PAINTED ROCK
"Give it lip! We'd admire to hear," said many.
"Hold your row!" said others. "Oh, shut your mouths and give Dick's a show! Speak up, Dick."
And Dick spoke up.
"I said I'd go, and go I did. Mr. Pillsbury here allowed I'd get bogged down in Fort Worth or Noo Or'lans, but I didn't. Charlie here gave me the straight racket, and to add to my luck I run across a sea-captain in the cars near Noo Orl'ans as got into a difficulty with a tough in the cars, and, as he said, bein' a stranger in a far kentry he didn't know how to handle toughs. I walked in and choked that tough good, and me and the conductor booted him off'n the cars, and thishyer sea-captain was much obliged. And he said (his name was Daniel Tuckett of the steamship Liverpool Belle), 'You want to go to London, do you? Well, you come along o' me and I'll plant you in London River for a little over four bits a day' (half a crown he called it), 'and we'll be goin' about three weeks, and for a friend in need like you I'll do it for less.' And he done
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