tin' on a lunch
counter back in Omaha. The third day I was there I was all alone in the
front room when in walked an Injun. He was about eight feet high, I
reckon; and the fiercest Injun I ever see. I took one look at him a'
then I dropped behind the counter and wiggled back to the kitchen where
the boss was. I gasped out that the Injuns was upon us an' then I flew
for my firearms.

When the boss discovered that the Injun and fourteen doughnuts, almost
new, had vanished, he was some put out, and after we had discussed the
matter, I acted on his advice and came farther West. That business
experience lasted me a good long while. I don't like business an' I
don't blame any one who has to follow it for a livin' for wantin' to
have a vacation so he can get out where the air is fit to breathe.

Just imagine bein' hived up day after day with nothin' to see but walls
an' nothin' to do but customers. You first got to be friendly with your
visitors to make 'em feel at home, an' then you got to get as much of
their money as you can in order to keep on bein' friendly with 'em in
order to keep on gettin' as much of their money as you can.

Now out in the open a feller don't have to be a hypocrite: once I
worked a whole year for a man who hated me so he wouldn't speak to me;
but I didn't care, I liked the work and I did it an' he raised my wages
twice an' gave me a pony when I quit.

He was the sourest tempered man I ever see; but it was good trainin' to
live with him a spell. Lots of men has streaks of bein' unbearable; but
this man was the only one I ever met up with who was solid that way,
and didn't have one single streak of bein' likeable. He was the only
man I ever see who wouldn't talk to me. I was a noticing sort of a kid
an' I saw mighty early that what wins the hearts o' ninety-nine men out
of a hundred is listenin' to 'em talk. That's why I don't talk much
myself. But you couldn't listen to old Spike Williams, 'cause the'
wasn't no opportunity--he didn't even cuss.

We was snowed up for two weeks one time an' I took a vow 'at I'd make
him talk. I tried every subject I'd ever heard of; but he didn't even
grunt. Just when things was clearin' off, I sez to him, usin' my
biggest trump: "Spike," sez I, "do you know what they say about you?"

"No," sez he, "but you know what I say about them," an' he went on with
his packin'.

I thought for a while 'at the year I'd spent with Spike Williams was a
total loss; but jest the