“Raffle money!” snorts Tellurium. “Did anybody pay yuh cash, Chuck? I know danged well I didn’t. I just signed your paper for it.”
Chuck looks blank like for uh minute, feels of his head, and snorts:
“Cripes! I sure must uh been kicked hard. Where’s Ricky?”
“Right here,” chirps Ricky. “What yuh want?”
“Where’s that piece uh paper I gave yuh just before the raffle started?”
“Piece uh—oh, that piece. Gosh! Was that worth anything, Chuck? I remember you handing it to me, and telling me to put it in my pocket, but I thought yuh was joshing. Well, I was standing over there by that shotgun, after Buck puts it back on the bar, and unless I’m mistaken I sort uh absent-minded like shoved it into the muzzle uh that gun. I’m sorry——”
“You’re welcome,” states Chuck, offhand like. “It looks to me like I’d shot the business all to —— with the profits. I lose eleven dollars and four cents on the deal.”
“What I want to know is this: is that bird critter still in the land of the living?” interrupts Scenery Sims.
“What I want to know is—has somebody got some liniment?” states the judge, and then me and Magpie and Chuck goes outside.
“Ain’t it awful?” complains Chuck. “The goose that was going to lay the golden aig is dead, and your two hundred is all shot to pieces.”