'You oughter not allow
them ornery folks to do you. If you'd cultivate the habit of lettin'
every gent go a-foot till he can buy a hoss, you'd clean up for a
heap more at the end of the week. Now this ingrate whose hand you
stiffens ain't buyin' nothin' but nose-paint tharwith.'
"'Which the same plants no regrets with me,' says Cherokee, all
careless an' indifferent. 'If this person is sufferin' for whiskey
worse'n he's sufferin' for bread, let him loose with the whiskey.
The money's his. When I gives a gent a stake, thar's nothin' held
back. I don't go playin' the despot as to how he blows it. If this
yere party I relieves wants whiskey an' is buyin' whiskey, I
approves his play. If I've a weakness at all, it's for seein' folks
fetterless an' free.'
"While holdin' Cherokee's views erroneous, so far as he seeks to
apply 'em to paupers tankin' up on donations, still I allows it's
dealin' faro which has sp'iled him; an' as you can't make no gent
over new, I quits an' don't buck his notions about dispensin'
charity no more. "Thar's times when this yere Cherokee Hall caroms
on a gent who's high-strung that a-way, an' won't take no donations;
which this yere sport may be plenty needy to the p'int of perishin',
too.
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