“We’ve got between five and six hundred dollars in the Silver Bend bank,” I replies.
“We did have, Ike. We did have a measly amount like that. How far will a amount like that go, I asks you? As old age sneaks upon us, Ike, and our hands lose their cunning we need to be upholstered in worldly goods or go to the bone-yard.”
“Has somebody robbed that danged bank?” I gasps.
“I hope not, Ike. I wrote a check for five hundred and gave it to Jay-Bird, so I ain’t worrying.”
“The —— you did! What for, Magpie?”
“For the complete and entire ownership of Oswald’s Dog and Pony Show, which will be knowed in the future as Simpkins’ Stupendous Shows Combined.”
“Combined with what?” I whispers.
“I don’t know yet.”
I don’t say nothing more. I look at him—that’s all. I hope to die if I didn’t want to kill my pardner. I swallers hard and scratches the butt of my six-gun.
“I knowed you’d choke up with e-motion, Ike,” says he, reaching over to pat me on the back. “It’s a thing that only comes once in a man’s life, and I knowed it would make you happy. Opportunity knocked and I sure let her in. Come on, Ike, and we’ll make P. T. Barnum’s outfit look like a medicine show. Why, dog-gone it, Ike, we can run that outfit one season and clean up enough to let us loaf the rest of our lives.”