Page:The Leather Pushers (1921).pdf/51

 you went down to pay our hotel bill?" he demands, shuttin' me off with a glare.

"Well," I says, "it's like this: I run into a bevy of traveling salesmen in the lobby, and one word led to the other. If I'd only had brains enough to quit at two this a. m., I'd of been three hundred men to the good, but that last baby shook a nasty pair of dice!"

Kid Roberts drops his suit case and sinks down on the bed, first havin' the foresight to hurl both pillows and the busted ironin' board at me.

"And the funny part of it is," I goes on, duckin' the above utensils and cheerfully lightin' a cigarette, "I forgot to pay the hotel bill!"

"Oh, that's the funny part, eh?" he snarls, gettin' up and approachin' me with a three-alarm fire in each eye. "Well, I'm going to pound you into a jelly—see if you can get a laugh out of that!"

"Behave!" I says, slidin' gracefully back of the bureau. "Don't let's get silly and partake of vulgar fistycuffs. If I didn't know you could take me, I wouldn't be managing you; but maulin' me will get neither of us nowheres. I got in that African golf tourney because I thought I could grab off enough doubloons to take us into New York right. The breaks went against me and them guys gypped me and made me lose it—that's all! Ain't you ever did nothin' foolish?"

He stops short and scowls at me for a minute, and then all of a sudden his exceedin'ly handsome face clears and that good-natured kid grin of his makes me acquainted with all his lovely white teeth.

"You're right, old man!" he laughs, slappin' me on