g all wrong. People in New York can't understand or
believe anything except through the language of the press agent. You
take one on your staff, and in three days you'll be so famous that, if
a child in a kindergarten is asked who is the Queen of Holland, it will
answer: 'Colonel Crockett, of Waco.'"

Well, he poured out the most remarkable string of talk I ever heard, and
before I knew it he had made me promise to trust my soul and my scheme
to him; to be surprised at nothing that might appear in the papers, and
to refer all reporters to him. The next morning I found my name on the
front page of every journal, with my picture in most of them. It seems
I had held at bay two hundred angry Italians who were trying to mob a
Chinese laundryman. The evening papers said that I had stopped a runaway
coach-and-four on Fifth Avenue, that morning, by lassoing the leader. On
the coach were Mrs. Aster, Mrs. Fitch, Reggie Vanderbuilt, George Goold,
Harry Leer and a passel of other "Among those presents." That night I
went to a music-hall--according to the next morning's papers--and broke
up the show by throwing a pocketful of solitaires to the chorus girls.
The next day three burglars got into my room; I held them up in a
corner, took away their masks, spanked them, and gave them each a
hundred-dollar bill to help them to avoid temptation. That afternoon
the three big life-insurance companies asked me to be president. And so
on--you can read for yourself in the clippings--only for Heaven's sake
don't believe any of it. In every article was a neat allusion to my
Christmas party.

I wanted to kill James J. James, and I scoured the town for him, but he
dodged me. He kept his word, though. For the last few days I've been the
most talked-of man in town. Looks like I'd been the Only man in New
York.

And now to tell about my little party. For two days a regiment of men
was working in the Garden under my direction--and at my expense. It was
like paying the war appropriation of Russia. But it was worth it.

At six o'clock Christmas night the crowd began to line up at the Garden
doors. At 6:30 a platoon of police arrived. At 6:40 the line reached
twice around the Garden. At 6:45 they sent for more police. At 7:15
every street was solid with people. They called out the police reserves
and clubbed about four hundred innocent bystanders insensible. At 7:45
the fire department was called and played the hose on the crowd.

This thinned 'em o