Barker should thereafter
be locked in a cellar at such times as she was serving me.
Returning through the town, I heard strains of music from the
establishment known as "Bert's Place," and was shocked on staring
through his show window to observe the Honourable George and Cousin
Egbert waltzing madly with the cow-persons, Hank and Buck, to the
strains of a mechanical piano. The Honourable George had exchanged his
top-hat for his partner's cow-person hat, which came down over his
ears in a most regrettable manner.
I thought it best not to intrude upon their coarse amusement and went
on to the grill to see that all was safe for the night. Returning from
my inspection some half-hour later, I came upon the two, Cousin Egbert
in the lead, the Honourable George behind him. They greeted me
somewhat boisterously, but I saw that they were now content to return
home and to bed. As they walked somewhat mincingly, I noticed that
they were in their hose, carrying their varnished boots in either
hand.
Of the Honourable George, who still wore the cow-person's hat, I began
now to have the gravest doubts. There had been an evil light in the
eyes of the Klondike woman and her Bohemian cohorts as they surveyed
him. As he preceded me I heard him murmur ecstatically: "Sush is
life.
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