"Neither," I says; "I'm a stranger in New York."
"But these friends of yours?" he gasped. "Is all Waco coming up here on an excursion? Is the town going to move bodily?"
"Mr. Prosecutor," I says, "if you'll stop cross-examining a minute, and let me tell how it all happened, it will save right smart of time. I am a stranger here to about four million people. They are strangers to me. We ought to know each other. So I'm going to give a little Madison Square Garden warming and invite 'em in."
"What are you going to sell 'em—prize poultry, or physical culture?"
"I've nothing to sell. I'm just going to entertain 'em."
"Well, I've heard of Southern hospitality," he says, "but this beats me. How much you going to charge a head?"
"Nothing. Everything is to be free. Admission included."
"Not on your dear old Lost Cause!" he exclaims. "Leastways not in our little doll's house. Not for ten thousand dollars! Why, man, do you realize that if you offered these New York, Brooklyn, Bronx, Hackensack and Hoboken folks a free show, more'n two thousand women would get trampled to death? Did you ever see a bargain-counter crowd on Twenty-third Street? Well, that's only for a chance to get something they don't want at a fishbait price. But if you offered them a free, 'take-one' chance—holy keewhiz!—I can just see it now! The Garden ain't half big enough in the first place. There's enough Take-One'ers in these parts to fill the old Coliseum. And they'd make the wild animals look like a cage of rabbits or white mice."