“‘Willie,’ says I, riding over close to his palfrey, ‘your infatuated parents may have denounced you by the name of Jackson, but you sure moulted into a twittering Willie—let us slough off this here analysis of rain and the elements, and get down to talk that is outside the vocabulary of parrots. That is a bad habit you have got of riding with young ladies over at Pimienta. I’ve known birds,’ says I, ‘to be served on toast for less than that. Miss Willella,’ says I, ‘don’t ever want any nest made out of sheep’s wool by a tomtit of the Jacksonian branch of ornithology. Now, are you going to quit, or do you wish for to gallop up against this Dead-Moral-Certainty attachment to my name, which is good for two hyphens and at least one set of funeral obsequies?’ “Jackson Bird flushed up some, and then he laughed. “‘Why, Mr. Judson,’ says he, ‘you’ve got the wrong idea. I’ve called on Miss Learight a few times; but not for the purpose you imagine. My object is purely a gastronomical one.’ “I reached for my gun. “‘Any coyote,’ says I, ‘that would boast of dishonourable—’ “‘Wait a minute,’ says this Bird, ‘till I explain. What would I do with a wife? If you ever saw that ranch of mine! I do my own cooking and mending. Eating—that’s all the pleasure I get out of sheep raising. Mr. Judson, did you ever taste the pancakes that Miss Learight makes?’ “‘Me? No,’ I told him. ‘I never was advised that she was up to any culinary manoeuvres.’ “‘They’re golden sunshine,’ says he, ‘honey-browned by the ambrosial fires of Epicurus. I’d give two years of my life to get the recipe for making them pancakes. That’s what I went to see Miss Learight for,’ says Jackson Bird, ‘but I haven’t been able to get it from her. It’s an old recipe that’s been in the family for seventy-five years. They hand it down from one generation to another, but they don’t give it away to outsiders. If I could get that recipe, so I could make them pancakes for myself on my ranch, I’d be a happy man,’ says Bird. “‘Are you sure,’ I says to him, ‘that it ain’t the hand that mixes the pancakes that you’re after?’ “‘Sure,’ says Jackson. ‘Miss Learight is a mighty nice girl, but I can assure you my intentions go no further than the gastro—’ but he seen my hand going down to my holster and he changed his similitude—‘than the desire to procure a copy of the pancake recipe,’ he finishes. “‘You ain’t such a bad little man,’ says I, trying to be fair. ‘I was thinking some of making orphans of your sheep, but I’ll let you fly away this time. But you stick to pancakes,’ says I, ‘as close as the middle one of a stack; and don’t go and mistake sentiments for syrup, or there’ll be singing at your ranch, and you won’t hear it.’