"
Mr. Gibney saw by the hopeful, even cunning, look that leaped to
Scraggs's eyes that the problem was about to be solved without
recourse to the Gibney imagination, so he resolved to be alert
and not permit himself to be caught out on the end of a limb.
"Well, Scraggsy?" he demanded.
"I guess I need you in my business, Gib. You're right an' I'm
always wrong. It's a fact. I _ain't_ got no more imagination than
a chicken. Hence, havin' no imagination o' my own I ask you, as
man to man an' appealin' to your generous instincts as an old
friend an' former valued employee, to let bygones be bygones an'
haul us out o' the hole that threatens to make us the laughin'
stock o' the whole Pacific coast."
"Spoken like a man--I do not think. Scraggs, for once in my life
I have you where the hair is short. You find yourself up agin a
proposition that requires brains, you ain't got 'em yourself an'
at last you're forced to admit that Adelbert P. Gibney is the man
that peddles 'em. Now, you been doin' a lot o' hollerin' about me
an' Bart bein' pirates under the law an' liable to hangin' an'
imprisonment, an' that kind o' guff don't go nohow. We're willin'
to admit that mebbe we've been a little mite familiar an'
forward, bankin' on the natural leanin' of friend for friend that
you take it all for the joke it's intended to be, but when you go
to carryin' the joke too far, we got to protect ourselves.
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