"It has an awful meltin' effect on names," I continued.
He chuckled again. "I'm mighty glad you arrived, Happy," sez he. "What do you suppose'll happen to my name?"
"Well" I sez, "if you get yours before they learn to like you, it'll probably be James Jamison on the headboard, but if you make good, it'll be Jim Jimison on Sundays an' jest plain Jim for every day." "That suits me," sez he. "I'm entered for the whole race, an' I'm glad to get off as soon as possible."
"Supper's ready," called the cooks, an' when I gave a whoop an' bolted for it he giggled like a big fat mammy. I had turned up the side of his nature 'at would be most useful to our business. I took a sip o' the coffee while he kept his eyes glued on me. "Come over here, Jim," I called.
Jim came over lookin' a little anxious. "Taste that stuff," sez I.
He tasted it an' his face changed as though he had caught a vision of the better world, but I kept my face like the face of an angry bear. "What do you call this stuff?" I asked the cook, an' his face grew dark as a thunder cloud.
"That's coffee!" he roared.
"When was the pot cleaned?" I asked, with my brows drawn down to the bridge of my nose.
"Not more'n ten minutes ago," he yelled; and I got up an' holding my cup in my hand I danced about twenty different dances, while that cook like to split his sides laughin'. He was a cook, the' was no gettin' around it, an' Jim, he turned in an' fed his face while first his cheeks would dimple with the gladness o' the moment, an' then his eyes would sadden as he thought of all the good eatin' he had missed by not knowin' the proper kind o' diplomacy to use in handlin' a cook. An' me!—say, I mowed away until my skin begun to creak under the strain an' I couldn't roll my eyes more'n two degrees. Then I got up an' I shook hands with the cook.
"Cook," I sez, "no matter how devilish wicked you've been in the past, an' no matter how faithful you live up to your inner nature in the future, you're sure of a number nine crown an' a spotless robe jest fer this one meal"; an' the cook, he fairly glistened in the firelight.