[Illustration: "Thank you--thank you very much--very, very much--old
rhinoceros"]
The anxiety of this game was its unexpectedness. Strong, in the turn of
a hand grew playful, after the fashion of a mammoth kitten. He bounded
this way and that, knocking into somebody inevitably at every leap,
and at each contact he wheeled toward the injured and lifted his hat and
bowed low and brought out "I--beg--your--pardon" with a drawl of
sarcastic emphasis too insulting to be described.
"Billy," pleaded Rex, taking to pathos, "don't do that again. You'll get
arrested, and maybe they'll arrest me too, and you don't want to get me
into a hole, do you?"
Billy stopped short with a suddenness which came near to upsetting his
guide, and put both large hands on Rex's shoulders, and gazed into his
eyes with a world of blurred affection. "Reck, ol'fel'," and his voice
broke with a sob, "if I got you into hole, I'd jump in hole after you,
and I'd--and I'd--pull hole in after both of us, and then I'd--I'd tell
hole you was bes' fren' ev' had, and----"
"Come along and behave," cut in the victim of this devotion shortly.
"Don't be a fool."
Strong lifted a fatherly forefinger. "Naughty naughty! Shouldn' call
brother fool. Danger hell fire if you call brother fool. Nev' min',
Recky--we un'stand each other. Two fools. I'm go'n behave." He knocked
his derby in the back so it rested on his nose, stuck his chin up to
meet it, and started off in the most unmistakable semblance of a tipsy
man to be met anywhere.
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