“You will get those guns in Chinatown at different places, one to-morrow morning and one in the evening. You have plenty of time, and the best way to spend it is in taking precautions against trouble. The Chinks are safe to do any kind of business with, buying or selling. They don’t talk. I’ll show you the kind of place to go this evening. The guns you will buy are probably stolen from some pig-iron dump (hardware store) outside of the state, and come into the Chinks’ hands by such devious routes that the numbers are long since lost track of.” The guns and cartridges were duly bought and put away in the safety box with most of our money. The keys we planted about the places where we lived. Our clothes were few and in bad shape. Sanc proposed going to a tailor. “Yes,” I said. “Here’s where one of my ambitions comes to a head. I’m going to have a nice gray suit, gray hat, and a fine leather trunk,” my mind going back to the gray man and his traveled trunk that I worshiped on the depot platform in my little town. It seemed an age since then. “If you dress yourself that way, Kid, we part. Where did you gather that insane notion? A gray suit, gray hat, leather trunk! I suppose you’d have stickers on the trunk so the coppers wouldn’t have to ask you where you were from.” I was silent, ashamed to tell him where I got the notion. “It’s just as I said about the guns; you might wear that rig if you were out hunting burglars, but you wouldn’t get many. Even the ‘dicks’ have too much sense to dress that way. Do you want everybody to look at you? Do you want everybody that looks at you to remember you? You do not. You want as few people to look at you as possible, and you want those few to forget you as soon as possible,” he continued, with emphasis. “What you want is clothes that will not detain the eye for a second. Expensive as you like, and well fitting, but not loud or striking. You want clothes that a man or woman could not describe as blue, brown, or black five minutes after looking at you. You want neutral clothes. Be as positive yourself as you like, but no positive clothes. You’ve got to watch yourself, kid. You know that old maxim, ‘eternal vigilance.’ You’ll have enough trouble come to you naturally and unavoidably—accidents that you cannot foresee—without advertising for it with a loud suit of rags. Ninety-nine men out of a hundred are picked up through some peculiarity of dress and identified by the same. You don’t want any funny hats, either, or loud ties. “You know when you are doing things to people you depend largely on the element of surprise. They do not look at you carefully and memorize your features. They get a fleeting, frightened glance, and you are off. But a red tie, Kid, a glance is enough, and no matter how surprised your party may be he remembers your gray suit, gray hat, or red tie.”