University of Virginia Library

1. I

I like dollars same as I like race-horses," the saleslady behind the hotel cigar-counter explained. "I like 'em when they're movin', an' furnishin' some excitement to the onlookers. A race-horse packed in a can don't make anybody's heart beat faster, does it? No! Well, a dollar buried for life in a bank is my idea of nothing useful.

"It's all right to put a race-horse in his stall now an' then, to let him get his growth, or recover his wind for the next heat. But they only bed a racehorse down in a nice pile of well-combed straw so that he can show more speed when they take him out again. It's perfectly all right to bed a dollar down in the bank once in a while, to let it grow a few cents an' get its breath back; but, man, don't forget where you put the poor thing.

"A dollar is one of the best little friends I know of, if you just give it a chance; but you can't hide it away in the dark forever, like as if you was ashamed to be seen with it, an' then expect it to sit up on its hind legs an' make you laugh when you feel blue, can you? What? No! Take it out an' pal around with it now an' then. Give it the air. Let it run for you before it's too late. A horse won't go for you after it's dead, an' a dollar won't go for you after you're dead.

"Buh-lieve me, no! You may be able to come back an' haunt your wife if she marries somebody you never did like; but after they pull off the parade that you only go one way with, you can't startle a dollar! You can mail it a low moan of anguish in your astral envelope, but you can't make it hop over the counter and come back disguised as six bits and a good cigar. Not after the undertaker's cashed in his percentage on you, you can't! A dollar ain't superstitious. It don't believe in spooks.

"If a dollar's your best friend, don't give it life imprisonment without a fair trial. Money talks; listen to what it says, an' do it justice. Don't ever get the habit.

"What habit? Why, the economy habit. It's deadly. It's worse than drugs, or whisky, or even purple socks. A cocain fiend may be cured till he's so sick of the drug that he has to take to his bed when the snow falls, but a habitual tightwad will never come loose.

"It's an awful habit. It sneaks up on a man so! Some good guy with a flap to his pocket that opens both ways starts in economizin' to buy somethin' he

wants. Before he knows it, he gets the habit, an' by the time he's got enough laid by to pay for what he wants — he don't want it. He couldn't buy it, if he did. The habit's sapped his will-power till his hands won't behave any better'n a drunken man's legs. He can put them in his pockets for safety's sake when company's present, but he can't get 'em out. He can pick up a dollar, but he can't lay it down. The habit's got him, an' he can't break it.

"Oh, it's awful to watch one o' these economical knots tryin' to untie itself! It can't be done. They'll get a few dollars' worth of snarl untangled after a terrible struggle, an' then, all of a sudden, they'll wind up again in a fancy design so close-knit that if two-bit pieces were the size of a flea's eye, the Indian penny couldn't get his nose through the cracks to breathe. Economy's an acquired habit with most of us — like olives an' grand opera; but once you get it — curtain! You'll never be able to spend any money for fun, 'cause it's no fun for an economy victim to spend money. An' it's a habit you'll never break away from. You may stray, but you'll always go back to it.

"Did you know Henry Wiggins, that used to live here in the hotel? No? He was a long, lean, solemn squizzle from somewhere in New England. He always looked as if he'd just read a telegram that was as bad as he thought it was before be opened it.

"He had a lot of money, but he didn't feel good about it. He never thought about how much he had; all he could think about was how much there was in the world that he didn't have. If he'd ever managed to get it all, he'd have felt still worse because there wasn't any more to get. He invested out here in real estate and timber. He was the same to a dollar as a curly-haired leadin' man to a matinee girl. He couldn't get away from it if he tried — an' he never tried!

"He had a good character, 'cause a bad one was expensive. His lips never touched liquor, 'cause liquor costs money, an' the dollar that touched him never touched nobody else! Buh-lieve me, no! The only thing money ever said to him was `Hello!' After he got done greeting it, it never spoke again.

"How he did hate a nickel! He hated it for not bein' a dime. Why, the man had chronic indigestion just from worryin' over what his food cost him, while he ate. He couldn't get any peace in his sleep, because he had to pay rent for the room he snored in, an' before he went anywheres he'd sit down an' do a sum to decide whether to walk or to ride. If he found out that the wear an' tear on shoe-leather an' the loss of his time totaled up less than the fare, he'd walk.

"It was kind o' pitiful about Henry, at that. He honestly thought that each time he black-jacked a dollar an' laid it away on the ice, he'd had a real good time; but he hadn't. He didn't get any real fun out of it. He thought he did, but he had a nagging suspicion all the time that in some way he was short-changing himself; an' it preyed on his mind. He thought he'd found a way to beat the grand average of human happiness without contributin' to it; an' yet away down deep inside of himself he knew he hadn't.

"He knew he was wrong, so he spent most of his spare time tellin' people how right he was. Ain't that always the way? If a guy's right, he don't bother spreadin' the news; but if he's wrong, he'll pay space rates for a chance to say that he ain't. A guilty conscience is a regular phonograph with a perpetual-motion attachment, an' a good title for the one tone it plays would be: `I Ain't What I Know I Am.' Ain't it so?