“You done whut?” asked the storekeeper.
“Sold that there old crow-bait mare of mine—that’s whut I done,” said Wes exultingly.
“Wall, you air the smart one!” cried the astonished Eth admiringly. “She wuzn’t wuth nothin’. Whut did ye sell her fur?”
“She wuzn’t wuth nothin’, jest ez you say. But all the same I sold her fur a hunderd dollars—and I got the money right here in my pocket, too.”
“I got to say it again,” declared Eth. “You certainly air the smart one! A hundred dollars! Why that there old mare wuzn’t wuth ten dollars. She wuz eighteen year old if she wuz a day and blind of one eye and spavined and wind-broke and all stove up. Who, in the name of Goshen, did you sell her to?”
“I sold her,” said Wes, “to mother.”
§ 126 Speaking, as It Were, with Frankness
Since an actor of distinction told me this story I take it that it may be repeated here without serious offence to the profession which he adorns and dignifies.
The proprietor of a small hotel of a small New England town was hunched behind the clerk’s desk of his establishment when the door opened and there strode in a typical heavy man of a traveling repertoire company. The newcomer wore a mangy fur overcoat and a soiled white waistcoat and, as if to make up for his lack of baggage, bore himself with an air of jaunty assurance. He advanced to the clerk’s desk and waited there as though expecting the innkeeper to rise and in accordance with the ritual, swing the register about for him and hand him a pen newly dipped in ink. If that was what the Thespian expected he was disappointed.
The prospective guest was not to be daunted by the lack of the customary evidences of hospitality and welcome. In his deepest and most impressive stage voice he said: