"But doesn't it impair your trade to run on in this wild, reckless way about your cigars."
"It may at first, but not after awhile. I always tell people what my cigars are made of, and then they can't blame me; so, after awhile they get to believe what I say about them. I often wonder that no cigar man ever tried this way before. I do just the same way about my lunch counter. If a man steps up and wants a fresh ham sandwich I give it to him if I've got it, and if I haven't it I tell him so. If you turn my sandwiches over, you will find the date of its publication on every one. If they are not fresh, and I have no fresh ones, I tell the customer that they are not so blamed fresh as the young man with the gauze moustache, but that I can remember very well when they were fresh, and if his artificial teeth fit him pretty well he can try one!
"It's just the same with boiled eggs. I have a rubber dating stamp, and as soon as the eggs are turned over to me by the hen for inspection, I date them. Then they are boiled and another date in red is stamped on them. If one of my clerks should date an egg ahead, I would fire him too quick.
"On this account, people who know me will skip a meal at Missouri Junction, in order to come here and eat things that are not clouded with mystery. I do not keep any poor stuff when I can help it, but if I do, don't conceal the horrible fact.
"Of course a new cook will sometimes smuggle a late date onto a mediaeval egg and sell it, but he has to change his name and flee.
"I suppose that if every eating house should date everything, and be square with the public, it would be an old story and wouldn't pay; but as it is, no one trying to compete with me, I do well out of it, and people come here out of curiosity a good deal.
"The reason I try to do right and win the public esteem is that the general public never did me any harm and the majority of people who travel are a kind that I may meet in a future state. I should hate to have a thousand traveling men holding nuggets of rancid ham sandwiches under my nose through all eternity, and know that I had lied about it. It's an honest fact, if I knew I'd got to stand up and apologize for my hand-made, all-around, seamless pies, and quarantine cigars, Heaven would be no object."