“What’s eating you, George?”
The query was evidently just what “George” had been waiting for. For now he turned and looked at Taylor, his face solemn, but a white gleam of mirth in his eyes belying the solemnity.
“Tips is comin’ easy for George this mornin’,” he said; “they shuah is. No trouble at all. If a man wants to get tips all he has to be is a dictionary—he, he, he!”
“So you’re a dictionary, eh? Well, explain the meaning of this.” And he tossed a silver dollar to the other.
The dollar in hand, George tilted his head sidewise at Taylor.
“How on earth you know I got somethin’ to tell you?”
“How do I know I’ve got two hands?”
“By lookin’ at them, boss.”
“Well, that’s how I know you’ve got something to tell me—by looking at you.”
The porter chuckled. “I reckon it’s worth a dollar to have a young lady interested in you,” he told himself in a confidential voice, without looking at Taylor; “yassir, it’s sure worth a dollar.” He slapped his knee delightedly. “That young lady a heap interested in you, ’pears like. While ago she pens me in a corner of the platform. ‘Porter, who’s that man in the smoking-compartment—that cowboy? What’s his name, an’ where does he live?’ I hesitates, ’cause I didn’t want to betray no secrets—an’ scratch my haid. Then she pop half a dollar in my hand, an’ I tole her you are Squint Taylor, an’ that you own the Arrow ranch, not far from Dawes. An’ she thank me an’ go away, grinnin’.”