"And there's thugs and footpads. Always keep your coat buttoned over your watch, it says, and if you're goin' along Broadway or Fifth Avenue after dark, get out and walk in the middle o' the street, so's they can't spring around a corner and slug you. And don't talk to strangers, and don't look into store windows ner up at the high buildin's, else they'll spot you fer a greeny and give you the laugh."
"I can't believe it yet, Ben." He rose to walk the floor again, his hands sunk deep in his pockets, his head bent low.
"And don't git into no card game on the train with a couple o' smooth strangers that ain't ever met each other before and want to pass away the time pleasantly. And don't bet you can open the patent lock after you think you found the secret spring. And don't buy any o' that money you can't tell from real, that was printed from stolen Gov'ment plates."
"Think of his giving a hundred dollars for that drawing of 'Lon Pierce on the pinto, throwing a steer, and all that money for the others."
"Serves him right!" Ben hissed this vindictively, having first reluctantly laid aside "Traps and Pitfalls." "Serves him dead right! That feller puts on a wise look that's about sixty-five years beyond his real age, as I'd cal'late it. I tell you, son, it sure takes all kinds o' fools to make a world."
"But he said they were worth the money," Ewing pleaded. "He said I would do even better, some day."
"Sure—sure he said it! An' didn't he ask me if I had dyspepsia, an' did I sleep at night, an' I'd better remember to live an outdoor life of activity if I ever got that a-way. An' he thinks he's learned how to grain a deer hide after watching me do it three minutes, an' he's goin' to pick up a live skunk next chanct he gits, because I told him jest how to grab it. Oh, he said things all right! He said a variety o' things!" He glared at Ewing as he rounded out this catalogue of follies.
"I'm torn in two, Ben. I shan't be glad to leave here, and yet I'll be glad to go. I've dreamed it so long. It seems as if I'd dreamed it so hard I'd made it come true."
"Always pin your money to the inside of your vest, like I told you," came the voice of warning.
"I will, I will. But things do happen, don't they? This is like a fairy tale."