The emigrants all turned to take a look at the man of stentorian voice, who spoke so authoritatively.
Straightening himself up, and speaking even louder than before, the Comstocker cried: “Give me a baked horned toad, two broiled lizards on toast, with tarantula sauce—stewed rattlesnake and poached scorpions on the side!”
Without the slightest hesitation or the least sign of astonishment, the waiter called out to the Chinese cooks in the kitchen: “Baked horned toad; two briled lizards on toast, tarantula sauce; stewed rattlesnake and poached scorpions. Very nice and well done, for Mr. Terry!”
There was then a great buzzing among the emigrants as they laid their heads together, and many curious side glances were shot at that most incorrigible of jokers, Bill Terry. Even after Bill’s breakfast had been placed before him—his real order having been given on the sly—the emigrants were unable to make out what he was eating, though they nearly twisted their necks out of joint with glancing over their shoulders at his table.
The white sage which grows in great abundance throughout Nevada, is not only useful as a food for cattle, but from it has been manufactured a hair restorative—a wash for making hair grow on bald heads. One day Bill Terry happened to be seated opposite a stranger at a table in a restaurant, when the stranger—who was a side-whiskered, lisping man who showed a good deal of the dandy in his dress—attracted the attention of “William” by opening a conversation as follows:—
Stranger.—“Deah me! this is disgusting! (Holding up his knife and gazing fixedly at its point.) This is either the second or the third hair that I have found in this buttah!”
Bill Terry—“You’ve not been here long, I judge?”
Stranger—“No sir; I arrived here yesterday morning.”
Bill Terry—“I thought so, otherwise you would not complain of hairs in the butter.”
Stranger—“Not complain of hairs in the butter? You suppwise me, sir! How could I do otherwise?”