“What are you doing here, then?” said I.
“Oh, pshaw! When yu' can't have what you choose, yu' just choose what you have.” And he took the bill-of-fare. I began to know that he had something on his mind, so I did not trouble him further.
Meanwhile he sat studying the bill-of-fare.
“Ever heard o' them?” he inquired, shoving me the spotted document.
Most improbable dishes were there,—salmis, canapes, supremes,—all perfectly spelt and absolutely transparent. It was the old trick of copying some metropolitan menu to catch travellers of the third and last dimension of innocence; and whenever this is done the food is of the third and last dimension of awfulness, which the cow-puncher knew as well as anybody.
“So they keep that up here still,” I said.
“But what about them?” he repeated. His finger was at a special item, FROGS' LEGS A LA DELMONICO. “Are they true anywheres?” he asked. And I told him, certainly. I also explained to him about Delmonico of New York and about Augustin of Philadelphia.
“There's not a little bit o' use in lyin' to me this mawnin',” he said, with his engaging smile. “I ain't goin' to awdeh anything's laigs.”
“Well, I'll see how he gets out of it,” I said, remembering the odd Texas legend. (The traveller read the bill-of-fare, you know, and called for a vol-au-vent. And the proprietor looked at the traveller, and running a pistol into his ear, observed, “You'll take hash.”) I was thinking of this and wondering what would happen to me. So I took the step.
“Wants frogs' legs, does he?” shouted Colonel Cyrus Jones. He fixed his eye upon me, and it narrowed to a slit. “Too many brain workers breakfasting before yu' came in, professor,” said he. “Missionary ate the last leg off me just now. Brown the wheat!” he commanded, through the hole to the cook, for some one had ordered hot cakes.