Tom grunted and got up to go. His men cast furtive glances at one another, looked at Lance from under their brows, noted the silk shirt and the low, tan Oxfords, and the texture and cut of his gray trousers with the tan leather belt that had a small silver buckle. Plain as it was they knew that buckle was silver. They saw how clean-cut was the hairline at the back of his head and over his ears--sure sign that he was "citified." And toward the man who is citified your purely range-bred product cherishes a distinct if secret grudge. His immaculate presence made them all feel frowsy and unwashed and ill-clad. And to hide how conscious he was of his own deficiencies, the man who sat nearest Lance lifted his hat and rumpled his hair still more. "Duke and Al didn't get in yet, eh?" Lance picked up an extra deck of cards and began to shuffle them absent-mindedly but nevertheless dexterously. "Nope--they stayed out," replied a blond man named Winters. They called him "Chilly." "Hot weather for working cattle," Lance observed indifferently. "Yeah--sure is," responded Ed Moran, who was low-browed and dark and had an ugly jaw. "Yeah--_damn_ hot," testified Jim Bloom. "How's Californy for weather?" "Oh-h--it has all kinds, same as here." Lance did not want to talk about California just then, but he followed the lead easily enough. "You can get anything you want in California. In two hours you can go from twenty-five feet of snow to orange groves. You can have it all green, fruit trees and roses blooming in midwinter, or you can hit into desert worse than anything Idaho can show." "Yep--that's right, all right. Great place, Californy," Chilly tried to make his voice sound enthusiastic, and failed. "Great place." "Speaking about climate--" Lance sat down on a corner of the table, eased his trousers over his knees, crossed his tan Oxfords and began a story. It was a long story, and for some time it was not at all apparent that he was getting anywhere with it. He shuffled the deck of cards while he talked, and the keno game, interrupted when he began, trailed off into "Who's play is it?" and finally ceased altogether. That was when Lance's Jewish dialect began to be funny enough to make even Chilly Winters laugh. At the end there was a general cachinnation. "But that's only a sample of the stuff they pull out there, on tourists," said Lance, when the laughter had subsided to a few belated chuckles. "There's another one. It isn't funny--but I'm going to _make_ it funny. You'll think it's funny--but it isn't, really." He told that one and made them think it was funny. At least they laughed, and laughed again when he had finished. "Now here's another. This one really is funny--but you won't feel like laughing at it. I'll tell it so you won't."