In the
West a sucker is born every minute; but in New York they appear in
chunks of roe--you can't count 'em!"
Two years afterward I found that I couldn't remember the names of the
Russian admirals, and I noticed some gray hairs over my left ear; so I
knew the time had arrived for me to take Silver's advice.
I struck New York about noon one day, and took a walk up Broadway. And
I run against Silver himself, all encompassed up in a spacious kind of
haberdashery, leaning against a hotel and rubbing the half-moons on his
nails with a silk handkerchief.
"Paresis or superannuated?" I asks him.
"Hello, Billy," says Silver; "I'm glad to see you. Yes, it seemed to me
that the West was accumulating a little too much wiseness. I've been
saving New York for dessert. I know it's a low-down trick to take things
from these people. They only know this and that and pass to and fro and
think ever and anon. I'd hate for my mother to know I was skinning these
weak-minded ones. She raised me better."
"Is there a crush already in the waiting rooms of the old doctor that
does skin grafting?" I asks.
"Well, no," says Silver; "you needn't back Epidermis to win to-day.
I've only been here a month.
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