"And what, pray, did you whittle to take their place?"
"Never had no call to use 'em," muttered Bill, chewing up the item he had just disposed of. "I can say all that I can think with commas and periods."
"Abraham Lincoln used colons and semicolons," said Ellis, shortly, "and I am setting his immortal speech. What am I going to do about it, my intelligent co-printer?"
Bill coughed violently as the wad of paper slipped down his throat.
"Try George Washington," he advised, "They didn't have so much trimmin's to their talk them days."
Jap shoved a chair against the door sill and flung the door ajar to cut off the blast of hot air that swept the office.
"Gee-whiz!" he complained, "I'm chokin' on the dust. However did they get 'Bloomtown' hitched on to this patch of dirt? There ain't a flower 'in a mile, 'ceptin' the half-dead sprigs the wimmin are acoaxin' against their will."
"When I came here," said Ellis, "the old settlers told me that whenever I wanted information I should hunt up Kelly Jones. There he goes now. Call him in."
But Kelly was coming anyway. He carried a mysterious basket and his sun-burned face was full of suppressed excitement.
"Wife allowed that you and Jap must be putty nigh starved," he chuckled, shifting the quid to his other cheek. "I reckon she knowed that Jap done the cookin' Wednesdays and Thursdays."