"'Say!' says Ag, appealing to the crowd, 'won't some kind friend who's fond of puzzles go down and help that gentleman do himself?'
"That made the whacker mad. He was as red in the face as a lobster.
"'You come down and show what you can do," says he. 'You've got gas enough for a balloon ascension, but that may be all there is to you.'
"'Oh, I ain't so much,' says Aggy, 'although I'm as good a man to-day as ever I was in my life—but I have a little friend here who can rope, down, and ride that critter from here to the brick-front in five minutes by the watch; and if you've got a twenty-five dollar bill in your pocket, or its equivalent in dust, you can observe the experiment.'
"'I'll go you, by gosh!' says the bull-whacker, slapping his hat on the ground and digging for his pile.
"'Say, if you're referring to me, Ag,' I says, 'it's kind of a sudden spring—I ain't what you might call in training, and that steer is full of triple-extract of giant powder.'
"'G'wan!' says Ag. 'You can do it—and then we're twenty-five ahead.'
"'But suppose we lose?'
"'Well . . . It won't be such an awful loss.'
"'Now you look here, Agamemnon G. Jones,' says I, 'I ain't going to stand for putting up a summer breeze ag'in' that feller's good dough—that's a skin game, to speak it pleasantly.'