“I prefer to be known as Professor Green, if it is not too much trouble,” says he stiff-like, but Magpie grins and says:
“I’m Magpie; this is Ike. You’re Ajax. Sabe?”
“Rather—er—personal, don’t you think?”
“How’d you like Ulysses?” I asks.
“No. If I have no choice in the matter I’d prefer Ajax.”
“If I had my choice of weapons I’d take a pickax,” grins Magpie. “Are you the hombre what discovered lightning?”
“Oh, no! The original Ajax defied the lightning, don’t you know.”
“He made a sucker play,” says I. “Maybe he didn’t sabe electricity.”
Ajax refused to smoke a cigaret, so we gave him an old pipe that “Polecat” Perkins left in our shack, but he didn’t seem to care for it.
“Now,” says Magpie, “we’d admire to hear what you came here for.”