Rensselaer Republican, Volume 13, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 October 1880 — How Mean a Man Can Be. [ARTICLE]

How Mean a Man Can Be.

“Speaking of gall,” remarked a printer in a Nevada beer-saloon, “talking of solid cheek, I never saw a man who hadmore of it than Pete BHvens, of Kansai City. Three of us used to room together there in 1672. One night in July—it was so hot that if you’d chuck water on the side of a house it would sizz like so ranch hot iron—we concluded to go down and sleep on one of tlie timber rafts on the river. Well, we got on tlie rafts with onr blankets. Just before tnrniag in Pete Blivens said he guessed he’d coel off by taking a swim. I knew the current would snatch him right under, btrt didn’t want t<o give him any advice, and lie dived off the end of the raft. Tlie undertow caught and. sent him put of sight in about three sfccoifdv. As* soon as we saw tliat he was drowned and the other chap went for hia ects. We found $8.50 in his ]«nts pocket and au old watch. We took ’em up town and soaked the clothes for Sff, and sold the watch for sl2. Then W«. went ’round town on a sort of a jamboree and spent the money. About five o'clock in the morning we were drinking np the last dollar with some of the hoys at the Blue Corner, when who Bhould walk in but Pete himself iu an old suit of clothes that he’d borrowed of a man, three ihiles down the river. And hang me if he didn’t demand his clothes, and the next day he was ’round dunning us for the paltiy sum of $8,50. The gall of some men’s enough to paralyze a Louisiana alligator. ...