“Identical! Remember me tellin’ you about a good turn I done him once down Guadalupe way?”
“Greaser shooting-scrape, wasn’t it?”
“Yep! Well, I noticed first off that he’s gettin’ fat; high-livin’ fat, too, all in one spot, like he was playin’ both ends ag’in the centre. Also he wore di’mon’s fit to handle with ice-tongs.
“Says I, lookin’ at his side elevation, ‘What’s accented your middle syllable so strong, Mexico?’
“ ‘Prosperity, politics, an’ the Waldorf-Astorier,’ says he. It seems Mex hadn’t forgot old days. He claws me into a corner an’ says, ‘Bill, I’m goin’ to pay you back for that Moralez deal.’
“ ‘It ain’t comin’ to me,’ says I. ‘That’s a bygone!’
“ ‘Listen here,’ says he, an’, seein’ he was in earnest, I let him run on.
“ ‘How much do you value that claim o’ yourn at?’
“ ‘Hard tellin’,’ says I. ‘If she holds out like she run last fall, there’d ought to be a million clear in her.’
“ ‘How much ’ll you clean up this summer?’