t the hotel used to giggle in the
kitchen for a week after he was gone at the awful things he would say to
'em. He knew more girls by their first names than a drummer."

Colonel Morrison chuckled and crossed his fat legs at the ankles as he
continued, after lighting the cigar we gave him:

"Well, along in the late seventies we fellows that he started out with
got to owning our own homes and getting on in the world. That was the
time when Samp should have been grubbing at his law books, but nary a
grub for him. He was playing horse for dear life. And right there the
fellows all left him behind. Some were buying real estate for
speculation; some running for office; some starting a bank; and others
lending money at two per cent. a month, and leading in the
prayer-meeting. So Samp kind of hitched up his ambition and took the
slack out of his habits for a few months and went to the legislature.
They say that he certainly did have a good time, though, when he got
there. They remember that session yet up there, and call it the year of
the great flood, for the nights they were filled with music, as the poet
says, and from the best accounts we could get the days were devoid of
ease also, and how Mrs. Sampson stood it the women never could find out,
for, of course, she must have known all about it, though he wouldn't
let her come near Topeka. He began to get pursy and red-faced, and was
clicking it off with his fifth set of young fellows. It took a big slug
of whisky to set off his oratory, but when he got it wound up he surely
could pull the feathers out of the bird of freedom to beat scandalous.
But as a stump speaker you weren't always sure he'd fill the engagement.
He could make a jury blubber and clench its fists at the prosecuting
attorney, yet he didn't claim to know much law, and he did turn over all
the work in the Supreme Court to his partner, Charley Hedrick. Then,
when Charley was practising before the Supreme Court and wasn't here to
hold him down, Samp would get out and whoop it up with the boys, quote
Shakespeare and make stump speeches on dry-goods boxes at midnight, and
put his arms around old Marshal Furgeson's neck and tell him he was the
blooming flower of chivalry. Also women made a fool of him--more or
less.

"Where was I?" asked Colonel Morrison of the stenographer when she had
finished sharpening her pencil. "Oh, yes, along in the eighties came
the boom, and Samp tried to get in it and make some money. H