"I beg your pardon, stranger," he replied in his western drawl. "I didn't quite catch your remark."
"Aw, come off!" slangily replied the brass-buttoned boy, one of many in the hotel employed to show guests to their rooms whenever summoned by a bell rung by the clerk. "What are you, anyhow? Selling patent medicine or some Indian cure?" For Roy plainly showed the effect of his western life, his hair being a little longer than it is worn in the east, his clothes rather too large for him, and his broad-brimmed hat quite conspicuous.
"So you think I'm rustling medicine, eh?" he asked the boy.
"I don't know what you're 'rustling' but I know if you try to sell anything in this joint, you'll get the poke, see!"
Roy began to think the language of the East was almost as effective as that of the West in expressing ideas.
"I'm not selling medicine, stranger," Roy went on, using the term he had picked up among the cowboys when they meet one whom they do not know. "I'm going to put up at this bunk-house, I reckon."
"That's a good one!" exclaimed the boy with a laugh. "What Wild West show are you from? This is no theatrical boarding house. Better beat it out of here before the clerk sees you."
But the talk between the two boys had been overheard by the clerk, who, in a hotel, holds authority next to the owner.
"What's the trouble there, Number twenty-six?" he asked, addressing the bell boy.
"Aw, here's a guy what t'inks he's goin' to stay here an' sell patent medicines," replied the boy.