"Seems to me this way: I ain't cut out for society as it is organised. I do all right in a town until the piano begins to get respectable and the rules of order are tucked snugly inside the decalogue, then I slip my belt, and my running gear doesn't track. I get a few grand and noble thoughts, freeze to 'em, and later find that the hereditary appurtenances thereunto appertaining are private property of someone else, and there is nothing for me to do but to stand a lawsuit or vanish. I have had bad luck, lost my money, lost my friends, lost my conscience, lost everything, pretty near"--and here he turned his watery eyes on his friend with a saw-toothed smile and shook his depleted abdomen, that had been worn off climbing many hills--"I've lost everything, pretty near, but my vermiform appendix and my table of contents, and as like as not I'll find some feller's got them copyrighted." He heaved a great sigh and resumed, "I suppose I could 'a' stood it all well enough if I had just had some sort of faith, some religious consolation, some creed, or god, or something." He sighed again, and then leered up: "But, you know--I'm so damned skeptic!" Last spring, according to the Boise, Idaho, papers, "Governor" Balderson and two other old soldiers celebrated Memorial Day in Roosevelt. They got a muslin flag as big as the flap of a shirt, from heaven knows where, and in the streets of Roosevelt they hoisted this flag on the highest pine pole in all the Salmon River Mountains. There were elaborate ceremonies, and to the miners and gamblers and keepers of wildcat mines in the mountains assembled, "Governor" Balderson told eloquently of the Battle of Look Out Mountain. And Colonel Morrison who read the account smiled appreciatively and pointed out to us the exact stage in the proceedings where Balderson demanded to know who carried the flag. There was long and tumultuous applause at the climax. We also read in the Boise papers that at the fall election in Roosevelt they made Balderson justice of the peace, which, as Colonel Morrison explained, was a purely honorary office in a community where every man is his own court and constable and jury and judge; but the Colonel said that Balderson was proud of official distinction, and probably levied mild tribute from the people who indulged in riotous living, by compelling them to buy drink-checks redeemable only at his department store.