“I can’t do nothin’,” he tells us.
“—, that ain’t news,” agrees Dirty. “Everybody knows that.”
“In the pay-jint,” says he. “I want to be somethin’.”
“All right,” says I. “You be a hump in the road for the wagons to run over.”
“That’s all right f’r you two pelicans,” says he. “You’ve got things to do. I’ve been shoved aside, that’s what I’ve been done to, by gosh. Mebbe Piperock is progressin’, but I’m right where I was a week ago. Have a drink?”
We would. In fact we had several. We got to a point where Dirty gets to braggin’ about bein’ East. He orates that he’s also effete. Magpie comes back from Paradise, all swelled up over himself, and invades Buck’s place.
“They’ll come,” he tells the world. “Paradise will be here in copious gobs. From Curlew we’ll poll a big majority, and there’ll be a sprinklin’ from Yaller Horse. I prognosticate that Piperock will hold about all there is in Yaller Rock County. We has spread the gospel of progress, and the world responds.”
“Has Paradise got her animals yet?” asks Buck.
“Not yet. Mike Pelly tells me that they’re on the way. It’s goin’ to be nip and tuck between us towns. Well, I’ve got to go and see how things is goin’. Is Pete and Yuma workin’ on that float?”
“All day,” says Buck. “It’ll be a dinger.”