“I won’t buy no chances,” says Buck. “I’ve been down to the livery-stable and got a look at them there animals, and I’m free to state that I don’t want none. Magpie orates that we’ll have ’em to attract more folks to Piperock. My —, that bunch will drive away what we’ve got.”
“If I had that elephant,” said Mighty, “I’d shore take a reef in him. His hide don’t fit him no place. He ain’t no attraction—he’s a disgrace. From the rear he looks like ‘Polecat’ Perkins in his Sunday pants. Wick, you ort to give him a belt to take up the slack.”
“That’s why he’s an attraction,” declared Wick. “The feller I bought him from said that Gunga Din was a rare species of elephant. His name’s Gunga Din. My —, he ort to be good. I paid three hundred and thirty-three dollars and thirty-three and one-third cents for him. That camel and the tiger cost the same.”
“I think that Magpie’s crazy,” say I.
“How about me?” wails Wick. “I paid for ’em myself.”
“Yore wife’s callin’ yuh, Wick,” observed Buck.
Wick squints toward the door and nods sadly.
“Yeah, I left her to run the store while I talks over my sorrow. Now I’ve got to go back and git — agin’. She don’t believe in Chambers of Commerce, she don’t; and I’m commencin’ to wonder if she ain’t right.”
Wick pilgrims across the street, while me and Dirty goes down to the livery stable to see what Wick bought. “Hassayampa” Harris is runnin’ the stable.
“Howdy, Hassayampa,” says I. “How are you?”