“Three years,” said Jud. “They’re living on the Mired Mule Ranch now. But I haven’t seen either of ’em since. They say Jackson Bird was fixing his ranch up fine with rocking chairs and window curtains all the time he was putting me up the pancake tree. Oh, I got over it after a while. But the boys kept the racket up.”
“Did you make these cakes by the famous recipe?” I asked.
“Didn’t I tell you there wasn’t no receipt?” said Jud. “The boys hollered pancakes till they got pancake hungry, and I cut this recipe out of a newspaper. How does the truck taste?”
“They’re delicious,” I answered. “Why don’t you have some, too, Jud?”
I was sure I heard a sigh.
“Me?” said Jud. “I don’t ever eat ’em.”
VI
SEATS OF THE HAUGHTY
Golden by day and silver by night, a new trail now leads to us across the Indian Ocean. Dusky kings and princes have found our Bombay of the West; and few be their trails that do not lead down to Broadway on their journey for to admire and for to see.
If chance should ever lead you near a hotel that transiently shelters some one of these splendid touring grandees, I counsel you to seek Lucullus Polk among the republican tuft-hunters that besiege its entrances. He will be there. You will know him by his red, alert, Wellington-nosed face, by his manner of nervous caution mingled with determination, by his assumed promoter’s or broker’s air of busy impatience, and by his bright-red necktie, gallantly redressing the wrongs of his maltreated blue serge suit, like a battle standard still waving above a lost cause. I found him profitable; and so may you. When you do look for him, look among the light-horse troop of Bedouins that besiege the picket-line of the travelling potentate’s guards and secretaries—among the wild-eyed genii of Arabian Afternoons that gather to make astounding and egregrious demands upon the prince’s coffers.
I first saw Mr. Polk coming down the steps of the hotel at which sojourned His Highness the Gaekwar of Baroda, most enlightened of the Mahratta princes, who, of late, ate bread and salt in our Metropolis of the Occident.