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XIII. Hostages to Momus | O Henry | |
Section I |
Page 1 of 3 |
I never got inside of the legitimate line of graft but once. But, one time, as I say, I reversed the decision of the revised statutes and undertook a thing that I'd have to apologize for even under the New Jersey trust laws. Me and Caligula Polk, of Muskogee in the Creek Nation, was down in the Mexican State of Tamaulipas running a peripatetic lottery and monte game. Now, selling lottery tickets is a government graft in Mexico, just like selling forty-eight cents' worth of postage-stamps for forty-nine cents is over here. So Uncle Porfirio he instructs the /rurales/ to attend to our case. /Rurales/? They're a sort of country police; but don't draw any mental crayon portraits of the worthy constables with a tin star and a gray goatee. The /rurales/--well, if we'd mount our Supreme Court on broncos, arm 'em with Winchesters, and start 'em out after John Doe /et al/., we'd have about the same thing. When the /rurales/ started for us we started for the States. They chased us as far as Matamoras. We hid in a brickyard; and that night we swum the Rio Grande, Caligula with a brick in each hand, absentminded, which he drops upon the soil of Texas, forgetting he had 'em. |
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The Gentle Grafter O Henry |
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