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.