off here on his way from Chicago, and coaxed Johnny Black and me
to go over East with him. We went, and a pretty mess we made of
it. Bud is sore on both of us, I got touched for ninety, and
Johnny is lost.

Nothing of interest occurred going over on the train, excepting
that when I turned in I took off my trousers without spilling my
money all over the Pullman floor. This is done by sewing the human
pocket shut. We landed at Twenty-third Street, in good shape, early
in the morning of the day before yesterday. When we reached the
Pennsylvania cab-stand some one had taken the hansom, so we had to
hire a carriage. They are building another hansom, and then there
will be plenty of hansoms for all. At the hotel Johnny claimed I
had a drag because I drew a room with a window in it. Breakfast
was hardly over until Bud, without consulting us at all, commenced
arrangements for giving a swell dinner to a couple of heiresses
who lived on Eighteenth Street and who were worth eight millions,
or who lived in Eighth Street and were worth eighty millions--
Johnny and I didn't know which. Bud gave us a lot of hot air about
his mother's cousin standing fifteen balls in the New York Four,
and how that made him a nonresident member, and if we did just
as he said, he would put us in right. He told us that there were
thousands of people right in New York City, any one of whom would
give a cool million for our opportunity. Johnny immediately began
to figure, on how he would treat certain people over in Pittsburg
who had given him the eye in bygone days; and I got so struck on
myself that I cut the head waiter dead, although I had known him
intimately for years. Along about 11 A.M. the deal went through
by 'phone for seven o'clock that evening. Bud went to get shaved,
and Johnny and I retired to the bar to wait until it was time to