lawin' hunks of
fog off my intellect. In two minutes more I'd ha' yearned for Mrs.
Scraggs and Home. I lost all intention of drawin' sustenance out
of the inhabitants, when all of a suddent up steps one of these
brisk, smart, zippee-zippee-zizoo-ketch-me-if-you-kin young city
fellers, the kind of lu-lu joker to go through a countryman like a
lightnin' express through a tunnel, leavin' nothin' but the hole
and a little smoke, and says he, in a hurry:

"'Sorry to have kept you waitin', Mr. Johnson, but knowin' how much
it meant to both of us, I----Oh, I beg your pardon!' says he; 'I
mistook you for a friend of mine--no offense, I hope?'

"Now, this same person had on a soup-pot hat that looked borrowed,
and he wore his clothes like he used 'em for a hiding-place, but
how was a plain jaybird like me to notice that? I was almighty
lonesome, too, so I told him there weren't no offense at all.
Well, he apologized again, and then he begun to laugh, it was so
ridiklus, his mistakin' me for Johnson, that he'd knew all his
life, and he says, 'I'll tell you what I'll do; we'll step across
the street and tone up our systems at my expense, thereby wipin'
out any animosity.' So, of course, rather than be peevish, I done
it. Then I tried to wipe out some animosity, but he wouldn't have
it. Nobody must buy but him. I explained--givin' myself dead
away--that I was a stranger, with nothin' to do but hate myself to
death, and he was defraudin' me of a rightful joy. But no, says
he. I might be a stranger, or I might not. Personally he thought
I'd resided some time in New York City, by my looks; if that was so
I knew perfectly well he was only follerin' the customs of the
place, and if I _was_ a stranger it was up to him to do right by
me, anyhow. So we grew one degree stronger with no cost to Utah.
And we stayed there, gettin' powerful as anything, and kind of
confidential, too, till finally he felt called upon to explain his
business with this man Johnson. He took me into a back room to do
it.

"'Mr. Scraggs,' says he, 'there's things betwixt Heaven and Earth
that ain't dreamt of on your velocipede, Horatio.'

"'Ya-a-as,' says I.

"'Sh-h-h,' says he, 'not so loud. Here's the opportunity of a
lifetime goin' on the loose for want of a man. That durn Johnson
has lost his golden show. It's a very strange story,' says he.

"'Ya-a-as,' says I. He looked at me a minute, but Lord! How was a
poor Mormon to hold suspicions