CHAPTER I

THE HOME-MADE SUIT OF CLOTHES


A fight in the first chapter made a book interesting to me when
I was a boy. I said to myself, "The man who writes several
chapters before the fighting begins is like the man who sells
peanuts in which a lot of the shells haven't any goodies." I made
up my mind then that if I ever wrote a book I would have a fight
in the first chapter.

So I will tell right here how I whipped the town bully in
Sharon, Pennsylvania. I'll call him Babe Durgon. I've forgotten
his real name, and it might be better not to mention it anyhow.
For though I whipped him thirty years ago, he might come back now
in a return match and reverse the verdict, so that my first
chapter would serve better as my last one. Babe was older than I,
and had pestered me from the time I was ten. Now I was eighteen
and a man. I was a master puddler in the mill and a musician in
the town band (I always went with men older than myself). Two
stove molders from a neighboring factory were visiting me that
day, and, as it was dry and hot, I offered to treat them to a
cool drink. There were no soda fountains in those days and the
only place to take a friend was to the tavern. We went in and my
companions ordered beer. Babe, the bully, was standing by the bar.
He had just come of age, and wanted to bulldoze me with that fact.

"Don't serve Jimmy Davis a beer," Babe commanded. "He's a