wilted and caved in like a box of ice cream does just before you get
home with it. Then he began to bow lower, and we cut for a new deal. He
took the lead.

He says what might I be wanting to use the Garden for?

"Oh, I won't bulge the walls or strain the floor," I says. "I only want
it for a Christmas tree. I am going to invite my friends to a little
party."

"Whew, but you must be popular!" he says. "Who the dickens are you?
Brother Teddy, or Mother Eddy?"

"I'm Colonel D. Austin Crockett, of Waco," I says as meek as I could.

"Pleased to meet you, Colonel," he says. "What you running
for?--District Attorney? Or are you starting a new Mutual Benefit Life
Assassination?"

"Neither," I says; "I'm a stranger in New York."

"But these friends of yours?" he gasped. "Is all Waco coming up here on
an excursion? Is the town going to move bodily?"

"Mr. Prosecutor," I says, "if you'll stop cross-examining a minute, and
let me tell how it all happened, it will save right smart of time. I am
a stranger here to about four million people. They are strangers to me.
We ought to know each other. So I'm going to give a little Madison
Square Garden warming and invite 'em in."

"What are you going to sell 'em--prize poultry, or physical culture?"

"I've nothing to sell. I'm just going to entertain 'em."

"Well, I've heard of Southern hospitality," he says, "but this beats me.
How much you going to charge a head?"

"Nothing. Everything is to be free. Admission included."

"Not on your dear old Lost Cause!" he exclaims. "Leastways not in our
little doll's house. Not for ten thousand dollars! Why, man, do you
realize that if you offered these New York, Brooklyn, Bronx, Hackensack
and Hoboken folks a free show, more'n two thousand women would get
trampled to death? Did you ever see a bargain-counter crowd on
Twenty-third Street? Well, that's only for a chance to get something
they don't want at a fishbait price. But if you offered them a free,
'take-one' chance--holy keewhiz!--I can just see it now! The Garden
ain't half big enough in the first place. There's enough Take-One'ers in
these parts to fill the old Coliseum. And they'd make the wild animals
look like a cage of rabbits or white mice."

Well, the upshot of it was, he persuaded me to charge an admission; so
we set it at $1.00 a head "on the hoof." I wrote out a card and sent it
to all the papers to print at advertising rates. It cost right smart,
but it looked neat: