Alexander P. Dill must, after all, have had some sense of humor; his eyes lost their melancholy enough almost to twinkle. "Well, the owner's name is Brown," he said slowly. "I believe they call the brand the Double-Crank. It is located--"
"Located--hell!--do yuh think I don't know?" The cigarette, ready to light as it was, slipped from Billy's fingers and dropped unheeded over the wheel to the brown trail below. He took the reins carefully from between his knees, straightened one that had become twisted and turned out upon the prairie to avoid a rough spot where a mud-puddle had dried in hard ridges. Beyond, he swung back again, leaned and flicked an early horse-fly from the ribs of the off-horse, touched the other one up a bit with his whip and settled back at ease, tilting his hat at quite another angle.
"Oh, where have yuh been, Billy boy, Billy boy? Oh, where have yuh been, charming Billy?"
He hummed, in a care-free way that would have been perfectly maddening to any one with nerves.
"I suppose I am to infer from your silence that you do not take kindly to the proposition," observed Mr. Dill, in a colorless tone which betrayed the fact that he did have nerves.
"I can take a josh, all right," Billy stopped singing long enough to say. "For a steady-minded cuss, yuh do have surprising streaks, Dilly, and that's a fact. Yuh sprung it on me mighty smooth, for not having much practice--I'll say that for yuh."
Mr. Dill looked hurt. "I hope you do not seriously think that I would joke upon a matter of business," he protested.
"Well, I know old Brown pretty tolerable well--and I ain't accusing him uh ribbing up a big josh on yuh. He ain't that brand."
"I must confess I fail to get your point of view," said Mr. Dill, with just a hint of irascibility in his voice. "There is no joke unless you are forcing one upon me now. Mr. Brown made me a bona-fide offer, and I have made a small deposit to hold it until you came and I could consult you. We have three days left in which to decide for or against it. It is all perfectly straight, I assure you."
Billy took time to consider this possibility. "Well, in that case, and all jokes aside, I'd a heap rather have the running uh the Double-Crank than be President and have all the newspapers hollering how 'President Billy Boyle got up at eight this morning and had ham-and-eggs for his breakfast, and then walked around the block with the Queen uh England hanging onto his left arm,' or anything like that But what I can't seem to get percolated through me is why, in God's name, the Double-Crank wants to sell."