But over all rose the nasal cadence of the Cheap John, reeking oratory
from his big wagon on the corner: "Walk up, walk up, walk up, ladies and
gents! Here we are! Here we are! Make hay while we gather the moss. Walk
up, one and all. Here I put this solid gold ring, sumptuous and golden,
eighteen carats, eighteen golden carats of the priceless mother of metals,
toiled fer on the wild Pacific slope, eighteen garnteed, I put this golden
ring, rich and golden, in the package with the hangkacheef, the elegant
and blue-ruled note-paper, self-writing pens, pencil and penholder. Who
takes the lot? Who takes it, ladies and gents?"
His tongue curled about his words; he seemed to love them. "Fer a quat-of-
a-dollah! Don't turn away, young man--you feller in the green necktie,
there. We all see the young lady on your arm is a-langrishing fer the
golden ring and the package. Faint heart never won fair wummin'. There you
are, sir, and you'll never regret it. Go--and be happy! Now, who's the
next man to git solid with his girl fer a quat-of-a-dollah? Life is a
mysterus and unviolable shadder, my friends; who kin read its orgeries?
To-day we are here--but to-morrow we may be in jail. Only a quat-of-a-
dollah! We are Seventh-Day Adventists, ladies and gents, a-givin' away our
belongings in the awful face of Michael, fer a quat-of-a-dollah. The same
price fer each-an-devery individual, lady and gent, man, wummin, wife and
child, and happiness to one and all fer a quat-of-a-dollah!"
Down the middle of the street, kept open between the waiting crowd, ran
barefoot boys, many of whom had not slept at home, but had kept vigil in
the night mists for the coming of the show, and, having seen the muffled
pageant arrive, swathed, and with no pomp and panoply, had returned to
town, rioting through jewelled cobwebs in the morning fields, happy in the
pride of knowledge of what went on behind the scenes. To-night, or
to-morrow, the runaways would face a woodshed reckoning with outraged
ancestry; but now they caracoled in the dust with no thought of the grim
deeds to be done upon them.
In the court-house yard, and so sinning in the very eye of the law, two
swarthy, shifty-looking gentlemen were operating (with some greasy walnut
shells and a pea) what the fanciful or unsophisticated might have been
pleased to call a game of chance; and the most intent spectator of the
group around them was Mr. James Bardlock, the Town Marshal. He was simply
and unofficially and earnestly interested. Thus the eye of Justice may not
be said to have winked upon the nefariousness now under its vision; it
gazed with strong curiosity, an itch to dabble, and (it must be admitted)
a growing hope of profit. The game was so direct and the player so sure.
Several countrymen had won small sums, and one, a charmingly rustic
stranger, with a peculiar accent (he said that him and his goil should now
have a smoot' old time off his winninks--though the lady was not
manifested), had won twenty-five dollars with no trouble at all. The two
operators seemed depressed, declaring the luck against them and the
Plattville people too brilliant at the game.