There was more laughter. The interpreter, well pleased with himself, surveyed his audience, pointing the cigar, now up, now down, so that its glowing end threatened to burn his shirt collar, or, tilting skyward, all but singed what there was of a tow eyebrow.
"And that ain't the best part of the story," he went on. "As I was sayin', not a darned pound of ice was left in Boston. Well, what d' y' think my old man does? He rents the fastest coast-steamer he can find. Then, he goes 'way up north in the Atlantic and lays-to with his weather eye open. Day or two, long comes a' iceberg big as a house. And by——, he hitches to it, and Boston gits ice!"
And now, like a ponderous bobcat descending upon its prey, Braden stole soft-footed across the room. "Nick!" he said. His jaws came together with the click of a steel trap.
Matthews lowered his heels. "Jumpin' buffalo!" he cried in amazement. "Al Braden! Where'd you come from?" He took the other's hand, at the same time pulling him slowly toward the door. Away from the crowd, they brought up.
"Well, you're a nice one!" was Braden's answer. "You're a nice one! Lettin' that Bend slip through your fingers!"
All the interpreter's cocksureness was gone. He threw the cigar into the sand-box under the stove, and looked on the verge of following it.
"Say, you talk of fleecin'," taunted Braden. "Why, you been skinned clean's a whistle! And by a' old fool duffer from Texas!"
"I was at Dodge when he come," snarled Matthews, finding his voice.
"What you go streakin' off to Dodge for, after the tip I give?"
"Well, no one here was talkin' railroad. So I, well, I——"