"'I didn't hear the fellow say the skate could do that kind of stuff,' says I, just a bit dazed, after looking over a lot more of it.
"'He only handed it to me as a sort of last card,' says Cap., 'and that's what made me change my mind about buying him. Get five thousand twelve sheets in yellow and red; ten thousand three sheets; fifteen thousand block one sheets with cut of the horse. And you can place an order for as many black and white dodgers as they can turn out between this and the end of the week. It's a big card and we're going into it up to our eyebrows.'
"If I had had time to consider anything but hustling, I might have thought the thing was a fake. But it was the old man's game and I left him to do the worrying. I threw rush orders into the printers and soon had the presses banging away on the stuff desired.
"Next day Cap. started a four-inch double-column notice in every paper in town. I hired an army of distributers and began to put out the dodgers as they came hot off the bat; then I got a couple of Guinea bands, put them in open wagons, done up with painted muslin announcements, and sent them forth to tear off the melody and otherwise delight the eye and ear of the town. As the big stuff came off the press it was slapped up on every blank wall and fence in the city that wasn't under guard; and when the job was finished, St. Louis fairly glared with it. If there was a person who hadn't heard of the Talking Horse by the end of the week, they must have been deaf, dead or in jail.
"The nag was to make his first appearance on Monday, and the last sheet of paper had been put up and the last hand bill disposed of by Saturday afternoon.
"'How does she look?' says Cap. to me when I came in.
"'Great,' says I. 'If they ain't tearing the place down to get in on Monday, why my bump of prophecy has a dent in it.'
"'Let 'em come,' says Cap., looking very much tickled. 'We need the money and we ain't turning nobody away. The horse has reached town and will be brought around to-morrow morning; so you make it a point to be on hand to let it and the handler in.'
"I was around bright and early on Sunday morning, and along comes the horse. He was got up in the swellest horse stuff I ever saw—beaded blankets of plush and silk, with his name embroidered on them, and all that kind of goods. The handler was a husky with one lamp and a bad one at that.
"'Where do I put him?' says he.