|I will now bring in Damon and Pythias.
Damon and Pythias were named after a popular secret organization because
they were so solid on each other. They thought more of one another than
anybody. They borrowed chewing tobacco, and were always sociable and
pleasant. They slept together, and unitedly "stood off" the landlady
from month to month in the most cheerful and harmonious manner. If
Pythias snored in the night like the blast of a fog horn, Damon did not
get mad and kick him in the stomach as some would. He gently but firmly
took him by the nose and lifted him up and down to the merry rythm of
"The Babies in Our Block."
They loved one another in season and out of season. Their affection was
like the soft bloom on the nose of a Wyoming legislator. It never grew
pale or wilted. It was always there. If Damon were at the bat, Pythias
was on deck. If Damon went to a church fair and invited starvation,
Pythias would go, too, and vote on the handsomest baby till the First
National Bank of Syracuse would refuse to honor his checks.
But one day Damon got too much budge and told the venerable and colossal
old royal bummer of Syracuse what he thought of him. Then Dionysius told
the chief engineer of the sausage grinder to turn on steam and prepare
for business. But Damon thought of Pythias, and how Pythias hadn't so
much to live for as he had, and he made a compromise by offering to put
Pythias in soak while the only genuine Damon went to see his girl, who
lived at Albany. Three days were given him to get around and redeem
Pythias, and if he failed his friend would go to protest.