When I
was a child there used to be certain games at which it was agreed
in beginning either that there should be cheating or that there
should not.
It may be said that out there in the Western States,
men agree to play the cheating game; and that the cheating game has
more of interest in it than the other. Unfortunately, however,
they who agree to play this game on a large scale do not keep
outsiders altogether out of the playground. Indeed, outsiders
become very welcome to them; and then it is not pleasant to hear
the tone in which such outsiders speak of the peculiarities of the
sport to which they have been introduced. When a beginner in trade
finds himself furnished with a barrel of wooden nutmegs, the joke
is not so good to him as to the experienced merchant who supplies
him. This dealing in wooden nutmegs, this selling of things which
do not exist, and buying of goods for which no price is ever to be
given, is an institution which is much honored in the West. We
call it swindling - and so do they. But it seemed to me that in the
Western States the word hardly seemed to leave the same impress on
the mind that it does elsewhere.
On our return down the river we passed La Crosse, at which we had
embarked, and went down as far as Dubuque in Iowa. On our way down
we came to grief and broke one of our paddle-wheels to pieces.
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