Costigan, the cattle-man, a strapping Irish giant, was clearing his throat with ominous sounds that suggested the tuning-up of a bass fiddle. “Sure, Simpson, me lad, if ye happen to have a matther av fifty dollars, ’tis mesilf that can tell ye av an illegint invistmint.” Simpson looked up warily, but Costigan’s broad countenance did not harbor the wraith of a smile. “What kin I git for fifty chips? ’Tain’t much,” mused the pariah, with the prompt inclination to spend that stamps the comparative stranger to ready money. “Ye can git a parrut, man—a grane parrut—to kape ye coompany while ye’re aiting—” Simpson interrupted with an oath. “Don’t be hard on old Simmy; remember he’s studied for the ministry! How did I savey that Simpson aimed to be a sharp on doctrine?” A cow-puncher with a squint addressed the table in general. “I scents the aroma of dogma about Simpson in the way he throwed his conversational lariat at the yearling. He urbanes at her, and then comes his ‘firstly,’ it being a speculation as to her late grazing-ground, which he concludes to be the East. His ‘secondly’ ain’t nothing startling, words familiar to us all from our mother’s knee—‘nice weather’—the congregation ain’t visibly moved. His ‘thirdly’ is insinuating. In it he hints that it ain’t good for man to be alone at meals—” “’Twas the congregation that added the ‘foinelly,’ though, before hastily leaving be the back door!” and Costigan slapped his thigh. “The gentleman in question don’t seem to be makin’ much use of his present conversational opportunities. I’m feelin’ kinder turned down myself”; and the Texan began to look over his six-shooter. The man with the squint looked up and down the board. “Gentlemen, I believe the foregoing expresses the sentiment of this company, which, while it incloodes many foreign and frequent-warring elements, is at present held together by the natchral tie of eating.” Thumping with knife and fork handles, stamping of feet, cries of “Hear! hear!” with at least three cow-boy yells, argued well for a resumption of last night’s festivities. Simpson glowered, but said nothing. “Seems to me you-all goin’ the wrong way ’bout drawin’ Mistu’ Simpson out. He is shy an’ has to be played fo’ like a trout, an’ heah you-all come at him like a cattle stampede.” The big Texan leaned towards Simpson. “Now you-all watch my methods. Mistu’ Simpson, seh, what du think of the prospects of rain?” There was a general recommendation from Simpson that the entire company go to a locality below the rain-belt. A boy, plainly “from the East,” and looking as if the ink on his graduating thesis had scarce had time to dry, was on his feet, swaggering; he would not have swapped his newly acquired _camaraderie_ with these bronzed Westerners for the Presidency.