Great moments, these, for me, my head filled with all the wild and valiant fighting of the gallant adventurers on sea and land.

There were no big moments when I trudged along the street throwing my papers in at doors.
But in the saloons, even the sots, stupefied, sprawling across the tables or in the sawdust, were objects of mystery and wonder.
And more, the saloons were right.

The city fathers sanctioned them and licensed them.

They were not the terrible places I heard boys deem them who lacked my opportunities to know.

Terrible they might be, but then that only meant they were terribly wonderful, and it is the terribly wonderful that a boy desires to know.