“Your wisdom is to be applauded, Buck,” says Chuck. “Sheath that cemetery promoter, and we’ll rest easier and think clearer. Ricky, give me that hat with the tickets in.”
“Where’s your danged hat?” asks Ricky, down on his hands and knees under the table. “If it was down here—let loose, you cross between uh Shanghai rooster and uh giraffe! Huh!”
Ricky’s hand comes up over the table-top, and produces one square of white paper.
“Your hat’s still here, Chuck, but that danged bird has ate up all the tickets except that number thirteen. I took that away from him and—ouch! Yuh will, will yuh!”
“Biff! Coo-oo-orlook.”
Ricky must uh kicked that bird for getting familiar, ’cause it comes right up into our midst with dangerous intent written on its countenance.
I love birds. Maw used to have uh canary, and I cried when it passed out. I got uh lot uh feathered friends, and I never met uh bird before that even attempted to kick me. I don’t think that thing was uh bird in the first place. I’d call it uh cross between uh mean disposition and uh piledriver, ’cause it kicked Ike Harper, Esq., right where he wears his pancakes. Ike Harper immediate and soon skids across the floor and plays uh billiard off Judge Steele and Buck Masterson, and finishes up by holing out under uh chair.
I peeks out from my ambush and observes that alleged bird leave that low grog shop with Scenery hanging on to its neck and Dirty Shirt hold of its tail. Somebody must uh cut that rope. The rest of the audience, except me and Buck and the judge, follers in the rear.
I must uh hit Buck and the judge pretty hard. Buck has got uh cut over his eye where he bumped against the bar on his way down, and the judge fell between the bar and the rail, with his feet under the rail.
I hauls the judge around so his back is against the bar, with the rail across his lap, and folds his hands. Then I helps Buck into uh chair, where he sets and makes funny little noises.