d dinner,
when Swifty Joe comes down from the Studio and says there's a party by
the name of Merrity been callin' me up on the 'phone.

"Merrity?" says I. "That sounds kind of joyous and familiar. Didn't
he give any letters for the front of it?"

"Nothin' but Hank," says Swifty.

"Oh, yes," says I, gettin' the clue. "What did Hank have to say?"

"Said he was a friend of yours, and if you didn't have nothin' better
on the hook he'd like to see you around the Wisteria," says Swifty.

With that I lets loose a snicker. Honest, I couldn't help it.

"Ah, chee!" says Swifty. "Is it a string, or not? I might get a laugh
out of this myself."

"Yes, and then again you mightn't," says I. "Maybe it'd bring on
nothin' but a brain storm. You wait until I find out if it's safe to
tell you."

With that I starts down towards 34th-st to see if it was really so
about Hank Merrity; for the last glimpse I got of him he was out in
Colorado, wearin' spurs and fringed buckskin pants, and lookin' to be
as much of a fixture there as Pike's Peak.

It was while I was trainin' for one of my big matches, that I met up
with Hank. We'd picked out Bedelia for a camp. You've heard of
Bedelia? No? Then you ought to study the map. Anyway, if you'd been
followin' the sportin' news reg'lar a few years back, you'd remember.
There was a few days about that time when more press despatches was
filed from Bedelia than from Washington. And the pictures that was
sent east; "Shorty Ropin' Steers"--"Mr. McCabe Swingin' a Bronco by the
Tail," and all such truck. You know the kind of stuff them newspaper
artists strains their imaginations on.

Course, I was too busy to bother about what they did to me, and didn't
care, anyway. But it was different with Hank. Oh, they got him too!
You see, he had a ranch about four miles north of our camp, and one of
my reg'lar forenoon stunts was to gallop up there, take a big swig of
mountain spring water--better'n anything you can buy in bottles--chin a
few minutes with Hank and the boys, and then dog trot it back.

That was how the boss of Merrity's ranch came to get his picture in the
sportin' page alongside of a diagram of the four different ways I had
of peelin' a boiled potato. Them was the times when I took my exercise
with a sportin' editor hangin' to each elbow, and fellows with drawin'
pads squattin' all over the place. Just for a josh I lugged one of the
papers that had a picture of Hank up