him without
no kind applause to cheer him on. I've seen losers that attracted more
attention in runnin' _last_ than any six winners in the same precinct.

Them kind of birds can't help tryin'. They couldn't quit if they
wanted to, which they don't! They got somethin' in 'em that keeps
shovin' 'em along whether they're regrettin' the breaks or not.
They're always full of the old ambish no matter what the score is in
the ninth. They're what you might call self-starters in the automobile
of life--they don't need a _win_ now and then to crank 'em up, they
keep goin' forward hittin' on all cylinders from the nursery to the
embalmer!

Alex was one of them guys.

The Big Town fell for his stuff because it was _new_, the same as it
will fall for _yours_ to-morrow if you get somethin' it never seen and
the nerve to try it out!

About a month after Alex was workin' as head salesman for the Gaflooey
Auto Company at a pittance of ten thousand a year, he come up to the
flat for dinner one night. I seen right away that somethin' was wrong,
because he only eat about half of the roast duck and brung along his
own cigars. After nature could stand no more, and we had dragged
ourselves away from the table to let the servant girl make good, we
adjourn to the parlor and the wife gets ready to punish the neighbors
with the victrola.

"Well," says Alex, sittin' down in the only rocker, of course, "it
looks like they have finally gimme somethin' that even _I_ can't do!"

"Can that be possible?" I says, pickin' up the sportin' final.

"Wait till you hear this one!" remarks the wife, crankin' up the
victrola. "John McCormack singin' 'If Beauty Was Water, You'd Be
Niagara Falls!' It's a knockout!"

"Say!" snorts Alex, gettin' peeved. "Can't a man find no attention
here?"

"Look in the telephone book under the A's," I says.

"Never mind, dearie!" the wife tells him. "I'll listen. What's on
your mind?" She goes over and sits on the arm of his chair, knowin'
full well it gets my goat.

"I see you're the only one in this family that's got any sense!" pipes
Alex, pattin' her hand.

"Yen," I says, "I ain't got enough sense to turn on a radiator. All
I'm good for is to get the dollars, which of course is nothin' at all
in keepin' up the home!"

"Well, you'll never have Rockefeller and that crowd gnashin' their
teeth with all the dollars you'll get!" says Alex, "and that ain't no
lie!"

"Now, boys," butts in the wife, "l