After this most extraordinary and unintelligible communication he began to feel his pockets and his person all over, as though searching for something. I felt myself at liberty to resume my study of The Spectator.
However, I was not to be left alone. Again he addressed me. "Guess I gotta hand it to you."
"I beg your pardon," I observed, lowering my paper.
"You've got 'em all whipped blocks," he went on, his absurd smile still persisting. "You're a cracker jack, you're a smart aleck. You've done to me what the fire did to the furnishing shack. You've dealt me one in the spaghetti joint. Oh, I gotta hand it to you."
I could understand little of the words, but I gathered from his manner that he was congratulating me on something in the extravagant but interesting fashion of the North-American tribes.
"You sure put the monkey-wrench on me," he continued. "You make me feel like I couldn't operate a pea-nut stand. I'm the rube from the back-blocks, sure thing. I ain't going to holler any—not me. I'm real pleased to get acquainted. Shake."
I took his hand with as little self-consciousness as possible, not yet having been able to understand what praiseworthy act I had accomplished. I must admit none the less that I felt vaguely pleased at his encomiums.
"There was a guy way back in Nevada used to have a style like yours. They called him Happy Cloud Sim, and he had a hand like a ham. See that grip? Well, Sir, Sim 'ud come right in here, lay his hand somewheres about, and that grip 'ud vanish into the sweet eternal. You could search the hull of the cars from caboose to fire-box and nary a grip. He was an artist. Poor Sim, he overreached himself in Albany, trying to attach a cash-register. The blame thing started ringing a bell and shedding tickets all along the sidewalk. The sleuths just paper-chased him through the burg. He was easy meat for the calaboose that Fall."
I was at a loss to understand the relevance of this extremely improbable narrative. It did not appear, on the face of it, complimentary to connect me with a declared thief and gaol-bird. Still it was my duty to be courteous to one who was for the time a national guest.
"A most interesting story," I remarked, "and one which has the further advantage of conveying a moral lesson."