“By grab, Chuck, you and me are friends for life. Here’s twenty. I don’t know what the ticket costs, but I ain’t asking questions. If she asks for me, you tell her—what’ll you tell her?”
“I never rehearse, Doughgod. I’ll tell her something—you gamble on that.”
Doughgod wanders away, hugging himself, so me and Chuck buys a drink. We meets “Muley” Bowles and “Telescope” Tolliver, and Chuck tells them about the trustee meeting.
“That’s a danged shame,” states Telescope. “This here country is pining for the touch of a woman’s gentle hand. Now, when she shows up, we got to tell her to pilgrim along. Just ’cause them two old, dried-up specimens don’t want women, it ain’t no reason why we don’t.”
“Dogs in a manger,” says Muley, shaking his fat face until it wobbles. Muley had had about enough cheer for a fat man, and he ain’t none too secure on his feet. “As the poet would shay:
“Drink to me only with thy eyes,
Oh, women, lovely women,
If I hadn’t washed las’ Shummer
I’d like to go in schwimmin’.”
“Muley, you’re making light of a dark subject,” chides Telescope. “This is a case of two old pelicans trying to cut the sentiment out of the cow business, and we’ve got to frustrate it. Sabe?”
“Shentiment?” asks Muley serious-like. “This is my shentiments:
“Love is a fleeting flower
That fleeted away from me,
Like a tumble-weed in a cyclone
Adrift on a Wintry sea.
Where are the loves of yesterday
That made my heart so light?
Gone like the howl of a coyote
That was howled at the moon last night.
“That’s shentiment,” says Muley. “Deep from the heart. Who’s going to the dance at the Triangle tonight, eh?”