sudden impulse I called after him, 'Hi! Caffyn!'

"'Hallo!' Caffyn turned about and came strolling back. He is a
long lantern-jawed lad with a sardonic drawl of speech. He has
spent two years in the _ville lumiere_, having come to it
moth-like from somewhere afar in Texas. His ambition--no,
wait!--the ambition of his father, a 'cattle king,' is that he
should acquire the difficult art of painting in oils.
'Want me?' asked Caffyn, as I pushed a chair for him.
'What for? If it's to admire the 'rainbow' you've been mixing,
I'm a connoisseur and I don't pass it. Your hand's steady
enough, one or two lines admirably defined, but you've gotten
the pink noyau and the _parfait amour_ into their wrong billets.
If, on the other hand, you want me to drink it, I'll see you to
hell first." . . . Then, as I introduced him, "Good evening,
Mr. Farrell. I am pleased to meet you in this meretricious
haunt of gaiety. If I may be allowed to say so, you set it off,
sir.'

"'Sit down a moment,' said I. 'We didn't intrude upon your
solitary table, thinking--'

"'I know,' he caught me up. 'Natural delicacy of Britishers--
'Here's a fellow learning to take his pleasures sadly.
We'll give him time.' And I, gentlemen, allowed that it was
'way down in Cupid's garden--Damon and Pythias discovered hand
in hand--no gooseberries, by request. . . . If you'd like to be
told how I was occupied, I was chewing--ay, marry and go to--
I was one with my distant father's most fatted calf--fed up and
chewing.'

"'And if you'd like to know how we were occupied,' said I, 'we
were both wanting something--and the same thing. We haven't
told one another what it is, and you are called in to guess.'

"'Oh, a thought-reading _seance_. Right.' He turned the chair
about, sat on it straddle-wise and crossed his arms over the
curved top bar. 'Let me see,' he mused, leaning forward,
pulling at his cigar and bringing his eyes, after they had
travelled over the crowd, back firmly to us. ''Two souls with
but a single thought,'' he quoted, ''two hearts that beat as
one.' . . . Well, now, if you were of my country and from my
parts I'd string you like two jays on one perch--How say'st,
prithee, and in sooth yes, sure! I'd sing you _The Cowpuncher's
Lament_, sweet and lo