Mr. Scraggs | Page 9

a pocketbook that looked like the wheel
of progress had passed over it, and a little sack of nuggets--that was all.
Them nuggets was the pride of my life. I didn't buy 'em from the
Chinaman that offered, but I come horrible near it. And yet that Chink
had the innocentest face in Utah; he might ha' stood for a picture of
Adam before Eve cast a shadder on his manly brow. I don't recall
anything that's more deceivin' than appearances, yet what in the world's
a man to go by? Well, them nuggets ort to said to me, 'Young man,
beware! Be warier than John H. Devilkins himself! All that's heavy and
yaller is not gold. Sometimes a patient Chinaman, flappin' of the flies
with his pigtail, will industrusly manufacture that same per schedule

out of common, ordinary lead, and, by exercisin' the art of gildin',
almost whip-saw people by the name of Scraggs, if so it hadn't 'a' been
their gardeen angel moved 'em to try a sample with the edge of a knife.'
"Was I warned? Well, I dunno, anyhow, I trotted myself out to the
street to see what this here Metropolus business had to offer different
from just plain St. Looey.
"And I found out. Dear friends and brothers, I wonder have you ever
seen a man reachin', reachin' for a playin'-card layin' prostrate on the
table before him, when his last chip is in the pile, his last cent in the
chip, all manners and kinds of bills comin' due tomorrow, the house to
close in fifteen minutes, and hopin' that card is just one more little
two-spot? Are you familiar with the lines of anggwish on his face?
Well, of all the hullabaloo, skippin', flyin', pushin', haulin', rompin',
tearin', maulin' and scratchin' messes I ever got into, that street was the
worst. At the end of fifteen minutes I had no life in me above my feet,
and they was simply slidin', the one before the other, without any aim
or purpose. I stood on a corner clawin' hunks of fog off my intellect. In
two minutes more I'd ha' yearned for Mrs. Scraggs and Home. I lost all
intention of drawin' sustenance out of the inhabitants, when all of a
suddent up steps one of these brisk, smart,
zippee-zippee-zizoo-ketch-me-if-you-kin young city fellers, the kind of
lu-lu joker to go through a countryman like a lightnin' express through
a tunnel, leavin' nothin' but the hole and a little smoke, and says he, in a
hurry:
"'Sorry to have kept you waitin', Mr. Johnson, but knowin' how much it
meant to both of us, I----Oh, I beg your pardon!' says he; 'I mistook you
for a friend of mine--no offense, I hope?'
"Now, this same person had on a soup-pot hat that looked borrowed,
and he wore his clothes like he used 'em for a hiding-place, but how
was a plain jaybird like me to notice that? I was almighty lonesome, too,
so I told him there weren't no offense at all. Well, he apologized again,
and then he begun to laugh, it was so ridiklus, his mistakin' me for
Johnson, that he'd knew all his life, and he says, 'I'll tell you what I'll do;
we'll step across the street and tone up our systems at my expense,
thereby wipin' out any animosity.' So, of course, rather than be peevish,
I done it. Then I tried to wipe out some animosity, but he wouldn't have
it. Nobody must buy but him. I explained--givin' myself dead

away--that I was a stranger, with nothin' to do but hate myself to death,
and he was defraudin' me of a rightful joy. But no, says he. I might be a
stranger, or I might not. Personally he thought I'd resided some time in
New York City, by my looks; if that was so I knew perfectly well he
was only follerin' the customs of the place, and if I was a stranger it
was up to him to do right by me, anyhow. So we grew one degree
stronger with no cost to Utah. And we stayed there, gettin' powerful as
anything, and kind of confidential, too, till finally he felt called upon to
explain his business with this man Johnson. He took me into a back
room to do it.
"'Mr. Scraggs,' says he, 'there's things betwixt Heaven and Earth that
ain't dreamt of on your velocipede, Horatio.'
"'Ya-a-as,' says I.
"'Sh-h-h,' says he, 'not so loud. Here's the opportunity of a lifetime goin'
on the loose for want of a man. That durn Johnson has lost his golden
show. It's a very strange story,' says he.
"'Ya-a-as,' says I. He looked at me a minute, but Lord! How was a poor
Mormon to hold suspicions? So he