nouncin' him for a loonatic or worse, I
reeflects that mighty likely if we-all was to go examine the hole he's
in, we'd find it plumb full of b'ar.

"Returnin' to the orig'nal proposition, the same bein' that Polack,
let me begin by sayin' that whenever it comes to any utterances of
his'n, I'm nacherally onable to quote him exact. What with him rollin'
his 'Rs' ontil they sounds like one of them snare drums, an' the
jiggerty-jerkety fashion wharin he chops up his English, a gent might
as soon try to quote a planin' mill exact.

"That I'm able to give you-all his troo name is doo wholly to him
passin' round his kyard a heap profoose, when he first comes ramblin'
in, said cognomen as printed bein' 'Orloff Ivan Mitzkowanski, Artist
and Painter of Portraits.' We perooses this yere fulm'nation two or
three times, an' Peets even reads it out loud; but since the tongue of
no ordinary gent is capable of ropin' an' throwin' it, to say nothin'
of tyin' it down, we cuts the gordian knot in the usual way by
re-christenin' him _pro bono publico_ as Red Mike, which places him
within the verbal reach of all.

"'Yes,' he says, as he ladles out them kyards, an' all with the
manner of a prince conferrin' favors--'yes, I'm a artist come to you,
seekin' subjects an' color. As you probably observes by my name, I'm a
gallant Pole, one whose noble ancestors shrieks when Kosciusko fell.'

"Him bein' a stranger that a-way, an' no one, onless it's Peets, ever
havin' heard about Poland, or Kosciusko, or whoever does that
shriekin' the time when Kosciusko finds himse'f bumped off, we lets
Mike get by with this yere bluff. Besides, his name of itse'f sort o'
holds us. That anyone, an' specially any furriner, could come as far
as he has, flauntin' a name like that in the sensitive face of
mankind, an' yet live to tell the tale, is shore plenty preepar'tory
to believin' anything.

"When we lets it go that owin' to local conditions we'll be obleeged
to call him 'Red Mike,' he's agree'ble.

"'As you will, my friends,' he cries, bulgin' out his breast an'
thumpin' it. 'What care I, who am destined for immortality, that
barbarians should hail me as Red Mike? It is enough that I am not
destroyed, enough that I still move an' have my bein'!'

"'Mike,' interjecks Tutt, bristlin' a little, 'don't cut loose in no
offensive flights. It's a heap onadvisable when addressin' us to
overwork that word "barbarian." As you says yourself, you're lucky to
be a