"Is Salvation alive now?' I asked.
"Sure he's alive!" The words come muffled from beneath the hat. "He's at the head of Judge Dillon's stock farm over near Lexington."
"I'm surprised Miss Goodloe sold him," I said.
"She don't … sell him," Blister muttered drowsily. "Mrs. Dillon … still … owns him."
A TIP IN TIME
Blister was silent as we left the theater. I had chosen the play because I had fancied it would particularly appeal to him. The name part—a characterization of a race-horse tout—had been acceptably done by a competent young actor. The author had hewn as close to realism as his too clever lines would permit. There had been a wealth of Blister's own vernacular used on the stage during the evening, and I had rather enjoyed it all. But Blister, it was now evident, had been disappointed.
"You didn't like it?" I said tentatively, as I steered him toward the blazing word "Rathskeller," a block down the street.
"Oh, I've seed worse shows," was the unenthusiastic reply. "I can get an earful of that kind of chatter dead easy without pryin' myself loose from any kale," he added.
I saw where the trouble lay. The terse expressive jargon of the race track, its dry humor just beneath its hard surface, might delight the unsophisticated, but not Blister. To him it lacked in novelty.