"'Haddsy, old horse,' I says, 'we've only got one show. If we can
create a diversion we win. My head's that rumpled, the only thing
strikes me is for us to go out there and play cat-fight. Holler,
and meaowl, and spit, and screech, and jump around till she can't
help but look at us. That's the way I uset to amuse the twins when
they needed killin'; of course we'll look like a pair of fools----'

"'Yes!' hollers Hadds. 'What do we look like now? You get three
guesses!'

"'Come along!' says I.

"Well, dear friends and brothers, our hearts was in that diversion,
let alone the stake we'd invested in the store. If you don't think
one bald-headed E. G. W. Scraggs and one red-headed Tommy Hadds put
up a high-grade article of cat-fight I don't know how I'm goin' to
prove to the contrary; but it was so.

[Illustration: "Put up a high-grade article of cat-fight."]

"Why, we buck-jumped four foot in the air, sideways, edgeways and
straight pitch-and-teeter; we mi-auwed, and scratched, and tore and
rolled over, and kicked with our hind legs, and such yells was
never heard in a human habitation before nor since.

"It worked. The Mayoress stopped and leaned over the counter.

"'Warm it up, Hadds!' I whispers. 'We got her lookin'!'