Well, as I was saying, Ben Sutton blew into town early last September and after shaking hands with his old confederate, Lon Price, he says how is the good wife and is she at home and Lon says no; that Pettikins has been up at Silver Springs resting for a couple weeks; so Ben says it’s too bad he’ll miss the little lady, as in that case he has something good to suggest, which is, what’s the matter with him and Lon taking a swift hike down to New York which Ben ain’t seen since 1892, though he was born there, and he’d now like to have a look at the old home in Lon’s company.  Lon says it’s too bad Pettikins ain’t there to go along, but if they start at once she wouldn’t have time to join them, and Ben says he can start near enough at once for that, so hurry and pack the suitcase.  Lon does it, leaving a delayed telegram to Henrietta to be sent after they start, begging her to join them if not too late, which it would be.

While they are in Louis Meyer’s Place feeling good over this coop, in comes the ever care-free Jeff Tuttle and Jeff says he wouldn’t mind going out on rodeo himself with ’em, at least as far as Jersey City where he has a dear old aunt living—­or she did live there when he was a little boy and was always very nice to him and he ain’t done right in not going to see her for thirty years—­and if he’s that close to the big town he could run over from Jersey City for a look—­see.

Lon and Ben hail his generous decision with cheers and on the way to another place they meet me, just down from the ranch.  And why don’t I come along with the bunch?  Ben has it all fixed in ten seconds, he being one of these talkers that will odd things along till they sound even, and the other two chiming in with him and wanting to buy my ticket right then.  But I hesitated some.  Lon and Ben Sutton was all right to go with, but Jeff Tuttle was a different kittle of fish.  Jeff is a decent man in many respects and seems real refined when you first meet him if it’s in some one’s parlour, but he ain’t one you’d care to follow step by step through the mazes and pitfalls and palmrooms of a great city if you’re sensitive to public notice.  Still, they was all so hearty in their urging, Ben saying I was the only lady in the world he could travel that far with and not want to strangle, and Lon says he’d rather have me than most of the men he knew, and Jeff says if I’ll consent to go he’ll take his full-dress suit so as to escort me to operas and lectures in a classy manner, and at last I give up.  I said I’d horn in on their party since none of ’em seemed hostile.

I’d meant to go a little later anyway, for some gowns I needed and some shopping I’d promised to do for Lizzie Gunslaugh.  You got to hand it to New York for shopping.  Why, I’d as soon buy an evening gown in Los Angeles as in Portland or San Francisco.  Take this same Lizzie Gunslaugh.  She used to make a bare living, with her sign reading “Plain and Fashionable Dressmaking.”