expected me to do it. I did it, as I have said, in obedience to
the code I had learned along with all the other things connected
with John Barleycorn. In distress, when a man has no other place
to turn, when he hasn't the slightest bit of security which a
savage-hearted pawn-broker would consider, he can go to some
saloon-keeper he knows. Gratitude is inherently human. When the
man so helped has money again, depend upon it that a portion will
be spent across the bar of the saloon-keeper who befriended him.

Why, I recollect the early days of my writing career, when the
small sums of money I earned from the magazines came with tragic
irregularity, while at the same time I was staggering along with a
growing family--a wife, children, a mother, a nephew, and my Mammy
Jennie and her old husband fallen on evil days. There were two
places at which I could borrow money; a barber shop and a saloon.
The barber charged me five per cent. per month in advance. That
is to say, when I borrowed one hundred dollars, he handed me
ninety-five. The other five dollars he retained as advance
interest for the first month. And on the second month I paid him
five dollars more, and continued so to do each month until I made
a ten strike with the editors and lifted the loan.

The other place to which I came in trouble was the saloon. This
saloon-keeper I had known by sight for a couple of years. I had
never spent my money in his saloon, and even when I borrowed from
him I didn't spend any money. Yet never did he refuse me any sum
I asked of him. Unfortunately, before I became prosperous, he
moved away to another city. And to this day I regret that he is
gone. It is the code I have learned. The right thing to do, and
the thing I'd do right now did I know where he is, would be to