think o' disconveniencing yu'."

"That's nothing. The other half is yours. Turn in right now if
you feel like it."

"No. I don't reckon I'll turn in right now. Better keep your bed
to yourself."

"See here," urged the drummer, "if I take you I'm safe from
drawing some party I might not care so much about. This here
sleeping proposition is a lottery."

"Well," said the Virginian (and his hesitation was truly
masterly), "if you put it that way--"

"I do put it that way. Why, you're clean! You've had a shave
right now. You turn in when you feel inclined, old man! I ain't
retiring just yet."

The drummer had struck a slightly false note in these last
remarks. He should not have said "old man." Until this I had
thought him merely an amiable person who wished to do a favor.
But "old man" came in wrong. It had a hateful taint of his
profession; the being too soon with everybody, the celluloid
good-fellowship that passes for ivory with nine in ten of the
city crowd. But not so with the sons of the sagebrush. They live
nearer nature, and they know better.

But the Virginian blandly accepted "old man" from his victim: he
had a game to play. "Well, I cert'nly thank yu'," he said. "After