"There was one time I came near having to break this rule of mine and do a profligate2 and illaudable action, but I was saved from it by the laws and statutes3 of our great and profitable country.
"One summer me and Andy Tucker, my partner, went to New York to lay in our annual assortment5 of clothes and gents' furnishings. We was always pompous6 and regardless dressers, finding that looks went further than anything else in our business, except maybe our knowledge of railroad schedules and an autograph photo of the President that Loeb sent us, probably by mistake. Andy wrote a nature letter once and sent it in about animals that he had seen caught in a trap lots of times. Loeb must have read it 'triplets,' instead of 'trap lots,' and sent the photo. Anyhow, it was useful to us to show people as a guarantee of good faith.
"Me and Andy never cared much to do business in New York. It was too much like pothunting. Catching7 suckers in that town is like dynamiting8 a Texas lake for bass9. All you have to do anywhere between the North and East rivers is to stand in the street with an open bag marked, 'drop packages of money here. No checks or loose bills taken.' You have a cop handy to club pikers who try to chip in post office orders and Canadian money, and that's all there is to New York for a hunter who loves his profession. So me and Andy used to just nature fake the town. We'd get out our spyglasses and watch the woodcocks along the Broadway swamps putting plaster casts on their broken legs, and then we'd sneak10 away without firing a shot.
"One day in the papier mâché palm room of a chloral hydrate and hops11 agency in a side street about eight inches off Broadway me and Andy had thrust upon us the acquaintance of a New Yorker. We had beer together until we discovered that each of us knew a man named Hellsmith, traveling for a stove factory in Duluth. This caused us to remark that the world was a very small place, and then this New Yorker busts12 his string and takes off his tin foil and excelsior packing and starts in giving us his Ellen Terris, beginning with the time he used to sell shoelaces to the Indians on the spot where Tammany Hall now stands.
"This New Yorker had made his money keeping a cigar store in Beekman street, and he hadn't been above Fourteenth street in ten years. Moreover, he had whiskers, and the time had gone by when a true sport will do anything to a man with whiskers. No grafter13 except a boy who is soliciting14 subscribers to an illustrated15 weekly to win the prize air rifle, or a widow, would have the heart to tamper16 with the man behind with the razor. He was a typical city Reub—I'd bet the man hadn't been out of sight of a skyscraper17 in twenty-five years.
"Well, presently this metropolitan18 backwoodsman pulls out a roll of bills with an old blue sleeve elastic19 fitting tight around it and opens it up.
"'There's $5,000, Mr. Peters,' says he, shoving it over the table to me, 'saved during my fifteen years of business. Put that in your pocket and keep it for me, Mr. Peters. I'm glad to meet you gentlemen from the West, and I may take a drop too much. I want you to take care of my money for me. Now, let's have another beer.'
"'You'd better keep this yourself,' says I. 'We are strangers to you, and you can't trust everybody you meet. Put your roll back in your pocket,' says I. 'And you'd better run along home before some farm-hand from the Kaw River bottoms strolls in here and sells you a copper20 mine.'
"'Oh, I don't know,' says Whiskers. 'I guess Little Old New York can take care of herself. I guess I know a man that's on the square when I see him. I've always found the Western people all right. I ask you as a favor, Mr. Peters,' says he, 'to keep that roll in your pocket for me. I know a gentleman when I see him. And now let's have some more beer.'
"In about ten minutes this fall of manna leans back in his chair and snores. Andy looks at me and says: 'I reckon I'd better stay with him for five minutes or so, in case the waiter comes in.'
"I went out the side door and walked half a block up the street. And then I came back and sat down at the table.
"'Andy,' says I, 'I can't do it. It's too much like swearing off taxes. I can't go off with this man's money without doing something to earn it like taking advantage of the Bankrupt act or leaving a bottle of eczema lotion21 in his pocket to make it look more like a square deal.'
"'Well,' says Andy, 'it does seem kind of hard on one's professional pride to lope off with a bearded pard's competency, especially after he has nominated you custodian22 of his bundle in the sappy insouciance23 of his urban indiscrimination. Suppose we wake him up and see if we can formulate24 some commercial sophistry25 by which he will be enabled to give us both his money and a good excuse.'
"We wakes up Whiskers. He stretches himself and yawns out the hypothesis that he must have dropped off for a minute. And then he says he wouldn't mind sitting in at a little gentleman's game of poker26. He used to play some when he attended high school in Brooklyn; and as he was out for a good time, why—and so forth27.
"Andy brights up a little at that, for it looks like it might be a solution to our financial troubles. So we all three go to our hotel further down Broadway and have the cards and chips brought up to Andy's room. I tried once more to make this Babe in the Horticultural Gardens take his five thousand. But no.
"'Keep that little roll for me, Mr. Peters,' says he, 'and oblige. I'll ask you fer it when I want it. I guess I know when I'm among friends. A man that's done business on Beekman street for twenty years, right in the heart of the wisest old village on earth, ought to know what he's about. I guess I can tell a gentleman from a con28 man or a flimflammer when I meet him. I've got some odd change in my clothes—enough to start the game with, I guess.'
"He goes through his pockets and rains $20 gold certificates on the table till it looked like a $10,000 'Autumn Day in a Lemon Grove29' picture by Turner in the salons30. Andy almost smiled.
"The first round that was dealt, this boulevardier slaps down his hand, claims low and jack31 and big casino and rakes in the pot.
"Andy always took a pride in his poker playing. He got up from the table and looked sadly out of the window at the street cars.
"'Well, gentlemen,' says the cigar man, 'I don't blame you for not wanting to play. I've forgotten the fine points of the game, I guess, it's been so long since I indulged. Now, how long are you gentlemen going to be in the city?'
"I told him about a week longer. He says that'll suit him fine. His cousin is coming over from Brooklyn that evening and they are going to see the sights of New York. His cousin, he says, is in the artificial limb and lead casket business, and hasn't crossed the bridge in eight years. They expect to have the time of their lives, and he winds up by asking me to keep his roll of money for him till next day. I tried to make him take it, but it only insulted him to mention it.
"'I'll use what I've got in loose change,' says he. 'You keep the rest for me. I'll drop in on you and Mr. Tucker to-morrow afternoon about 6 or 7,' says he, 'and we'll have dinner together. Be good.'
"After Whiskers had gone Andy looked at me curious and doubtful.
"'Well, Jeff,' says he, 'it looks like the ravens32 are trying to feed us two Elijahs so hard that if we turned 'em down again we ought to have the Audubon Society after us. It won't do to put the crown aside too often. I know this is something like paternalism, but don't you think Opportunity has skinned its knuckles33 about enough knocking at our door?'
"I put my feet up on the table and my hands in my pockets, which is an attitude unfavorable to frivolous34 thoughts.
"'Andy,' says I, 'this man with the hirsute35 whiskers has got us in a predicament. We can't move hand or foot with his money. You and me have got a gentleman's agreement with Fortune that we can't break. We've done business in the West where it's more of a fair game. Out there the people we skin are trying to skin us, even the farmers and the remittance36 men that the magazines send out to write up Goldfields. But there's little sport in New York city for rod, reel or gun. They hunt here with either one of two things—a slungshot or a letter of introduction. The town has been stocked so full of carp that the game fish are all gone. If you spread a net here, do you catch legitimate37 suckers in it, such as the Lord intended to be caught—fresh guys who know it all, sports with a little coin and the nerve to play another man's game, street crowds out for the fun of dropping a dollar or two and village smarties who know just where the little pea is? No, sir,' says I. 'What the grafters live on here is widows and orphans38, and foreigners who save up a bag of money and hand it out over the first counter they see with an iron railing to it, and factory girls and little shopkeepers that never leave the block they do business on. That's what they call suckers here. They're nothing but canned sardines39, and all the bait you need to catch 'em is a pocketknife and a soda40 cracker41.
"'Now, this cigar man,' I went on, 'is one of the types. He's lived twenty years on one street without learning as much as you would in getting a once-over shave from a lockjawed barber in a Kansas crossroads town. But he's a New Yorker, and he'll brag42 about that all the time when he isn't picking up live wires or getting in front of street cars or paying out money to wire-tappers or standing43 under a safe that's being hoisted44 into a skyscraper. When a New Yorker does loosen up,' says I, 'it's like the spring decomposition45 of the ice jam in the Allegheny River. He'll swamp you with cracked ice and back-water if you don't get out of the way.
"'It's mighty46 lucky for us, Andy,' says I, 'that this cigar exponent47 with the parsley dressing48 saw fit to bedeck us with his childlike trust and altruism49. For,' says I, 'this money of his is an eyesore to my sense of rectitude and ethics50. We can't take it, Andy; you know we can't,' says I, 'for we haven't a shadow of a title to it—not a shadow. If there was the least bit of a way we could put in a claim to it I'd be willing to see him start in for another twenty years and make another $5,000 for himself, but we haven't sold him anything, we haven't been embroiled51 in a trade or anything commercial. He approached us friendly,' says I, 'and with blind and beautiful idiocy52 laid the stuff in our hands. We'll have to give it back to him when he wants it.'
"'Your arguments,' says Andy, 'are past criticism or comprehension. No, we can't walk off with the money—as things now stand. I admire your conscious way of doing business, Jeff,' says Andy, 'and I wouldn't propose anything that wasn't square in line with your theories of morality and initiative.
"'But I'll be away to-night and most of to-morrow Jeff,' says Andy. 'I've got some business affairs that I want to attend to. When this free greenbacks party comes in to-morrow afternoon hold him here till I arrive. We've all got an engagement for dinner, you know.'
"Well, sir, about 5 the next afternoon in trips the cigar man, with his eyes half open.
"'Been having a glorious time, Mr. Peters,' says he. 'Took in all the sights. I tell you New York is the onliest only. Now if you don't mind,' says he, 'I'll lie down on that couch and doze53 off for about nine minutes before Mr. Tucker comes. I'm not used to being up all night. And to-morrow, if you don't mind, Mr. Peters, I'll take that five thousand. I met a man last night that's got a sure winner at the racetrack to-morrow. Excuse me for being so impolite as to go to sleep, Mr. Peters.'
"And so this inhabitant of the second city in the world reposes54 himself and begins to snore, while I sit there musing55 over things and wishing I was back in the West, where you could always depend on a customer fighting to keep his money hard enough to let your conscience take it from him.
"At half-past 5 Andy comes in and sees the sleeping form.
"'I've been over to Trenton,' says Andy, pulling a document out of his pocket. 'I think I've got this matter fixed56 up all right, Jeff. Look at that.'
"I open the paper and see that it is a corporation charter issued by the State of New Jersey57 to 'The Peters & Tucker Consolidated58 and Amalgamated59 Aerial Franchise60 Development Company, Limited.'
"'It's to buy up rights of way for airship lines,' explained Andy. 'The Legislature wasn't in session, but I found a man at a postcard stand in the lobby that kept a stock of charters on hand. There are 100,000 shares,' says Andy, 'expected to reach a par4 value of $1. I had one blank certificate of stock printed.'
"Andy takes out the blank and begins to fill it in with a fountain pen.
"'The whole bunch,' says he, 'goes to our friend in dreamland for $5,000. Did you learn his name?'
"'Make it out to bearer,' says I.
"We put the certificate of stock in the cigar man's hand and went out to pack our suit cases.
"On the ferryboat Andy says to me: 'Is your conscience easy about taking the money now, Jeff?'
"'Why shouldn't it be?' says I. 'Are we any better than any other Holding Corporation?'"
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1
pro
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| n.赞成，赞成的意见，赞成者 | |
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profligate
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| adj.行为不检的；n.放荡的人，浪子，肆意挥霍者 | |
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statutes
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| 成文法( statute的名词复数 )； 法令； 法规； 章程 | |
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par
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| n.标准，票面价值，平均数量；adj.票面的，平常的，标准的 | |
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5
assortment
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| n.分类，各色俱备之物，聚集 | |
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6
pompous
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| adj.傲慢的，自大的；夸大的；豪华的 | |
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catching
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| adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住 | |
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8
dynamiting
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| v.（尤指用于采矿的）甘油炸药( dynamite的现在分词 )；会引起轰动的人[事物]；增重 | |
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9
bass
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| n.男低音(歌手)；低音乐器；低音大提琴 | |
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10
sneak
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| vt.潜行(隐藏,填石缝)；偷偷摸摸做；n.潜行；adj.暗中进行 | |
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11
hops
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| 跳上[下]( hop的第三人称单数 )； 单足蹦跳； 齐足（或双足）跳行； 摘葎草花 | |
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12
busts
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| 半身雕塑像( bust的名词复数 )； 妇女的胸部； 胸围； 突击搜捕 | |
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grafter
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| 嫁接的人，贪污者，收贿者； 平铲 | |
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14
soliciting
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| v.恳求( solicit的现在分词 )；（指娼妇）拉客；索求；征求 | |
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15
illustrated
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| adj. 有插图的，列举的 动词illustrate的过去式和过去分词 | |
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tamper
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| v.干预，玩弄，贿赂，窜改，削弱，损害 | |
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skyscraper
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| n.摩天大楼 | |
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metropolitan
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| adj.大城市的，大都会的 | |
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elastic
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| n.橡皮圈，松紧带；adj.有弹性的；灵活的 | |
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copper
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| n.铜；铜币；铜器；adj.铜(制)的；(紫)铜色的 | |
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lotion
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| n.洗剂 | |
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custodian
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| n.保管人，监护人；公共建筑看守 | |
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insouciance
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| n.漠不关心 | |
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formulate
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| v.用公式表示；规划；设计；系统地阐述 | |
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sophistry
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| n.诡辩 | |
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26
poker
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| n.扑克；vt.烙制 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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con
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| n.反对的观点，反对者，反对票，肺病；vt.精读，学习，默记；adv.反对地，从反面；adj.欺诈的 | |
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29
grove
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| n.林子，小树林，园林 | |
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30
salons
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| n.（营业性质的）店( salon的名词复数 )；厅；沙龙（旧时在上流社会女主人家的例行聚会或聚会场所）；（大宅中的）客厅 | |
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31
jack
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| n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克 | |
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ravens
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| n.低质煤；渡鸦( raven的名词复数 ) | |
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knuckles
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| n.（指人）指关节( knuckle的名词复数 )；（指动物）膝关节，踝v.（指人）指关节( knuckle的第三人称单数 )；（指动物）膝关节，踝 | |
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frivolous
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| adj.轻薄的；轻率的 | |
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hirsute
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| adj.多毛的 | |
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remittance
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| n.汇款，寄款，汇兑 | |
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legitimate
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| adj.合法的，合理的，合乎逻辑的；v.使合法 | |
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orphans
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| 孤儿( orphan的名词复数 ) | |
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sardines
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| n. 沙丁鱼 | |
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40
soda
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| n.苏打水；汽水 | |
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41
cracker
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| n.（无甜味的）薄脆饼干 | |
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42
brag
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| v./n.吹牛，自夸；adj.第一流的 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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44
hoisted
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| 把…吊起，升起( hoist的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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decomposition
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| n. 分解, 腐烂, 崩溃 | |
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46
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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exponent
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| n.倡导者，拥护者；代表人物；指数，幂 | |
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48
dressing
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| n.(食物)调料；包扎伤口的用品，敷料 | |
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49
altruism
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| n.利他主义，不自私 | |
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50
ethics
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| n.伦理学；伦理观，道德标准 | |
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51
embroiled
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| adj.卷入的；纠缠不清的 | |
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52
idiocy
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| n.愚蠢 | |
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53
doze
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| v.打瞌睡；n.打盹，假寐 | |
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54
reposes
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| v.将（手臂等）靠在某人（某物）上( repose的第三人称单数 ) | |
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55
musing
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| n. 沉思，冥想 adj. 沉思的, 冥想的 动词muse的现在分词形式 | |
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56
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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57
jersey
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| n.运动衫 | |
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consolidated
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| a.联合的 | |
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59
amalgamated
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| v.（使）（金属）汞齐化( amalgamate的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）合并；联合；结合 | |
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franchise
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| n.特许，特权，专营权，特许权 | |
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