down to Sacramento
to inquire into the standin' of a certing party, as per invoice, and ter
see--ter see--ter negotiate you know, ter find out if she's married or
di-vorced," he concluded quickly, as if abandoning for the moment his
business manner in consideration of Rupert's inexperience. "We're to
find out her standin', Roop," he began again with a more judicious
blending of ease and technicality, "and her contracts, if any, and where
she lives and her way o' life, and examine her books and papers ez
to marriages and sich, and arbitrate with her gin'rally in
conversation--you inside the house and me out on the pavement, ready to
be called in if an interview with business principals is desired."

Observing Rupert somewhat perplexed and confused with these
technicalities, he tactfully abandoned them for the present, and
consulting a pocket-book said, "I've made a memorandum of some pints
that we'll talk over on the journey," again charged Rupert to be
punctually at the stage office with his carpetbag, and cheerfully
departed.

When he had disappeared Johnny Filgee, without a single word of
explanation, fell upon his brother, and at once began a violent attack
of kicks and blows upon his legs and other easily accessible parts
of his person, accompanying his assault with unintelligible gasps and
actions, finally culminating in a flood of tears and the casting of
himself on his back in the dust with the copper-fastened toes of his
small boots turning imaginary wheels in the air. Rupert received these
characteristic marks of despairing and outraged affection with
great forbearance, only saying, "There, now, Johnny, quit that," and
eventually bearing him still struggling into the house. Here Johnny,
declaring that he would kill any "Chinyman" that offered to dress him,
and burn down the house after his brother's infamous desertion of it,
Rupert was constrained to mingle a few nervous, excited tears with his
brother's outbreak. Whereat Johnny, admitting the alleviation of an
orange, a four-bladed knife, and the reversionary interest in much of
Rupert's personal property, became more subdued. Sitting there with
their arms entwined about each other, the sunlight searching the
shiftless desolation of their motherless home, the few cheap playthings
they had known lying around them, they beguiled themselves with
those charming illusions of their future intentions common to their
years--illusions they only half believed themsel