His friends oughta appoint a guardian over him--only I hope they won't get action till this deal is cinched tight." With that, Billy relapsed into crooning his ditty.

But there were odd breaks when he stopped short in the middle of a line and forgot to finish, and there was more than one cigarette wasted by being permitted to go cold and then being chewed abstractedly until it nearly fell to pieces.
Beside him, Alexander P.Dill, folded loosely together in the seat, caressed his knees and stared unseeingly at the trail ahead of them and said never a word for more than an hour..