"That's doin' middlin' well, ain't it?" says he.
Come to figure up, it was, and I told him I didn't see why he wa'n't in a fair way to find himself cuttin' into the grape some day.
"It all depends on the Jayhawker," says he. "I've got a third int'rest in that. Course, I ain't hollerin' a lot about it yet, for it ain't much more'n a hole in the ground; but if they ever strike the yellow there maybe we'll come on and take a look at New York."
"It's worth it," says I. "Hunt me up when you do."
"I shore will," says Hank. "Good luck!"
And the last I see of him he was standin' there in his buckskin pants, gawpin' at the steam cars.
Now, I ain't been spendin' my time ever since wonderin' what was happenin' to Hank. You know how it is. Maybe I've had him in mind two or three times. But when I gets that 'phone message I didn't have any trouble about callin' up my last view of him. So, when it come to buttin' into a swell Fifth-ave. hotel and askin' for Hank Merrity, I has a sudden spasm of bashfulness. It didn't last long.
"If Hank was good enough for me to chum with in Bedelia," says I, "he ought to have some standin' with me here. There wa'n't anything I could have asked that he wouldn't have done for me out there, and I guess if he needs some one to show him where Broadway is, and tell him to take his pants out of his boot tops, it's up to me to do it."
Just the same, when I gets up to the desk, I whispers it confidential to the clerk. If he'd come back with a hee-haw I wouldn't have said a word. I was expectin' somethin' of the kind. But never a chuckle. He don't even grin.
"Hank Merrity?" says he, shakin' his head. "We have a guest here, though, by the name of Henry Merrity—Mr. Henry Merrity."