The kids surveyed him with scorn, and poured their allowances. Then they stood for a time insulting Pop about his whisky. "Usually it tastes exactly like new parlour furniture," said the San Francisco kid. "Well, here goes, and you want to look out for your cash register." "Your health, gentlemen," said Pop with a grand air, and as he wiped his bristling grey moustaches he wagged his head with reference to the cash register question. "I could catch you before you got very far." "Why, are you a runner?" said one derisively. "You just bank on me, my boy," said Pop, with deep emphasis. "I'm a flier." The kids sat down their glasses suddenly and looked at him. "You must be," they said. Pop was tall and graceful and magnificent in manner, but he did not display those qualities of form which mean speed in the animal. His hair was grey; his face was round and fat from much living. The buttons of his glittering white waistcoat formed a fine curve, so that if the concave surface of a piece of barrel-hoop had been laid against Pop it would have touched every button. "You must be," observed the kids again. "Well, you can laugh all you like, but--no jolly now, boys, I tell you I'm a winner. Why, I bet you I can skin anything in this town on a square go. When I kept my place in Eagle Pass there wasn't anybody who could touch me. One of these sure things came down from San Anton'. Oh, he was a runner he was. One of these people with wings. Well, I skinned 'im. What? Certainly I did. Never touched me." The kids had been regarding him in grave silence, but at this moment they grinned, and said quite in chorus, "Oh, you old liar!" Pop's voice took on a whining tone of earnestness. "Boys, I'm telling it to you straight. I'm a flier." One of the kids had had a dreamy cloud in his eye and he cried out suddenly--"Say, what a joke to play this on Freddie." The other jumped ecstatically. "Oh, wouldn't it though. Say he wouldn't do a thing but howl! He'd go crazy." They looked at Pop as if they longed to be certain that he was, after all, a runner. "Now, Pop, on the level," said one of them wistfully, "can you run?" "Boys," swore Pop, "I'm a peach! On the dead level, I'm a peach." "By golly, I believe the old Indian can run," said one to the other, as if they were alone in confidence. "That's what I can," cried Pop.