“Who’s his royal nibs, Bully Bill?”
Through the corner of his mouth, the foreman enlightened her:
“Vodeyveel show. Things gittin’ kind o’ dull at O Bar. Thought I’d pull in something to cheer the fellows up a bit, and they’s nothing tickles them more than turnin’ a green tenderfoot Englishman on to them. This one here is a circus. When I asked him what the hello—excuse me, Miss Hilda!—what the hello he was doin’ round here, he ses: ‘Cheerio!’ Say, if ever there was ‘Kid me’ writ all over a human bein’, it’s splashed over that there one.”
“Um!”
Hilda came down the steps and approached the newcomer. Head slightly on one side, she examined him with evident curiosity and amusement. “Paper-collar dudes,” as the ranch folk called the city people, came quite often to O Bar O, but this particular specimen seemed somehow especially green and guileless. A wicked dimple flashed out in the right cheek of the girl, though her critical eyes were still cold as she looked the man over from head to foot.
“Hi-yi! You! Where do you hail from?”
As he looked up at the beautiful, saucy young creature before him, the Englishman was seized with one of his worst spells of stuttering. The impediment in his speech was slight, on ordinary occasions, but when unduly moved, and at psychological moments, when the tongue’s office was the most desired of adjuncts, it generally failed him. Now:
“Bb-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b——”
The girl, hands on hips, swayed back and forth with laughter.
“Haven’t you a tongue even? What are you doing in this wild country, you poor lost lamb from the fold?”