"Mame was that sort. She was full of life and fun, and breezy; she
passed the repartee with the boarders quick as a wink; you'd have
smothered laughing. I am disinclined to make excavations into the
insides of a personal affection. I am glued to the theory that the
diversions and discrepancies of the indisposition known as love should
be as private a sentiment as a toothbrush. 'Tis my opinion that the
biographies of the heart should be confined with the historical
romances of the liver to the advertising pages of the magazines. So,
you'll excuse the lack of an itemised bill of my feelings toward Mame.

"Pretty soon I got a regular habit of dropping into the tent to eat
at irregular times when there wasn't so many around. Mame would sail
in with a smile, in a black dress and white apron, and say: 'Hello,
Jeff--why don't you come at mealtime? Want to see how much trouble you
can be, of course. Friedchickenbeefsteakporkchopshamandeggspotpie'--and
so on. She called me Jeff, but there was no significations attached.
Designations was all she meant. The front names of any of us she used as
they came to hand. I'd eat about two meals before I left, and string 'em
out like a society spread where they changed plates and wives, and josh
one another festively between bites. Mame stood for it, pleasant, for it
wasn't up to her to take any canvas off the tent by declining dollars
just because they were whipped in after meal times.

"It wasn't long until there was another fellow named Ed Collier got
the between-meals affliction, and him and me put in bridges between
breakfast and dinner, and dinner and supper, that made a three-ringed
circus of that tent, and Mame's turn as waiter a continuous
performance. That Collier man was saturated with designs and
contrivings. He was in well-boring or insurance or claim-jumping, or
something--I've forgotten which. He was a man well lubricated with