Well, I recounted the tale in as much detail as I could recall, amid continuous interruptions from my strange audience, beginning with my situation at home, and ending with my quarrel with Euphemia. When my recital was complete Miss Peaches gave a long whistle, which feat was amazingly expressive of her emotions. "Well, see here, Miss Freedom," she said. "As I get the dope, it is, that you are to take me out and show me the world and everything--to teach me what little it is proper for me to know--and how to tell the culls from the sound fruit? Well, well! Do you believe you can do it?" "I, of course, believe that I would be a proper influence and shield for a young woman!" I replied quietly. "Else I would not have engaged to perform such a task." "And you'd sure be gosh-awful disappointed if you didn't go to Europe, wouldn't you?" she went on. As I made no reply to this she continued to guide the conversation. "I think you are a damn good sport to break away at your age," she went on. "And it would be a crime to send you back to the corral. I know just how it must feel." "I bet you do!" said the Dick person. "After the ranch!" "You see, he means our home ranch," the girl explained. "Pa has kept me there since I was a seedling. Never been away from it until three weeks ago--kept me pure and healthy and everything. But I've got fed up on it, and I'm glad to get loose and see life, even with you tagging along. Tell you what I'll do. So long as you've got your camp all broke I'll help you to see the world if you'll help me to see the world instead of preventing it. I'll be reasonable if you will. Are you on?" "I am!" said I, half hypnotized by her charm. "I'm on!" "Good! It's a bet!" cried Peaches, suddenly shaking my hand with a grip of most unladylike vigor. "Now let's dope this out some more. I've bought all the clothes in the stores in San Francisco, at least all costing over a hundred dollars each, as befits my new society stunt, so we ought to start right off and go some place where we know somebody besides the head waiters. Do you really know a lot of swells?" "I--well, really--I know the proper people, of course," said I. "But I don't think that you would fancy Boston very much." "Oh, Boston is all O. K." she said. "Only, of course, it's not like San Francisco--or even Fresno. No pep, and a rotten climate. Don't you know any gay ducks some other place?" "Well, let me cogitate the matter," said I. "I know the Loringstons, in New York--two charming maiden ladies." "Hold me--or I'll die of excitement!" said Peaches. "Nothing doing! If I've got to be pushed into the world of fashion and gayety I want there to be some class to it--snappy stuff--titles and everything. Do you know any titles?" "Only the dean of Radcliffe," I responded; "unless one were to except the Countess Veruchio. But she lives in Monte Carlo. She was my first cousin until she married this foreign person."