Rawhide (TV Series)

Incident of the Phantom Bugler (1961)

Paul Brinegar: Wishbone

Quotes 

• Mushy : [Mushy is sitting in the river doing his dishes, hears the bugler, and sprints back to camp]  Mr Wishbone!

  Wishbone : What you trying to do? Wake everybody?

  Mushy : I heard a bugle, Mr Wishbone.

  Wishbone : You heard a what? You heard a bugle?

  Mushy : I heard a bugle.

  Wishbone : Have you been in my medical supplies again?

  Mushy : No, I ain't been sick, Mr Wishbone.

  Wishbone : All right then. Get back down there and bring up those pots and pans.

  Mushy : I ain't going down there. I heard that bugle.

  Wishbone : We must be at least 100 miles away from the nearest fort. Now even if there was a cavalry somewhere around here, why would they be blowing a bugle like that in the middle of the night?

  Mushy : I don't know. They did.

  Wishbone : Mushy, I'm gonna talk to you like your father.

  Mushy : My father never talked to me.

  Wishbone : I can see why.

  [Wish is exasperated as usual] 

  Wishbone : Well, I's talk to you like your mother.

  Mushy : A bearded mother?

  Wishbone : Now you listen to me. My advice to you is to always think twice before you speak. Well, at least think once before you speak.

  Mushy : Yessir.

  Wishbone : On the other hand, maybe it would be better if you didn't speak at all.

  Mushy : Yessir. But I can't go around being like a mutt!

  Wishbone : Why can't you? You're a mutt if I ever saw one.

  Mushy : Mutts can't talk.

  Wishbone : A mutt? You mean a mute.

  Mushy : Yes, that's what I said. A mutt.

  Wishbone : All right. Neither a mutt nor a mute can go around saying that he hears a bugle out in the middle of nowhere without somebody thinking there's something wrong with him. In your case they might be right.

  Mushy : I heard a bugler though.

  Wishbone : All right, you heard a bugle. Now you go back there and bring back that stuff.

  Mushy : You come with me.

  Wishbone : All right, I'll get the stuff. You go to sleep.

  [At the river Wish is muttering away] 

  Wishbone : You try and help a jasper out. What do you get for it. Nothin'. Just keeps on telling yer he hears bugles. No good to interfere. Some of us blessed with good sense and others just hear bugles! Don't do any good to interfere. Just! Jumping crawfish! That's a bugle!