e of this community?"

I put my hand to my ear as though I had heard a noise close to the
ground. After a bit I let my gaze rest on him sort o' surprised like,
an' then I sez in a soft, oozy voice, like a cow conversin' to her
first calf, "Be you speakin' to me, little one?" sez I.

It allus riles me some, to be called "me good man." It seems to give me
a curious, itchy feelin' in the right hand, an' I have had to make
several extra peculiar speciments dance a few steps for no other
reason; but this little cuss never batted an eye. He looks me square in
the face, an' sez, "It is perfectly obvious that I could be addressin'
nobody else. I am out in the West hunting for a place to study the most
pronounced types of American citizens, an' I am very favorable
impressed with your appearance."

Did you ever have a stranger brace you like that? I suppose the fat
lady an' the livin' skeleton gets used to it, but I allus feel a trifle
too big for my background. I stand six foot two an' dress easy an'
comfortable, an' some o' the guys on the trains allus seem to think 'at
I'm part of the show, out for an airin'.

"Well, to tell you the truth, honey," I sez to the little feller, "I
ain't fully maychured yet. We get hair on our faces pretty young out
here, but we don't get our growth till we're twenty-five. I'm water-boy
to the E. Z. outfit. If you want to see somethin' worth lookin' at, you
ought to come out where the men are. You'll find American citizens out
there, a darn sight harder type to pronounce than what I am. They sent
me to town on an errant."

He examined me, but I never blinked a winker, an' then his face lit up,
like as if he'd found a whole plug of tobacco, when he thought his last
chew was gone. Finally he gave a wink an' a chuckle, an' sez, "Here,
smoke a cigar on me, an' tell me if I can get board out your way. I
think you'll make copy."

He was just what I needed as a time-killer, so I spun him a yarn about
the lovely life me an' Kid Porter was livin'. We jerked out his trunk
just before the train left, bought a month's grub, an' came along out
to our shack. His name was William Sinclair Hammersly, an' the' never
was a squarer boy on the face o' the earth, after he'd shed off those
spectator ways. He won my affections, as the storybooks say, before we
was out o' sight o' Danders.

He said he had relations scattered all over the British Empire, an'
owned up that he had just come back from a long visit to