ghost kin rake down the pot ag'in the keerds I've got here. This
ain't no bluff!"

"Well, go on!" said a dozen excited voices.

Dick paused a moment, diffidently, with the hesitation of an
artistic raconteur.

"Well," he said, with affected deliberation, "let's see! It's nigh
onto an hour ago ez I was down thar at the variety show. When the
curtain was down betwixt the ax, I looks round fer Daddy. No Daddy
thar! I goes out and asks some o' the boys. 'Daddy WAS there a
minnit ago,' they say; 'must hev gone home.' Bein' kinder
responsible for the old man, I hangs around, and goes out in the
hall and sees a passage leadin' behind the scenes. Now the queer
thing about this, boys, ez that suthin in my bones tells me the old
man is THAR. I pushes in, and, sure as a gun, I hears his voice.
Kinder pathetic, kinder pleadin', kinder--"

"Love-makin'!" broke in the impatient Robinson.

"You've hit it, pard,--you've rung the bell every time! But she
says, 'wants thet money down, or I'll--' and here I couldn't get to
hear the rest. And then he kinder coaxes, and she says, sorter
sassy, but listenin' all the time,--woman like, ye know, Eve and
the sarpint!--and she says, 'I,ll see to-morrow.' And he says,
'You won't blow on me?' and I gets excited and peeps in, and may I
be teetotally durned ef I didn't see--"

"What?" yelled the crowd.