Custer weekly chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, S.D.) 1890-1931, 1903-04-25

/ never see q fellow trying to craw
or to buy his way into society that ]
don't think OF my old friend Hank
Smith and his wife Kate-Kate Bolts
she vas before he married her-and
how they tried to butt their way
through the upper crust.
Hank and I were boys together in
Missouri. and he stayed along in the
old town after / left. / heard of him
on and Off as tending store a little, and
Warming q little. and loafing a good
deal. Then / forgot all about him un-
I'll one day q few years ago when he
turned up In the papers as Captain
Henry Smith, the Klondike Gold King.
just back from Circle City, with a mil
lion In dust and anything you please in
claims. There's never any limit TO
what a miner may be worth In those,
except his imagination.
! was q little puzzled when, q week
later, my office boy brought me a card
reading Colonel Henry Augustus
Bottes-Smythe, but l supposed 1t was
some distinguished foreigner who had
come to size me up so that he could
round out his roast on Chicago In his
new book, inc / told the boy to show
the general in.
I've got a pretty good IN for
faces, and I'd bought too much store
plug for Ham In my time not to know
him, even with q clean shave and a
plug hat. Some men dry up with sue
cess. but It was just spouting out Of
Hank. Told me he'd mad his pile and
that he was tired OF living on the Stag
heap; that he'd spent his whole life
where money was hardly whispered.
let alone talked. and he was going now
where 1t would shout. Wanted to know
what was the use Of being q mob II a
fellow wasn't the nobbiest sort of a
mob. Said he'd bought a house on Bea-
con Hill in Boston. and that II I'd
prick up my ears occasionally I'd hear
something drop into the Back Bay.
Handed me his new card four times
and explained that 1t was the rawest
sort Of dog to carry a brace OF names
In your card holster; that IT gave you
the drop On the swells every time, and
that they just had to throw up both
hands n pass you the pot when you
showed down. Said that Bottles was
the old English for Bolts, and that
Smythe was new American for Smith;
the Augustus was just a fancy touch, a
sort OF high-card kicker.
i didn't explain to Hank, because 1t
was congratulations and not explana-
tons that he wanted, and / max 1t a
point to show a customer the line of
goods that he's looking for. And / new
or heard the full particulars OF his ex-'
periences In the east, though, from
what I learned afterward, Hank struck
Boston with a bang, all right.
He located his claim on Beacon hill,
between a Maylower descendant and a
declaration signer's great-grandson,
breeds which believe that when the
Lord made them He was through, n
that the rest of US just happened. And
he hadn't been in town two hours be-
fore he started in to make improve
ments. There was a high wrought-iron
railing In front Of his house, and he
had that gilded first thing. because, as
he said, he wasn't running a receiving
vault and he didn't want any mistakes.
Then he bought a nice. open barouche,
had the wheels painted red, hired a
Niger coachman and started out in
style to be sociab!e aud get acquainted.
Left his card all the way down one
side of Beacon street, n then drove
back, leaving 1t on the other. Every
where he stopped he found that the
whole family was out. Kept 1t up a
week, on and Off. but didn't seem TO
have any luck. Thought the men must
be hot sports and the ONE great
gadders to KEEP on the jump so much.