"So you came down here to be a mystery?"
"Mystery?" he laughed. "Me! Why, Ma'am, I'm so open I'm easy pickin' in every poker game I sets in. Folks know what I'm goin' to think before I start thinkin' at all."
"Then I must be even denser than I feared. I am very much interested in what you have been thinking, and haven't the slightest clue to it. Perhaps if I confess my helplessness you will take pity on me, and tell me what you are doing down here; and why?"
"Th' 'why' shows you ain't guessin' much, Ma'am," he replied, quizzically.
"Why did you join that crowd of drunken rowdies, and act worse than any of them?"
"Because when I acts bad, I'm harmless, an' they was not."
"Perhaps; but why did you join them?"
"I was afraid they might hurt themselves, or get lost."
"Father says that we owe you a debt of gratitude; I'm sorry that I shall have to disillusion him."
"I wouldn't give him no shocks, Ma'am, till his laig gets well. He ain't as young as he was."