Dear Zeke: My wife Susan Ann will continner to have high-stukes till I produce a grand pianny. Mary's after a dimint neclas, and my beluvid spous Eliza (that's the carut-heded one lives down by the rivver) will put sumthin' in my food if she don't git a gol watch and chane. Tomlinson's fust three ar rasin' Ned fur new housis, hors and kerige, and the like. The new ones is more amable, but yellin' fur close and truck. Uncle Peter Haskins' latest is on the warpath fur a seleskin sak, and so on and so forth. You know how it is yourself, dear frend and bro., and we ar broke, so I incurrige you to keep your hart stout, your faith intack, and hunt up a poker-game sumwheres, becus we honest ain't got the money.
SAUL STIMMINS.
"'Well!' says the cookee, when he heaved the egg into the coffee, 'that settles it!' And that settled me. I sure did know how it was myself. If there was any man in or out of the Territory of Utah that knew how it was myself, I and him was the same indivijool.
"I took thought of Mrs. Scraggs out there all alone by herself, with her darlin' Zeke entirely out of reach, and while I don't recommend the idee of jollyin' yourself by gloatin' over the misfortunes of others, I thinks this here state of affairs could be worse, and I went forth strong in the faith to New York City, feelin' I might encounter some kind of quick action, like Brother Stimmins prophesied.
"And there, you see, is where sinful feelin' in me turned me over to the enemy, bound hand and foot, gagged and blindfolded. Who was I to exalt myself agin the smart young men of New York City? How come it the foolish notion buzzed in my cockloft that, like Samson of old, I might fall upon the adversary, hip, hurrah, and thigh, and of the fragments that remained gather seven bushels? Pride goeth before destruction and a naughty spirit before a fall. Up I sasshays to my hotel bedroom to take account of resources. Mighty slim they was. In the false bottom of the trunk was a pocketbook that looked like the wheel of progress had passed over it, and a little sack of nuggets—that was all. Them nuggets was the pride of my life. I didn't buy 'em from the Chinaman that offered, but I come horrible near it. And yet that Chink had the innocentest face in Utah; he might ha' stood for a picture of Adam before Eve cast a shadder on his manly brow. I don't recall anything that's more deceivin' than appearances, yet what in the world's a man to go by? Well, them nuggets ort to said to me, 'Young man, beware! Be warier than John H. Devilkins himself! All that's heavy and yaller is not gold. Sometimes a patient Chinaman, flappin' of the flies with his pigtail, will industrusly manufacture that same per schedule out of common, ordinary lead, and, by exercisin' the art of gildin', almost whip-saw people by the name of Scraggs, if so it hadn't 'a' been their gardeen angel moved 'em to try a sample with the edge of a knife.'
"Was I warned? Well, I dunno, anyhow, I trotted myself out to the street to see what this here Metropolus business had to offer different from just plain St. Looey.
"And I found out. Dear friends and brothers, I wonder have you ever seen a man reachin', reachin' for a playin'-card layin' prostrate on the table before him, when his last chip is in the pile, his last cent in the chip, all manners and kinds of bills comin' due tomorrow, the house to close in fifteen minutes, and hopin' that card is just one more little two-spot? Are you familiar with the lines of anggwish on his face? Well, of all the hullabaloo, skippin', flyin', pushin', haulin', rompin', tearin', maulin' and scratchin' messes I ever got into, that street was the worst. At the end of fifteen minutes I had no life in me above my feet, and they was simply slidin', the one before the other, without any aim or purpose. I stood on a corner clawin' hunks of fog off my intellect. In two minutes more I'd ha' yearned for Mrs. Scraggs and Home. I lost all intention of drawin' sustenance out of the inhabitants, when all of a suddent up steps one of these brisk, smart, zippee-zippee-zizoo-ketch-me-if-you-kin young city fellers, the kind of lu-lu joker to go through a countryman like a lightnin' express through a tunnel, leavin' nothin' but the hole and a little smoke, and says he, in a hurry:
"'Sorry to have kept you waitin', Mr. Johnson, but knowin' how much it meant to both of us, I——Oh, I beg your pardon!' says he; 'I mistook you for a friend of mine—no offense, I hope?'
"Now, this same person had on a soup-pot hat that looked borrowed, and he wore his clothes like he used 'em for a hiding-place, but how was a plain jaybird like me to notice that? I was almighty lonesome, too, so I told him there weren't no offense at all. Well, he apologized again, and then he begun to laugh, it was so ridiklus, his mistakin' me for Johnson, that he'd knew all his life, and he says, 'I'll tell you what I'll do; we'll step across the street and tone up our systems at my expense, thereby wipin' out any animosity.' So, of course, rather than be peevish, I done it. Then I tried to wipe out some animosity, but he wouldn't have it. Nobody must buy but him. I explained—givin' myself dead away—that I was a stranger, with nothin' to do but hate myself to death, and he was defraudin' me of a rightful joy. But no, says he. I might be a stranger, or I might not. Personally he thought I'd resided some time in New York City, by my looks; if that was so I knew perfectly well he was only follerin' the customs of the place, and if I was a stranger it was up to him to do right by me, anyhow. So we grew one degree stronger with no cost to Utah. And we stayed there, gettin' powerful as anything, and kind of confidential, too, till finally he felt called upon to explain his business with this man Johnson. He took me into a back room to do it.
"'Mr. Scraggs,' says he, 'there's things betwixt Heaven and Earth that ain't dreamt of on your velocipede, Horatio.'