PTER V

SUPPER AT DELMONICO'S INTERRUPTED

The two D Bar Lazy R punchers ate supper at Delmonico's. The restaurant
was owned by Wong Chung. A Cantonese celestial did the cooking and
another waited on table. The price of a meal was twenty-five cents,
regardless of what one ordered.

Hop Lee, the waiter, grinned at the frolicsome youths with the serenity
of a world-old wisdom.

"Bleef steak, plork chop, lamb chop, hlam'neggs, clorn bleef hash,
Splanish stew," he chanted, reciting the bill of fare.

"Yes," murmured Bob.

The waiter said his piece again.

"Listens good to me," agreed Dave. "Lead it to us."

"You takee two--bleef steak and hlam'neggs, mebbe," suggested Hop
helpfully.

"Tha's right. Two orders of everything on the me-an-you, Charlie."

Hop did not argue with them. He never argued with a customer. If they
stormed at him he took refuge in a suddenly acquired lack of
understanding of English. If they called him Charlie or John or One Lung,
he accepted the name cheerfully and laid it to a racial mental deficiency
of the 'melicans. Now he decided to make a selection himself.

"Vely well. Bleef steak and hlam'neggs."

"Fried potatoes done brown, John."

"Flied plotatoes. Tea or cloffee?"

"Coffee," decided Dave for both of them. "Warm mine."

"And custard pie," added Bob. "Made from this year's crop."

"Aigs sunny side up," directed his friend.

"Fry mine one on one side and one on the other," Hart continued
facetiously.

"Vely well." Hop Lee's impassive face betrayed no perplexity as he
departed. In the course of a season he waited on hundreds of wild men
from the hills, drunk and sober.

Dave helped himself to bread from a plate stacked high with thick slices.
He buttered it and began to eat. Hart did the same. At Delmonico's nobody
ever waited till the meal was served. Just about to attack a second
slice, Dave stopped to stare at his companion. Hart was looking past his
shoulder with alert intentness. Dave turned his head. Two men, leaving
the restaurant, were paying the cashier.

"They just stepped outa that booth to the right," whispered Bob.

The men were George Doble and a cowpuncher known as Shorty, a broad,
heavy-set little man who worked for Bradley Steelman, owner of the
Rocking Horse Ranch, what time he was not engaged on nefarious business
of his own. He was wearing a Chihuahua hat and leather chaps with silver
conchas.

At this moment Hop Lee arrived with dinner.

Dave