to stand in,--"and I raised meself."

"Good thing you stopped when you did," commented the puncher. "What's
your line?"

"Me line? Well, the Santa Fe, jest now. Next comes cookin'. I been
cook in everything from a hotel to a gradin'-camp. I cooked for
high-collars and swalley-tails, and low-brows and jeans--till it come
time to go. Incondescent to that I been poet select to the T.W.U."

"Temperance?"

"Not exactly. T.W.U. is Tie Walkers' Union. I lost me job account of
a long-hair buttin' in and ramblin' round the country spielin'
high-toned stuff about 'Art for her own sake'--and such. Me pals
selected him animus for poet, seein' as how I just writ things
nacheral; no high-fluted stuff like him. Why, say, pardner, I believe
in writin' from the ground up, so folks can understand. Why, this
country is sufferin' full of guys tryin' to pull all the G strings out
of a harp to onct--when they ought to be practicin' scales on a
mouth-organ. And it's printed ag'in' 'em in the magazines, right
along. I read lots of it. But speakin' of eats and _thinkin_' of
eats, did you ever listen to 'Them Saddest Words,'--er--one of me own
competitions?"

"Not while I was awake. But come on over to 'The Last Chance' and
lubricate your works. I don't mind a little po'try on a full stummick."

"Well, I'm willin', pardner."