Page:West of Dodge (1926).pdf/302

 "I guess I can pocket me loss and be wiser. It's not so hard on me as some of these poor fellys that has nothing, not the big-innin' of hardship compared to the loss Herself has to bear. The poor soul, puttin' her all into the blarneyin' felly's pot, and him savin' it up for the day he had planned to roon off with it like a dog with a bone. I have a praperty any day I'm ready to give up me job and go to it."

"Lucky man, Jack! Has somebody left you a farm?"

"Me woman, you know, she's Injen. She has land over in the Nation. It's good land, it has ile innunther it, the whole of it the gover'mint has set aside for them Creeks has ile innunther it. One of these days, when ile takes a stir and comes to be wort' money in place of bein' an ixpinse to dhrill it out as it is now, we'll go down and take our land."

"No wonder you're not worrying, you old millionaire!"

Jack was pleased at the compliment, as a poor person invariably is flattered by being rated above his means. There is something peculiarly pleasant to the average mind in these misapplications of financial ratings and designations of consequence. There are laymen who distend and grow warm around the gills when somebody mistakenly calls them doctor. A gas-meter reader has been known to set his hat at a different angle all the rest of his life after having been mistaken for a newspaper reporter.

"It was a knock that took me wind for a while," Jack confessed. "I've been a careful man, I've never put me arnins on the gamin' table. So along comes this man with the gift of gab on his tongue, pourin' his handful