“Where's the arrestin' come in?” demanded Stitt.
“Comes quick now, Bailey. Plenty quick enough for me and Jonadab, I tell you that! After we got to our room the Cap'n went to sleep pretty soon and I set in the one chair, readin' the newspaper and wishin' I hadn't ate so many of the warm bricks that the Golconda folks hoped was biscuit. They made me feel like a schooner goin' home in ballast. I guess I was drowsin' off myself, but there comes a most unearthly yell from the bed and I jumped ha'f out of the chair. There was Jonadab settin' up and lookin' wild.
“'What in the world?' says I.
“'Oh! Ugh! My soul!' says he.
“'Your soul, hey?' says I. 'Is that all? I thought mebbe you'd lost a quarter.'
“'Barzilla,' he says, comin' to and starin' at me solemn, 'Barzilla, I've had a dream—a wonderful dream.'
“'Well,' I says, 'I ain't surprised. A feller that h'isted in as much fried dough as you did ought to expect—'
“'But I tell you 'twas a WONDERFUL dream,' he says. 'I dreamed I was on Blank Street, where we was this mornin', and Patrick Kelly comes to me and p'ints his finger right in my face. I see him as plain as I see you now. And he says to me—he said it over and over, two or three times—Seventeen,” says he, “Seventeen.” Now what do you think of that?'
“'Humph!' I says. 'I ain't surprised. I think 'twas just seventeen of them biscuits that you got away with. Wonder to me you didn't see somebody worse'n old Pat.'
“But he was past jokin'. You never see a man so shook up by the nightmare as he was by that one. He kept goin' over it and tellin' how natural old Kelly looked and how many times he said 'Seventeen' to him.