"Yes, sir! And then he begun doin' circus stunts through them trees. First he'd climb up one, and then another, and then he hooked on to a fire-escape, and I chased him clean over a house. Policeman came along and wanted to arrest me, but I give 'im a talk and kept travelin', because I knew if I didn't ketch that monkey I didn't need to go back to the tent. Well, I chased him till my tongue hung out, but about the time I'd reach out to ketch 'im he'd swing off with his tail and git into the next tree; so I went over to a fruit store and tried to ketch 'im with bananas. Last chance I had, and I was gittin' pretty mad. All the kids was there to tease me, the policeman was tellin' me to move on--and that cussed monkey kept hangin' down by his tail and makin' faces at me, until, by grab, I reached down and took up a rock. "'Now, hyer,' I says, holdin' up the banana, 'you'd better come down before I git hot and soak you with this,' and I showed him the size of that pavin' stone. "'Etchee-etchee-etchee!' he says, swingin' up for a limb; and then I let 'im have it. They wasn't any ring in his tail when he come down, believe me; and when I showed the remains to the missus she like to tore my hair out. Boss he fired me--mad as the devil--then when she wasn't lookin' he slipped me a twenty, and told me to go back to Coney. There was a happy man, fellers, but he had to let on different--married, you know. So I took the twenty and went back to old Coney, where they shoot the chutes and loop the loops, and any man that's got a dime is as rich as John G. Rockefeller. Big doin's back there, fellers--you don't know what you're missin'." An abashed silence followed this remark, calculated as it was to reduce his hearers to a proper state of humility; and then, to add to its effectiveness, the Odysseus of the cow camps turned to Bowles. "Ain't that so, stranger?" he said; and Bowles thought he detected a twinkle in his eye. "Yes, indeed!" he replied. "There's no place in the world like Coney Island. Changing very rapidly, too. Have you been there lately? That Dreamland is wonderful, isn't it? And Luna Park----" "Hah!" exclaimed Brigham, slapping his leg. "That's the place! Loony Park! Ain't that the craziest place you ever see? Everything upside-down, topsy-turvy--guess I never told you boys about that. Didn't dare to, by grab--not till this gentleman come along to back me up!" He glanced at Bowles significantly and waited for the questions. "What does she look like, Brig?" inquired Bar Seven, the stray man. "Pretty fancy, eh?"