in is
Reggie."

"Well, well!" says Bentley.

Oh, I sure did show Bentley a lot of sights that evenin', includin' a
wild tour through the Tenderloin--in a Broadway car. We winds up at a
roof garden, and, just to give Bentley an extra shiver, I asks the
waiter if we wa'n't sittin' somewhere near the table that Harry and
Evelyn had the night he was overcome by emotional insanity.

"You're at the very one, sir," he says. Considerin' we was ten blocks
away, he was a knowin' waiter.

"This identical table; hear that, Bentley?" says I.

"You don't say!" says he.

"Let's have a bracer," says I. "Ever drink a soda cocktail, Bentley?"

He said he hadn't.

"Then bring us two, real stiff ones," says I. You know how they're
made--a dash of bitters, a spoonful of bicarbonate, and a bottle of
club soda, all stirred up in a tall glass, almost as intoxicatin' as
buttermilk.

"Don't make your head dizzy, does it?" says I.

"A little," says Bentley; "but then, I'm not used to mixed drinks. We
take root beer generally, when we're out on a tear."

"You cow boys must be a fierce lot when you're loose," says I.

Bentley grinned, kind of reminiscent. "We do raise the Old Harry once
in awhile," says he. "The last time we went up to Dallas I drank three
different kinds of soda water, and we guyed a tamale peddler so that a
policeman had to speak to us."

Say! what do you think of that? Wouldn't that freeze your blood?

Once I got him started, Bentley told me a lot about life on the ranch;
how they had to milk and curry down four thousand steers every night;
and about their playin' checkers at the Y. M. C. A. branch evenin's,
and throwin' spit balls at each other durin' mornin' prayers. I'd
always thought these stage cow boys was all a pipe dream, but I never
got next to the real thing before.

It was mighty interestin', the way he told it, too. They get prizes
for bein' polite to each other durin' work hours, and medals for
speakin' gentle to the cows. Bentley said he had four of them medals,
but he hadn't worn 'em East for fear folks would think he was proud.
That gave me a line on where he got his quiet ways from. It was the
trainin' he got on the ranch. He said it was grand, too, when a crowd
of the boys came ridin' home from town, sometimes as late as eleven
o'clock at night, to hear 'em singin' "Onward, Christian Soldier" and
tunes like that.

"I expect you do have a few real tough citizens out that way, th