“I dunno,” says he kinda sad-like. “A shock sometimes causes a feller to jerk back to his cannibal ancestors.”
I dunno what he’s talkin’ about, but I’m too bunged up to care much, and my face is beginnin’ to crack.
“How in — did it finish?” I asks.
“All right, Ike. The animals all hived up in the livery-stable, and Wick Smith sold ’em to Paradise.”
“The — he did!” I exclaimed, or as much of an exclamation as I can use in my condition. “And didn’t the Piperock Chamber of Commerce stop him?”
“There was only one to vote agin’ it—and he was too danged near death to even squawk. They never even give him credit for tryin’ to save the tiger. I seen it all, Ike. When you lifted that old Sharps to shoot Cleopatry, Magpie got loose from Gunga Din and fell into yuh.”
“Uh-uh-huh,” says I, feelin’ weak. “And then what did I do to the tiger, Dirty.”
“Nothin’ a-tall. The wheels of progress got to turnin’, and Magpie got under the tire, thasall. In the language of Magpie Simpkins, I wouldn’t be surprized to see Piperock one of the big cities of the world.”
“Well,” says I, “in the language of Ike Harper, whose spirit, liver, lights and gizzard has been busted to make a Piperock holiday, let’s get to — out of here, before the place grows too big. I don’t want to even be seen in the suburbs.”
But she hasn’t grown any since.