“I hope some day to retire from business，” said JeffPeters； “and when I do I don’t want anybody to be ableto say that I ever got a dollar of any man’s money withoutgiving him a quid pro rata for it. I’ve always managedto leave a customer some little gewgaw to paste in hisscrapbook or stick between his Seth Thomas clock andthe wall after we are through trading.
“There was one time I came near having to break thisrule of mine and do a profligate and illaudable action， butI was saved from it by the laws and statutes of our greatand profitable country.
“One summer me and Andy Tucker， my partner， went toNew York to lay in our annual assortment of clothes andgents’ furnishings. We was always pompous and regardlessdressers， finding that looks went further than anythingelse in our business， except maybe our knowledgeof railroad schedules and an autograph photo of thePresident that Loeb sent us， probably by mistake. Andywrote a nature letter once and sent it in about animals thathe had seen caught in a trap lots of times. Loeb must haveread it ‘triplets，’ instead of ‘trap lots，’ and sent the photo.
Anyhow， it was useful to us to show people as a guaranteeof good faith.
“Me and Andy never cared much to do business in NewYork. It was too much like pothunting. Catching suckersin that town， is like dynamiting a Texas lake for bass. Allyou have to do anywhere between the North and Eastrivers is to stand in the street with an open bag marked，‘Drop packages of money here. No checks or loose billstaken.’ You have a cop handy to club pikers who try to chipin post office orders and Canadian money， and that’s allthere is to New York for a hunter who loves his profession.
So me and Andy used to just nature fake the town. We’dget out our spyglasses and watch the woodcocks along theBroadway swamps putting plaster casts on their brokenlegs， and then we’d sneak away without firing a shot.
“One day in the papier mache palm room of a chloralhydrate and hops agency in a side street about eightinches off Broadway me and Andy had thrust upon usthe acquaintance of a New Yorker. We had beer togetheruntil we discovered that each of us knew a man namedHellsmith， traveling for a stove factory in Duluth. Thiscaused us to remark that the world was a very small place，and then this New Yorker busts his string and takes off histin foil and excelsior packing and starts in giving us his EllenTerris， beginning with the time he used to sell shoelaces tothe Indians on the spot where Tammany Hall now stands.
“This New Yorker had made his money keeping acigar store in Beekman street， and he hadn’t been aboveFourteenth street in ten years. Moreover， he had whiskers，and the time had gone by when a true sport will doanything to a man with whiskers. No grafter except a boywho is soliciting subscribers to an illustrated weekly towin the prize air rifle， or a widow， would have the heartto tamper with the man behind with the razor. He wasa typical city Reub—I’d bet the man hadn’t been out ofsight of a skyscraper in twenty-five years.
“Well， presently this metropolitan backwoodsman pullsout a roll of bills with an old blue sleeve elastic fittingtight around it and opens it up.
“‘There’s 5，000， Mr. Peters，’ says he， shoving it overthe table to me， ‘saved during my fifteen years of business.
Put that in your pocket and keep it for me， Mr. Peters. I’mglad to meet you gentlemen from the West， and I may takea drop too much. I want you to take care of my money forme. Now， let’s have another beer.’
“‘You’d better keep this yourself，’ says I. ‘We are strangersto you， and you can’t trust everybody you meet. Put yourroll back in your pocket，’ says I. ‘And you’d better runalong home before some farm-hand from the Kaw Riverbottoms strolls in here and sells you a copper mine.’
“‘Oh， I don’t know，’ says Whiskers. ‘I guess Little OldNew York can take care of herself. I guess I know a manthat’s on the square when I see him. I’ve always found theWestern people all right. I ask you as a favor， Mr. Peters，’
says he， ‘to keep that roll in your pocket for me. I know agentleman when I see him. And now let’s have some morebeer.’
“In about ten minutes this fall of manna leans back inhis chair and snores. Andy looks at me and says： ‘I reckonI’d better stay with him for five minutes or so， in case thewaiter comes in.’
“I went out the side door and walked half a block up thestreet. And then I came back and sat down at the table.
“‘Andy，’ says I， ‘I can’t do it. It’s too much like swearingoff taxes. I can’t go off with this man’s money withoutdoing something to earn it like taking advantage of theBankrupt act or leaving a bottle of eczema lotion in hispocket to make it look more like a square deal.’
“‘Well，’ says Andy， ‘it does seem kind of hard on one’sprofessional pride to lope off with a bearded pard’scompetency， especially after he has nominated youcustodian of his bundle in the sappy insouciance of hisurban indiscrimination. Suppose we wake him up and seeif we can formulate some commercial sophistry by whichhe will be enabled to give us both his money and a goodexcuse.’
“We wakes up Whiskers. He stretches himself andyawns out the hypothesis that he must have dropped offfor a minute. And then he says he wouldn’t mind sitting inat a little gentleman’s game of poker. He used to play somewhen he attended high school in Brooklyn； and as he wasout for a good time， why—and so forth.
“Andy brights up a little at that， for it looks like it mightbe a solution to our financial troubles. So we all three goto our hotel further down Broadway and have the cardsand chips brought up to Andy’s room. I tried once more tomake this Babe in the Horticultural Gardens take his fivethousand. But no.
