“Ike, you wasn’t hypnotized--you was assassinatized.”
I asks him if a feller could be hypnotized to such an extent that he’d
throw a pitcher at his best friend.
“Well,” says Doc, “I reckon he would. A feller you can stick pins into
without hurting him is liable to do anything. You see, Ike, his mind
could be influenced by the hypnotist. Did Magpie hit you?”
“According to science, Doc, it wasn’t Magpie throwed the pitcher, but he
must ’a’ been influenced by another party.”
“Yeah,” says Doc. “After looking at the cut you got, Ike, I’d say it was
the Democrat or Republican party.”
Then I meets “Dirty Shirt” Jones. Dirty looks me over careful-like.
“Somebody been loving you with a rock, or had you proved the assertion
that familiarity breeds contempt and stroked that danged jassack of
yours from the rear? You ought to get a divorce from that pet. Some
day he’ll kick you so hard that folks will say, ‘The poor devil would
be a lot better off if the grim reaper would come along and harvest
his soul.’”
“I got this through Magpie,” says I.
“My ----! He must be a mess, Ike!”
“You don’t _sabe_, Dirty. He was responsible but not accountable.
Another mind influenced him.”
“Somebody told him to do it?”
“Transmigration of thought.”
“Did Magpie tell you this, Ike?”
“Doc Milliken explains the principles.”
“Well, you ---- fool!” snorts Dirty. “A feller busts your head open and
a horse doctor explains why, and you kiss everybody. Well, well! This
being the time of the year that a snake sheds its skin and becomes so
obstreperous that it strikes at everything, let’s me and you inoculate
ourselves against such freaks of nature. A stitch in time is worth a
pound of beans in the hand.”
“Dirty, you’d intoxicate any snake that would be brave enough to strike
you. You’re already inoculated against everything.”
Dirty lifts out his old Colt, spins the cylinder and rings the bell on
the Mint Hall three times in a row, and grins:
“Not yet, Ike. Wait till I miss one out of three.”
Inside Buck’s place we finds “Mighty” Jones standing on the rail and
orating aloud. He’s saying:
“Not by a ---- sight! Don’t believe in it. I’m strong for a Vigilance
Committee and I’ll help lynch anybody, but I won’t be part and parcel
to no danged secret nor underground society.”
“I’ll join the Vigilantes,” says Dirty. “I’m against everything but
hanging. What’s the oration all about, Mighty?”
“Mighty is anti everything,” says Buck. “He’s one of them mavericks who
is wishful to heave a monkey-wrench into the machinery of progress.
Ain’t it a fact, Magpie?”
We turns and gazes upon Magpie, leaning against the doorway.
“I’d say you wasn’t missing the mark much,” admits Magpie, “but Mighty
ain’t alone. Seems to me there is lots of others who sort of backfire
on anything pertaining to progress.”
“Meaning me, I suppose,” says I. “That’s why you leans a heavy pitcher
upon my brow and never even looks to see if I’m dead or not.”
“The dead don’t splinter a man’s door with lead, Ike,” says he.
“You proved--howdy, judge.”
“Tol’able,” admits Judge Steele, coming in. “How goes the fraternity?”
“Great,” admits Magpie. “I’ve took it all and I’m ordained to pass it
on. Just finished in time, too, ’cause that rat-headed hooch-hound,
over there--”meaning me--“bent his gun over the dome of the Exalted,
Most Generous High and Mighty Ruler of the Universe, and it sort of
slowed things up.
“Then the danged fool shot three times through the door and the Exalted
person removed one of my window frames as he went out. But I got all the
dope.”
“Charter?” asked the judge.
“Betcha. Everything is hunkydory, judge.”
“’Tis a day of thanksgiving,” says the judge pious-like. “I will propose
that we rise and drink a toast to the Piperock branch of the Loyal
Legion of Lizards. Gents, take off your hats and stand uncovered before
Mister Simpkins, the Grand--uh--what is it all, Magpie?”
“Unlimited, Imperial, Unrestrained, Perfect, Exalted, Grand----”
“Whoa!” yelps Dirty Shirt, cocking his gun. “Stop that, Magpie! You
can’t talk that way and----”
“You’re drunk, Dirty,” says Magpie disgusted-like.
Dirty blinks his eyes and rocks on his heels. Then he steps outside,
shoots three times at the bell and misses all three. Then he steps to
the door and bows.
“Gents, I apologize--I’m drunk.”
* * * * *
I’m sitting down on the sidewalk, thinking over the sins of mankind,
when all to once comes an awful crash in Buck’s place and Mighty Jones
skids out on his shoulders. He turns around, drapes his feet over the
edge of the sidewalk and feels of his neck.
“Stumble coming out?” I asks.
“Ike, did you ever hear the story about the feller who draped himself
over a bar and says out loud, ‘I can lick any man in the house.’ Nobody
said anything, so he says, ‘I can lick any man in the town.’ Everything
is peaceful, so he gets brave and says, ‘I can lick any man in the
county.’ But that don’t get results. Then he gets awful humpy and says,
‘I can lick any man in the State!’ He gets busted wide open by a little
feller. When he gets normal he says, ‘I covered too much territory.’”
“What did you say, Mighty?” I asks.
“Me? Huh! I said I never seen the lodge I couldn’t lick.”
Then cometh “Hassayampa” Harris from Curlew. He sets down with us and
Mighty opens up on him like this:
“Hassayampa, secret societies are the bane of existence. ’Cause why?
When you becomes a member of a society you forgets your duty to
mankind. Supposing a horse-thief joins? They’re eligible, as long as
they’re all right morally. Then he steals a horse. Is a brother
member going to squeal on him? No, sir! Hoss-stealing becomes a cinch
under them conditions and it ain’t long before each and every one of
that society are rustlers.”
“Which is logic, but not explanatory,” admits Hassayampa. “Who brings us
the society idea, Mighty?”
“I does,” says Magpie, who has come up behind us. “I am knowed
officially as the Unlimited, Imperial, Unrestrained, Perfect, Grand
Protector of the Temple of Piperock.”
“My ----!” gasps Hassayampa. “You are? Well, you’re about all you can
ever expect to be in this life, Magpie. What temple are you supposed
to protect?”
“The Imperial Temple of the Loyal Legion of Lizards.”
Hassayampa opens his mouth to say something and then fusses in his
pocket until he finds a piece of paper. He looks at us and then reads:
“Beans, flour, hominy, prunes, bacon and dried apples. Thank gosh, I’m
still sane enough to read my supply list. So-long.”