Have to
hustle lively for every worm you find, don't you, Chickie? Now me,
I'm hustlin' lively for a drink, and I be domn if it seems
nicessary with a whole river of drinkin' stuff flowin' right under
me feet. But the old Wabash ain't runnin "wine and milk and honey"
not by the jug-full. It seems to be compounded of aquil parts of
mud, crude ile, and rain water. If 'twas only runnin' Melwood, be
gorry, Chickie, you'd see a mermaid named Jimmy Malone sittin' on
the Kingfisher Stump, combin' its auburn hair with a breeze, and
scoopin' whiskey down its gullet with its tail fin. No, hold on,
Chickie, you wouldn't either. I'm too flat-chisted for a mermaid,
and I'd have no time to lave off gurglin' for the hair-combin' act,
which, Chickie, to me notion is as issential to a mermaid as the
curves. I'd be a sucker, the biggest sucker in the Gar-hole,
Chickie bird. I'd be an all-day sucker, be gobs; yis, and an all-
night sucker, too. Come to think of it, Chickie, be domn if I'd be
a sucker at all. Look at the mouths of thim! Puckered up with a
drawstring! Oh, Hell on the Wabash, Chickie, think of Jimmy Malone
lyin' at the bottom of a river flowin' with Melwood, and a
puckerin'-string mouth! Wouldn't that break the heart of you? I
know what I'd be. I'd be the Black Bass of Horseshoe Bend, Chickie,
and I'd locate just below the shoals headin' up stream, and I'd
hold me mouth wide open till I paralyzed me jaws so I couldn't shut
thim. I'd just let the pure stuff wash over me gills constant,
world without end.
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