An' would you believe it, her mother was the little Maggie I used to know away back yonder in the kid days when all the world was just like a big, bulgey Christmas-stocking. She had married a good man, an' had come out to the coast with him on account of his health, an' he had flickered out without leavin' her much but a stack o' doctor's bills an' little Maggie. She had struggled along ever since, an' it made my heart ache like a tooth to see the sweetness an' the beauty o' the little girl I used to know come to the eyes o' this poor tired woman an' smile--smile the same old smile like what she used to when I'd given her an apple, or when she'd written me a little note an' sneaked it across the aisle. Well, I didn't stay long. I had a special swell function to attend that night, but next mornin', when the Turkish-bath man was willin' to risk the peace o' that locality by turnin' me loose, I gathered up a peck or so o' watches an' cashed 'em in. I reckon I got beat some; but anyhow, I drew down somethin' over sixteen hundred in yeller money; an' I took them two Maggies down to the train an' shipped 'em back where the little one would have a chance to grow up like a flower, with plenty o' green grass an' sunshine about her, an' the mother could put on a clean dress afternoons an' visit 'round a little with the friends o' long ago. After they was gone everything seemed mighty gloomy an' damp an' lonesome, an' I entered into the social festivities most enthusiastic. The' was somethin' about both these two Maggies that kept bringin' Barbie before me, an' what I felt most like doin' was to bolster up my forgetfulness. It wasn't very long, however, before I noticed that my quiet an' simple life hadn't in nowise fitted me for refined society, an' I made my plans to bid it a fond farewell. I'm just as cordial a friend as whiskey ever had; but my con science rebels at floodin' my vital organs with seventeen different colored wines at one meal. I've been infested with pink elephants an' green dragons an' I never com plained none; but hang me if I can get any comfort out of a striped yellow spider ten feet high on horrid hairy legs. I was sittin' in the Palace lobby one mornin' wonderin' if I'd bump my head should I happen to sneeze, when in come one o' my pals. His face lit up when he see me an' he came over holdin' out his hand. I held out my own hearty enough; but I sez in a warnin' voice, "Now, before you ask me the customary question I want to inform you that I positively don't want a drink, neither now nor this evenin', nor never again." "Pshaw," sez he, "I'm goin' to pull out for home to day, an' I don't want to go without a farewell libation to the good times we've been havin'." "I'm goin' to pull out, myself," sez I, "but I went on my farewell libation last night. Where might your home be?" "Texas," sez he. I straightened up. "Know the governor?" sez I. "Some," sez he, his eyes twinklin'; "he was my sister's youngest brother."