ome on--don't be a damn' chubber! Yuh got to sample m'
hospitality. Hey, Tom! set out about a quart uh your _mildest_ for
Daffy-down-Dilly. He's dry, clean down to his hand-made socks."

Charming Billy, having found a match, held it unlighted in his fingers
and watched the commotion from his perch on the bar. In the very midst
of the clamor towered the melancholy Alexander P. Dill, and he was
endeavoring to explain, in his quiet, grammatical fashion. A lull
that must have been an accident carried the words clearly across to
Charming Billy.

"Thank you, gentlemen. I really don't care for anything in the way
of refreshment. I merely came in to find a friend who has promised to
spend the night with me. It is getting along toward bedtime. Have your
fun, gentlemen, if you must--but I am really too tired to join you."

"Make 'im dance!" yelled the sheepherder, giving over the attempt to
find the sum of twelve and fourteen. "By gosh, yuh made _me_ dance
when I struck town. Make 'im dance!"

"You go off and lay down!" commanded Billy again, and to emphasize his
words leaned and emptied the contents of his glass neatly inside the
collar of the sheepherder. "Cool down, yuh Ba-ba-black-sheep!"

The herder forgot everything after that--everything but the desire to
tear limb from limb one Charming Billy Boyle, who sat and raked his
spurs up and down the marred front of the bar and grinned maliciously
down at him. "Go-awn off, before I take yuh all to pieces," he urged
wearily, already regretting the unjustifiable waste of good beer.
"Quit your buzzing; I wanta listen over there."

"Come on 'n' have a drink!" vociferated the hospitable one. "Yuh got
to be sociable, or yuh can't stop in _this_ man's town." So insistent
was he that he laid violent hold of Mr. Dill and tried to pull him
bodily to the bar.

"Gentlemen, this passes a joke!" protested Mr. Dill, looking around
him in his blankly melancholy way. "I do not drink liquor. I must
insist upon your stopping this horseplay immediately!"

"Oh, it ain't no _play_," asserted the insistent one darkly. "I mean
it, by thunder."

It was at this point that Charming Billy decided to have a word.
"Here, break away, there!" he yelled, pushing the belligerent
sheepherder to one side. "Hands off that long person! That there's
_my_ dill pickle!"

[Illustration: "HANDS OFF THAT LONG PERSON! THAT THERE'S _MY_ DILL
PICKLE."]

Mr. Dill was released, and Billy fancied hazily that it was