Ajax rubs his sore eyes and looks up at Magpie.
“I shall certainly persevere until I have observed fully the effects of astragalas splendens upon the——”
But me and Magpie went out and left him talking to himself.
We helped Ajax bring in his foot-rest that night and watched him go to bed with his feet thirty inches higher than his head. He’s so all-in that he never felt the pack-rats that night, and the next morning he’s a sorry-looking hunk of scientific humanity.
His clothes are about seven-eighths to the sere and yaller leaf. His valise don’t contain nothing but a book, some papers and a box of pills. Magpie looks him over from all angles.
“Somebody will kill you, Ajax, if you dress thataway,” says Magpie. “In memory of Professor Middleton me and Ike will have to dress you civilized-like, I reckon.”
We got him into an old pair of boots, one of my shirts and an old sombrero of Magpie’s. He looks like ——, but he don’t know it. Then he wants another length of rope.
“You going back to the same place?” I asks.
He considers it a moment, and shakes his head.
“I don’t believe I will. That vulgar person might accost me again, and I have no time to waste in combat. I will try in another direction, if it makes no particular difference.”