'em-out's face.

"'Can you do it, gents?' he asks. 'Could ye do it? Could ye play the
polar man and the little duke for the nice ladies? Will ye do it?'

[Illustration: "'Can ye do it, gents?' he asks."]

"I see that Andy is superimposed with his old hankering for the oral
and polyglot system of buncoing. That man had a vocabulary of about
10,000 words and synonyms, which arrayed themselves into contraband
sophistries and parables when they came out.

"'Listen,' says Andy to old Smoke-'em-out. 'Can we do it? You behold
before you, Mr. Smithers, two of the finest equipped men on earth for
inveigling the proletariat, whether by word of mouth, sleight-of-hand
or swiftness of foot. Dukes come and go, explorers go and get lost,
but me and Jeff Peters,' says Andy, 'go after the come-ons forever. If
you say so, we're the two illustrious guests you were expecting. And
you'll find,' says Andy, 'that we'll give you the true local color of
the title roles from the aurora borealis to the ducal portcullis.'

"Old Smoke-'em-out is delighted. He takes me and Andy up to the inn by
an arm apiece, telling us on the way that the finest fruits of the can
and luxuries of the fast freights should be ours without price as long
as we would stay.

"On the porch Smoke-'em-out says: 'Ladies, I have the honor to
introduce His Gracefulness the Duke of Marlborough and the famous
inventor of the North Pole, Lieut. Peary.'

"The skirts all flutter and the rocking chairs squeak as me and Andy
bows and then goes on in with old Smoke-'em-out to register. And then
we washed up and turned our cuffs, and the landlord took us to the
rooms he'd been saving for us and got out a demijohn of North Carolina
real mountain dew.

"I expected trouble when Andy began to drink. He has the artistic
metempsychosis which is half drunk when sober and looks down on
airships when stimulated.

"After lingering with the demijohn me and Andy goes out on the porch,
where the ladies are to begin to earn our keep. We sit in two special
chairs and then the schoolma'ams and literaterrers hunched their
rockers close around us.

"One lady says to me: 'How did that last venture of yours turn out,
sir?'

"Now, I'd clean forgot to have an understanding with Andy which I
was to be, the duke or the lieutenant. And I couldn't tell from
her question whether she was referring to Arctic or matrimonial
expeditions. So I gave an answer that would cover both cases.

"'Well, ma