"Of course I knew it would have to be some high-grade felony, he being proof against common depredations. Well, then, along come this Sunday paper, with two whole pages telling about how the meat of the common whale will win the war, with a picture of a whale having dotted lines showing how to butcher it, and recipes for whale patties, and so forth. And next comes the circus to Red Gap, with old Pete, the Indian, going down to it and getting crazy about elephants. And so that was how it happened." The lady now knitted in silence, appearing to believe that all had been told. I waited a decent interval, then said I was glad indeed to know how it had all happened; that it was a great help to know how it had happened, even if I must remain forever ignorant of what it was that had happened. Of course I couldn't expect to be told that. It merely brought more about mules. Five hundred dollars a span for mules looked good until you remembered that you needed 'em worse than the other party did. She had to keep her twenty span of old reliables because, what with the sailors and section hands you got nowadays to do your haying, you had to have tame mules. Give 'em any other kind and they'd desert the ship the minute a team started to run. It cost too much for wagon repairs. Silence again. I now said I had, it was true, heard much low neighbourhood scandal about the Timmins man, but that I had learned not to believe all I heard about people; there was too much prejudice in the world, and at least two sides to every question. This merely evoked the item that Timmins had bought him a thrift stamp on the sole ground that it had such a pretty name; then came the wish that she might have seen him dining in public at that rich hotel where the capitalist paid the bills. She thought people must have been startled by some of his actions. "Yes, sir; that old outlaw will eat soup or any soft food with almost no strategy at all." As we seemed to be getting nowhere I meanly rolled the lady a cigarette. She hates to stop knitting to roll one, but she will stop to light it. She stopped now, and as I held the match for her I said quite frankly that it had become necessary for me to be told the whole thing from start to finish. She said she had told me everything--and believed it--but would go over it again if I didn't understand. Though not always starting at command, the lady has really a full habit of speech.