He! He! He! Whoo-hoo! That's sure
ridic'lous, for fair." He wiped his eyes with the back of a sun-
browned hand, and his frame was racked with barking coughs. "I
know the whole blame thing by heart, but-I can't recite it to
you. I bog down right there. Seems like some folks is the
darndest fools!"
Speed allowed this good-humor to banish his trepidation, and
assured the foreman that _Silas on Fifth Avenue_ must indeed
be a very fine monologue.
"It's my favorite," said Still Bill, "but we all have our picks.
Cloudy here likes _Navajo_, which I agree is attuned to
please the savage year, but to my mind it ain't in the runnin'
with _Silas._"
"You see what the phonograph means to these gentlemen," said Miss
Blake. "I think it's a crying shame that they were cheated out of
it, don't you?"
Speed began to outline a plan hastily in his mind.
"I assured them that you would win it back for them, and--"
"We sure hope you will," said Willie, earnestly.
"Amen!" breathed the lanky foreman, his cheeks still wet from his
tears of laughter, but his face drawn into lines of eagerness.
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