E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Diane Monico,
and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
(www.pgdp.net)
TO
JOSIAH FLYNT
The Real Thing, Blowed in the Glass
—Sestina of the Tramp-Royal
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. Idon't want to apologize to her. Far be it from me. But I do want toexplain. Unfortunately, I do not know her name, much less her presentaddress. If her eyes should chance upon these lines, I hope she will writeto me.
It was in Reno, Nevada, in the summer of 1892. Also, it was fair-time, andthe town was filled with petty crooks and tin-horns, to say nothing of avast and hungry horde of hoboes. It was the hungry hoboes that made thetown a "hungry" town. They "battered" the back doors of the homes of thecitizens until the back doors became unresponsive.
A hard town for "scoffings," was what the hoboes called it at that time. Iknow that I missed many a meal, in spite of the fact that I could "throwmy 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 theslip and invaded the private car of some itinerant millionnaire. The trainstarted as I made the platform, and I headed for the aforesaidmillionnaire with the porter one jump behind and reaching for me. It was adead heat, for I reached the millionnaire at the same instant that theporter reached me. I had no time for formalities. "Gimme a quarter to eaton," I blurted out. And as I live, that millionnaire dipped into hispocket and gave me ... just ... precisely ... a quarter. It is myconviction that he was so flabbergasted that he obeyed automatically, andit has been a matter of keen regret ever since, on my part, that I didn'task him for a dollar. I know that I'd have got it. I swung off theplatform of that private car with the porter manoeuvring to kick me in theface. He missed me. One is at a terrible disadvantage when trying to