"Now look a-here," said the Kid, "I bin good and bad by turns till I don't know which side is top side. But this minute I'm good--d'you get me? If you want to jail me you kin do it, nobody easier; but don't do it! You was always a bigger man than me, and when you led I followed--for a real man had rather follow a strong bad man than a good slob any day. You out of the lead, I got nothing to follow but me own wishes, and they're all to the good these days." "A woman?" said Blizzard sternly. "She ain't a woman yet," said the Kid, "and she ain't a kid--she's about half-past girl o'clock, and she thinks there's no better man in the United States than always truly yours, Kid Shannon. I got a good saloon business, and nothing crooked on hand but what's past and done with, and I looks to you to give a fellow a chance. Do I get it? Jail ain't goin' to help me, and it would break her. Look here, sport: I _want_ to be good." "Kid," said Blizzard, "no man that _wants_ to be good need be afraid of me. You'd have been a good boy always--if it hadn't been for me. _I_ know that as well as you. I've got the past all written down in my head. I can't rub it out. But any man that's got the nerve can put new writing across and across the old, until the old can't be read, or if it could would read like a joke. You can tell whomsoever it concerns to do well and fear nothing. At first I thought to tell Lichtenstein every first and last thing that I knew about this city, and he tried to make me tell. We had a meeting, Old Abe and I did. I was always afraid of the little Jew, Kid. Well, face to face, I wasn't. He talked, and I talked. And I was the stronger. He lets me go scot-free, and I don't tell anything. If others get you for what you've done, it can't be helped. But none of you'll be got through me. The past is buried; but if in the future any of you fellows start anything, and I hear of it--look out" Kid Shannon wriggled uncomfortably. "Say," he said, "what changed you?" "I'm not changed," said Blizzard; "according to Dr. Ferris I'm just acting natural. I was a good boy. I had a fracture of the skull. The bone pressed on my gray matter and made me a bad man. I'll tell you a funny thing: _I can't beat the box any more!_ I had a go at it the other day, the missus all ready to work the pedals, and Lord help me there was no more music in my head or my fingers than there is in the liver of a frog. It was the same when I was a two-legged little kid--no music." "Are you going to close the old diggings?" Blizzard shook his head. "Yes and no. I'm going to pull down the old rookery; and I'm going to put up in its place a model factory." "Hats?"