"Massa, you have done for this poor nigger, for I must go to the hospital and get cured up."
I returned him his $10, and for the rest of the trip the passengers paid for everything I wanted to drink.
IT SHOOK THE CHECKS.
It never pays a man to be too officious and volunteer information or advice when it is not asked, for he very often makes enemies and courts a disturbance that he could easily have avoided if he had simply minded his own business.
Some seven years ago I attended a fair at Cynthiana, Ky., and opened out a gentleman's game in the Smith Hotel bar-room. There were a number of sports from Louisville and Cincinnati present, and everything was moving along lively, and as decorous as a funeral, when some of the Paris and Louisville boys indulged in a scrimmage and were arrested. Everybody left the hotel and went to see the result of the trial. I sat near the judge, and when the evidence was all in I whispered to him to fine them $10 each. This he did, and as we were leaving the court-room, I noticed that a big fellow from Paris, Ky., regarded me with very sour looks.
After supper I opened up my game, and in he came, and going to the bar-keeper, whispered in a tone of voice loud enough for me to hear: "I am going to whip that dealer."
Pretty soon I closed up the game, and then Sam Aliways and myself took a turn around the town, and running into a saloon, met the big bully. He had his coat off and a six-shooter a foot long hanging to his side; so, edging up to where he stood, I tapped him on the shoulder, observing:
"You are the gentleman that is looking for a fight."
As soon as he saw who it was, he grabbed for his shooting-iron; but just as he got hold of the handle, I dealt him a blow in the neck and he fell over against the counter, but I soon grabbed him and hit him a butt with my head. That ended the fight. He had sense enough to say, "That will do;" and seeing a policeman coming in one door, I went out another, hastened to the hotel and paid my bill, and caught the train for Covington. I was none too quick, however; for the next day when Aliways came along with my tools, he said that the fellow had a host of friends in the town, and that at least fifty fellows came around armed with case-knives, axes, double-barreled shotguns, revolvers, and rocks; and that if they had caught me, I would have met a fate worse than the martyr Stephen or the Chicago anarchists.
The fellow went by the name of Bill Legrets. When he was asked why he didn't shoot me, he said: