'Ye can't rightly call it runnin',' he says. 'It ain't been settled
yet. Some claims she dun't, some claims she do. Them that claims she
dun't is those who've rid on her.'

"'Well, whatever she does,' I says, 'will she get here this mawnin'? I
got to get to the race track.'

"'I'll call up Orphy an' see,' says the old gazink. 'Hello, Tessie,'
he says, after he grinds away at the telephone handle fur a while.
'Git a-holt of Orphy Shanner fer me out to th' park--that's a good
girl.' In about ten minutes somebody begins to talk over the phone.
'Say, Orphy, this is Ed at the B. & O. Freight,' says the old gazink.
'I got a passenger down here fer ye.' Then he listens at the phone.
'I don't know who he is. He's a stranger tu me,' he says, 'n' listens
some more. 'All right, I'll tell him,' he says, 'n' hangs up the phone.

"'Orphy says fer me to tell ye thet he's comin' in to get Mrs. Boone at
the Public Square at eleven o'clock,' he says to me. 'He's goin' to
take her out High Street to a whisk party at Mrs. Pucker's, an' he'll
come down here an' git ye then.'

"'Why, it ain't ten o'clock yet,' I says.

"'Well, you kin set in here out of the rain an' wait,' he says.

"I thinks we better walk 'n' then I remembers that cussed trunk.

"'Much obliged,' I says. 'I'll go out 'n' get my friend.'

"'Be they two of ye?' says he. 'Jeerusalem, I told Orphy they wa'n't
but one.'

"When I gets back with Peewee, the old gazink pushes a couple of chairs
at us.

"'Set right down, boys,' he says, ''n' make yourselves mis'able.' Then
he puts a chew in his face that would choke a he-elephant 'n' begins to
ask us questions. The only thing he don't ask us he don't think of.
He'll stop right in the middle of a word 'n' say, 'pit-too-ee,' 'n' hit
a flat box full of sawdust dead center. I don't see him miss once.'

"After he's got us pumped dry he begins to tell us what _he_ knows, 'n'
believe me he's got a directory beat to a custard. He hands us some
info about everybody who's alive in Mount Clinton 'n' then starts in on
the cemetery. He works back till he's talkin' about some 'dead an'
gone these twenty year,' as he says.

"I happens to look at Peewee--Peewee's in a trance. He can't look
away. He's noddin' his head 'n' his eyes has got a glassy stare. I
goes outside quick 'n' lays up against the side of the buildin'.

"When I get back the old gazink is still workin' on Peewee, but all of
a sudden he stops 'n' li