“Either that,” says I, “or else the sprinklin’ wagon run shy o’ streets.”
He laughed as much as it was worth.
“Where do you come from?” he ast me.
“Dear old Chicago,” I says.
“I’m from St. Louis,” he says.
“You’re frank,” says I.
“I’m really as much at home one place as another,” he says. “The Wife likes to travel and why shouldn’t I humor her?”
“I don’t know,” I says. “I haven’t the pleasure.”
“Seems like we’re goin’ all the w’ile,” says he. “It’s Hot Springs or New Orleans or Florida or Atlantic City or California or somewheres.”
“Do you get passes?” I ast him.
“I guess I could if I wanted to,” he says. “Some o’ my best friends is way up in the railroad business.”
“I got one like that,” I says. “He generally stands on the fourth or fifth car behind the engine.”
“Do you travel much?” he ast me.
“I don’t live in St. Louis,” says I.
“Is this your first trip south?” he ast.
“Oh, no,” I says. “I live on Sixty-fifth Street.”
“I meant, have you ever been down this way before?”
“Oh, yes,” says I. “I come down every winter.”
“Where do you go?” he ast.
That’s what I was layin’ for.
“Palm Beach,” says I.
“I used to go there,” he says. “But I’ve cut it out. It ain’t like it used to be. They leave everybody in now.”
“Yes,” I says; “but a man don’t have to mix up with ’em.”
“You can’t just ignore people that comes up and talks to you,” he says.
“Are you bothered that way much?” I ast.
“It’s what drove me away from Palm Beach,” he says.
“How long since you been there?” I ast him.
“How long you been goin’ there?” he says.
“Me?” says I. “Five years.”
“We just missed each other,” says he. “I quit six years ago this winter.”
“Then it couldn’t of been there I seen you,” says I. “But I know I seen you somewheres before.”
“It might of been most anywheres,” he says. “They’s few places I haven’t been at.”
“Maybe it was acrost the pond,” says I.
“Very likely,” he says. “But not since the war started. I been steerin’ clear of Europe for two years.”
“So have I, for longer’n that,” I says.
“It’s certainly an awful thing, this war,” says he.
“I believe you’re right,” says I; “but I haven’t heard nobody express it just that way before.”
“I only hope,” he says, “that we succeed in keepin’ out of it.”
“If we got in, would you go?” I ast him.
“Yes, sir,” he says.
“You wouldn’t beat me,” says I. “I bet I’d reach Brazil as quick as you.”
“Oh, I don’t think they’d be any action in South America,” he says. “We’d fight defensive at first and most of it would be along the Atlantic Coast.”
“Then maybe we could get accommodations in Yellowstone Park,” says I.
“They’s no sense in this country gettin’ involved,” he says. “Wilson hasn’t handled it right. He either ought to of went stronger or not so strong. He’s wrote too many notes.”
“You certainly get right to the root of a thing,” says I. “You must of thought a good deal about it.”
“I know the conditions pretty well,” he says. “I know how far you can go with them people over there. I been amongst ’em a good part o’ the time.”
“I suppose,” says I, “that a fella just naturally don’t like to butt in. But if I was you I’d consider it my duty to romp down to Washington and give ’em all the information I had.”
“Wilson picked his own advisers,” says he. “Let him learn his lesson.”
“That ain’t hardly fair,” I says. “Maybe you was out o’ town, or your phone was busy or somethin’.”
“I don’t know Wilson nor he don’t know me,” he says.
“That oughtn’t to stop you from helpin’ him out,” says I. “If you seen a man drownin’ would you wait for some friend o’ the both o’ you to come along and make the introduction?”
“They ain’t no comparison in them two cases,” he says. “Wilson ain’t never called on me for help.”
“You don’t know if he has or not,” I says. “You don’t stick in one place long enough for a man to reach you.”
“My office in St. Louis always knows where I’m at,” says he. “My stenographer can reach me any time within ten to twelve hours.”
“I don’t think it’s right to have this country’s whole future dependin’ on a St. Louis stenographer,” I says.
“That’s nonsense!” says he. “I ain’t makin’ no claim that I could save or not save this country. But if I and Wilson was acquainted I might tell him some facts that’d help him out in his foreign policy.”
“Well, then,” I says, “it’s up to you to get acquainted. I’d introduce you myself only I don’t know your name.”
“My name’s Gould,” says he; “but you’re not acquainted with Wilson.”
“I could be, easy,” says I. “I could get on a train he was goin’ somewheres on and then go and set beside him and begin to talk. Lots o’ people make friends that way.”
It was gettin’ along to’rd suppertime, so I excused myself and went back to the apartment. The Missus had woke up and wasn’t feelin’ good.
“What’s the matter?” I ast her.
“This old train,” she says. “I’ll die if it don’t stop goin’ round them curves.”
“As long as the track curves, the best thing the train can do is curve with it,” I says. “You may die if it keeps curvin’, but you’d die a whole lot sooner if it left the rails and went straight ahead.”
“What you been doin’?” she ast me.
“Just talkin’ to one o’ the Goulds,” I says.
“Gould!” she says. “What Gould?”
“Well,” I says, “I didn’t ask him his first name, but he’s from St. Louis, so I suppose it’s Ludwig or Heinie.”
“Oh,” she says, disgusted. “I thought you meant one o’ the real ones.”
“He’s a real one, all right,” says I. “He’s so classy that he’s passed up Palm Beach. He says it’s gettin’ too common.”
“I don’t believe it,” says the Wife. “And besides, we don’t have to mix up with everybody.”
“He says they
