“ ‘I’m glad you like it,’ says the stranger.

“ ‘I reckon the other fifty-one of the deck ez as pooty—all of ’em Jacks and left bowers,’ sez Bill.

“The stranger sez nothin’, but kinder draws back from Bill; but Bill ups and sez—

“ ‘Wot is your little game, Mister J. Trott, of Kentucky?’

“ ‘I don’t think I quite understand you,’ sez the stranger, a holler fire comin’ intu his cheeks like ez if they was the bowl of a pipe.

“ ‘Wot’s this yer kid-glove business?—this yer tall hat paradin’?—this yer circus foolin’? Wot’s it all about? Who are ye, anyway?’

“The stranger stands up, and sez he, ‘Ez I don’t quarrel with guests on my own land,’ sez he, ‘I think you’ll allow I’m—a gentleman!’ sez he.

“With that he takes off his tall hat and makes a low bow, so, and turns away—like this; but Bill lites out of a suddent with his right foot and drives his No. 10 boot clean through the crown of that tall hat like one o’ them circus hoops.

“That’s about ez fur ez I remember. Gentlemen! thar wa’n’t but one man o’ that hull crowd ez could actooally swear what happened next, and that man never told. For a kind o’ whirlwind jest then took place in that valley. I disremember anythin’ but dust and bustlin’. Thar wasn’t no yellin’, thar wasn’t no shootin’. It was one o’ them suddent things that left even a six-shooter out in the cold. When I kem to in the chapparel—bein’ oncomfortable like from hevin’ only half a shirt on—I found nigh on three pounds o’ gravel and stones in my pockets and a stiffness in my ha’r. I looks up and sees Bill hangin’ in the forks of a hickory saplin’ twenty feet above me.

“ ‘Cap,’ sez he, in an inquirin’ way, ‘hez the tornado passed?’

“ ‘Which?’ sez I.

“ ‘This yer elemental disturbance—is it over?’

“ ‘I reckon,’ sez I.

“ ‘Because,’ sez he, ‘afore this yer electrical phenomenon took place I hed a slight misunderstanding with a stranger, and I’d like to apologize!’

“And with that he climbs down, peaceful-like, and goes into the shanty, and comes out, hand in hand with that stranger, smilin’ like an infant. And that’s the first time, I reckon, we know’d anythin’ about the gentleman of La Porte.”

It is by no means improbable that the above incidents are slightly exaggerated in narration, and the cautious reader will do well to accept with some reservation the particular phenomenon alluded to by the Captain. But the fact remains that the Gentleman of La Porte was allowed an eccentricity and enjoyed an immunity from contemporaneous criticism only to be attributed to his personal prowess. Indeed, this was once publicly expressed. “It ’pears to me,” said a meek newcomer,—who, on the strength of his having received news of the death of a distant relative in the “States,” had mounted an exceedingly large crape mourning-band on his white felt hat, and was consequently obliged to “treat” the crowd in the barroom of Parker’s Hotel,—“it ’pears to me, gentlemen, that this yer taxin’ the nat’ral expression of grief, and allowin’ such festive exhibitions as yaller kid gloves, on the gentleman on my right, is sorter inconsistent. I don’t mind treatin’ the crowd, gentlemen, but this yer platform and resolutions don’t seem to keep step.”