The enrolment
for voting comes too late. By that time he may have joined the
looters' army.
So as properly to take my own place in the procession, if not in
the army referred to, as I conceived the custom of the country to
be, I made it my first business to buy a navy revolver of the largest
size, investing in the purchase exactly one-half of my capital. I
strapped the weapon on the outside of my coat and strode up Broadway,
conscious that I was following the fashion of the country. I knew
it upon the authority of a man who had been there before me and had
returned, a gold digger in the early days of California; but America
was America to us. We knew no distinction of West and East. By
rights there ought to have been buffaloes and red Indians charging
up and down Broadway. I am sorry to say that it is easier even
to-day to make lots of people over there believe that, than that
New York is paved, and lighted with electric lights, and quite as
civilized as Copenhagen. They will have it that it is in the wilds.
I saw none of the signs of this, but I encountered a friendly
policeman, who, sizing me and my pistol up, tapped it gently with
his club and advised me to leave it home, or I might get robbed of
it.
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