The eggs were baked in the true "camp-meeting" style, the whisky was drunk, and--so was the company. Bill Day's rather red eyes grew redder, and his nose shone with delight as he shuffled the greasy pack of "kyerds." The maudlin smile crossed the habitually melancholy lines of his face in a way that split and splintered his visage into a curious contradiction of emotions. "H--a--oo--p!" He shouted, throwing away the cards over the heads of his companions. "Ha--oop! boys, thish is big--hoo! hoo! ha--oop! I say is big. Let's do somethin'!" Here there was a confused cry that "it _was_ big, and that they had better do somethin' or 'nother." "Let's blow up the ole school-house," said Bill Day, who was not friendly to education. "I tell you what," said Bob Short, who was dealing the cards in another set--"I tell you what," and Bob winked his eyes vigorously, and looked more solemn and wise than he could have looked if it had not been for the hard eggs and the whisky--"I tell you what," said Bob a third time, and halted, for his mind's activity was a little choked by the fervor of his emotions--"I tell you what, boys--" "Wal," piped Jim West in a cracked voice, "you've told us _what_ four times, I 'low; now s'pose you tell us somethin' else." "I tell you what, boys," said Bob Short, suddenly remembering his sentence, "don't let's do nothin' that'll git us into no trouble arterwards. Ef we blow up the school-house we'll be 'rested fer bigamy or--or--what d'ye call it?" "For larson," said Bill Day, hardly able to restrain another whoop. "No, 'taint larson," said Bob Short, looking wiser than a chief-justice, "it's arsony. Now I say, don't let's go to penitentiary for no--no larson--no arsony, I mean." "Ha--oop!" said Bill. "Let's do somethin' ludikerous. Hurrah for arsony and larson! Dog-on the penitentiary! Ha--oop!" [Illustration: SOMETHIN' LUDIKEROUS.] "Let's go fer the Dutchman," said Norman Anderson, just drunk enough to be good-naturedly murderous and to speak in dialect. "Gus is turned out to committin' larson by breakin' into people's houses an' has run off. Now let's tar and feather the ole one. Of course, he's a thief. Dutchmen always is, I 'low. Clark township don't want none of 'em, I'll be dog-oned if it do," and Norman got up and struck his fist on the counter. "An' they won't nobody hurt you; you see, he's on'y a Dutchman," said Bob Short "Larson on a Dutchman don't hold." "I say, let's hang him," said Bill Day. "Ha--oop! Let's hang him, or do somethin' else ludikerous!" "I wouldn't mind," grinned Norman Anderson, delighted at the turn things had taken. "I'd just like to see him hung." "So would I," said Bill Day, leaning over to Norman. "Ef a Dutchman wash to court my sishter, I'd--" "He'd be a fool ef he did," piped Jim West. For Bill Day's sister was a "maid not vendible," as Shakespeare has it.