Now if the Boston man had looked
Jimmy in the eye, and said "I do," this book would not have been
written. But he did not. He looked at the milk pail, and the glass,
which had passed through the hands of a dozen men in a little
country saloon away out in the wilds of Indiana, and said: "I do
not care to partake of further refreshment; if I can be of
intellectual benefit, I might remain for a time."
For a flash Jimmy lifted the five feet ten of his height to six;
but in another he shrank below normal. What appeared to the Thread
Man to be a humble, deferential seeker after wisdom, led him to one
of the chairs around the big coal base burner. But the boys who
knew Jimmy were watching the whites of his eyes, as they drank the
second round. At this stage Jimmy was on velvet. How long he
remained there depended on the depth of Melwood in the milk pail
between his knees. He smiled winningly on the Thread Man.
"Ye know, Mister O'Khayam," he said, "at the present time you are
located in one of the wooliest parts of the wild East. I don't
suppose anything woolier could be found on the plains of Nebraska
where I am reliably informed they've stuck up a pole and labeled it
the cinter of the United States. Being a thousand miles closer that
pole than you are in Boston, naturally we come by that distance
closer to the great wool industry. Most of our wool here grows on
our tongues, and we shear it by this transmutin' process, concerning
which you have discoursed so beautiful.
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