"Did you ever dare to say that to him?" says Bonnie Bell. "I certainly did, and more than once. I ain't afraid to say anything to either one of 'em," says he. "They don't dare say much to me. I know too much about 'em. But, say now--about that fight," says he. "I want to tell you that new dog we've got is some peach. Give him a year or so and he'll eat up that pup of yours." "He never seen the day he could and he never will!" says Bonnie Bell. "If you feel that way about it----" "Well," says he, "our dog is more of a trench fighter. He got under the tables where them old hens was playing bridge and he held out until your pup flanked in on him." "Did you see the fight?" says Bonnie Bell. "Sure I did! I was right there." "Yes?" says she. "In such clothes?" "Just like I am. I happened to be going past the room where they was holding their party and just then the dogs came in. Believe me, it was more fun than there has been in our house for a good many years. Of course it was some informal." "Well," says Bonnie Bell, "I can see you must of been in the family a long time or you wouldn't feel the way you do." "Twenty-odd years," says he, drawing hisself up. "I was taken captive in my early youth, and I have been in servitude ever since, with no hope of getting away," says he. "But a fellow has to make a living somehow and I had only my labor to sell. You see, I know something about flowers, and I can drive a car now some or run a boat." "We've bought one of those little boats," says Bonnie Bell. "Sometime I'm going to take her out and learn how to run her myself." "You ought to be careful about this lake," says he. "It gets awful rough sometimes. Still, it's good fun." You can see they was visiting right and left--just her and the hired man! But, her being so lonesome that way all the time, it seemed like she'd have to talk to somebody, and this man seemed right friendly, though he was only a workingman. Bonnie Bell never was stuck up at all. Maybe he thought she was one of our maids. "Gardening is all right," says he finally, drawing close to the fence; "but, for me, I'd rather be a cowman than anything I know. I'd rather ride a cowhorse than drive any car on earth. This life here gets on my nerves." "Don't it?" says she to him. "Sometimes I feel that way myself." "What anybody finds to like in a city is more than I can see. If I had money I'd buy a ranch," says he, "and then I'd live happy ever after." Now wasn't that funny, him wanting to do just the very thing we had quit doing and us going to live right alongside of him that way? Still, of course, he was only a hired man--ain't none of 'em contented. I ain't always, myself. Bonnie Bell thought this was getting too sort of personal and she starts in toward the house--she tells me a good deal of this afterward--but he come up closer to the fence and seemed kind of sorry to have her go; and says he: