"I could put you in the way of adding some easy money to your bank roll," the other suggested tentatively.
But Casey shook his head.-"Twenty years ago yuh needn't have asked me twice, young feller. I'd 'a' drawed my chair right up and stacked my chips a mile high.-Any game that come along, I played 'er down to the last chip.-Twenty years ago--yes, er ten!--Casey Ryan woulda tore that L. A. jail down rock by rock an' give the roof t' the kids to make a playhouse.-Them L. A. cops never woulda hauled me t' jail in no wagon.-I mighta loaded 'em in behind, and dropped 'em off at the first morgue an' drove on a-whistlin'.-That there woulda been Casey Ryan's gait a few years back.-Take me now, married to a good woman an' gettin' gray--" Casey sighed, gazing wishfully back at the Casey Ryan he had been and might never be again.
"No, sir, I ain't so darned rich I ain't willin' to add a few more iron men to the bunch.-But on account of the missus I've got to kinda pick my chances.-I ain't had money so long but what it feels good to remind myself I got it.-I carry a thousand dollars or so in my inside pocket, just to count over now an' then to convince myself I needn't worry about a grubstake.-I've got to soak it into my bones gradual that I can afford to settle down and live tame, like the missus wants.-Stand-up collars every day, an' step into a chiny bathtub every night an' scrub--when you ain't doin' nothin' to git dirt under your finger nails even!-Funny, the way city folks act.-The less they do to git dirty, the more soap they wear out. You can ask anybody if that ain't right.
"Can't chew tobacco in the house, even, 'cause there's no place yuh dast to spit.-I stuck m' head out of the bedroom window oncet, an I let fly an' it landed on a lady; an' the missus went an' bought her a new hat an took my plug away from me.-I had to keep my chewin' tobacco in the tool-box of my car, after that, an' sneak out to the beach now an' then an' chew where I could spit in the ocean.-That's city life for yuh!"
"When I git to thinkin' about hittin' out into the hills prospectin, or somethin', that roll uh dough I pack stands right on its hind legs an' says I got no excuse.-I've got enough to keep me in bacon an' beans, anyway.-An' the missus gits down in the mouth when I so much as mention minin'."
"A guy grows old fast when he quits the game and sets down to do the grandpa-by-the-fire.-First you know, a clown that thinks it's time he took it easy is gummin' 'is grub, and shiverin' when yuh open the door, an' takin' naps in the daytime same as babies.
Let a guy once preach he's gettin' old--"
Casey jerked the gas lever and jumped the car ahead viciously.
"Well, now, any time yuh see CASEY RYAN gummin' 'is grub an' needin' a nap after dinner--"
"A clown GITS that way once he pulls out of the game.-I've saw it happen time an' again."-The young man laughed rather irritatingly. "Say, when I tell it to Bill Masters that Casey Ryan has plumb played out his string an' laid down an' QUIT, by hock, and can be seen hereafter SETTIN' WITH A SHAWL OVER HIS
SHOULDERS--"
Casey nearly turned the Ford over at that insult.-He jerked it back into the road and sent it ahead again at a faster pace.
"Well, now, any time yuh see CASEY RYAN settin' with a shawl over his shoulders--"
"Well, maybe not YOU; but the bird sure comes to it that thinks he's too old to play the game.-Why, you'll never be ready to settle down! Take yuh twenty years from now--I'd rather bank on a pardner like you'd be than some young clown that ain't had the experience. From the yarns I've heard about yuh, yuh don't back down from nothing.-And you're willing to give a pardner a chance to get away with his hide on him.-I'd rather be held up by the law than by some clown that's workin' with me."
He paused; and when he, spoke again his tone had changed to meet a prosaic detail of the drive.
"Stop here in Victorville, will yuh, Casey?-I'll take a look at the radiator and maybe take on some more gas and oil.-I've been stuck on the desert a few times with an empty tank--and that learns a guy to keep the top of his gas tank full and never mind the bottom."
"Good idea," said Casey shortly, his own tone relaxing its tension of a few minutes before.-"I run a garage over at Patmos once, an' the boobs I seen creepin' in on their last spoonful uh gas--walkin' sometimes for miles to carry gas back to where they was stalled-- learnt Casey Ryan to fill 'er up every chancet he gits."
But although the subject of age had been dropped half a mile back in the sand, certain phrases flung at him had been barbed and had bitten deep into Casey Ryan's self-esteem.-They stung and rankled there.-He had squirmed at the picture his new friend had so ruthlessly drawn with crude words, but bold, of doddering old age. Casey resented the implication that he might one day fill that picture.
He began vaguely to resent the Little Woman's air of needing to protect him from himself.-Casey Ryan, he told himself boastfully, had never needed protection from anybody.-He had managed for a good many years to get along on his own hook.-The Little Woman was all right, but she was making a mistake--a big mistake--if she thought she had to close-herd him to keep him out of trouble.
He rolled a smoke and wished that the Little Woman would settle down with him somewhere in the desert, where he could keep a couple of burros and go prospecting in the hills.-Where sagebrush could grow to their very door if it wanted to, and the moon could show them long stretches of mesa land shadowed with mystery, and then drop out of sight behind high peaks.
