g daily debauch of cleanliness, it is his privilege. If he
squanders the fleeting moments brushing teeth, cleaning fingernails, and
such technicalities, it stands to reason he won't have much time left to
attend to his work and at the same time cultivate the essentials of life
like smoking, drinking, and the proper valuation of a three-card draw.
But, as I say, it's up to him, and outsiders who don't see merit in such
a system shouldn't try to bust up his game unless they've got good
foot-work and a knockout punch.

It wasn't so much these physical refinements that riled us as the
rarefied atmosphere of his general mental and moral altitudes. To me
there's eloquence and sentiment and romance and spiritual uplift in a
real, full-grown, black-whiskered cuss-word. It's a great help in a
mountainous country. Profanity is like steam in a locomotive--takes more
to run you up-hill than on the level, and inasmuch as there's only a few
men on the level, a violent vocabulary is a necessity and appeals to me
like a certificate of good character and general capability.

There wasn't a thing doing with Prosser in the idiom line, however. His
moral make-up was like his body, big and sound and white and manicured,
and although his talk, alongside of ours, listened like it was skimmed
and seminaried, still when we got to know him we found that his verbal
structures had vital organs and hair on their chests just like anybody
else's, and at the same time had the advantage of being fit to send
through the mails.

He had left a widowed mother and come north on the main chance, like the
rest of us, only he originated farther east. What made the particular
ten-strike with us was the pride he took in that same mother. He gloried
in her and talked about her in that hushed and nervous way a man speaks
about a real mother or a regular sweetheart. We men-folks liked him all
the better for it. I say we men, for he was a "shine" with the
women--all nine of them. The camp was fifteen hundred strong that
winter, over and above which was the aforesaid galaxy of nine, stranded
on their way up-river to a Dawson dance-hall. The Yukon froze up and
they had to winter with us. Of course there were the three married
ladies, too, living with their husbands back on the Birch Ridge, but we
never saw them and they didn't count. The others went to work at
Eckert's theater.

Monty would have been right popular at Eckert's--he was a handsome
lad--but he couldn'