populace, from the gang-plank, to the effect that one William P.
Joyce, trap, crap, and snap shooter was due to happen back casual
most any time, and any lady or gent desirous of witnessing at first
hand, a shutzenfest with live targets, could be gratified by
infestin' in person or by proxy, the lands, tenements, and
hereditaments of me and the kid.

"'Well, we hit the Seattle docks at a canter, him headed for the
postal telegraph, me for a fruit-stand. I bought a dollar's worth of
everything, from cracker-jack to cantaloupe, reserving the local
option of eatin' it there in whole or in part, and returning for
more. First fresh fruit in three years. I reckon my proudest hour
come when I found, beyond peradventure, that I hadn't forgot the
'Georgy Grind.' What? 'Georgy Grind' consists of feeding
rough-hewed slabs of watermelon into your sou' sou'east corner, and
squirting a stream of seeds out from the other cardinal points,
without stopping or strangling.

"I et and et, and then wallered up to the hotel, sweatin' a different
kind of fruit juice from every pore. Not wishing to play any
favourites, I'd picked up a basket of tomatoes, a gunny-sack of
pineapples, and a peck of green plums on the way. Them plums done
the business. I'd orter let bad enough alone. They was non-union,
and I begin having trouble with my inside help. Morrow turned in a
hurry-up call for the Red Cross, two medical colleges, and the
Society of Psycolic Research. Between 'em they diagnosed me as
containing everything from 'housemaid's knee' to homesickness of the
vital organs, but I _know_. I swallered a plum pit, and it sprouted.

"Next day, when I come out of it, Justus had heard from Denver. His