Only a man who has undergone famine can properly value food;only sailors and desert-dwellers know the meaning of fresh water.And only a child,with a child's imagination,can come to know the meaning of things it has been long denied.I early discovered that the only things I could have were those I got for myself.My meagre childhood developed meagreness.The first things I had been able to get for myself had been cigarette pictures,cigarette posters,and cigarette albums.I had not had the spending of the money I earned,so I traded "extra"newspapers for these treasures.I traded duplicates with the other boys,and circulating,as I did,all about town,I had greater opportunities for trading and acquiring.
It was not long before I had complete every series issued by every cigarette manufacturer--such as the Great Race Horses,Parisian Beauties,Women of All Nations,Flags of All Nations,Noted Actors,Champion Prize Fighters,etc.And each series I had three different ways:in the card from the cigarette package,in the poster,and in the album.
Then I began to accumulate duplicate sets,duplicate albums.Itraded for other things that boys valued and which they usually bought with money given them by their parents.Naturally,they did not have the keen sense of values that I had,who was never given money to buy anything.I traded for postage-stamps,for minerals,for curios,for birds'eggs,for marbles (I had a more magnificent collection of agates than I have ever seen any boy possess--and the nucleus of the collection was a handful worth at least three dollars,which I had kept as security for twenty cents I loaned to a messenger-boy who was sent to reform school before he could redeem them).
I'd trade anything and everything for anything else,and turn it over in a dozen more trades until it was transmuted into something that was worth something.I was famous as a trader.I was notorious as a miser.I could even make a junkman weep when I had dealings with him.Other boys called me in to sell for them their collections of bottles,rags,old iron,grain,and gunny-sacks,and five-gallon oil-cans--aye,and gave me a commission for doing it.
And this was the thrifty,close-fisted boy,accustomed to slave at a machine for ten cents an hour,who sat on the stringer-piece and considered the matter of beer at five cents a glass and gone in a moment with nothing to show for it.I was now with men I admired.
I was proud to be with them.Had all my pinching and saving brought me the equivalent of one of the many thrills which had been mine since I came among the oyster pirates?Then what was worth while--money or thrills?These men had no horror of squandering a nickel,or many nickels.They were magnificently careless of money,calling up eight men to drink whisky at ten cents a glass,as French Frank had done.Why,Nelson had just spent sixty cents on beer for the two of us.
Which was it to be?I was aware that I was making a grave decision.I was deciding between money and men,between niggardliness and romance.Either I must throw overboard all my old values of money and look upon it as something to be flung about wastefully,or I must throw overboard my comradeship with these men whose peculiar quirks made them like strong drink.
I retraced my steps up the wharf to the Last Chance,where Nelson still stood outside."Come on and have a beer,"I invited.Again we stood at the bar and drank and talked,but this time it was Iwho paid ten cents!a whole hour of my labour at a machine for a drink of something I didn't want and which tasted rotten.But it wasn't difficult.I had achieved a concept.Money no longer counted.It was comradeship that counted."Have another?"Isaid.And we had another,and I paid for it.Nelson,with the wisdom of the skilled drinker,said to the barkeeper,"Make mine a small one,Johnny."Johnny nodded and gave him a glass that contained only a third as much as the glasses we had been drinking.Yet the charge was the same--five cents.
By this time I was getting nicely jingled,so such extravagance didn't hurt me much.Besides,I was learning.There was more in this buying of drinks than mere quantity.I got my finger on it.
There was a stage when the beer didn't count at all,but just the spirit of comradeship of drinking together.And,ha!--another thing!I,too,could call for small beers and minimise by two-thirds the detestable freightage with which comradeship burdened one.
"I had to go aboard to get some money,"I remarked casually,as we drank,in the hope Nelson would take it as an explanation of why Ihad let him treat six consecutive times.
"Oh,well,you didn't have to do that,"he answered."Johnny'll trust a fellow like you--won't you,Johnny!""Sure,"Johnny agreed,with a smile.
"How much you got down against me?"Nelson queried.
Johnny pulled out the book he kept behind the bar,found Nelson's page,and added up the account of several dollars.At once Ibecame possessed with a desire to have a page in that book.
Almost it seemed the final badge of manhood.