CONFESSION


There is a woman in the state of Nevada to whom I once lied
continuously, consistently, and shamelessly, for the matter of a
couple of hours. I don't want to apologize to her. Far be it from me.
But I do want to explain. Unfortunately, I do not know her name, much
less her present address. If her eyes should chance upon these lines,
I hope she will write to me.

It was in Reno, Nevada, in the summer of 1892. Also, it was fair-time,
and the town was filled with petty crooks and tin-horns, to say
nothing of a vast and hungry horde of hoboes. It was the hungry hoboes
that made the town a "hungry" town. They "battered" the back doors of
the homes of the citizens until the back doors became unresponsive.

A hard town for "scoffings," was what the hoboes called it at that
time. I know that I missed many a meal, in spite of the fact that I
could "throw my feet" with the next one when it came to "slamming a
gate" for a "poke-out" or a "set-down," or hitting for a "light piece"
on the street. Why, I was so hard put in that town, one day, that I
gave the porter the slip and invaded the private car of some itinerant
millionnaire. The train started as I made the platform, and I headed
for the aforesaid millionnaire with the porter one jump behind and
reaching for me. It was a dead heat, for I reached the millionnaire at
the same instant that the porter reached me. I had no time for
formalities. "Gimme a quarter to eat on," I blurted out. And as I
live, that millionnaire dipped into his pocket and gave me ... just
... precisely ... a quarter. It is my conviction that he was so
flabbergasted that he obeyed automatically, and it has been a matter