and denouncing the other bitters
because they have "al-cue-hawl" in them, and "al-cue-hawl will make you
drunk," (which is perfectly true), and kind of half-listening to the man
with the electric machine, declaring: "Ground is the first conductor;
water is the second conductor," and you'll be thinking how slippery the
grass is to walk on, when a face in the crowd will, as it were, sting
your memory. "I ought to know that man," says you to yourself. "Now, who
the mischief is he? Barker? No, 't isn't Barker, Barkdull? No. Funny
I can't think of his name. Begins with B I'm pretty certain." And you
trail along after him, as if you were a detective, sort of keeping out
of his sight, and yet every once in a while getting a good look at him.
"Mmmmmm!" says you. "What is that fellow's name? Why, sure. McConica."
And you walk up to him and stick out your hand while he's gassing with
somebody, and there's that smile on your face that says: "I know you
but you don't know me," and he takes it in a limp sort of fashion, and
starts to say: "You have the advantage of--" when, all of a sudden, he
grabs your hand as if he were going to jerk your arm out of its socket
and beat you over the head with the bloody end, and shouts out: "Why,
HELLO, Billy! Well, suffering Cyrus and all hands round! Hold still a
second and let me look at you. Gosh darn your hide, where you been for
so long? I though you'd clean evaporated off the face the earth. Why,
how AIR you? How's everything? That's good. Let me make you acquainted
with my wife. Molly, this is Mr.--" But she says: "Now don't you tell me
what his name is. Let me think. Why, Willie Smith! Well, of all things!
Why, how you've changed! Honest, I wouldn't have knowed you. Do you mind
the time we went sleigh-ridin' the whole posse of us, and got upset down
there by Hanks's place?" And then you start in on "D' you mind?" and
"Don't you recollect?" and you talk about the old school-days, and who's
married, and who's moved out to Kansas, and who's got the Elias Hoover
place now, and how Ella Trimble--You know Ella Diefenbaugh, old Jake
Diefenbaugh's daughter, the one that lisped. Course you do. Well, she
married Ed Trimble, and he died along in the early part of the summer.
Typhoid. Was getting well but he took a relapse, and went off like that!
And now she's left with three little ones, and they guess poor Ella has
a pretty hard time making out. And this old schoolmate that you start
to tell a funn