Jennings: The mistake you made, Bill, was when you wouldn’t come with us to hold up that bank. If we’d had you, we’d have been all right.
Porter: You are joking, Colonel? In an emergency, I’d hardly know the hind-end of a gun from the front. No, I couldn’t do anything like that; I couldn’t threaten to shoot a man.
Jennings: You remember, I offered to let you hold the horses.
Porter: No, I couldn’t even hold the horses. We had to part company at that place.
(The Judge and Delacour enter at left, on the far side of the counter, and stand listening. The Judge is an irascible elderly convict, grey-haired, tall and lean; Delacour is a fat, pudgy, and pompous old man. Both wear uniform of first-class convicts; both have decided Southern accents)
The Judge: Ahem! Ah beg pahdon fo’ interruptin these joyful reminiscences, but would it be possible fo’ us to have medical attention, suh?
Jennings (turns): Well, look who’s here! The Judge! And Delacour! Bankers’ Row moves to the hospital! Bill, have you the pleasure of knowing these two gents?
Porter: Only professionally.
Jennings: Permit me the honor. My friend, Mr. William Sydney Porter, my friend, Judge Gordon Powhatan, retired banker of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Also, my friend Anatole Richemine Carillon Delacour, retired banker of New Orleans. Here are two careers which prove to us the power of money in a great democracy! You and I, Bill, did our robbing in thousands or tens of thousands; we are small fish. But the Judge and Delacour are whales—they got away with several millions apiece!
Delacour (angrily): Jennin’s, that is silly stuff!