here, you see, is where sinful feelin' in me turned me over
to the enemy, bound hand and foot, gagged and blindfolded. Who was
I to exalt myself agin the smart young men of New York City? How
come it the foolish notion buzzed in my cockloft that, like Samson
of old, I might fall upon the adversary, hip, hurrah, and thigh,
and of the fragments that remained gather seven bushels? Pride
goeth before destruction and a naughty spirit before a fall. Up I
sasshays to my hotel bedroom to take account of resources. Mighty
slim they was. In the false bottom of the trunk was a pocketbook
that looked like the wheel of progress had passed over it, and a
little sack of nuggets--that was all. Them nuggets was the pride
of my life. I didn't buy 'em from the Chinaman that offered, but I
come horrible near it. And yet that Chink had the innocentest face
in Utah; he might ha' stood for a picture of Adam before Eve cast a
shadder on his manly brow. I don't recall anything that's more
deceivin' than appearances, yet what in the world's a man to go by?
Well, them nuggets ort to said to me, 'Young man, beware! Be
warier than John H. Devilkins himself! All that's heavy and yaller
is not gold. Sometimes a patient Chinaman, flappin' of the flies
with his pigtail, will industrusly manufacture that same per
schedule out of common, ordinary lead, and, by exercisin' the art
of gildin', almost whip-saw people by the name of Scraggs, if so it
hadn't 'a' been their gardeen angel moved 'em to try a sample with
the edge of a knife.'

"Was I warned? Well, I dunno, anyhow, I trotted myself out to the
street to see what this here Metropolus business had to offer
different from just plain St. Looey.

"And I found out. Dear friends and brothers, I wonder have you
ever seen a man reachin', reachin' for a playin'-card layin'
prostrate on the table before him, when his last chip is in the
pile, his last cent in the chip, all manners and kinds of bills
comin' due tomorrow, the house to close in fifteen minutes, and
hopin' that card is just one more little two-spot? Are you
familiar with the lines of anggwish on his face? Well, of all the
hullabaloo, skippin', flyin', pushin', haulin', rompin', tearin',
maulin' and scratchin' messes I ever got into, that street was the
worst. At the end of fifteen minutes I had no life in me above my
feet, and they was simply slidin', the one before the other,
without any aim or purpose. I stood on a corner c