Riley's Autobiography

              Riley's Autobiobraphy.  The Hoosier Poet Supplies an Omaha Man with a Sketch of His Life.  (Letter in Omaha World.)  You ask me for my life, but I'd rather give you my money.  But I was thirty-one years old last spring was a year ago.  I am a blonde of fiar complexion, with an almost ungovernable appetite for brunettes; am five feet six in height, though last State fair I was considerable higher than that--in fact, I was many times taken for Old High Lonesome as I went about my daily walk. I am a house, sign and ornamental painter by trade, graining, marking, gilding, etching, etc.  Used to make lots of money, but never had any on hand.  It all evaporated in some mysterious way.  My standard weight is 135, and when I am placed in solitary confinement for life I will eat onions passionately.  Birds seed I never touch.  "My father is a lawyer and lured me  into his office once for a three months' penance, but I made good my escape, and under cover of the friendly night, I fled up the pike concert wagon and had a good time for two or three of the happpiest with a patent medicine years of my life.  Next I struck a country paper and tried to edit, but the proprietor he wanted to do that, and wouldn't let me, and in about a year I quit trying and let him have his own way, and now it is the hardest thing in the world for me to acknowledge that he is still an editor and a most successful one.  Later I went back home to Greenfield, Ind. and engaged in almost everything