Now it is no snap to strike a strange town, broke, at midnight, in cold weather, and find a place to sleep.  The Swede hadn’t a penny.  My total assets consisted of two dimes and a nickel.  From some of the town boys we learned that beer was five cents, and that the saloons kept open all night.  There was our meat.  Two glasses of beer would cost ten cents, there would be a stove and chairs, and we could sleep it out till morning.  We headed for the lights of a saloon, walking briskly, the snow crunching under our feet, a chill little wind blowing through us.

Alas, I had misunderstood the town boys.  Beer was five cents in one saloon only in the whole burg, and we didn’t strike that saloon.  But the one we entered was all right.  A blessed stove was roaring white-hot; there were cosey, cane-bottomed arm-chairs, and a none-too-pleasant-looking barkeeper who glared suspiciously at us as we came in.  A man cannot spend continuous days and nights in his clothes, beating trains, fighting soot and cinders, and sleeping anywhere, and maintain a good “front.”  Our fronts were decidedly against us; but what did we care?  I had the price in my jeans.

“Two beers,” said I nonchalantly to the barkeeper, and while he drew them, the Swede and I leaned against the bar and yearned secretly for the arm-chairs by the stove.

The barkeeper set the two foaming glasses before us, and with pride I deposited the ten cents.  Now I was dead game.  As soon as I learned my error in the price I’d have dug up another ten cents.  Never mind if it did leave me only a nickel to my name, a stranger in a strange land.  I’d have paid it all right.  But that barkeeper never gave me a chance.  As soon as his eyes spotted the dime I had laid down, he seized the two glasses, one in each hand, and dumped the beer into the sink behind the bar.  At the same time, glaring at us malevolently, he said:—­

“You’ve got scabs on your nose.  You’ve got scabs on your nose.  You’ve got scabs on your nose.  See!”

I hadn’t either, and neither had the Swede.  Our noses were all right.  The direct bearing of his words was beyond our comprehension, but the indirect bearing was clear as print:  he didn’t like our looks, and beer was evidently ten cents a glass.

I dug down and laid another dime on the bar, remarking carelessly, “Oh, I thought this was a five-cent joint.”

“Your money’s no good here,” he answered, shoving the two dimes across the bar to me.

Sadly I dropped them back into my pocket, sadly we yearned toward the blessed stove and the arm-chairs, and sadly we went out the door into the frosty night.

But as we went out the door, the barkeeper, still glaring, called after us, “You’ve got scabs on your nose, see!”

I have seen much of the world since then, journeyed among strange lands and peoples, opened many books, sat in many lecture-halls; but to this day, though I have pondered long and deep, I have been unable to divine the meaning in the cryptic utterance of that barkeeper in Evanston, Wyoming.  Our noses were all right.