"I picked up them poor mishandled treasures in the gutter, for old acquaintance sake. And surmisin' it probably wouldn't hardly be worth my while to wait till I got to the hotel to sample my prize-package, I opened her on the spot.
"Well, there's no use in talkin'. Them fellers were a pair of scoundrels. Instead of anything that looked or smelt or sounded like money in that parcel, was nothin' but a lot of newspapers cut into strips, with a note on top of 'em bearin' these insultin' words:
"'There's a sucker born every minute.'
"Then I counted up on my fingers fourteen drinks and one five-dollar dinner, and says I to myself:
"'Ya-a-as,' says I, 'I don't reckon but what that's true.'"
III
ST. NICHOLAS SCRAGGS
"I have read some'ers," said Mr. Scraggs, "that some man whose name was a durned sight more important to him than it is to me, for I've plumb forgot it, said that he never begun nothin' unless he could see the end of it."
"His wife's family must have owned real estate," suggested Red
Saunders.
"He didn't specify which end," excused Mr. Scraggs. "Maybe 'twas the front end he meant; then the proverb 'ud read that he never begun anythin' unless he could see the commencement of it; which is a wise and thoughtful statement, because had it been otherwise, and therefore essentially different, why, how could he?"