"Oh, yes, that's Billy Williams, a good hearted comical chap as ever lived. Don't you know him sir? I thought every body knew Billy Williams." "I don't know jest yet, but I guess I shall afore long," sez I, a looking pitchforks and hatchel teeth at the auctioneer, and with that I walked right straight up to him, with my hands dug down into my trousers' pockets, as savage as could be, and sez I-- "How do you du sir? I'll jest speak a few words to you, if you haint no objection." "Sartinly," sez he, as easy as all natur, and with that he got up and walked out of the room, and I arter him, till we cum out onto a sort of an etarnal big barn floor that was shut out from the rest of the Theatre, by that whopping curtain that I'd seen the t'other side on it. There was a hull regiment of empty hay lofts--or what looked jest like 'em, great naked rafters and posts, with rows of smoky lamps stuck on 'em, and what looked like pieces of board fence daubed over with all sorts of paint, and the wind come a whistling and croaking among them all, till my teeth a'most begun to chatter in my head. I was so busy a wondering what on arth those awful dismal premises could be used for, that I forgot the auctioneer, till he turned round as good natured as a sucking pig, and asked what I wanted of him. "Look a here," sez I, as wrothy as could be for the cold, "I want the gal that I bid off in the Theatre to-night, so you jest hand over and save trouble, that's all." The feller he stared at me like a stuck pig, and then he bust right out a larfing in my face as if he meant to make fun of it all, but he'd got hold of the wrong chicken for that sort of corn, and I give him to understand as much afore he'd done with me. "Now," sez I, "look a here. It aint of no use for you to try to bamboozle me with your haw-hawing. I want the gal that I bid off--I don't care how much the charge is. I'll hand over the chink the minit you'll go to one of them pesky lawyers and git the deed drawn out. I'm sartin that I outwinked every chap in the theatre, and darn me if I give up to any of em." He stared at fust like a calf's head jest dressed, and then he bust out a larfin, till I was mad enough to kick him on eend till he flew up into one of the empty hay lofts. "Come," sez I, "do you mean to toe the mark or not? I'm getting awful tingley about the fingers eends, I can tell you." "Now," sez he, a sobering down a leetle, "did you take me for an auctioneer, in rale arnest?" I began to feel sort of unsartin what to say, and instead of speaking right out, I circumnavigated a leetle, for a sort of a notion cum over me, that mebby, arter all, it wasn't nothing but make-believe, and that I was jest on the point of making a consarned coot of myself.