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Show Passing of a Smart Guy M M. 0 m u Mysterious Mr. Sanders By DAMON RUNYON. New York, June 27, 191S. I AM READING in the paper from my old town the other day about how a guy by the name of Nibs Sanders knocks off, which is a way of saying he dies, and I am sorry to hear it, because he is an old sidekick of mine, and the smartest guy I ever knew. The paper says he kuocks off of something which tbe croakers cannot figure out, but I can tell them what it is, if they want to know very bad. It is broken heart, which is coming on Nibs for ten years, or ever since the time he makes his trip east. When 1 am a young squirt around my old home town, it is well known to one and all that this Nibs Sanders can out-smart anybody in our part of the country, being a natural born smart guy. He is raised right there in our town, his father being old Joe Sanders, who runs the feed store, and even when Nibs is only knee-high to a bullfrog he is around out-smarting people. The first I see of him, he is doing pretty good for himself by copping gunny1 sacks out of the back room of his old man's store and giving them to the rest of the lads to sell back to the old man. A gunny sack in those days sells for a nickel, and Nibs gives the lads a cent apiece on the sacks' for peddling them, so we do pretty good ourselves, if we cop enough sacks. One thing this Nibs will never do, and that is go to school. He says guys do not have to go to school to learn anything, and a nice old dame by the name of Miss Lucy Gilfeather, who is the principal of the schools in our town, is always al-ways running around to see Nibs's old man with a terrible squawk about Nibs's doiDgs. It docs not do Nibs's old man any good to try to make him go to school, because Nibs can out-sm;irt him in every way, and Miss Lucy Gilfeather says it is a bad example to all the other young squirts in the school. It is not a bad example to mo, because I try it once, and, not being able to out-smart my old man, I get a terrible pasting. Nibs Is Town's Biggest Sport. WELL, when he gets older, this Nibs takes to hanging around Bull Pottinger 's pool room, and it is no time before he is the best pool player in our town, and after awhile the best short-card player, being just naturally born smart ! that way. He is a good-looking guy, too, and gabby, and always wears what is latest in clothes, and so every dame in town is daffy about him, but Nibs does not have much .time for dames. He loves to stand on the corner of an afternoon, and see them go by, and make cracks about them, like everybody else, but he never falls for one dame, which shows how smart he is. , Furthermore, this Nibs is a gambling fool. He has opinions on everything, but he is always ready to back up his opinions with his dough. He will bet you higher than a cat's back on a fight, or a foot race, or on just spitting at a crack, and nobody ever beats him out of much coin at betting, because he just naturallv out-smarts everybody. Pretty soon he is a sort of official town sport in our town, on account of knowing so much about everything that is doing in a sporting wav, and guys look up' to him and let him decide arguments, and hold bets, and all such as that. Everybody says he has a wonderful tuture on account of being so smart. Well," one dav Nibs's old man knocks off. and that gives Nibs a real taw because the old man leaves him the feed store, which Nibs sells right away, being too smart a guv to monkey with any feed business. He slavs around town awhile, buying drinks for the lads, and staking broke oiivs, and all such as that, and then he decides to do some traveling, on account of "our town being too small for a guy with his talents, and dough. He says ho (Continued on Page Four.) PASSING OF A SMART GUY (Continued from Page One.) thinks he will go east, and show those eastern neckyokes some speed, and, the chances are, snatch a little dough away from the boys back there if tney win bet him enough to make it worth while. He Takes Crack at the East. HE BUYS himself a big diamond stud, and a big diamond ring off of Sam Bernstein, the hock shop guy, and a lot of new clothes off of Moe Lehman, and ho starts out, and I can remember yet how sorry some of us are feeling for those eastern guys when Nibs gets among them, because we know he is bound to out-smart them at anything they start. . , ' Well, that's the last I see of Nibs for several weeks, but one night when 1 am going home I run into him down bv hte Union depot, and he looks very tough. He certainly looks tough. He does not have on enough clothes to pad a crutch, and is dirty, and ornery looking generally. Afterwards I hear he deck's it in ou No. 9 on the Mo Pac, which is a way of saying he comes in on top of a passenger coach, but of course I never ask anv how he comes in, especially a guy as smart as Nibs Saikljrs. I talk to him a minute, and he tells me he has a little tough luck down tho line, and wants to know if 1 can stake him to a couple of bucks, which, of course, T. do. He never tells me what comes off, and he never tells anybody else in our town, either. We do a lot of guessing among ourselves, of course, but Nibs hardly ever says a word to any of us again. I'rom a gabby guy he changes into a guy who docs not say three lines a week, and from an all-around sport he turns into a sort of a sanctimonious bird, going about pulling a long puss, and never taking a drink, so naturally none of us see much of him anv more. Furthermore, he gets himself a job in his father's old feed store, which is now run by a guy with whiskers, by the name of Hodkius, and the next thing anybody knows this Nibs also hauls off and marries Miss Lucia Gilfeather, who is old enough to be. his mother by this time, and a terrible crow for looks, but good-hearted, and all such as that. His Secret Is Out at Last. WELL, for several years after that J used to see poor old Nibs going home from work of an evening about the time the lads aro commencing to gather in front of Pottiuger's, ready to rib up a game of sluff or to take part in anything else which may be doing, and I can see then by his looks that his heart is breaking from something, although, of course, I do not know what it is. - Theu I go away and do not hear anything more of him for six or seven vears, when T sec an item in t-he home town paper about him having a stroke of some kind while chasing his eldest son, Luther, up an alley, because the kid is trying to play hookey from primary school, so I judge that Nibs's heart is slowly giviug away. ' All this time, understand, nobody knows what it is which causes such a change in Nibs, but finally, about two years ago, I got the low down from a sporting man from St. Louis, who remembers the circumstances well. I never crack it to anybody, and I will not be cracking it to anybody now if Nibs does not knock off. This sporting man tells me that Nibs stops over in St. Louis on his way east, and loses ajl his dough betting that St. Louis is the biggest town in the world. |