He allowed five or six of his customers to languish in the care of Mexican bar-tenders, while he himself gave his eloquent attention to the Kids, lending all the dignity of a great event to their arrival. »How are the boys to-day, eh?«

»You're a smooth old guy,« said one, eyeing him. »Are you giving us this welcome so we won't notice it when you push your worst whisky at us?«

Pop turned in appeal from one Kid to the other Kid. »There, now, hear that, will you?« He assumed an oratorical pose. »Why, my boys, you always get the best – the very best – that this house has got.«

»Yes, we do!« The Kids laughed. »Well, bring it out, anyhow, and if it's the same you sold us last night, we'll grab your cash register and run.«

Pop whirled a bottle along the bar and then gazed at it with a rapt expression. »Fine as silk,« he murmured. »Now just taste that, and if it isn't the finest whisky you ever put in your face, why I'm a liar, that's all.«

The Kids surveyed him with scorn, and poured out their allowances. Then they stood for a time insulting Pop about his whisky. »Usually it tastes exactly like new parlor furniture,« said the San Francisco Kid. »Well, here goes, and you want to look out for your cash register.«

»Your health, gentlemen,« said Pop with a grand air, and as he wiped his bristling grey moustache he wagged his head with reference to the cash register question. »I could catch you before you got very far.«

»Why, are you a runner?« said one derisively.

»You just bank on me, my boy,« said Pop, with deep emphasis. »I'm a flier.«

The Kids set down their glasses suddenly and looked at him. »You must be,« they said. Pop was tall and graceful and magnificent in manner, but he did not display those qualities of form which mean speed in the animal. His hair was grey; his face was round and fat from much living. The buttons of his glittering white vest formed a fine curve, so that if the concave surface of a piece of barrel-hoop had been laid against Pop it would have touched each button. »You must be,« observed the Kids again.

»Well, you can laugh all you like, but – no jolly now, boys, I tell you I'm a winner. Why, I bet you I can skin anything in this town on a square go. When I kept my place in Eagle Pass there wasn't anybody who could touch me. One of these sure things came down from San Anton'. Oh, he was a runner he was. One of these people with wings. Well, I skinned 'im. What? Certainly I did. Never touched me.«

The Kids had been regarding him in grave silence, but at this moment they grinned, and said quite in chorus: »Oh, you old liar!«

Pop's voice took on a whining tone of earnestness. »Boys, I'm telling it to you straight. I'm a flier.«

One of the Kids had had a dreamy cloud in his eye and he cried out suddenly. »Say, what a joke to play this on Freddie.«

The other jumped ecstatically. »Oh, wouldn't it be, though.