"Wall, I should say I shore did," he replied. "I shore went to a the-a-ter, but she didn't get my funny-bone busy none."

"Why, Curly," I asked, "how's that?"

"Wall, you see it's thisaway. When you turned me loose down to th' stockyards, I axed th' commission man what was th' ring-tailedest lally-cooler of a hotel in town, an' he tells me she's th' Palmer House.

"Then I ropes a kid an' hobbles him with four bits long enough to run me through th' milling herd of short-horns as fer as th' Palmer.

"On th' way I stops to a store an' buys a new hat, an' a pair o' high-heel boots, an' a new suit, shirt, an' red handkerchief, an' a little ol' humany war sack with a handle on her, an' inter her I puts my belt an' spurs.

"Then, when I gets fixed up jest like them city folks, I pikes along to th' Palmer, an' in I goes.

"An' she was a shore lally-cooler all right! More prittys about th' fixin' up o' that house that I'd allowed anything but a woman could pack.

"Wall, when I got in I axed for Mr. Palmer, an' a little feller in sorta soldier-brass-button-clothes runs me up to a little close pen with a fence round her slicker than airy bar in Fort Worth—all glass an' shiny wood an' dandy stones. In that thar pen was a quick-talkin', smart-aleck feller, with a di'mond big as a engin' head-light staked out in th' middle of his bald-faced shirt.

"That feller shore rubbed my hair th' wrong way th' minute he shot his mouth off, with:

"'Wall, what kin I do for you, young feller?'