as married little girls."

He seemed a hopeless case.

"Sometimes," he said, "sometimes I wish that I wasn't so blessed
long."

"There's that there deaf jackaroo," he reflected presently. "He's
something in the same fig about girls as I am. He's too deaf and I'm
too long."

"How do you make that out?" I asked. "He's got three girls, to my
knowledge, and, as for being deaf, why, he gasses more than any man in
the town, and knows more of what's going on than old Mother Brindle
the washerwoman."

"Well, look at that now!" said the Giraffe, slowly. "Who'd have
thought it? He never told me he had three girls, an' as for hearin'
news, I always tell him anything that's goin' on that I think he
doesn't catch. He told me his trouble was that whenever he went out
with a girl people could hear what they was sayin'--at least they
could hear what she was sayin' to him, an' draw their own conclusions,
he said. He said he went out one night with a girl, and some of the
chaps foxed 'em an' heard her sayin' `don't' to him, an' put it all
round town."

"What did she say `don't' for?" I asked.

"He didn't tell me that, but I s'pose he was kissin' her or huggin'
her or something."