“In the same box with yours—stowed safely away where we can’t spend or lose it, till Uncle Sam makes Mexico pay our claims,” Jake argued. “The risk we’re willing to take, because we expect to buy cheap on that account.”
At that she wavered; with a little more pressing, acceded. And thus by devious ways did the blind god of chance atone for many a former error, turning evil to good, if only for once.
[IX: A PARTY AND ITS CONSEQUENCES]
“Lady-girl’s a-going to have a birthday.”
The remark issued from the blue tobacco reek that filled the bunk-house. So thick it was the lamp on the table sent forth a feeble golden glimmer that barely revealed the sketchy outlines of the Three stretched at ease on their catres. But the title “Lady-girl,” Sliver’s especial name for Lee, stamped the remark as coming from him.
“That so?” Bull and Jake spoke in chorus. “How’d you know?”
“She asked me to write a piece, t’other day, in her birthday-album, an’ looking through it I kem on her day.”
“She asked me, too,” Jake admitted. “What did you write?”
“‘Roses is red, violets is blue; sugar is sweet, an’ so air you.’”
“A real nice piece, too,” Jake commented upon this classic. “I like it better ’n mine.” Nevertheless, with the secret pride of your true poet, he gave his own: