“Seventy-five dollars,” said one big nose to the other big nose, back in a corner where they thought the boy did not hear.
“One hundred and fifty. You see, I’ll have to give my friends fifty each. Yes, it’s true I’ve took care of ’em all winter, but I ain’t mean, and I’ll only keep fifty of it.”
The boy, bursting with indignation, ran to Mountain Joe with what he had heard. But poor Joe had been sober for a long time, and his eyes fairly danced in delight at having $50 in his own hand and right to spend it down at the post.
And so the two Italians muzzled the big, pretty pets and led them kindly down the trail toward the city, where they were to perform in the streets, the man with the big nose following after the twins on a big white mule.
And what became of the big black twin babies? They are still performing, seem content and happy, sometimes in a circus, sometimes in a garden, sometimes in the street. They are great favorites and have never done harm to anyone.
And what became of Sil Reese? Well, as said before, he still lives, is very rich and very miserable. He met the boy—the boy that was—on the street the other day and wanted to talk of old times. He told the boy he ought to write something about the old times and put him, Sil Reese, in it. He said, with that same old sounding nose and sickening smile, that he wanted the boy to be sure and put his, Sil Reese’s name, in it so that he could show it to his friends. And the boy has done so.
The boy? You want to know what the boy is doing? Well, in about a second he will be signing his autograph to the bottom of this story about his twin babies.