"Ready, Perk?"
"Hold up there, Chub! Don't ye git in sich a tarnal hurry. What am I goin' to do with this here rope?"
"Why, cast it off, of course. How can you expect to fly with the rope holdin' you back?"
"Waal, now, wait; le's understand this thing. It's my idee, ain't it?"
"Sure. You drew the plans an' I put the machine together."
"If any picters is published in the papers, mine goes in bigger'n yours, don't it?"
"That's all to the good, Perk. When the reporters write this up, you'll be the king-pin. The invention is yours, and all I did was to put it together. But you're a pretty old man to try it out, Perk. You'd better let me take the first spin."
"Bein' the inventor, I reckon I got a right to show off a little. Purty nigh all my life I been a hootin', tootin' disturber o' the peace, committin' depperdations as makes me blush to think of; but right here is where I do somethin' fer civilization an' progress, which'll go a good ways to'rds makin' up fer the past. I'm plumb hungry, Chub, to hear folks say: 'That there flyin' machine is the biggest thing o' the twentieth century, an' Welcome Perkins done it. He used to be a howlin', cut-an'-slash desperado in his younger days, but now he's turned over a new leaf, an' is devotin' his shinin' abilities to forwardin' the cause o' progress as much as he used to be fer holdin' it back.' That's what I wants to hear folks say as they're p'intin' me out, an'——"
"Oh, slush! If you stand up there chinning much longer, Perk, somebody'll come. You want this to be a private flight, don't you?"
"Jest at the beginnin', till I see if everythin' works all right. If there ain't any hitch. I want to make it as public as possible. I'd be tickled to have the hull town come out an' see me cuttin' figger eight's in the clouds. 'It can't be that one-legged feller up there is Welcome Perkins, the ole ex-pirate o' the plains as has been living right here among us, can it?' the people will say, awed-like, turnin' to each other. Then I'll fly low, so'st to let 'em make sure, an' laugh exultin'-like——"