Part 3 (2/2)
Seafaring men gets wet and cold, and wrecked, but cow-boys has adventures instead, excitement, red streaks of life. Following the sea, I been missing life. Why, this guy ain't more'n two years older'n me--say, seventeen, but he's had five years ridin' for one man, four years for another, six years in Arizona, then three in Oregon, until he's added up about half a century. He's more worldly, too, than me--been in a train on the railroad. I'm surely humbled by four P. M., and if he keeps goin', by four bells I'll be young enough to set in mother's lap.
Says his name's Bull Durham. Surely I seen that name on lil' sacks of tobacco. Bull owns up this baccy's named after his father. And surely his old man must be pretty well fixed. ”That's so,” says Bull, blus.h.i.+ng to show he's modest ”Ye see, kid, the old man's a bishop. Yes, Bishop of Durham, of course. Lives over to London, England. Got a palace thar, and a pew in the House of Lords. I'll be a lord when he quits. I'm the Honorable Bull by rights, although I hate to have the boys in camp know that--make 'em feel real mean when all of 'em rides as well as me, or almost, and some can rope even better.”
”And you is the young of a real lord!”
”Sure. I'll have to be a bishop, too, when I comes into the property.
I'm a sort of vice-bishop, sonny. D'ye see these yere gloves? They got a string to tie 'em at the back, 'cause I been inducted. I got an entail I'll show you in camp, and a pair of hereditaments.”
”Vice-bishop,” says I, ”is that like bo's'n's mate? I never hear tell of a bishop's mate.”
”He mates in two moves,” says Bull, ”baptism and conflamation.”
”But,” says I, so he just shuts me up, saying I may be ignorant, but that ain't no excuse for being untruthful.
Well, his talk made me small and mean as a starved cat, but that was nothing to the emotions at the other end of me when he got me on one of them horses. I wanted to walk. Walk! The most shameful things he knew was walking and telling lies. If I walked he'd have nothing more to do with me. I rode till we got to the ferry.
You know in books how there's a line of stars acrost the page to show the author's grief. I got 'em bad by the time we rode into Invicta City.
Draw the line right thar:
We're having supper at the Palladium, and I'm pretty nigh scared. The goblets is all full of pink and white serviettes, folded up into fancy designs, which come undone if you touched. There's a menu to say what's coming, in French so you don't know what you're eating, and durned if I can find out whether to tackle an a la mode with fingers or a spoon.
Bull says it's only French for puckeroo, a sort of four-legged burrowing bird which inhabits silver mines, but if I don't like that, the lady will fetch me a _foe par_. Well, I orders one, and by the lady's face I see I done wrong, even before she complains to the manager. I'm surely miserable to think I've insulted a lady.
The manager's suspicious of me, but Bull talks French so rapid that even froggy can't keep up, although he smiles and shrugs, and gives us sang-fraws to drink.
This sort of c.o.c.ktail I had, was the first liquor I'd tasted. It's powerful as a harbor tug, dropping me out of the conversation, while the restaurant turns slowly round with a list to starboard, and Bull deals for a basket in the front window full of decorated eggs. Says they're vintage eggs, all verd-antique and bookay. For years the millionaires of Invicta has shrunk from the expense. My job when we leaves is to carry the basket, 'cause Bull's toting a second-handed saddle.
Bull lets me have c.o.c.ktails to keep me from getting confused on the night of my day boo. I know I behaves with 'strordinary dignity, and wants more c.o.c.ktails.
I dunno why Bull has to introduce me to the gentleman who keeps the peanut store down street--seeing I'd dealt there before. Anyway, I'm introduced to Affable Jones, and I'm the Markis of Worms--the same being a nom de plume. We proceeds to the opery-house, climbs in through a little hind window, and finds a dressing-room. Affable Jones dresses up as a monk, Bull Durham claims he's rigged out already as a vice-bishop, and I'm to be a chicken, 'cause I'm dealing vintage eggs in the cotillon. All the same, I'm left there alone for hours, and it's only when they comes back with a c.o.c.ktail that I'll consent to dressing up as a chicken--which in pa.s.sing out through that lil' window is some crowded. We proceeds up street, me toting eggs, and practising chicken-talk, and it seems the general public is surprised.
So we comes to the Masonic Hall, which is all lights, and band, and fas.h.i.+onable persons rigged out in fancy dress, dancing the _horse doover_. I got the name from Bull, who says that the next turn is my day boo in the omlet cotillion. Seems it's all arranged, too. Affable Jones lines up the ladies on the left, the dudes on the right, all the length of the hall. Bull marches up the middle, spurs trailin' behind him, and there's me dressed as a chicken, with a basket of eggs, wondering whether this here cow-boy is the two persons I see, or only the one I can hear. Band's playing soft, Affable serves out tin spoons to the dudes, and I deals each a decorated egg, laying it careful in the bowl of the spoon, till there's only a few left over, and I'm safe along with Bull.
So far everybody seems pleased. Bull whispers in my ear, ”Make for the back door, you son of a sea cook,” which offends one, being true; waves an egg at the band for silence, and calls out, ”Ladies and gents.” From the back door I seen how all the dudes has to stand dead still for fear of dropping an egg.
”Ladies,” says Bull, ”has any of you seen a live mouse? On the way up among you, seems I've dropped my mouse, and it's climbing skirts for solitude.”
Then there's shrieks, screams, ladies throwing themselves into the arms of them dudes, eggs dropping squash, eggs going bang, Bull throwing eggs at every man not otherwise engaged, and such a stink that all the lights goes out. I'm grabbed by the scruff of the chicken, run out through the back door, and slung on the back of a horse. Bull's yelling ”Ride! Ride!
Git a move on!” He's flogging the horses with his quirt, he's yelling at me: ”Ride, or we'll be lynched!”
My mouth's full of feathers, chicken's coming all to pieces--can't ride--daresn't fall off. So on the whole I dug the chicken's spurs into Mr. Horse, and rode like a hurricane in a panic. All of which reminds me that the hinder parts of an imitation bird is comforting whar she b.u.mps.
Still, draw them stars across.
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