“Does any one want them for two dollars?
“No? Well, I’ll tell you what more I’ll do. I’ve only got about a dozen of these little outfits and I am determined to get rid of them tonight. I’ll do it, too, if I have to throw ‘em away. But, hold on. I’ll see what I can find. Here is a little diamond stud that I’d give a dollar for myself. I’ll just drop that into the purse and call it three dollars. Last, but not least, I’ll go right down here and get one of these beautiful, elegant, genuine, double-linked, aluminum chains, with a patent bar and swivel on each end. If you can go to any store in your city and get one for less than a three-dollar bill I’ll make you a present of one hundred dollars. I’ll just drop the chain into the little purse here and call the outfit six dollars, altogether.
“Now, gentlemen, don’t get scared or faint away, but the first man who passes me up a quarter gets the entire outfit, purse, magnetic agate, studs, ring, collar buttons and chain. Only twenty-five cents for the entire lot. Ah! There is the man who takes it. Now, for another lot, and then we’ll see if we can’t find something else.”
It was not more than a half bad scheme to praise the town, telling how much you liked it, and what noble, whole-souled, up-to-date, generous business citizens they had. With all the evidences of wealth in front of me, some such gag as this always caught the heart of the crowd.
“I tell you, gentlemen, you’ve got a grand town here, a noble town. You can imagine that I love it, because when I struck the place but a week or two ago I was clean, dead-broke. That’s a tough way for a fellow to be, but for a fact I didn’t have a cent.
“And look at me now. I walked up to the St. James hotel and registered. I told the proprietor, Johnson—you all know him, square as a die and as good a man as ever lived—what a predicament I was in, and struck him for a job, stating, too, that I was an old, experienced hotel man.
“He said he would hire me, and put me to work in the dining room as a waiter. Perhaps some of you remember my first appearance there.
“At dinner time the guests began crowding around the table, and after taking about six orders at once I picked up my tray and rushed into the kitchen.
“On my way back I slipped on a banana peeling and fell, with my whole load, to the floor.
“The landlord came running in, mad as a hornet, and said: ‘Get out of this, quick as you can, you blankety-blank fool; I’ve got enough of you. I can’t have any of your confounded gambling in this house.’