The golden bridle

Ditsy? Oh, Ditsy was Jimmie's sister. Name was Dorothy, but Jimmie called her Ditsy. He was crazy about her. Seemed like he had raised her since she was knee high to a feed box. Guess they had some muddy tracks, them two, and what with their not having nobody but theirselves and her being crippled, why, one way and another, he set a lot of store by her.

Anyway, we is walking along, Jimmie and me, and I am thinking about what we is going to eat for breakfast the next day, and lunch, and supper, and Jimmie is thinking about how is he going to buy Ditsy something when we hear a rumpus going on around a corner up ahead. It increases graduallike and when we gets to the corner we meets it, head-on you might say.

There is about a dozen people who is all personal acquaintances of John Barleycorn, and they is pestering a woman who looks like she is on her way to a masquerade at a insane asylum. She has got on a sheet all draped and wrapped every which way and her feet is laced up in sandals and there is a wreath on her hair, only now it is setting cockeyed on account of as how these here people has been chasing her, and she is carrying a bridle. In fact, if I had of spent my money on John Barleycorn instead of faro, I probably would of joined in on the side of these here people who is laughing theirselves sick and grabbing at this here sheet and having a big time, for which I cannot blame them any as this woman is sure a curious sight.

While I am thinking what a curious sight she is, Jimmie busts up the party. He does this with very little fuss, hitting merely one guy who goes down like a sack of wet oats and the rest takes to their heels as I am doubling up my fists preparing to wade in.

"Now, sister," Jimmie says, rubbing his knuckles tenderlike, "if I was you I would vamoose. Tijuana is no place for a lady without as how she has got company to see that she gets where she has started out for."

Well, this woman straightens her wreath and breaks out in some kind of a foreign language which sounds like nothing I ever heard unless it is "Chopsticks" played on a piano which is out of tune and is minus some of the keys.

"Look, sister," Jimmie says, "vamoose while the vamoosing is favorable."

The woman makes some motions and spouts some more of this here talk and there is just one word I get and that is "grease." She says this over and over, "Grease, grease," meanwhile gesturing for all she is able.

"Grease?" Jimmie says, puzzled, and she nods violently and shakes the bridle she is carrying and does a act like she is putting it on a horse and then flaps her arms like she is flying.

"Grease," she says.

I begins to get uneasy. "Say," I says to Jimmie, sotto voice, "let's us get out of here--this gal has got bats in her belfry."

"I think she has lost a horse," Jimmie says slow.

"Horse!" I says. "How is she going to straddle a horse in that getup? She has lost her mind. Let's us get out of here. Loonies is not no picnic."

Jimmie does not pay no attention to me. He takes the bridle away from her--gentle--so as not to scare her and he does a act like he is putting it on a horse. "Horse?" he says.

This looney looks at him a minute, then her face kind of brightenslike. She points to the bridle Jimmie is holding and says, "Hippos."

"She has got the D. T.'s," I cheeps. "She is talking about a hippopotamus what flies or I will eat that there bridle. Come on," I says, "this is not no place for--" But I do not get no further because there is a faint whinny and this here woman shrieks joyfully and--without so much as a kiss-my-foot--lams in the direction of this here nickering which, judging from the sound, is a block or so to our rear--though we has not seen no sign of no horse when we is walking by thataway.

We stands there gawking after this dame while she disappears in the night and Jimmie, suddenlike, yells, "Hey, here is your bridle," and starts after her and me after Jimmie, because I has not got no wish to see Jimmie sucked in on something that is not kosher, and it is plain that there is something here that does not meet the eye right off.

I dope it that this here dame is a kind of a lead rein for some guys which is laying low in a alley or some place figuring to roll whoever she ropes in, and it is a unpleasant statistic that persons is often beat up severe when it is discovered they has not got no wherewith to make such a business profitable.

When we gets down the street a ways I catches up to Jimmie and stops him and I says, "Has you taken leave of your senses? This here is one of them cul-de-sacs or I am a ring-tailed--" But I do not say baboon, which I had intended, because somewhere I hears a noise like a lot of pigeons taking off--like they has been shooed--and from way up, like on a roof, I hears this woman laughing and it dwindles away and, then, it is quiet and a little white feather drifts down and lands in the gutter. It is all very weird and I do not like it.

"I would of swore a horse nickered down here a minute ago," Jimmie says.

"Shut up," I says, "and let's us get out of here before we is knifed in the back."

So we does and that is how Jimmie come by the bridle.

Well, say, I do not mind if I do. There is this about beer. You do not have to worry none the next morning about tying your shoes. Ever try sticking a hot knife in it? Many's the time I has seen my old man heat the poker until it is as red as the old Scratch hisself and then plunge it into the pail. That was when you could get all you wanted for a dime with boiled ham and cheese and bologna throwed in to boot and, like as not, a slice of liver for the cat.

Here's bumps, mister. And may you never tear up your ducats without looking twice.