"Well," said I, "I've just had one of the strangest experiences of my life. I've been in all parts of the United States in the last eight years, and never until to-day have I found a place so poor in sympathy, and easy money, that I couldn't get my check cashed if I happened to need the funds. Why, I've known a Mississippi hotelkeeper who was so poor that his wife had to do all the chambermaid's work in the house, to go out at midnight to borrow twenty-five dollars from a neighbor to help me out; but here, with this flood knocking everything galley west, I can't raise a cent!"
And I went on and narrated my experience with the two national banks as recorded here.
"Well, by George!" ejaculated one of the men seated opposite to me, slapping his knee vigorously as I finished. "I'm an Ohio man, sir, and I blush for the State. I'll cash your check for you on your looks. How much do you want?"
"Twenty-five dollars," said I.
"All right," he said, pulling a well-filled wallet from his pocket, and counting out five five-dollar bills. "There's the stuff."
I thanked him, and drawing my check handed it over to him. He took it, and glanced at the signature.
"What?" he exploded. "The Idiot?"
This was the title of one of my books.
"Guilty!" said I.
"Here, you!" he cried, pulling his wallet again from his pocket, and holding it wide open, displaying a tempting bundle of ten-dollar bills within. "Here just help yourself!"
And yet there are people in this world who ask if "literature" pays!
About the most Samaritan of the Good Samaritans I ever encountered I met in February last in one of the most flourishing of our northwestern cities. He was a Samaritan with what the modern critic would call a "kick" to him or at least it struck me that way. As I made my way northward from Minneapolis to fill my engagement there I was seized with a terrific toothache which for the time being destroyed pretty nearly all my interest in life. The offending molar was far back in the region of the wisdom section, and inasmuch as it had been somewhat loose in its behavior for several days I decided to be rid of it. All my efforts to extract it myself were unavailing, and finally after a last desperate effort to pull it out myself I returned to my chair in the Pullman car and informed the Only Muse who upon this trip was Seeing America with me that our first duty on reaching our destination was to find a dentist and get rid of it.
"I hope you will be careful to get the right kind of a man," said she. "We can't afford any quack doctors, you know."
At this moment a charming woman seated on the opposite side of the car leaned over and said, "I do not wish to intrude, but I have seen how you were suffering, and I just overheard your remark. Now my son-in-law is a dentist, and we think he is a good one. He is coming to meet me at the station, and I think possibly he will be willing to help you."
I thanked the lady, and expressed the hope that he would.
On our arrival at the station the young man appeared as was expected, and my kindly chaperone presented the case.
"He has been suffering dreadfully, James," she said, "and I told him you would pull his tooth out for him."
"But, my dear mother," said the young man, "we are in a good deal of a hurry. We have an engagement for to-night. My office is closed, and we are not dressed for "
"Thanks just the same," said I. "I am sure you would help me if you could maybe you will do the next best thing. I can't lecture unless I have this confounded thing out."
"Lecture?" said he. "You are not John Kendrick "
"Yes I am," said I.
"Oh," said he, "that's different. You are our engagement. Come up to my office, and I'll fix you up in a jiffy."
So we marched five long blocks up to his office, where I was soon stretched out, and the desired operation put through with neatness and despatch.
"Well, doctor," said I as he held the offending molar up before me tightly gripped in his forceps, "you have given me the first moment of relief I have had all day. My debt in gratitude I shall never be able to repay, but the other I think I can handle. How much do I owe you?"
"Nothing at all, Mr. Bangs," he replied. "Nothing at all."
"Oh, that's nonsense, doctor," I retorted. "You are a professional man, and I am a stranger to you you must charge something."
"Oh, no, Mr. Bangs," said he, smilingly. "You are no stranger to me. I have been reading your books for the past twenty years, and it's a positive pleasure to pull your teeth."
V
A VAGRANT POET
The inimitable and forever to be lamented Gilbert, in one of his delightful songs in Pinafore, bade us once to remember that
Things are seldom what they seem
Skim-milk masquerades as cream;
Highlows pass as patent-leathers;
Jackdaws strut in peacock's feathers.
The good woman who sang this song little Buttercup, they called her was in a pessimistic mood at the moment; for had she not been so she would have reversed the sentiment, showing us with equal truth how sometimes cream masquerades as skim milk, and how underneath the wear and tear of time what outwardly appears to be a "high low" still possesses some of the glorious polish of the "patent leather." Everywhere I travel I find something of this latter truth; but never was it more clearly demonstrated than when on one of my Western jaunts I came unexpectedly upon an almost overwhelming revelation of a finely poetic nature under an apparently rough and unpromising exterior.
It happened on a trip in Arizona back in 1906. My train after passing Yuma was held up for several hours. Ordinarily I should have found this distressing; but, as the event proved, it brought to me one of the most delightfully instructive experiences I have yet had in the pursuit of my platform labors. As the express stood waiting for another much belated train from the East to pass, the door of the ordinary day coach in which I had chosen to while away the tedium of the morning, largely because it was fastened to the end of the train, whence I could secure a wonderful view of the surrounding country was opened, and a man apparently in the last stages of poverty entered the car.
He was an oldish man, past sixty, I should say, and a glance at him caused my mind instinctively to revert to certain descriptions I had heard of the sad condition of the downtrodden Westerner, concerning whose unhappy lot our friends the Populists used to tell us so much. He looked so very poor and so irremediably miserable that he excited my sympathy. Upon his back there lay loosely the time-rusted and threadbare remnant of what had once in the days of its pride and freshness been a frock coat, now buttonless, spotted, and fringing at the edges. His trousers matched. His neck was collarless, a faded blue polka-dotted handkerchief serving as both collar and tie. His hat suggested service in numerous wars, and on his feet, bound there for their greater security with ordinary twine, were the uppers and a perforated part of the soles of a one-time pair of congress gaiters. As for his face well, it brought vividly to mind the lines of Spenser