The scribe jumps up from the typewriter.
"Write it down! write it down!"
"I can't!"
"Well, then, I won't pay you."
(The scribe, gathering up his papers.) "What shall I do with all these sheets upon which I have written your nonsense?"
"You might use them in doing up your gape-seed! Good-day!"
LARIAT BILL
ANONYMOUS
"Well, stranger, 'twas somewhere in 'sixty-nine
I wore runnin' the 'Frisco fast express;
An' from Murder Creek to Blasted Pine,
Were nigh onto eighteen mile, I guess.
The road were a down-grade all the way,
An' we pulled out of Murder a little late,
So I opened the throttle wide that day,
And a mile a minute was 'bout our gait.
"My fireman's name was Lariat Bill,
A quiet man with an easy way,
Who could rope a steer with a cowboy's skill,
Which he had learned in Texas, I've heard him say:
The coil were strong as tempered steel,
An' it went like a bolt from a crossbow flung.
An' arter Bill changed from saddle to wheel,
Just over his head in the cab it hung.