PAINTED ROCK
which gave me a surprise. It was a coronet.
"We done so," repeated Dick. "But I'm running ahead of the team. I walked along considerin' what a dern cur'ous world it was; thinkin' that this hed bin goin' on ever since I knew Texas, every night so to speak, and me thinkin' Fort Worth was the crowdest place on earth. And I tho't of some you hyar gentlemen, some of the youngest ez lets on they knows everythin'. And I remember Charlie lookin' at some of you very peaceful and contented when you allowed he was green because he didn't know somethin' as you did. And I says, 'Dick, my son, it's possible some folks in Texas is as green as grass after all.' And the tho't of them as I knowed was green struck me powerful, and I laffed. And I goes into a back street, called, I think, Jackville Street, with few folks in it, and I yells, I fair yells, boys. 'Tain't no good denyin' it, I saw I was green. And just then the same son of a gun as I'd trod the foot off of turns up Jackville Street, Picc'dilly, and paysses me. And jus' then I hears a scream
218
