“That loafer from Rochdale,” he said, “he seems to reel it off kinder nat’ral, while for the life of me I can’t say a word. Tell me, Boss, what would you say to a girl like that?”
“Why, talk about what would interest her,” said his companion.
“Ah, that’s where it lies!”
“Talk about the customs of the place and the country,” said the Boss, pulling meditatively at his pipe. “Tell her stories of what you have seen in the mines, and that sort of thing.”
“Eh? You’d do that, would you?” responded his comrade more hopefully. “If that’s the hang of it I am right. I’ll go up now and tell her about Chicago Bill, an’ how he put them two bullets in the man from the bend the night of the dance.”
Boss Morgan laughed.
“That’s hardly the thing,” he said. “You’d frighten her if you told her that. Tell her something lighter, you know; something to amuse her, something funny.”
“Funny?” said the anxious lover, with less confidence in his voice. “How you and me made Mat Houlahan drunk and put him in the pulpit of the Baptist church, and he wouldn’t let the preacher in in the morning. How would that do, eh?”
“For Heaven’s sake don’t say anything of the sort,” said his Mentor, in great consternation. “She’d never speak to either of us again. No, what I mean is that you should tell about the habits of the mines, how men live and work and die there. If she is a sensible girl that ought to interest her.”
“How they live at the mines? Pard, you are good to me. How they live? There’s a thing I can talk of as glib as Black Tom or any man. I’ll try it on her when I see her.”