Page:The Country Boy.djvu/155

Rh had paid out my last dollar for two of the spunkiest gamecocks I ever saw. One of them would keep a man busy, while two kept me up night and day, and threatened me with insanity, or something worse. I happened to recall that my friend the publisher, as the train pulled out of Portland, had yelled to me something like this: “If you get broke down there, draw on me.” So I went to a bank and told the cashier I wanted to draw on Ben Watson of Portland, Oregon, for $50. “Well,” said the cashier, “where is your identification?” “Who?” I said. “Where are your letters of credit; who identifies you?” “Oh, no one; I don’t know anyone in New Orleans but Jack Dempsey, and he is confined to his room.” All of my friends, the sports, had left for home while I was walking the back streets with a rooster under each arm.

“Well,” said the cashier, “why don’t you draw on him for $500? It will be just as easy as drawing on him for $50, if you don’t know anyone here, and have no letters of credit, not even a letter of introduction; I’d draw on him for $5,000, if I could find a cashier that was right. The best thing you can do is to step out