y nun-know it."

Whereupon Swing began to shake him severely. "Stop yore ravin!" he
commanded, and contrived to bang Racey's head against the wall with a
bump that went a long way toward curing the pain of Racey's bite.

Racey, with real tears in his eyes, looked up at Swing and guggled,
"I'm sho shleepy!" Then he laid his head upon his arms and slept. Luke
Tweezy did not attempt to awaken him. Swing Tunstall advised against
it. Luke Tweezy and he had a parting drink together. Then the
money-lender took what was left of the second bottle of whiskey--the
first was but a memory--to the bar and endeavoured to chivvy a rebate
out of the bartender. But such a procedure was decidedly not the Happy
Heart's method of doing business. Luke Tweezy, much to his disgust,
for he never drank except in the way of trade, was forced to carry his
bottle with him when he went.

Swing, sapient young person, walked casually to the window and watched
Luke Tweezy cross the street to Calloway's store. Then he returned to
Racey's table. Racey turned his tousled head sidewise and whispered
from a corner of his mouth, "Help me out to Tom Kane's stable. He's
out o' town, and there won't anybody bother us."

"C'mon, Racey, come alive," urged Swing Tunstall, making a great
business of shaking awake his drunken friend. "You don't wanna stay
here no longer. I know a fine place where you can sleep it off."

Ten minutes later Racey and Swing were sitting comfortably on a pile
of hay in Tom Kane's new stable. Racey pulled off his boots, flopped
down on the hay, and clasped his hands behind his head. He wiggled his
toes luxuriously and laughed.

"Gawd," said he. "Think o' that old skinflint buying nearly two
bottles of whiskey! Bet that'll lay heavy on his mind for as much as a
month. What you lookin' at me like that for?"

"Yeah, I'd ask if I was you. I shore would. What was yore bright idea
of tellin' Luke Tweezy we were gonna ride for Jack Harpe so's to watch
him?"

"So he'd know it."

"So he'd know it! So he'd know it! The man sits there and says '_so
he'd know it_'! And you call me a thickskull! Which yore head has got
mine snowed under thataway. Can't you see, you droolin' fool, that now
they'll know as much as we do?"

"No, oh, no," Racey denied with a superior smile. "Not never a-tall. I
ain't saying they mightn't know as much as you do by yoreself. But not
while you got the benefit of my brains they won't know as much as we
do. 'Tain'