When I am flush I know them places.
"I declare, I must have looked as bad as a magazine artist sitting there
without any money and my hair all rumpled like I was booked to read a
chapter from 'Elsie's School Days' at a Brooklyn Bohemian smoker. But
Vaucross treated me like a bear hunter's guide. He wasn't afraid of
hurting the waiter's feelings.
"'Mr. Pogue,' he explains to me, 'I am using you.'
"'Go on,' says I; 'I hope you don't wake up.'
"And then he tells me, you know, the kind of man he was. He was a
New Yorker. His whole ambition was to be noticed. He wanted to be
conspicuous. He wanted people to point him out and bow to him, and tell
others who he was. He said it had been the desire of his life always. He
didn't have but a million, so he couldn't attract attention by spending
money. He said he tried to get into public notice one time by planting
a little public square on the east side with garlic for free use of
the poor; but Carnegie heard of it, and covered it over at once with a
library in the Gaelic language. Three times he had jumped in the way of
automobiles; but the only result was five broken ribs and a notice in
the papers that an unknown man, five feet ten, with four amalgam-filled
teeth, supposed to be the last of the famous Red Leary gang had been run
over.
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