Read Doctor Who: The Gunfighters for Free Online Page B

over Dodo’s shoulder, wilting a flower or so, and regarded her particulars with interest – if you follow me.
    ‘Say,’ he said, impressed, ‘you really a piano player, lady?’
    ‘You’re durn tootin’, I am!’ said the irrepressible Dodo.
    ‘“Queen of the Ivory Keys” – that’s me!’
    Steven groaned, and completed his own formalities.
    ‘An’ you’re a sure ‘nough singer, friend?’ continued Charlie. ‘Well, I’ll be hog-tied for a booze-breathin’ son of a prairie-oyster! That’s what I’ll be!’
    ‘Why?’ asked Steven, concerned on his behalf.
    ‘Because in that case, I might jest be able to offer the pair of you a job! You see,’ he explained, ‘I got no regular pianist on account of he played me sour a mite too often, an’... well, he’s kinda restin’ right now...’
    ‘Real peaceful,’ agreed Seth, who had assisted at the ceremony.
    ‘An’ the little lady who’s been fillin’ in for him is a touch unreliable. Well, I don’t want to be hard, but she’s got her other interests, I reckon...’
    ‘Surely has,’ said Seth, remembering one star-spangled night in Ground Hog’s Hollow. ‘Oh, boy!’ he added, reflectively.
    ‘So you see how it is?’ concluded Charlie. ‘Right now, I’m stuck for music as a porcupine on a pianola!’
    A confusing thing to envisage, perhaps; but they got his drift – and Steven checked it before it became irreversible...
    ‘Well, that’s really very kind of you,’ he appreciated,
    ‘but I’m afraid the fact is, we shall have to leave first thing in the morning...’
    ‘At sun-up,’ translated Phineas, helpfully.
    Disappointed, Dodo kicked Steven’s ankle. ‘But surely one night wouldn’t make... wouldn’t make no never mind, would it?’ she cajoled, dropping into the vernacular. ‘I’ve always wanted to be a gin-palace tootsie!’
    ‘Certainly not!’ snapped Steven. ‘You know perfectly well, the Doctor would never allow it!’
    The boys slumped upright, and cocked their ears like so many slack-whiskered lynxes. And a strange effect it was, to be sure. But no matter...
    ‘You hear what I heard?’ rumbled Ike, blotto voce .
    ‘We heard!’ corroborated the rest.
    ‘Well, let me know if’n you change your minds,’ said the disappointed impresario. ‘The coffin’s always open, like they say...’
    ‘Is it?’ said Dodo. ‘Well, in that case, if you’ll just give this key to our friend, the Doctor, when he arrives, we will retire to our rooms..
    And thereby hammering the last nail into said coffin, they swept up the Grand Staircase – something which had not previously been done in a coon’s age...
    With their departure there was a necessary pause for thought.
    ‘So the Doc ain’t travellin’ alone this time,’ reasoned Ike finally.
    ‘Let me see that register!’ said Billy.
    ‘Now, boy, you know you cain’t read,’ objected Phineas.
    ‘Give it here!’
    Since he laboured under a similar disability himself, he passed the book to Ike, who had been to reform school.
    ‘Steven Regret,’ the scholar laboriously enunciated.
    ‘Now there’s a thing! Any of you boys ever seen a singer totin’ six-guns afore?’
    ‘Heard some who should have,’ contributed Seth.
    ‘Well, well, well – so Holliday’s got hisself a partner,’
    pursued Ike. ‘What I mean is,’ he continued, for the benefit of the slower witted, ‘he’s got company! Now I don’t know about you boys, but I’m surely goin’ to have a itchy feelin’
    in the back of my neck, if Regret’s comin’ downstairs behind us, when the Doc comes through them doors.’
     
    ‘In front of us,’ reasoned Phineas.
    ‘You got it!’ said Ike.
    ‘So why don’t one of you,’ said Seth, the strategist, ‘go an’ bring Regret down here again? So’s we can keep an eye on him,’ he clarified.
    ‘Good thinking,’ said Billy. ‘On your way, Phin.’
    ‘What’ll I tell him?’ asked his brother. ‘I mean, I don’t hardly know