't till
by your dress whether you are a hin or a rooster. But I can till by
your employmint that you are working for grub. Have to hustle lively
for every worm you find, don't you, Chickie? Now me, I'm hustlin'
lively for a drink, and I be domn if it seems nicessary with a whole
river of drinkin' stuff flowin' right under me feet. But the old Wabash
ain't runnin "wine and milk and honey" not by the jug-full. It seems to
be compounded of aquil parts of mud, crude ile, and rain water. If
'twas only runnin' Melwood, be gorry, Chickie, you'd see a mermaid
named Jimmy Malone sittin' on the Kingfisher Stump, combin' its auburn
hair with a breeze, and scoopin' whiskey down its gullet with its tail
fin. No, hold on, Chickie, you wouldn't either. I'm too flat-chisted
for a mermaid, and I'd have no time to lave off gurglin' for the
hair-combin' act, which, Chickie, to me notion is as issential to a
mermaid as the curves. I'd be a sucker, the biggest sucker in the
Gar-hole, Chickie bird. I'd be an all-day sucker, be gobs; yis, and an
all-night sucker, too. Come to think of it, Chickie, be domn if I'd be
a sucker at all. Look at the mouths of thim! Puckered up with a
drawstring! Oh, Hell on the Wabash, Chickie, think of Jimmy Malone
lyin' at the bottom of a river flowin' with Melwood, and a
puckerin'-string mouth! Wouldn't that break the heart of you? I know
what I'd be. I'd be the Black Bass of Horseshoe Bend, Chickie, and I'd
locate just below the shoals headin' up stream, and I'd hold me mouth
wide open till I paralyzed me jaws so I couldn't shut thim. I'd just
let the pure stuff wash over me gills constant, world without end.
Good-by, Chickie. Hope you got your grub, and pretty soon I'll have
enough drink to make me feel like I was the Bass for one night, anyway."

Jimmy hurried to his next trap, which was empty, but the one after that
contained a rat, and there were footprints in the snow. "That's where
the porrage-heart of the Scotchman comes in," said Jimmy, as he held up
the rat by one foot, and gave it a sharp rap over the head with the
trap to make sure it was dead. "Dannie could no more hear a rat fast in
one of me traps and not come over and put it out of its misery, than he
could dance a hornpipe. And him only sicond hand from hornpipe land,
too! But his feet's like lead. Poor Dannie! He gets just about half the
rats I do. He niver did have luck."

Jimmy's gay face clouded for an instant. The twinkle faded from his
e