"Oh, dear, no," says Purdy. "They're for Valentine. He's fond of snakes, you know—can't get along without them. But they must be big ones—spotted, rings around them, and all that."
"Gee!" says I. "Vally's snake tastes must be educated 'way up! Guess you'll have to give in your order down at Lefty White's."
"And where is that?" says he.
"William street, near the bridge," says I. "Don't you know about Lefty's?"
Well, he didn't; hadn't ever been below the bridge on the East Side in his life; and wouldn't I please come along, if I could spare the time.
So I climbs in alongside Purdy and the cane, and off we goes down town, at the rate of a dollar 'n' a half an hour. I hadn't got out more'n two questions 'fore Purdy cuts loose with the story of his life.
"It's almost the same as asking me to choose my lot in the cemetery," says he, "this notion of Aunt Isabella's for sending me out to buy snakes."
"I thought it was Valentine they was for?" says I. "Where does he come in?"
That fetches us to Chapter One, which begins with Aunt Isabella. It seems that some time back, after she'd planted one hubby in Ohio and another in Greenwood, and had pinned 'em both down secure with cut granite slabs, aunty had let herself go for another try. This time she gets an Englishman. He couldn't have been very tough, to begin with, for he didn't last long. Neither did a brother of his; although you couldn't lay that up against Isabella, as brother in law got himself run over by a train. About all he left was a couple of fourteen-year-old youngsters stranded in a boarding school. That was Purdy and Valentine, and they was only half brothers at that, with nobody that they could look up to for anything more substantial than sympathy. So it was up to the step-aunt to do the rescue act.
Well, Isabella has accumulated all kinds of dough; but she figures out that the whole of one half brother was about all she wanted as a souvenir to take home from dear old England. She looks the two of 'em over for a day, tryin' to decide which to take, and then Purdy's 'lasses coloured hair wins out against Valentine's brick dust bangs. She finds a job for Vally, a place where he can almost earn a livin', gives him a nice new prayer book and her blessin', and cuts him adrift in the fog. Then she grabs Purdy by the hand and catches the next boat for New York.