“Chicago!” says Porky, low and wistful, like he didn’t never expect to see the place again.
“And hittin’ the ties, fer two dudes like the agent, here, and the parson––”
“Parson be hanged!” says the last named gent, ugly as the dickens.
“I hope not,” I goes on, “but you never can tell what the boys’ll do.”
The doc was standin’ up. As I said that, he come down kerplunk onto a bench, like as if a spring ’d give way in his laigs.
“Lloyd,” he says, “we–we–we’re willin’ to go, but we ain’t got no money.”
“You’re what I’d call land-poor,” I says.
“You need four tickets–wal, now, you own that Andrews chunk, don’t y’?”
“Lloyd,” says the real-estate feller, “you’ve got the dead wood on us, ole man.” He picked up one of them deeds from the table. “Git us the tickets,” he says, “and here’s the Andrews property.”
“A up-freight goes by in twenty minutes,” I says. And started fer the station.