Page:The Cow Jerry (1925).pdf/24

 gill said. "I said to Goosie last night when I heard you talkin' to Angus: 'That's Banjo Gibson. I'll bet anything that's Banjo Gibson.' If I hadn't been so tired I'd 'a' slipped on something and come down."

"Just as well you didn't, pleased as I'd 'a' been to see you. I know how it is here at the hotel—your day's like a rubber sack; the more you put in it the longer it stretches."

"Yes, it's so long, and such worthless help in the dining-room. I had a girl out from Hutchinson—she flew up and quit me in the middle of supper yesterday because Bill Connor pinched her leg. Well, she said he did. I don't believe it."

"Little old Bill, I remember him well. They tell me he's got a run now?"

"Yes, he's makin' regular money. Him and Goosie they're engaged. Goosie she was so put out over what the little freckled flip-tail said about Bill I looked for her to throw his ring in his soup."

"Some people's born to make trouble," said Banjo, with discreet mental reservation bearing on Bill Connor's behavior toward the new girl.

"I wish I could put a man in, but them railroaders wouldn't stand for a man. They seem to think biscuit-shootin' is stric'ly a lady's job."

"It ain't a man's job," Banjo declared with feeling, "though I had to come down to it while I was gone. It was after that quack shook me up in Cheyenne."

"You mean to tell me you waited table, Banjo?"

"If you'd 'a' happened through Chadron, out in the