"'Saloon,' says I, wonderin' where he found the queerness of my words.
"'Saloon?' says he. 'Why, man, it's a Prohibition, Presbyterian, Vegetarian Colony. I didn't know what to make of your actions when you got aboard, but from your face and clothes I supposed you was one of them ministers coming to scare the kids to death for a Christmas present. Ain't you one of 'em?'
"'I'm a sort—sort of connection,' says I with my expirin' breath.
"He looked at me as if he couldn't quite see the connection. 'Well,' says he, 'here we are, and they're expectin' you, for there's a lady waitin' on the platform.'
"'A lady?' says I, risin' from my tomb. I'd begun to think before there was truth in the sayin', 'You can't win at two games on the same day,' but when I heard there was a lady waitin' for me—well, if there's any man in this here bull-pen can think what I thought, let him whisper it in confidence, and I'll make it right with him.
"I never knew how I got off that train of cars.
"Well, I oughtn't to have been scart—it was the littlest, thinnest, palest, tremblingest woman you ever saw—why, there wasn't a Mrs. Scraggs on the face of the earth that couldn't 'a' dandled her in her arms like a baby.
"'Is this the Reverend Silas Hardcrop?' says she.
"'Yes, madam,' says I, thinkin' it best to humor her, even if she was small.
"'I wanted to meet you first—I wanted to say—to speak—there's something I felt I must tell you,' she says.