"She does punish me somethin' cruel!" I says. "By invitin' _you_ up every day!" And then of course all bets was off and we all went over the top again! In about an hour, the people in the next flat had enough, and mentioned the fact to the landlord. He let us in on it by way of the phone, and all was quiet along the Hudson again. "I come up here to-night to tell you somethin'," says Alex. "They's always the United States mail," I says. "I ain't talkin' to you, I'm speakin' to Cousin Alice!" snarls Alex. "She can read too!" I says. "I been thinkin' this here thing over for weeks," he goes on, turnin' his chair so's I can get a good view of his back, "and I made up my mind to-day to go ahead with it." "What is it, Alex?" asks the wife, all excited. "I know it's goin' to be somethin' wonderful!" "You ain't gonna tell me you're gonna stop eatin' here, are you?" I says. "Because if you are, I'm gonna beat it! I heard tell of guys dyin' of joy and I ain't takin' no chances!" "The whole trouble with you," says Alex, "is a simple case of jealousy. You was born and brung up in this rube burg called New York and the best you could do in thirty-five years was to get yourself foreman of a baseball team! I--" "Yeh!" I butts in. "I fell down the same as Caruso. All he can do is sing!" "I come here from Vermont," goes on Alex, now on his favorite subject, "and right off the reel I get me a ten thousand a year job, not countin' commissions, sellin' autos. Now I claim that what _I_ did in New York can be done by anybody--and I'm here to prove it! It's just as easy to be a roarin' success in New York as it is in Paterson, N. J.--and just as hard! There's many a Charlie Chaplin sellin' groceries and many a Theodore Roosevelt carryin' bricks! In their off hours and in the privacy of their homes, them fellers is doin' for _nothin'_, what Chaplin, Roosevelt, Dempsey and so forth got _paid off_ on! If a man's a gambler, for instance, and he bets on a race horse, the chances are he stays up all night lookin' up the past performances of that horse and seein' just what he can do under all conditions. He studies how the horse finished on a muddy track and where he come in when the track was fast. He makes note of what the horse did under different weights and different jockeys. He watches what it does against certain other horses. Then when he thinks everything is favorable, he bets his money! He--" "Look here, Alex!" I butts in. "Did you come all the way up here to-night to lay me on a horse race?"