gn of a close
hair-cut coming on. I've got educated dandruff,' I says, 'and it ain't
never fooled me yet. In short,' I says, 'I've been handed the office to
skiddoo, and in such cases I believe in skiddooing. Let us create a
vacancy in these parts _sine quinine_--which,' I says, 'is Latin,
meaning it's a bitter dose but you gotta take it.'

"'I can start right this minute,' says Sweet Caps; 'my tooth-brush is
packed and all I've got to do is to put on my hat. S'pose we run up to a
Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street, which is a nice secluded spot,' he
says, 'and catch the rattler.'

"'How are you fixed for currency?' I says.

"'Fixed?' he says. 'I ain't fixed a-tall. A'int you been carrying the
firm's bank-roll? Say, ain't you?'

"Well, right there I has to break the sad news to him. I does it as
gentle as I could but still he seems peeved. Money has caused a lot of
suffering in this world, they tell me, but I'm here to tell you the lack
of it's been responsible for consider'ble many heartburnings too. Up
until that minute I hadn't had the heart to tell the Sweet Caps Kid that
our little joint partnership bank-roll is no longer with us. I'd been
saving back them tidings for a more suitable moment, but now I has to
tell him.

"It seems that the night before, I had been tiger hunting in the jungle
down at Honest John Donohue's. Of course I should have knowed better
than to go up against a game run by anybody calling hisself Honest John.
Them complimentary monakers always work with the reverse English. You
are walking along and you see a gin-mill across the street with a sign
over the door which says it's Smiling Pete's Place, and you cross over
and look in, and behind the bar is an old guy who ain't heard anything
that really pleased him since the Martinique disaster. He's standing
there with his lip stuck out like a fender on a street car, and a bung
starter handy, just hoping that somebody will come in and start to start
something. That's Smiling Pete. As for this here Donohue, he's so
crooked he can't eat nothing such as stick candy and cheese straws
without he gets cramps in his stomach. He'd take the numbers off your
house. That's why they call him Honest John. I know all this, good and
well, but what's a feller going to do when his is the only place in
town that's open? You've got to play somewheres, ain't you? Somehow, I
always was sort of drawed to faro.

"Well, you know the saying--one man's meat is another's