“Yes,” he admits, “she’s fading out, Ike. The Simpkins’ Stupendous Shows is about scattered. Nothing left but a snake-eater and a elephant. Sorry you missed your meal, Bosco.”
“My ——! Did you think—I—say, that snake still had its fangs!”
“Oh!” says Magpie. “I see. You—you sort of commit suicide with a empty gun, as it were, eh?”
“As it were,” nods Bosco. “I’m going away from here pretty soon. I ain’t got nothing to wear, no place to go and nothing to ride upon.”
“There’s lots of places to go,” says Magpie, “and you can ride that danged elephant if you want to.”
“Like ——!” says I. “I’m going to have something out of this. I’m shy two hundred and ninety dollars, Magpie.”
Then cometh old Judge Steele and Yuma. They’ve got a white rag on a stick. Yuma is half out of clothes and they both seem chastened in spirit. They halts fifty yards away.
“We come more in sorrow than in anger,” states the judge. “Sorry we didn’t kill you fellers early this morning. Which of you deplorable jassacks is the tiger-trainer?”
“I wash my hands of the tiger,” replies Magpie “I may have Yuma arrested for stealing it but that’s all.”
“It’s in the saloon,” says Yuma, bowing apologetic-like. “Buck is in there and so is Old Testament, and we ain’t heard from them for quite a while.”