Now, look at what happens last evenin'. I was just leanin' up against the street door, real comfortable and satisfied after a good dinner, when Swifty Joe comes down from the Studio and says there's a party by the name of Merrity been callin' me up on the 'phone.
"Merrity?" says I. "That sounds kind of joyous and familiar. Didn't he give any letters for the front of it?"
"Nothin' but Hank," says Swifty.
"Oh, yes," says I, gettin' the clue. "What did Hank have to say?"
"Said he was a friend of yours, and if you didn't have nothin' better on the hook he'd like to see you around the Wisteria," says Swifty.
With that I lets loose a snicker. Honest, I couldn't help it.
"Ah, chee!" says Swifty. "Is it a string, or not? I might get a laugh out of this myself."
"Yes, and then again you mightn't," says I. "Maybe it'd bring on nothin' but a brain storm. You wait until I find out if it's safe to tell you."
With that I starts down towards 34th-st to see if it was really so about Hank Merrity; for the last glimpse I got of him he was out in Colorado, wearin' spurs and fringed buckskin pants, and lookin' to be as much of a fixture there as Pike's Peak.
It was while I was trainin' for one of my big matches, that I met up with Hank. We'd picked out Bedelia for a camp. You've heard of Bedelia? No? Then you ought to study the map. Anyway, if you'd been followin' the sportin' news reg'lar a few years back, you'd remember. There was a few days about that time when more press despatches was filed from Bedelia than from Washington. And the pictures that was sent east; "Shorty Ropin' Steers"—"Mr. McCabe Swingin' a Bronco by the Tail," and all such truck. You know the kind of stuff them newspaper artists strains their imaginations on.