k up
something novel and pleasing. Just come and see how I'm taking it off of
'em." And, with that, he grabs me by the arm and rushes me down to this
joint of his.

At the side of the doorway he had two signs stuck up. One says, Ye Olde
Tyme Saloone; and the other says, Ye Olde Tyme Gambling Denne. You could
of pushed me over with one finger when I looked in. He'd drew the crowd,
all right. I knew then that Aggie Tuttle might just as well close down
her Rebekkah-at-the-Well dive, and that no one was going to take any
more chances on pincushions and tidies and knitted bed slippers.

About a third of the crowd was edged up to the bar and keeping Louis
Meyer and his father busy with drink orders, and the other two-thirds
was huddled round a roulette layout across the room. They was wedged in
so tight I couldn't see the table, but I could hear the little ball
click when it slowed up, and the rattle of chips, and squeals from them
that won, and hoarse mutters from the losers.

Cousin Egbert rubbed his hands and giggled, waiting for me to bedeck him
with floral tributes.

"I suppose you got a crooked wheel," I says.

"Shucks, no!" says he. "I did think of it, but I'd of had to send out of
town for one and they're a lot of trouble to put in, what with the
electric wiring and all; and besides, the straightest roulette wheel
ever made is crooked enough for any man of decent instincts. I don't
begrudge 'em a little excitement for their money. I got these old bar
fixings out of the Spilmer place that was being tore down, and we're
charging two bits a drink for whatever, and that'll be a help; and it
looks to me like you ladies would of thought you needed a man's brain in
these shows long before this. Come on in and have a shot. I'll buy."

So we squeezed in and had one. It was an old-time saloon, all
right--that is, fairly old; about 1889, with a brass foot rail, and back
of the bar a stuffed eagle and a cash register. A gang of ladies was
taking claret lemonades and saying how delightfully Bohemian it all was;
and Miss Metta Bigler, that gives lessons in oil painting and burnt
wood, said it brought back very forcibly to her the Latin Quarter of
Chicago, where she finished her art course. Henrietta Templeton Price,
with one foot on the railing, was shaking dice with three other
prominent society matrons for the next round, and saying she had always
been a Bohemian at heart, only you couldn't go very far in a small town
like