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Take Prossy Riggs alongside of me here for instance! HE'S made the biggest strike yet, and is puttin' up a high-toned house on the hill. Well! he'll hev it finished off and furnished slap-up style, you bet! with a Chinese cook, and a Biddy, and a Mexican vaquero to look after his horse but he won't have no mother to housekeep!
For it had been recognized that, after all, "Prossy" had a perfect right to bring his old mother there his well-known youth and inexperience preventing this baleful performance from being established as a precedent.
A day or two later "Prossy" Riggs stood on a sand-blown, wind-swept suburb of San Francisco, before a large building whom forbidding exterior proclaimed that it was an institution of formal charity. It was, in fact, a refuge for the various waifs and strays of ill-advised or hopeless immigration.
Nevertheless, this awkwardness was quickly overcome by the privilege and example given them, and with, a glass of whiskey and water before them, the men were speedily at their ease. Nor did Mrs. Pottinger disdain to mingle in their desultory talk. "Now you speak o' that, ma'am," said the ingenuous Wynbrook, "there's a good deal o' Prossy in that yarn o' his father's; same kind o' keerless grit!
In his intercourse with his comrades during the next two or three days their attitude was shown in frequent and ostentatious praise of his mother, and suggestive advice, such as: "I wouldn't stop at the saloon, Prossy; your old mother is wantin' ye;" or, "Chuck that 'ere tarpolin over your shoulders, Pross, and don't take your wet duds into the house that yer old mother's bin makin' tidy."
He may think we ain't good enough for her, but ez long ez she's civil to us, we'll stand by her." In this conscientious way were the shackles of that unhallowed relationship slowly riveted on the unfortunate Prossy.
Why, I saw Bilson grind his teeth he holdin' a sequence flush ace high when the dear old critter laid down her reg'lar four aces and raked in the pile. We had to nearly kick his legs off under the table afore he'd understand not havin' an old mother himself." "Some un will hev to tackle her without Prossy knowin' it.
Joe Wynbrook and Cyrus Brewster had, as older members of the camp, purposely lingered near the new house to offer any assistance to "Prossy and his mother," and had received a brief and passing introduction to the latter.
Joe Wynbrook instantly seized the fatal admission to show the advantage of superior insight: "Struck YOU! Why, it was no more than I expected all along! What did we know of Prossy? Nothin'! What did he ever tell us'? Nothin'! And why'? 'Cos it was his secret. Lord! a blind mule could see that. All this foolishness and simplicity o' his come o' his bein' cuddled and pampered as a baby.
There wasn't room enough for two such chuckle-heads and one of 'em being a woman, she couldn't be shut up or sat upon ez we did to HIM. But now, gentlemen, ez we see she ain't that kind, but high-toned and level-headed, and that she's got the grip on Prossy whether he likes it or not we ain't goin' to let him go back on her! No, sir! we ain't goin' to let him break her heart the second time!
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