“You’d like Prairie View now,” said Jim. “The boys from the round-ups for fifty miles around ride in there. One corner of my pasture is in sixteen miles of the town. There’s a straight forty miles of wire on one side of it.”
“You pass through the kitchen to get to the bedroom,” said the dogman, “and you pass through the parlour to get to the bath room, and you back out through the dining-room to get into the bedroom so you can turn around and leave by the kitchen. And he snores and barks in his sleep, and I have to smoke in the park on account of his asthma.”
“Don’t Missis Telfair—” began Jim.
“Oh, shut up!” said the dogman. “What is it this time?”
“Whiskey,” said Jim.
“Make it two,” said the dogman.
“Well, I’ll be racking along down toward the ferry,” said the other.
“Come on, there, you mangy, turtle-backed, snake-headed, bench-legged ton-and-a-half of soap-grease!” shouted the dogman, with a new note in his voice and a new hand on the leash. The dog scrambled after them, with an angry whine at such unusual language from his guardian.
At the foot of Twenty-third Street the dogman led the way through swinging doors.
“Last chance,” said he. “Speak up.”