Watch Yourself Go By

by Al. G. Field

Alfred understood the man, in some way, was endeavoring to connect him with the gentleman who won the capital prize.

"All I want is my money, the money you owe me and you'll pay me before I leave this town," was Alfred's declaration as he left the room.

A bluff always unsettles a scoundrel. Spaff Hyman, the magician of the troupe, was after Alfred in a moment. He explained that the boss and one or two others were under the impression that Alfred and the gentleman whom Alfred had introduced as his friend were in cahoots, that Alfred had brought the stranger there to do the gift showman out of the money and that Alfred stood in with the play.

Alfred was indignant. Spaff assured the boy that he had implicit confidence in his honesty. "I know that Greene County gang," continued Spaff, "Jim Kerr and Lias Flanagan had that old trotting horse sneak. This fellow that came on here was the brains of the gang; they skinned every sucker on the fair grounds where they entered this horse. He had this combination sized up; he came on here to trim the boss and he got away with the play. I know you had nothing to do with it, but if you leave now, those who suspect you will make others believe you are crooked. Hold down the job until you prove yourself right, then skip if you want to."

Alfred began an explanation: "I never met this man but once. I heard several people say he was a young man with no bad habits: 'He does not drink a drop of liquor, he don't smoke, chew tobacco, nor cuss.' That's what I heard in Carmichaelstown."

"Huh! Yes, he's a saint," sarcastically mused the old sleight of hand man, "he's a saint and that's what makes him successful as a con. Sam Weller advised his son to 'bevare of vidders,' I advise you to beware of saints. Since the days of the Bible when saints were inspired, there have been but few of them roving the earth. Latter day saints are material, hence, susceptible to all the temptations and frailties of this world. When you get acquainted with a man who boasts that he has no bad habits, look out for him, he will spring something on you that will outweigh all the minor defects that scar the character of the ordinary man. I do not say there are no good men, there are; but the man who pretends to go through this world on a record of no bad habits accumulates a heap of inward secretiveness. It keeps growing. He gets swelled up, and some day he breaks out and the enormity of his break surprises all. 'He had no bad habits,' that's what they all said. No, he had no bad habits that were apparent; he was a sneak. In order to conceal his little sins, he deceived himself and his friends. If he had been honest he would have gone through life like the average man. Go back in your mind and figure up the fellows that have fallen and see if the fellow with no bad habits isn't in the majority. Mind, I'm not figuring on the poor devil without education or advantages, the fellow who robs hen-roosts or steals dimes. I'm talking about the fellow who walks off with one hundred and seventy-five dollars, robs the banks or post-offices, the fellow who touches the widow and orphan."

"I can't understand you," ventured Alfred.

"Well, you can't understand the fellow who had no bad habits."

"But the boss is not playing fair with the public," protested Alfred.

"Well, who on earth ever did play fair with the public? I know you, with your ideas bounded by Fayette County's limitations, don't understand these things. There's men who would not take advantage of any man in a personal business transaction, who will get in on almost anything that will worst the public. The public is a cruel monster; the public condemned and crucified Christ; the public is behind every lynching. The public condemns and ostracizes a man, even though he has lived an upright life all his days, when some scalawag, for personal or financial reasons, assails him in a newspaper. When Commodore Vanderbilt gave utterance to the words, 'The public be damned,' he expressed the sentiment of four-fifths of those who have rubbed up against the public, as had the sturdy old man who acquired his estimate of human nature while rowing the public over the river. The public would ride across the river without paying him fare. The public will crowd into our show tonight without paying. The public will eat all the fruit that ripens, all the grain that grows, drink all the liquors malted and take anything they can get for nothing. I mean the public rabble, the mob, not the individual. The only time you can trust the public is when their sympathies are aroused over some great public calamity that brings death and desolation. Then the public is of one mind, the public then shows to best advantage."