the arc-lights of the joyous
and tuneful East.

"'No way-stops,' says I to Solly, 'except long enough to get you
barbered and haberdashed. This is no Texas feet shampetter,' says I,
'where you eat chili-concarne-con-huevos and then holler "Whoopee!"
across the plaza. We're now going against the real high life. We're
going to mingle with the set that carries a Spitz, wears spats, and
hits the ground in high spots.'

"Solly puts six thousand dollars in century bills in one pocket of his
brown ducks, and bills of lading for ten thousand dollars on Eastern
banks in another. Then I resume diplomatic relations with the S.A. &
A.P., and we hike in a northwesterly direction on our circuitous route
to the spice gardens of the Yankee Orient.

"We stopped in San Antonio long enough for Solly to buy some clothes,
and eight rounds of drinks for the guests and employees of the Menger
Hotel [27], and order four Mexican saddles with silver trimmings and
white Angora _suaderos_ [28] to be shipped down to the ranch. From
there we made a big jump to St. Louis. We got there in time for dinner;
and I put our thumb-prints on the register of the most expensive hotel
in the city.

[FOOTNOTE 27: The Menger Hotel was (and still is) a San Antonio
landmark. Built in 1859 near the Alamo, its guests
haave included Robert E. Lee, U. S. Grant, Theodore
Roosevelt, and Sarah Bernhardt.]

[FOOTNOTE 28: suaderos--O. Henry uses this term in several
stories. He probably meant "sudaderos," which are
saddle blankets or pads. The term is also sometimes
used to refer to pads that prevent the stirrup
straps from rubbing the rider's leg. O. Henry
undoubtedly picked up the word during his stay on
South Texas ranches, but he probably never saw the
word written, and "suaderos" was what he came up
with many years later when writing. This annotator
is grateful to Michael K. DeWitt of Oklahoma State
University for explaining this reference.]

"'Now,' says I to Solly, with a wink at myself, 'here's the first
dinner-station we've struck where we can get a real good plate of
beans.' And while he was up in his room trying to draw water out of
the gas-pipe, I got one finger in the buttonhole of the head waiter's