job for a grown
man, eh?

But so long as I'm treated square by anyone, and they don't try to
throw any lugs around where I am, I don't feel any call to let 'em in
on my private thoughts. So Purdy and me gets along first rate; and the
next thing I knows he's callin' me Shorty, and bein' as glad to see me
when he comes in as if I was one of his old pals. How you goin' to
dodge a thing of that kind? And then, 'fore I knows what's comin', I'm
right in the middle of this Bombazoula business.

It wa'n't anything I butted into on purpose, now you can take that
straight. It was this way: I was doin' my reg'lar afternoon stroll up
the avenue, not payin' much attention to anything in particular, when a
cab pulls up at the curb, and I looks around, to see Purdy leanin' over
the apron and makin' motions at me with his cane.

"Hello!" says I. "Have they got you strapped in so you can't get out?"

"By Jove!" says he, "I never thought of jumping out, you know. Beg
pardon, old man, for hailing you in that fashion, but----"

"Cut it!" says I. "I ain't so proud as all that. What's doin'?"

"It's rather a rummy go," says he; "but where can I buy some snakes?"

"That's rummy, all right," says I. "Have you tried sendin' him to an
institute?"

"Sending who?" says he.

"Oh!" says I. "I figured this was a snake cure, throwin' a scare into
somebody, that you was plannin'."

"Oh, dear, no," says Purdy. "They're for Valentine. He's fond of
snakes, you know--can't get along without them. But they must be big
ones--spotted, rings around them, and all that."

"Gee!" says I. "Vally's snake tastes must be educated 'way up! Guess
you'll have to give in your order down at Lefty White's."

"And where is that?" says he.

"William street, near the bridge," says I. "Don't you know about
Lefty's?"

Well, he didn't; hadn't ever been below the bridge on the East Side in
his life; and wouldn't I please come along, if I could spare the time.

So I climbs in alongside Purdy and the cane, and off we goes down town,
at the rate of a dollar 'n' a half an hour. I hadn't got out more'n
two questions 'fore Purdy cuts loose with the story of his life.

"It's almost the same as asking me to choose my lot in the cemetery,"
says he, "this notion of Aunt Isabella's for sending me out to buy
snakes."

"I thought it was Valentine they was for?" says I. "Where does he come
in?"

That fetches us to Chapter One, which begins with Aunt Is