"Artie," I sez, holdin' out my hand, "you 're the first lord my eyes has ever feasted on; but I like you--you're game. It ain't many 'at will own up to bein' a Democrat these days, not even in the secrecy of the ballot box, but here in Nevada you're safe. Pa has just retired from business, leavin' me this little mine; but it only pays about ten million a year now, so I've made up my mind not to bother with it, but to shut it down an' go on a tour of the world with my two friends here. I never cared much for school, so this will be a good way to finish my edication. We was up here last fall seein' that things was closed in proper order, an' waited for the watchman to come up from below, when we expected to drive down to our special train an' start for Paris. But the snow came unexpected, and the expected watchman failed to come; and here we are, with no food fit for a human, an' all our servants in the special train, ninety miles away." When I begun my oration Locals and Hammy leaned forward, holdin' their breath; but when they see 'at I wasn't turnin' out no schoolboy article of a lie, they settled back with a long sigh, an' I could tell by their faces 'at they were takin' pride in my work. They was about the best qualified judges o' that kind o' work I ever met up with, an' I'll own 'at I never felt prouder in my life 'an I did when Hammy slapped me on the back as soon as I finished an' sez to Artie, "Me Lord, this is a typical American. He plans his life on larger things than rules; but you can depend on him--yea, though the heavens fall, you can depend on Jack here." I was glad we didn't have any liquor there, or like as not we'd 'a' burned the hotel down just for a lark. We was so full of that doggone Monte Cristo book that we believed our own lies as easy as Artie did, an' begun to talk to each other like we was society folks at a banquet. But Artie was a good, decent sort of a chap, as common as we were, when we got to know him. He never kicked none on the grub, an' his appetite was a thing to make preparations for; but, as Locals said, his high descent came out the minute he was brought face to face with work--he didn't recognize it. Now he didn't try to dodge it, nor he didn't apologize for not doing it; he just didn't seem to know the' was such a thing. It never occurred to him that the only way to have clean dishes was to wash dirty ones. Hammy and Locals, those freeborn sons of Independence, was glad an' proud to have the chance to wait on him; but I must confess that the day he sat by the fire with a pile of wood within reachin' distance, an' let the fire go out, I grew a trifle loquacious about it. Hammy overheard me mutterin' to myself in a voice 'at could be heard anywhere in the hotel, an' he drew me to one side an' sez, "Hush, presumptuous peasant; for all you know the blood of Alfred flows within his veins."