We foregathered in a propitious place and became Elijahs while a waiter of dark plumage played the raven to perfection. Reminiscence needs must be had before I could steer Bill into his epic mood.
"Yes," said he, "I mind the time Timoteo's rope broke on that cow's horns while the calf was chasing you. You and that cow! I'd never forget it."
"The tropics," said I, "are a broad territory. What part of Cancer of Capricorn have you been honoring with a visit?"
"Down along China or Peru - or maybe the Argentine Confederacy," said Kansas Bill. "Anyway 'twas among a great race of people, off-colored but progressive. I was there three months."
"No doubt you are glad to be back among the truly great race," I surmised. "Especially among New Yorkers, the most progressive and independent citizens of any country in the world," I continued, with the fatuity of the provincial who has eaten the Broadway lotus.
"Do you want to start an argument?" asked Bill.
"Can there be one?" I answered.
"Has an Irishman humor, do you think?" asked he.
"I have an hour or two to spare," said I, looking at the cafe clock.
"Not that the Americans aren't a great commercial nation," conceded Bill. "But the fault laid with the people who wrote lies for fiction."
"What was this Irishman's name?" I asked.
"Was that last beer cold enough?" said he.
"I see there is talk of further outbreaks among the Russian peasants," I remarked.
"His name was Barney O'Connor," said Bill.
Thus, because of our ancient prescience of each other's trail of thought, we travelled ambiguously to the point where Kansas Bill's story began:
"I met O'Connor in a boarding-house on the West Side. He invited me to his hall-room to have a drink, and we became like a dog and a cat that had been raised together.