“No, sir. You write to all your folks, predictin’ your demise, leave your watch and chain with the bartender, and then walk into town, unarmed and with your hands in the air.”
“By golly, that’s the town I’ve been looking for,” says he. “Thanks.”
“Mister, she’s a great place for freaks,” says Dirty. “You won’t be in that place long until you’ll join P. T. Barnum.”
“Barnum?” says he. “Barnum is dead.”
“Sure—I know it.”
“Yes,” says he, after a while. “You’re going with me. I’ll disguise you so nobody will know you, you understand? I must have you with me.”
“Mister,” says I, “are you just a —— tenderfoot who wants to be a bad man, or what’s all your talk about banks and bullion?”
“I am a realist, as I said before. The West has never been depicted as I feel it really is and I am going to show them something new. I have a story, ‘The Twilight Trail,’ which has been partly done, but I want realism. I want the spirit of the old West in it. I want a stage hold-up, a bank robbery, with real people in it, in a Western town—real West. Now, do you understand?”
“Just like I do Chinese,” says I. “You said a lot, but she don’t somehow fit into my mind. You don’t want much, I sabe that part of it, don’t you, Dirty?”
“Yeah, he’s plumb modest and meek, Ike. Are you a writer?”