The bartender, wiping the bar after an unsteady sheepherder, was careful to leave a generous margin around the person of Charming Billy who was at that moment asserting with much emphasis:
"She's a young thing, and cannot leave her mother."
"Twice-six's-twelve, 'n' twice-seven's-four-r-teen, 'n' twelve 'n' fourteen's—er—twelve—'n'—fourteen—" The unsteady sheepherder was laboring earnestly with the problem. "She ain't no spring chicken, she ain't!" He laughed tipsily, and winked up at the singer, but Billy was not observing him and his mathematical struggles. He refreshed himself from the glass, leaving the contents perceptibly lower—it was a large, thick glass with a handle, and it had flecks of foam down the inside—took a pull at the cigarette and inquired plaintively:
"Can she brew, can she bake, Billy boy, Billy boy?
Can she brew, can she bake, charming Billy?"
Another long pull at the cigarette, and then the triumphant declaration:
"She can brew n' she can bake,
She can sew n' she can make—
She's a young thing, and cannot leave her mother."
"She ain't s' young!" bawled the sheepherder, who was taking it all very seriously. "Say them numbers over again, onc't. Twelve-'n'-fourteen—"