Constantinople."

A contemptuous sniff greeted this proposal.

"That's the worst yet," said Wade Ruggles, drawing a match along the
thigh of his trousers to relight his pipe, which had gone out during
the excitement; "the man that insults this party with such a
proposition, ought to be run out of the place."

"What's the matter with it?" demanded Budge.

"It's too long in the fust place," commented Ike Hoe; "it bothers a
man to git his mouth around it and it hain't any music, like the other
names such as Starvation Kenyon, Hangman's Noose, Blizzard Gorge and
the rest. I stick to mine as the purtiest of all."

"What's that?"

"'Blazes,' short and sweet and innercent like."

Landlord Ortigies was leaning with both elbows on the bar. The new
name struck him favorably.

"I'm inclined to agree with Budge," he said, "cause there hain't any
other place that's hit onto it. All of them names that you chaps have
tried to spring onto us, have been used in other places, or at least
some part of the names, but, as Budge has observed, no galoot has
scooped 'Constantinople.'"

"'Cause no one ain't fool enough," observed Ike Hoe, who noted the
drift of the sentiment.

"But they'll pounce onto it powerful quick if we don't grab it while
it's passin'; it's a good long name, and what if it does make a chap
sling the muscles of his jaw to warble it? All the better; it'll make
him think well of his town, which I prophesy is going to be the
emporium of the West."

"Let's see," growled Wade Ruggles, "Constantinople is in Ireland isn't
it?"

"Where's your eddycation?" sneered Ike Vose; "it's the oldest town in
Wales."

Landlord Ortigies raised his head and filled the room with his genial
laughter.

"If there was anything I was strong on when I led my class at the
Squankum High School it was astronermy; I was never catched in
locating places."

"If you know so much," remarked Ruggles, "you'll let us know something
'bout that town which I scorn to name."

"I'm allers ready to enlighten ign'rance, though I've never visited
Constantinople, which stands on the top of the Himalaya Mountains, in
the southern part of Iceland."

"That's very good," said Budge Isham, who with his usual tact
maneuvered to keep the ally he had gained, "but the Constantinople I
have in mind is in Turkey, which is such a goodly sized country that
it straddles from Europe to Asia."

"Which the same I suppose means to imply that this ere Constantinop