“I am undetermined.”
“Of course, sir. Your own affair. Yes, sir. But we shall hope to make Benton pleasant for you. The greatest city in the West. Anything you want for pleasure or business you’ll find right here.”
“The greatest city in the West—pleasure or business!” A bitter wave of homesickness welled into my throat as, conscious of the enveloping dust, the utter shams, the tawdriness, the alien unsympathetic onlookers, the suave but incisive manner of the clerk, the sense of having been “done” and through my own fault, I peeled a greenback from the folded packet in my purse and handed it over. Rather foolishly I intended that this display of funds should rebuke the finicky clerk; but he accepted without comment and sought for the change from the twenty.
“And how is old New York, suh?”
A hearty, florid, heavy-faced man, with singularly protruding fishy eyes and a tobacco-stained yellowish goatee underneath a loosely dropping lower lip, had stepped forward, his pudgy hand hospitably outstretched 59 to me: a man in wide-brimmed dusty black hat, frayed and dusty but, in spots, shiny, black broadcloth frock coat spattered down the lapels, exceedingly soiled collar and shirt front and greasy flowing tie, and trousers tucked into cowhide boots.
I grasped the hand wonderingly. It enclosed mine with a soft pulpy squeeze; and lingered.
“As usual, when I last saw it, sir,” I responded. “But I am from Albany.”
“Of course. Albany, the capital, a city to be proud of, suh. I welcome you, suh, to our new West, as a fellow-citizen.”
“You are from Albany?” I exclaimed.
“Bohn and raised right near there; been there many a time. Yes, suh. From the grand old Empire State, like yourself, suh, and without apologies. Whenever I meet with a New York State man I cotton to him.”