make
'em fight for standin' room in the Winter Garden. So we was all happy
and carefree again, with the exception of Alex.

"You're too easy with him!" he growls to the wife, disappointed because
peace had come. "If you'd punish him, he'd be a better husband."

"She does punish me somethin' cruel!" I says. "By invitin' _you_ up
every day!"

And then of course all bets was off and we all went over the top again!

In about an hour, the people in the next flat had enough, and mentioned
the fact to the landlord. He let us in on it by way of the phone, and
all was quiet along the Hudson again.

"I come up here to-night to tell you somethin'," says Alex.

"They's always the United States mail," I says.

"I ain't talkin' to you, I'm speakin' to Cousin Alice!" snarls Alex.

"She can read too!" I says.

"I been thinkin' this here thing over for weeks," he goes on, turnin'
his chair so's I can get a good view of his back, "and I made up my
mind to-day to go ahead with it."

"What is it, Alex?" asks the wife, all excited. "I know it's goin' to
be somethin' wonderful!"

"You ain't gonna tell me you're gonna stop eatin' here, are you?" I
says. "Because if you are, I'm gonna beat it! I heard tell of guys
dyin' of joy and I ain't takin' no chances!"

"The whole trouble with you," says Alex, "is a simple case of jealousy.
You was born and brung up in this rube burg called New York and the
best you could do in thirty-five years was to get yourself foreman of a
baseball team! I--"

"Yeh!" I butts in. "I fell down the same as Caruso. All he can do is
sing!"

"I come here from Vermont," goes on Alex, now on his favorite subject,
"and right off the reel I get me a ten thousand a year job, not
countin' commissions, sellin' autos. Now I claim that what _I_ did in
New York can be done by anybody--and I'm here to prove it! It's just
as easy to be a roarin' success in New York as it is in Paterson, N.
J.--and just as hard! There's many a Charlie Chaplin sellin' groceries
and many a Theodore Roosevelt carryin' bricks! In their off hours and
in the privacy of their homes, them fellers is doin' for _nothin'_,
what Chaplin, Roosevelt, Dempsey and so forth got _paid off_ on! If a
man's a gambler, for instance, and he bets on a race horse, the chances
are he stays up all night lookin' up the past performances of that
horse and seein' just what he can do under all conditions. He studies
how the horse finished on a mudd