Page:Leon Wilson - Ruggles of Red Gap.djvu/88

74 on a merry-go-round, and wanting Sour-dough to ride an ostrich with him, and then when we got him quieted down a little, nothing would do him but he's got to be a cowboy—you seen his clothes, didn't you? And of course I wanted to get back to Addie and the girls, but I seen Sour-dough here was in trouble, so I stayed right by him, and between us we got the maniac here."

"He's one of them should never touch liquor," said Cousin Egbert; "it makes a demon of him."

"I got his knife away from him early in the game," said the other.

"I don't suppose I got to wear this cabman's hat just because he told me to, have I?" demanded Cousin Egbert.

"And here I'd been looking forward to a quiet day seeing some well-known objects of interest," came from the other, "after I got my tooth pulled, that is."

"And me with a tooth, too, that nearly drove me out of my mind," said Cousin Egbert suddenly.

I could not see Mrs. Effie, but she had evidently listened to this outrageous tale with more or less belief, though not wholly credulous.

"You men have both been drinking yourselves," she said shrewdly.

"We had to take a little; he made us," declared the Tuttle person brazenly.

"He got so he insisted on our taking something every time he did," added Cousin Egbert. "And, anyway, I didn't care so much, with this tooth of mine aching like it does."

"You come right out with me and around to that