"Must of been a lot o' rain through here," he says.
"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 supper-time, 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 butt right in on you," I told her.
"They'll get a cold reception from me," she says.
But between the curves and the fear o' Palm Beach not bein' so exclusive
as it used to be, she couldn't eat no supper, and I had another big
meal.
The next mornin' we landed in Jacksonville three hours behind time and
narrowly missed connections for St. Augustine by over an hour and a
half. They wasn't another train till one-thirty in the afternoon, so we
had some time to kill. I went shoppin' and bought a shave and five or
six rickeys. The Wife helped herself to a chair in the writin'-room of
one o' the hotels and told pretty near everybody in Chicago that she
wished they was along with us, accompanied by a pitcher o' the Elks'
Home or the Germania Club, or Trout Fishin' at Atlantic Beach.
W'ile I was gettin' my dime's worth in the tonsorial parlors, I happened
to look up at a calendar on the wall, and noticed it was the twelfth o'
February.
"How does it come that everything's open here to-day?" I says to the
barber. "Don't you-all know it's Lincoln's birthday?"
"Is that so?" he says. "How old is he?"