"Then this Hoover--still cryin', mind you--he says, 'Not a cent in the world except forty dollars in my trunk upstairs that I saved out to bury me with--and they won't send me another cent,' he says, 'because I tried 'em.'
"It sounded awful to hear him talkin' like that about his own buryin', but it didn't phase Bernal none.
"'Forty dollars!' he says, kind of sniffy like. 'Why, man, what could you do for forty dollars? Don't you know such things are very outrageous in price here? Forty _dollars_--why,' he says, 'the very best you could do would be one of these plain pine things with black cloth tacked on to it, and pewter trimmin's if _any_,' he says. 'Think of _pewter_ trimmin's!'
"'Say,' he says, when Hoover begun to look up at him, 'you run and dig up your old forty and I'll go back right now and win you out a full satin-lined, silver-trimmed one, polished mahogany and gold name-plate, and there'll be enough for a clock of immortelles with the hands stopped at just the hour it happens,' he says. 'And you want to hurry,' he says, 'it ought to be done right away--with that cough of yours.'
"Me? Gosh, I felt awful--I wanted to drop right through the floor, but this Hoover, he says all at once, still snufflin', mind you: 'Say, that's all right,' he says. 'If I'm goin' to do it at all, I ought to do it right for the credit of my folks. I ought to give this town a flash of the right thing,' he says.
"Then he goes upstairs, leaning on the balusters, and gets his four ten-dollar bills that had been folded away all neat at the bottom of his trunk, and before I could think of anythin' wholesome to say--I was that scandalised--they was goin' off across the street to the Horseshoe Gamin' Parlour, this feller Hoover seemin' very sanguine and asking Bernal whether he was sure they was a party in town could do it up right after they'd went and won the money for it.
"Well, sir, I jest set there thinkin' how this boy Bernal Linford was brought up for a preacher, and 'Jest look at him now!' I says to myself--and I guess it was mebbe an hour later I seen 'em comin' out of the swingin' blinds in the door of this place, and a laffin' fit to kill themselves. 'High Mighty! they done it!' I says, watchin' 'em laff and slap each other on the back till Hoover had to stop in the middle of the street to cough. Well, they come into the Commercial office where I am and I says, 'Well, boys, how much did you fellers win?' and Hoover says, 'Not a cent! We lost our roll,' he says. 'It's the blamedest funniest thing I ever heard of,' he says, just like that, laffin' again fit to choke.