Red gave me his grubby sticky hand in sudden sympathy, bidding me cheer up. "'Cause even a Dago ain't so bad as niggars."
I mopped my eyes with a handkerchief and begged him not to comfort me too much lest I shed unmanly tears. "Tell me," I went on, "about the man you kicked."
"Ruptured, I 'ope. You see I went into the C.P.R. office and ast for a job, and 'e said no English need apply. I'd best go, says 'e, to the Society for the Relief of Destitute Englishmen. So I ast 'im wot 'e was and 'e says, 'Canadian, get-to-'ell-out-of-'ere.' Then I 'ummed Gawd Save the Queen at 'im for maybe fifteen minutes to lure 'im out from behind that 'ere bulkhead.
"The girl with the parcels was buying a ticket to Troy, and 'im showin' off of 'is manners and gold-filled teeth. Sort of, 'Yes, madame, the twelve o'clock train leaves at noon to-morrow, and the fare don't h'include no Pullman bunk nor meals nor an extra h'engine, and in the event of Indians you won't be scalped, madame, 'cause you're just too beautiful.' And she is, too.
"Meanwhile I just sang the national anthem at 'im, knowing it was bound to work if I kep' on patient, 'e gettin' as red as a lobster with 'is un'oly passions, until at last she says, 'Good-by,' an' drops 'er parcels. Stands like an 'elpless angel, saying 'ow silly she is.
"Yuss. There's me at 'er little feet a-pickin' up the pawcels 'and over 'and, when h'out comes Mr. Clerk from 'is sheltered 'utch to say I'm a thief—so I lets out a mule kick and 'e performs the high trajectory—yuss, and busts his bloomin' hypotenuse right fair across the seat. And I never said nothin' to nobody. Nar! Then just as I'm opening the door for 'er ladyship to pawss out 'e comes along for another, and gets some more of the same in 'is bleedin' gizzard. I gives it to 'im abundant, enough to lawst, but the lidy says, ''Ow could yer!' and wants to offer me money. Says I to meself, 'I 'ear thee speak of a better land,' so not wanting to interfere with them 'ippopotamus police I comes 'ere for sanctimony.
"Oh, yuss. She was h'angels h'ever bright and fair by the nime o' Vi'let Burrows. That's 'er tally. Tells the clerk she 'ails from 'Elena, Montana."
"What!"
"Vi'let Burrows, of 'Elena, Montana. 'Ere, what's up?"
But Violet Burrows, of Helena, Montana, was the lady I had swapped for a sucking pig to the cook who traded her for a dog to the sergeant-major who sold her for a pair of boots to the good Inspector Sarde. Then I had written advising her to bring an action against poor Sarde for breach of promise of marriage. According to Brat's last letter, Inspector Sarde was at Fort Qu'Appelle twenty miles north of Troy station, on the Canadian Pacific. And here was Violet Burrows on her way to Troy. It would never do. She was much too good for Sarde. She belonged to me.