aying; and now, thinks I,
Solly will become conscious of the spiritual oats of life nourishing
and exhilarating his system. But _nong, mong frang_.

"He gazed across the table at me. There was four square yards of
it, looking like the path of a cyclone that has wandered through a
stock-yard, a poultry-farm, a vegetable-garden, and an Irish linen
mill. Solly gets up and comes around to me.

"'Luke,' says he, 'I'm pretty hungry after our ride. I thought you
said they had some beans here. I'm going out and get something I can
eat. You can stay and monkey with this artificial layout of grub if
you want to.'

"'Wait a minute,' says I.

"I called the waiter, and slapped 'S. Mills' on the back of the check
for thirteen dollars and fifty cents.

"'What do you mean,' says I, 'by serving gentlemen with a lot of truck
only suitable for deck-hands on a Mississippi steamboat? We're going
out to get something decent to eat.'

"I walked up the street with the unhappy plainsman. He saw a
saddle-shop open, and some of the sadness faded from his eyes. We went
in, and he ordered and paid for two more saddles--one with a solid
silver horn and nails and ornaments and a six-inch border of rhinestones
and imitation rubies around the flaps. The other one had to have a
gold-mounted horn, quadruple-plated stirrups, and the leather inlaid
with silver beadwork wherever it would stand it. Eleven hundred dollars
the two cost him.

"Then he goes out and heads toward the river, following his nose. In a
little side street, where there was no street and no sidewalks and no
houses, he finds what he is looking for. We go into a shanty and sit
on high stools among stevedores and boatmen, and eat beans with tin
spoons. Yes, sir, beans--beans boiled with salt pork.

"'I kind of thought we'd strike some over this way,' says Solly.

"'Delightful,' says I, 'That stylish hotel grub may appeal to some;
but for me, give me the husky _table d'goat_.'

"When we had succumbed to the beans I leads him out of the
tarpaulin-steam under a lamp post and pulls out a daily paper with
the amusement column folded out.

"'But now, what ho for a merry round of pleasure,' says I. 'Here's
one of Hall Caine's shows [30], and a stock-yard company in "Hamlet,"
and skating at the Hollowhorn Rink, and Sarah Bernhardt, and the Shapely
Syrens Burlesque Company. I should think, now, that the Shapely--'

[FOOTNOTE 30: Sir Thomas Henry Hall Caine (1853-1931) was a