Bill went from the store straight to the home of the old merchant and told the wife of the merchant that he was "frash from auld Ireland, and that he had one shawl left, from his large stock, that he would sell her real cheaply. He commenced to talk to the lady, and all the time he was talking he was unwinding the papers from around the shawl. She looked at him in amazement, and he told her that he had sold out a large collection of fine shawls that he had brought from Paris, and that her husband had seen this shawl and greatly admired it, and that he had said to him in the presence of several other men, that he would like to see his wife wear a shawl like it." She told him that the shawl must be very choice.
At last the wrappers were all off the shawl, and he threw it about her shoulders and told her to look in the glass. He slapped his hands together, saying, "beautiful, beautiful—real Parisian." On talked the talkative Bill, until at last he saw he had won the lady to his view of thinking that she was a real Parisian figure with the shawl gracefully draped about her shoulders, and she asked him what he would take for it.
He told her that she could have it for just $65. and before she could catch her breath, he wheeled her about where she could see her profile in the glass, and told her to "just look at the reflection, could anything be handsomer?" He told her that it was the last one he had, and was cheap at the price, that her husband had said so, and that he said he would like to see her wear it.
She paid the money for it and he departed. He met one of his cronies down the street and told him about the transaction. "Now," said he, "you go down and tell him that he had better come over to the saloon and treat, and I will have the other boys over there hidden in the back room, and we will all get a glass and
"All go down to Rowser, to Rowser, to Rowser, We'll all go down to
Rowser and get a drink of beer."
Well, the merchant "fell to" and the treats cost him in round figures the sum of $11.00. When Daugherty left to catch his stage out from there to Fort Zara, he was still treating the crowd, and getting pretty full, himself.
After the affair at Leavenworth, Bill Daugherty came to Kansas City on the boat, and asked the stage company if they needed a man to care for some of their stations. Mr. Barnum employed Bill and he went to Fort Zara, out among the Indians, where Bill's tongue helped him to get along very nicely with them.
When he chanced to allude to Fort Leavenworth, he always told the story of his "contracting" at Leavenworth on the corner of Fifth and Shawnee Streets. Out there at Fort Zara, Bill enjoyed himself as only Irishmen can, but his stumbling block was Captain Conkey, who was the biggest crank on earth, "take it from me," for he and I had a little "set-to." Daugherty always sent his "red, white and blue regards to the old merchant" by whosoever went to Leavenworth.
CHAPTER XXIII.
Captain Conkey.