The show lady must have seen how dazed Casey looked. “Maybe you ain’t heard the horrible deal they handed us, mister. They stopped our show before we’d raised the curtain—and it was a seventy-five-dollar house if it was a cent!” she wailed. “They had a bill as long as my arm for license—we couldn’t get by with the five-dollar one—and for lights and hall rent and what all. There wasn’t enough money in the house to pay it! And they was going to send us to jail! The sheriff acted anything but a gentleman, mister, and if you ever lived in this town and liked it I must say I question your taste!”
“We wouldn’t use a town like this for a garbage dump, back home,” cut in the flat-chested one, with all the contempt he could master.
“And they hauled us over to their dirty old justice of the peace, and he told us he’d give us thirty days in jail if we was in the county to-morrow noon, and we don’t know how far this county goes, either way!”
“Fifty miles to St. Simon,” Bill told them comfortingly. “You can make it, all right if—”
“We can make it, hey? How’re we going to make it, with our car layin’ around all over your garage?” The flat-chested one’s tone was arrogant past belief.
Casey was fumbling for strap buckles which he could not reach. He was also groping through his colorful, stage-driver’s vocabulary for words which might be pronounced in the presence of a lady, and finding mighty few that were of any use to him. The combined effort was turning him a fine purple when the lady was seized with another brilliant idea.
“Jack, dear, don’t be harsh. The gentleman meant well—and I’ll tell you, mister, what let’s do! Let’s trade cars till the man has our car repaired. Your car goes just fine, and we can load our stuff in and get out away from this horrible town. Why, the preacher was there and made a speech and said the meanest things about you, because you was having a benefit and at the same identical time you was setting in a saloon gambling. He said it was an outrage on civilization, mister, and an insult to the honest, hardworking people in Lund. Them was his very words.”
“Well, hell!” Casey exploded abruptly. “I’m honest and hardworkin’ as any damn preacher. You can ask anybody!”
“Well, that’s what he said, mister. We certainly didn’t know you was a gambler when we offered to give you a benefit. We certainly never dreamed you’d queer us like that. But you’ll do us the favor to lend us your car, won’t you, mister? You wouldn’t refuse that, and see me and little junior languishin’ in jail when you knew in your heart that—”
“Aw, take the darn car!” muttered Casey distractedly, and hobbled into the garage office where he knew that Bill kept liniment.