“That’s what I said.”
“But you was lyin’.”
“Well, the way you say that, I can’t resent it, of course. Anyway, I call myself a railroad stiff. Accept it as truth, or don’t—it makes little difference to me. I may be raw—I guess I am—but you stick with me and I’ll pay you for that dinner.”
“Don’t do it till I ask for it,” retorted the other, cupping a hand back of one of his prominent ears and listening up the track.
He arose and went to the two lines of steel, sprawling flat and holding an ear to a rail.
“I hear her singin’ to me,” he announced, returning. “She’ll be here in a minnit. Now that moniker of yours.” He stood before the tank looking at the many carvings thereon. “I don’t see it here, f’r instance. Get up an’ I’ll show you mine. Cut ’er there three years ago, when I was ramblin’ east, ridin’ through the snowsheds, stretched out on the backs of a car o’ sheep to keep warm. Some bed if it don’t lay down under you!”
The Falcon had risen and stood looking up to where the other pointed. In neat carving, on one of the wooden pedestals, he saw:
HALFAWAY DAISY
1917, BOUND EAST
PHINEHAS BEGAT ABISHUA
“That’s an odd name,” remarked The Falcon. “And the quotation?”
“Well, by golly, it ain’t any odder’n my real one, ol’-timer! Daisy’s me right name; and as if that wasn’t funny enough the old folks slipped me a Bible name—Phinehas. Phinehas Daisy—c’n you beat it? I’m one o’ the begatters.”