“You mean this last pufformance?” asked Mrs. Bixbee.  “I wish you’d quit beatin’ about the bush, an’ tell me the hull story.”

“Wa’al, it’s like this, then, if you will hev it.  I was over to Whiteboro a while ago on a little matter of worldly bus’nis, an’ I seen a couple of fellers halter-exercisin’ a hoss in the tavern yard.  I stood ‘round a spell watchin’ ’em, an’ when he come to a standstill I went an’ looked him over, an’ I liked his looks fust rate.

“‘Fer sale?’ I says.

“‘Wa’al,’ says the chap that was leadin’ him, ’I never see the hoss that wa’n’t if the price was right.’

“‘Your’n?’ I says.

“‘Mine an’ his’n,’ he says, noddin’ his head at the other feller.

“‘What ye askin’ fer him?’ I says.

“‘One-fifty,’ he says.

“I looked him all over agin putty careful, an’ once or twice I kind o’ shook my head ‘s if I didn’t quite like what I seen, an’ when I got through I sort o’ half turned away without sayin’ anythin’, ’s if I’d seen enough.

“‘The’ ain’t a scratch ner a pimple on him,’ says the feller, kind o’ resentin’ my looks.  ‘He’s sound an’ kind, an’ ’ll stand without hitchin’, an’ a lady c’n drive him ’s well ‘s a man."’

“‘I ain’t got anythin’ agin him,’ I says, ‘an’ prob’ly that’s all true, ev’ry word on’t; but one-fifty’s a consid’able price fer a hoss these days.  I hain’t no pressin’ use fer another hoss, an’, in fact,’ I says, ‘I’ve got one or two fer sale myself.’

“‘He’s wuth two hunderd jest as he stands,’ the feller says.  ’He hain’t had no trainin’, an’ he c’n draw two men in a road-wagin better’n fifty.’

“Wa’al, the more I looked at him the better I liked him, but I only says, ‘Jes’ so, jes’ so, he may be wuth the money, but jest as I’m fixed now he ain’t wuth it to me, an’ I hain’t got that much money with me if he was,’ I says.  The other feller hadn’t said nothin’ up to that time, an’ he broke in now.  ’I s’pose you’d take him fer a gift, wouldn’t ye?’ he says, kind o’ sneerin’.

“‘Wa’al, yes,’ I says, ’I dunno but I would if you’d throw in a pound of tea an’ a halter.’

“He kind o’ laughed an’ says, ‘Wa’al, this ain’t no gift enterprise, an’ I guess we ain’t goin’ to trade, but I’d like to know,’ he says, ’jest as a matter of curios’ty, what you’d say he was wuth to ye?’

“‘Wa’al,’ I says, ‘I come over this mornin’ to see a feller that owed me a trifle o’ money.  Exceptin’ of some loose change, what he paid me ’s all I got with me,’ I says, takin’ out my wallet.  ’That wad’s got a hunderd an’ twenty-five into it, an’ if you’d sooner have your hoss an’ halter than the wad,’ I says, ‘why, I’ll bid ye good-day.’

“‘You’re offerin’ one-twenty-five fer the hoss an’ halter?’ he says.

“‘That’s what I’m doin’,’ I says.

“‘You’ve made a trade,’ he says, puttin’ out his hand fer the money an’ handin’ the halter over to me.”