PAINTED ROCK
getful mind," said the Georgian;" I knew I should, and I've got him to rights. It's a mighty strange thing that he should turn up after all these years, and I wonder what he's thinking of as he wanders around."
He turned to us with an odd look in his face, and we knew there was a story coming. The bar-keeper filled up our glasses again at my nod, and I slid a dollar over to him while Gedge was getting the hang of his reminiscences. He sighed, took his liquor, and spoke.
"His name is Smith, just Smith and what else I forget," said Gedge, "and he gave me the greatest surprise I ever had, and that, in my varied and not unremarkable career, is a tall order."
"What was the surprise?" asked Pillsbury. "Did he take you on at poker and skin you?"
Gedge shook his head solemnly.
"I've yet to meet the man that can do that, and well you sabe it, Pillsbury. It wasn't gambling by any means, but it was a surprise, and no fatal error. There's two kind of great surprises accordin' to my mind, and one of them is when a man without any
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