Page:Life's Handicap - Kipling (1891).djvu/277

 to drink. In the course o' conversation he said, as tall men will, things about his height, and the trouble of it to him. That was his pride o' the flesh.

As the longest man in the island" he said, but there they took him up and asked if he were sure.

I say I am the longest man in the island," he said, "and on that I'll bet my substance."

'They laid down the bed-plates of a big drink then and there, and put it aside while they called Jock Coan from his house, near by among the fireflies' winking.

How's a' wi' you?" said Jock, and came in by the side o' the Sacramento profligate, two inches, or it may have been one, taller than he.

You're long," said the man opening his eyes. "But I am longer." An' they sent a whistle through the night an' howkit out Sandie Vowle from his bit bungalow, and he came in an' stood by the side o' Jock, an' the pair just fillit the room to the ceiling-cloth.

'The Sacramento man was a euchre-player and a most profane sweerer. "You hold both Bowers," he said, "but the Joker is with me."

Fair an' softly," says Nailor. "Jock, whaur's Lang Lammitter?"

Here," says that man, putting his leg through the window and coming in like an anaconda o' the desert furlong by furlong, one foot in Penang and one in Batavia, and a hand in North Borneo it may be.

Are you suited?" said Nailer, when the hinder end o' Lang Lammitter was slidden through the sill an' the head of Lammitter was lost in the smoke away above.

'The American man took out his card and put it on the table. "Esdras B. Longer is my name, America is my nation, 'Frisco is my resting-place, but this here beats Creation," said he. "Boys, giants—side-show giants—I