"Why!" I exclaimed, pounding my fist hard down on the oaken bar, "think of it! a day's delay may lose me my five thousand dollar wager. THINK OF IT, MAN! FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS!!" I would have said more, but I noticed the Hibernian was knocked completely out of the metaphorical ring by my unequivocal utterances. His blanched countenance showed that his conscience smote him. He paced the barroom floor like a leopard trying to get away from his spots. Presently he stopped, and, thrusting his fingers through his goatee, looked out in time to witness Mac A'Rony turn a headspring from the barn door.
"Begorry!" he exclaimed, "if Oi hod that mule, Oi'd ruun 'im for alderman of the Tinth Ward. Shure, and it's phure air and wather the bye's votin fer. It's this Oi'm sayin', Misther Pod, Oi'll give ye twinty-foive bones fer th' brute in his prisent condishun; Oi will that, ond call it shquare."
Mac certainly was acting very compromisingly. But I explained to the Irishman no reasonable sum could purchase that particular donkey, and, furthermore, that twenty-five dollars would barely satisfy my claims.
The exclamation of "Holy Mither!" checked me for the moment, and as the man looked barnward he added, elequently shaking his fists, "Oi'm dommed, if th' shcapegrace ain't mixin' dhrinks!" Here Mr. Rooney and I rushed out in the nick of time to prevent my crazy jack from tapping a whiskey barrel standing in the shed adjoining the barn.
"Misther Pod, a curse on me soul if Oi would ruun th' bladherscat fer doorkeeper oof th' pinnytinsury! Here's tin dollars, tear th' likes oof it in two and rhuun ond buy a bhromo seltzer, and sober th' toper oop at wance." I took the proffered note, and had gone but a hundred feet when the Irishman called to me, "Hold on; before yez lave fer th' sphace of a mooment moind thet ye puts a muzzle on th' asrophoid rephrobate with th' bobtail ears, ond shpring a toime lock on th' crethur."
The animals having been dosed, I was about to question myself "What next?" when my host said cordially, "Shure, ond yez will feed with us. Yez may keep th' change from th' shinphlaster ond good luck in sthore fer yez. Now, coom on to grub, ond lave th' brutes alone. They'll be afther havin' their sea legs soon." And Pat succeeded in conciliating me, and escorted me to the house.
By one o'clock my disgraceful donkeys answered to roll-call, and with touching humility submitted to be saddled.
With such disappointing interpositions of Fate the Golden Gate seemed to be a decade removed. For a while, the donks were wavering and their pedals unreliable; but after the first hour they meandered along quite acceptably. As Mac was slow to recuperate, I rode Cheese. He was surprisingly sure of foot, whereas Mac, swell-headed, drowsy-eyed and swaying, couldn't have walked a straight line a yard wide, unless it was a yard of grass. He walked with a suspicious tread, like one venturing on ice which threatened his death bath any moment. When the afternoon was well advanced Cheese showed symptoms of lameness in his nigh fore-leg, as I had feared, in consequence of his late circus. We passed Maywood and Elmhurst as we followed the main-traveled road. I was compelled to dismount and lead my cripple four miles to Lombard. Such was my luck in the State of Illinois.
It was after dark, the second day out of Chicago, and still we had traveled but twenty miles. To think—that munificent gift, Cheese, was already an invalid on my hands! I summoned a veterinary surgeon, and listened to his diagnosis with solicitous attention. "Only a strain of the shoulder muscles," said he; "must have run-hop-skip-and-jumped to get such a strain—does he ever play golf? Will require a full week's rest." The doctor rendered his professional opinion with the air of a metropolitan specialist prescribing a trip to Europe for some delicate society belle.
Next morning I rode in company with a good fellow two miles into the country, where I purchased a very long-eared, shapeless donkey, of a good character, and quickly rode him bare-back to town. Then I sold my cripple at auction in the public square.