“Taking that argument so stated,” says Stevey Todd, “it might be called a tidy argument and no harm done, or you might say there was two arguments in it. Now, taking the first one, a man might make this point as bearing on it: for you take the tin-typist, who's a good eater and a well-fleshed man, and yet he's a gloomy man, as you might say, not putting it too strong; and on the other hand here's David, who's what you'd call a joking dog, and as an eater without an equal of his size, though an elderly dog, and yet he's a thin dog, as his business in the show makes needful for him. Which, I says, might be put up as an argument by such as wanted to use it, if any one was speaking contrary to cooks as being dangerous to parties in the show business, on account of interests not being along the line of weight, nor yet advertising space on legs which they're able to furnish. Now, taking the second argument, I wouldn't deny you might be right, and there's the point. For not to speak of giving no cause for crowns throwed around expensive, or spears stuck into parties disrespectful to memory of deceased, I says, here's the point. For if you can't say 'No,' till I say 'Will you?' it follows you can't do it till I say those words.”
“I can too!” says Madame Bill.
“No, ye can't! No, ye can't!” says Stevey Todd.
Madame Bill began to laugh, and Flannagan, who was coming over the ship's side, he stopped at hearing her, and slid across the deck behind the companion. Then Madame Bill went below, ha-ha-ing melodious, and Flannagan called in a loud whisper over the roof:
“Hoi! Stevey Todd! Are ye done wid it?”
“She ain't said no,” says Stevey Todd. “She ain't said no.”
It came afternoon of the next day, and the show was opened, and the people came flocking in. Near by the tent door was Stevey Todd's “Cocoanut Cake, Hot Waffle and Fizz Table.” On the platform the company sat in a half-circle, ready for Flannagan's opening speech to explain the qualities and talents of each. It was a show to be proud of, and in point of colour resembling solar spectrums, or peacocks' tails. Madame Bill had charge of costumes, and her tastes were what you might call exhilarated. Flannagan began:
“Ladies and gintlemen,” he says. “The pleasure I take in inthroducin' 'The Flannagan an' Imparial Itinerant Exhibition,' to this intelligent aujunce, has niver been equalled in me mimory.
“I see before me,” he says, “a ripresentative array of this grreat counthry's agricultural pursuits, to say nothin' of thim that fish. I see before me numerous handsome an' imposin' mathrons, to say nothin' of foine washed babies. I see before me many a rosy girrl a-chewin' cocoanut candy that ain't so swate as herself, an' many a boy wid his pockets full of paynuts an' his head full of divelthries.
“Is it the prisence of such an aujunce which gives me the pleasure unequalled in me mimory? No!