As I stepped off the train in Chicago, a stranger grasped my hand and gave me a most cordial greeting.
"Laying for me, eh?—first man I meet a confidence man," I muttered inwardly. But he was extremely courteous, and offered to carry my saddle-bags.
"No, sir," I said, politely. "I've carried them twelve hundred miles, and can carry them three thousand more."
"Pod is your name, all right;" the stranger continued, half in inquiry, half in surprise, I thought, as we walked out of the railroad station.
"You bet it is," I said, emphatically. "Just because you've plenty of wind out here you needn't think it can blow away my name."
"Well," said he, cheerfully, "Our wind is said to be the best brewed in all this country. It may not be strong enough to blow away pods, but I'll wager it can blow the pease out of 'em so far you never can find them." The man's facetiousness interested me; it bespoke his nerve.
"Tell me, Mister," I said, after walking several blocks, "where are you taking me, anyhow?"
"Oh, just three blocks more, then we take a cable," said my escort, as he made another futile grab for my countryfied luggage. When on the car, this confidence man had the confidence to introduce me to a pal, as the New York gentleman and scholar, Professor Pye Pod, who was surveying a trans-continental turnpike from the observation platform of a jackass.
"I want to know!" exclaimed bunco man number two; and suddenly, a new light affecting to dawn on his brain, he added, as if to disarm my suspicions, "I see. I see. I have it now. You are the journalist I've read about,—said to be well fixed—first visit to Chicago?"
"Not much," I returned. "Been here dozens of times. Can't say I'm well fixed, though, with only a dollar and a half to my name."