred and fifty thousand dollars--seventy-five
thousand dollars apiece--for the land. So now and then we saddles up
and hits the breeze for Atascosa City for a few days of excitement and
damage. Here's a little bunch of the _dinero_ that I drawed out of the
bank this morning,' says he, and shows a roll of twenties and fifties
as big around as a sleeping-car pillow. The yellowbacks glowed like a
sunset on the gable end of John D.'s barn. My knees got weak, and I
sat down on the edge of the board sidewalk.

"'You must have knocked around a right smart,' goes on this oil
Grease-us [24]. 'I shouldn't be surprised if you have saw towns more
livelier than what Atascosa City is. Sometimes it seems to me that
there ought to be some more ways of having a good time than there is
here, 'specially when you've got plenty of money and don't mind
spending it.'

[FOOTNOTE 24: Grease-us--a play on the name of Croesus]

"Then this Mother Cary's chick [25] of the desert sits down by me and we
hold a conversationfest. It seems that he was money-poor. He'd lived in
ranch camps all his life; and he confessed to me that his supreme idea
of luxury was to ride into camp, tired out from a round-up, eat a peck
of Mexican beans, hobble his brains with a pint of raw whisky, and go to
sleep with his boots for a pillow. When this barge-load of unexpected
money came to him and his pink but perky partner, George, and they hied
themselves to this clump of outhouses