PAINTED ROCK
"Really?"
"Wonderful. Charlie, I'm speechless. I seen your town, Charlie!"
He shook his head.
"Made me feel like a kid."
"Tell us!" said I. "D'ye know Piccadilly?"
"I began thar," he whispered. "Oh, I had a holy terror of a time. Piccadilly! I should smile. And Pall Mall and the Strand and Oxford Street! I admire. I tho't I knew somethin', Charlie, I did! And me green as spring on the range. Me know anythin'!"
"Tell me what happened?"
Could any Londoner, any man born in London, and for years subdued to its enchantments, be otherwise than crazy to hear what this big child had done there?
"Wait," said Brazos. "I'll hev to tell the boys. We ain't far from Painted Rock. We'll go to the American House and I'll stand up and say to them, 'Hev a liquor with me, a kid as used to know nothin' and now knows he's green ez grass.' Wait."
206
