He sells other things, handsaws, and pencils, and mouth-harps, and two knives for a quarter, of such pure steel that he whittles shavings off a wire nail with 'em, and is particular to hand you the very identical knife he did it with. He has jewelry, though I don't suppose you could cut a wire nail with it. You might, at that.
To him approaches a boy.
“Got 'ny collar-buttons?”
“Well, now, I'll just look and see. Here's a beautiful rolled-plate gold watch-chain, with an elegant jewel charm. Lovely blue jewel.” He dangles the chain and its rich glass pendant, and it certainly does look fine. “That'd cost you $2.50 at the store. How'd that strike you?”
“Hpm. I want a collar-button.”
“Well, now, you hold on a minute. Lemme look again. Ah, here's a package 'at orta have some in it. Yes, sir, here's four of 'em, enough to last you a lifetime; front, back, and both sleeves, the kind that flips and don't tear the buttonholes. Well, by ginger! Now, how'd that git in here, I want to know? That gold ring? Well, I don't care. It'll have to go with the collar-buttons. Tell you what I'll do with you: I'll let you have this elegant solid gold rolled-plate watch-chain and jewel, this elegant, solid gold ring to git married with—Hay? How about it?—and these four collar-buttons for—for—twenty-five cents, or a quarter of a dollar.”
That boy never took that quarter out of his breeches pocket. It just jumped out of itself. But I see that you are getting the fidgets. You're hoping that I'll come to the horse-racing pretty soon. You want to have it all brought back to you, the big, big race-track which, as you remember it now, must have been about the next size smaller than the earth's orbit around the sun. You want me to tell about the old farmer with the bunch of timothy whiskers under his chin that gets his old jingling wagon on the track just before a heat is to be trotted, and all the people yell at him: “Take him out!” You want me to tell how the trotters looked walking around in their dusters, with the eye-holes bound with red braid, and how the drivers of the sulkies sat with the tails of their horses tucked under one leg. Well, I'm not going to do anything of the kind, and if you don't like it, you can go to the box-office and demand your money back. I hope you'll get it. First place, I don't know anything about racing, and consequently I don't believe it's a good thing for the country. All I know is, that some horses can go faster than others, but which are the fastest ones I can't tell by the looks, though I have tried several times.... I did not walk back. I bought a round-trip ticket. They will tell you that these events at the County Fair tend to improve the breed of horses. So they do—of fast horses. But the fast horses are no good. They can't any of them go as fast as a nickel trolley-car when it gets out where there aren't any houses. And they not only are no good; they're a positive harm. You know and I know that just as soon as a man gets cracked after fast horses, it's good-by John with him.
In the next place, I wouldn't mind it if it was only interesting to me. But it isn't. It bores me to death. You sit there and sit there trying to keep awake while the drivers jockey and jockey, scheming to get the advantage of the other fellow, and the bell rings so many times for them to come back after you think: “They're off this time, sure,” that you get sick of hearing it. And when they do get away, why, who can tell which horse is in the lead? On the far side of the track they don't appear to do anything but poke along, and once in a while some fool horse will “break” and that's annoying. And then when they come into the stretch, the other folks that see you with the field-glasses, keep nudging you and asking: “Who 's ahead, mister? Hay? Who's ahead?” And it's ruinous to the voice to yell: “Go it! Go it! Go IT, ye devil, you!” with your throat all clenched that way and your face as red as a turkey-gobbler's. And that second when they are going under the wire, and the horse you rather like is about a nose behind the other one that you despise—Oh, tedious, very tedious. Ho hum, Harry! If I wasn't engaged, I wouldn't marry. Did you think to put a saucer of milk out for the kitty before you locked up the house?
No. Horse-racing bores me to death, and as I am one of the charter members of the Anti-Other-Folks-Enjoyment Society, organized to stop people from amusing themselves in ways that we don't care for, you can readily see that it is a matter of principle with me to ignore horseracing, and not to give it so much encouragement as would come from mentioning it.
If you're so interested in improving the breed of horses by competitive contests, what 's the matter with that one where the prize is $5 for the team that can haul the heaviest load on a stoneboat, straight pulling? Pile on enough stones to build a house, pretty near, and the owner of the team, a young fellow with a face like Keats, goes “Ck! Ck! Ck! Geet... ep... thah BILL! Geet ep, Doll-ay!” and cracks his whip, and kisses with his mouth, and the horses dance and tug, and jump around and strain till the stone-boat slides on the grass, and then men climb on until the load gets so heavy that the team can't budge it. Then another team tries, and so on, the competitors jawing and jowering at each other with: “Ah, that ain't fair! That ain't fair! They started it sideways.”