gives Hamilton any license to go fillin' his hurdy-gurdy full of dance-music? S'pose this gent would come caperin' over an' set in a stack ag'in Hamilton for overloadin' his joint with pianer an' fiddle noises without his consent; an' puttin' it up he's out to drag the camp if Hamilton don't cease? The only way Hamilton gets 'round that kind of complaint is, he don't own them walses an' quadrilles after they fetches loose from his fiddle; that they ain't his quadrilles no more, an' he's not responsible after they stampedes off into space.'
"'That's straight,' says Dave Tutt, 'you-alls can't run no brand on melodies. A gent can't own no music after he cuts it loose that a-way. The minute it leaves the bosoms of his fiddles, that's where he lets go. After that it belongs to any gent to dance by, cry by, set by, or fight by, as he deems meet an' pleasant at the time.'
"'What do you-alls say?' says Hamilton to Enright an' Peets. 'Does this yere piece of oppression on a leadin' citizen, perpetrated by a rank outsider, go? I shore waits for your reply with impatience, for I eetches to go back an' shoot up this new hurdy-gurdy from now till sun-up.'
"Enright takes Doc Peets down by the end of the bar—an' thar's no doubt about it, that Peets is the wisest longhorn west of the Missoury—an' they has a deep consultation. We-alls is waitin',
