e grin.

"Und pretty, too--vat? The boys are all crazy, but she von't have a
thing to do with them. She von't come outdoors when the cowboys ride by
and stop to buy grub at the store. No, she's too good to talk to old
mens like me, and with cowboys what get forty a month; but she spends
all her time playing tunes on the piano and singing scales avay up in G.
You vait, pretty soon you hear her begin--dat scale-singing drives me
madt!"

"Oh, sings scales, eh?" said Denver suddenly beginning to take an
interest, "must be studying to become a singer."

"Dat's it," nodded the old man shaking his finger solemnly, "her mother
vas a singer before her. But after they have spent all their money to
educate her the teacher says she lacks the temperament. She can never
sing, he says, because she is too _dumf_; too--what you call
it--un-feeling. She lacks the fire of the vonderful Gadski--she has not
the g-great heart of Schumann-Heink. She is an American, you see, and
dat is the end of it, so all their money is spent."

"Oh, I don't know," defended Denver warmly, "what's the matter with
Nordica, and Mary Garden and Farrar? They're Americans, all right, and
I've got some of their records that simply can't be beat! You wait till
I get out my instrument."

He broke open a box in which was packed with many wrappings a polished
and expensive phonograph, but as he was clearing a space on a rickety
old table the Professor broke into a cackle.

"Dere! Dere!" he cried, "don't you hear her now? 'Ah, ah, ah, oo, oo,
oo, oo!' Vell, dat's what we get from morning till night--by golly, it
makes me sick!"

"Aw, that's all right," said Denver after listening critically, "she's
just getting ready to sing."

"Getting ready!" sneered the Professor, "don't you fool yourself
dere--she'll keep dat going for hours. And in the morning she puts on
just one thin white dress and dances barefoot in the garden. I come by
dere one time and looked over the vall--and, psst, listen, she don't
vare no corsets! She ought to be ashamed."

"Well, what about you, you danged old stiff?" inquired Denver with
ill-concealed scorn. "If Old Bunk had seen you he'd have killed you."

"Ah--him?" scoffed the Professor, "no, he von't hurt nobody. Lemme tell
you something--now dis is a fact. When he married his vife--and she's an
awful fine lady--all she asked vas dat he'd stop his tammed fighting.
You see? I know everyt'ing--every little t'ing--I been around dis place