t o' the ordinary--an'
then he begins. First he'd sing a chant about how tickled he was to
meet up with me, an' then he'd sermonize most doleful about how
untasteful it was to commit such a havoc as that in a hotel lobby,
especially with a dog what had been trained to have quiet an' refined
manners. I finally refused to hold my safety valve down any longer; an'
I grabbed him under the arms an' waltzed him over the marble, while
Cupid frolicked around us an' Bill kicked me on the shins. I had had
too many things happen to me in a small space o' time to be altogether
sane, an' it took a good many kicks on the shins to get me down to a
practical basis again. Bill was plumb disgusted; but Jessamie, who had
seen the last part of it, had to join in with the rest o' the crowd an'
have a laugh.

Bill refused to eat unless we could have a private dinin' room. Not on
Cupid's account neither; he'd got civilized enough to stand for Cupid
bein' treated like a dog by this time; but it was me he was scared of,
an' I sensed it, an' refused to feed with him at all unless it would be
in the main mess hall, an' Jessamie voted with me; so Bill had to give
in.

He didn't want to make the contrast too strong, so he slid into a dark
suit instead of the real caper, while I wiggled into my champagne apron
an' marched in like I was a foreign delegate. Well, you should have
seen Bill--his mouth took on the triangle droop, an' his lamps was
stretched to match. I was entirely at home, et with the right forks,
joshed the waiters, an' when my friends began to drop over an' pass the
season's greetings, an' I presented 'em to Bill an' Jessamie, an' Bill
saw that they was nothin' at all but cream, I bet you a tip that he was
the worst locoed man in topsy-turvy Frisco.

We had a hard time throwin' the gang off the trail; but I finally sent
'em over to the Pampered Pug restaurant, while I took Bill an' Jessamie
to a quiet little spot to hold our own reunion. They had just come from
a trip around the world--they was still on their honeymoon, in fact;
an' I had to listen to a heap o' Sunday-school story adventures 'at
they'd been havin'.

After a while, though, I nudged Bill hack to the Clarenden family
trail, an' he said 'at they had stopped for over a month with his
friends in England, an' was posted up to the minute.

"Well," sez I, as though I was inquirin' after an old pal, "how's the
Earl?"

"They're plumb out o' earls in that family," sez Bil