I went down to the station with him and then I hunted up a place where I took board and lodging for a week at six dollars in advance. This left me purt' nigh two dollars to go on until the real estate owner got back. I called around at my lawyer's every day, an' he told me just to lay low an' he'd keep me out o' trouble. Then the sixth day passed without the real estate owner I told the lawyer about it an' asked him if he thought anything might have happened. He got awful mad an' said he'd ought to be kicked for not chargin' me ninety-five dollars for his services in the first place; an' by Jinks that was the truth: that rascally real-estate owner wasn't nothing but a flim-flammer.
At first I couldn't believe that the block he had showed me over didn't belong to him; but when I did I was ready to wreak vengeance. The lawyer said that wreakin' vengeance wasn't a thing that paid in city life, but that if I ever met up with that flim-flammer I could scare a lot of money out of him. My lawyer was a purty good sort of a feller, after all, an' he gave me a lot of high-class advice. He told me that it might be years before my case came up, an' that the' wasn't any use of me waitin' around for it. Then he talked about business, an' he an' Sandy Fergoson had about the same ideas of it, though they used different words. He told me that it was all right for a boy to start in in some old business an' learn the trade, but that the thing for a man to do was to get a start in a smaller town, an' then after he'd learned the ropes to come to the big town an' cut things wide open.
The more I thought over this the better it looked to me; but I hardly knew where to start in. Then the thought struck me that about the best business move I could make was to go to Los Angeles an' scare enough money out of the flim-flammer to give me a good start in some little business of my own. My board bein' out an' my cash bein' likewise, I had to travel on foot; but as my back was pointed toward Frisco, I didn't mind that much.
I trudged along for several days, an' the' was enough people along the line to welcome me to my meals, so I begun to get more resigned to bein' a human again. The farther I got from Frisco the nearer I got to Los Angeles, an' though I was some anxious to meet up with the flim-flammer, I finally began to doubt if he was worth the bother, an' besides, he might not be there anyway.
I was beginnin' to get good an' sick of business; an' I was more than convinced that gettin' a feller's own consent to engage in it wasn't the hardest step he'd ever have to take. Wayside friends was beginnin' to get mighty scarce, an' I was feelin' lonesome above the average one mornin', when I came to a pause in front of one o' these little six-acre ranches where they raise lawn grass an' fresh air. It was a purty, restful sort of a place, with a double row of trees leadin' up to the house, an' somethin' seemed to be drawin' me in at the front gate, although I couldn't smell any food cookin', either. I only waited about a minute, an' then I followed the draw.
I'm a firm believer in Fate. Fate is a funny word: leave the first letter off, an' it 's the cause; leave the last letter off, an' it's the result. Barbie found this out one night when we was discussin' Fate. But I mean the sober side o' Fate, when I say I believe in it. A train starts out o' New York city just the same time that a fool cow puncher ropes a pony so he can ride to town for a big time. The puncher reaches the washed-out railroad bridge five minutes before the train—what do you call that?
I was thinkin' o' these things while I was walkin' up the drive-way; an' when I raised up my hand to knock, I felt just as if I'd been sent for.