The Gentle Grafter Read online

  CONSCIENCE IN ART

  "I never could hold my partner, Andy Tucker, down to legitimate ethicsof pure swindling," said Jeff Peters to me one day.

  "Andy had too much imagination to be honest. He used to devise schemesof money-getting so fraudulent and high-financial that they wouldn'thave been allowed in the bylaws of a railroad rebate system.

  "Myself, I never believed in taking any man's dollars unless I gavehim something for it--something in the way of rolled gold jewelry,garden seeds, lumbago lotion, stock certificates, stove polish or acrack on the head to show for his money. I guess I must have had NewEngland ancestors away back and inherited some of their stanch andrugged fear of the police.

  "But Andy's family tree was in different kind. I don't think he couldhave traced his descent any further back than a corporation.

  "One summer while we was in the middle West, working down the Ohiovalley with a line of family albums, headache powders and roachdestroyer, Andy takes one of his notions of high and actionablefinanciering.

  "'Jeff,' says he, 'I've been thinking that we ought to drop theserutabaga fanciers and give our attention to something more nourishingand prolific. If we keep on snapshooting these hinds for their eggmoney we'll be classed as nature fakers. How about plunging into thefastnesses of the skyscraper country and biting some big bull caribousin the chest?'

  "'Well,' says I, 'you know my idiosyncrasies. I prefer a square,non-illegal style of business such as we are carrying on now. When Itake money I want to leave some tangible object in the other fellow'shands for him to gaze at and to distract his attention from my spoor,even if it's only a Komical Kuss Trick Finger Ring for SquirtingPerfume in a Friend's Eye. But if you've got a fresh idea, Andy,' saysI, 'let's have a look at it. I'm not so wedded to petty graft that Iwould refuse something better in the way of a subsidy.'

  "'I was thinking,' says Andy, 'of a little hunt without horn, hound orcamera among the great herd of the Midas Americanus, commonly known asthe Pittsburg millionaires.'

  "'In New York?' I asks.

  "'No, sir,' says Andy, 'in Pittsburg. That's their habitat. They don'tlike New York. They go there now and then just because it's expectedof 'em.'

  "'A Pittsburg millionaire in New York is like a fly in a cup of hotcoffee--he attracts attention and comment, but he don't enjoy it. NewYork ridicules him for "blowing" so much money in that town of sneaksand snobs, and sneers. The truth is, he don't spend anything while heis there. I saw a memorandum of expenses for a ten days trip to BunkumTown made by a Pittsburg man worth $15,000,000 once. Here's the way heset it down:

  R. R. fare to and from . . . . . . . . $ 21 00 Cab fare to and from hotel . . . . . . 2 00 Hotel bill @ $5 per day . . . . . . . 50 00 Tips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5,750 00 ---------- Total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $5,823 00

  "'That's the voice of New York,' goes on Andy. 'The town's nothing buta head waiter. If you tip it too much it'll go and stand by the doorand make fun of you to the hat check boy. When a Pittsburger wants tospend money and have a good time he stays at home. That's where we'llgo to catch him.'

  "Well, to make a dense story more condensed, me and Andy cached ourparis green and antipyrine powders and albums in a friend's cellar,and took the trail to Pittsburg. Andy didn't have any especialprospectus of chicanery and violence drawn up, but he always hadplenty of confidence that his immoral nature would rise to anyoccasion that presented itself.

  "As a concession to my ideas of self-preservation and rectitude hepromised that if I should take an active and incriminating part inany little business venture that we might work up there should besomething actual and cognizant to the senses of touch, sight, taste orsmell to transfer to the victim for the money so my conscience mightrest easy. After that I felt better and entered more cheerfully intothe foul play.

  "'Andy,' says I, as we strayed through the smoke along the cinderpaththey call Smithfield street, 'had you figured out how we are going toget acquainted with these coke kings and pig iron squeezers? Not thatI would decry my own worth or system of drawing room deportment, andwork with the olive fork and pie knife,' says I, 'but isn't the entreenous into the salons of the stogie smokers going to be harder than youimagined?'

  "'If there's any handicap at all,' says Andy, 'it's our own refinementand inherent culture. Pittsburg millionaires are a fine body of plain,wholehearted, unassuming, democratic men.

  "'They are rough but uncivil in their manners, and though their waysare boisterous and unpolished, under it all they have a great dealof impoliteness and discourtesy. Nearly every one of 'em rose fromobscurity,' says Andy, 'and they'll live in it till the town gets tousing smoke consumers. If we act simple and unaffected and don't gotoo far from the saloons and keep making a noise like an import dutyon steel rails we won't have any trouble in meeting some of 'emsocially.'

  "Well Andy and me drifted about town three or four days getting ourbearings. We got to knowing several millionaires by sight.

  "One used to stop his automobile in front of our hotel and have aquart of champagne brought out to him. When the waiter opened it he'dturn it up to his mouth and drink it out of the bottle. That showed heused to be a glassblower before he made his money.

  "One evening Andy failed to come to the hotel for dinner. About 11o'clock he came into my room.

  "'Landed one, Jeff,' says he. 'Twelve millions. Oil, rolling mills,real estate and natural gas. He's a fine man; no airs about him. Madeall his money in the last five years. He's got professors posting himup now in education--art and literature and haberdashery and suchthings.

  "'When I saw him he'd just won a bet of $10,000 with a SteelCorporation man that there'd be four suicides in the Allegheny rollingmills to-day. So everybody in sight had to walk up and have drinks onhim. He took a fancy to me and asked me to dinner with him. We went toa restaurant in Diamond alley and sat on stools and had a sparklingMoselle and clam chowder and apple fritters.

  "'Then he wanted to show me his bachelor apartment on Liberty street.He's got ten rooms over a fish market with privilege of the bath onthe next floor above. He told me it cost him $18,000 to furnish hisapartment, and I believe it.

  "'He's got $40,000 worth of pictures in one room, and $20,000 worth ofcurios and antiques in another. His name's Scudder, and he's 45, andtaking lessons on the piano and 15,000 barrels of oil a day out of hiswells.'

  "'All right,' says I. 'Preliminary canter satisfactory. But, kayvooly, voo? What good is the art junk to us? And the oil?'

  "'Now, that man,' says Andy, sitting thoughtfully on the bed, 'ain'twhat you would call an ordinary scutt. When he was showing me hiscabinet of art curios his face lighted up like the door of a cokeoven. He says that if some of his big deals go through he'll makeJ. P. Morgan's collection of sweatshop tapestry and Augusta, Me.,beadwork look like the contents of an ostrich's craw thrown on ascreen by a magic lantern.

  "'And then he showed me a little carving,' went on Andy, 'that anybodycould see was a wonderful thing. It was something like 2,000 yearsold, he said. It was a lotus flower with a woman's face in it carvedout of a solid piece of ivory.

  "Scudder looks it up in a catalogue and describes it. An Egyptiancarver named Khafra made two of 'em for King Rameses II. about theyear B.C. The other one can't be found. The junkshops and antique bugshave rubbered all Europe for it, but it seems to be out of stock.Scudder paid $2,000 for the one he has.'

  "'Oh, well,' says I, 'this sounds like the purling of a rill to me. Ithought we came here to teach the millionaires business, instead oflearning art from 'em?'

  "'Be patient,' says Andy, kindly. 'Maybe we will see a rift in thesmoke ere long.'

  "All the next morning Andy was out. I didn't see him until about noon.He came to the hotel and called me into his room across the hall. Hepulled a roundish bundle about as big as a goose egg out of his pocketand unwrapped it. It was an ivory carving just as he had described themillionaire's to me.

  "
'I went in an old second hand store and pawnshop a while ago,' saysAndy, 'and I see this half hidden under a lot of old daggers andtruck. The pawnbroker said he'd had it several years and thinks it wassoaked by some Arabs or Turks or some foreign dubs that used to livedown by the river.

  "'I offered him $2 for it, and I must have looked like I wanted it,for he said it would be taking the pumpernickel out of his children'smouths to hold any conversation that did not lead up to a price of$35. I finally got it for $25.

  "'Jeff,' goes on Andy, 'this is the exact counterpart of Scudder'scarving. It's absolutely a dead ringer for it. He'll pay $2,000 for itas quick as he'd tuck a napkin under his chin. And why shouldn't it bethe genuine other one, anyhow, that the old gypsy whittled out?'

  "'Why not, indeed?' says I. 'And how shall we go about compelling himto make a voluntary purchase of it?'

  "Andy had his plan all ready, and I'll tell you how we carried it out.

  "I got a pair of blue spectacles, put on my black frock coat, rumpledmy hair up and became Prof. Pickleman. I went to another hotel,registered, and sent a telegram to Scudder to come to see me at onceon important art business. The elevator dumped him on me in lessthan an hour. He was a foggy man with a clarion voice, smelling ofConnecticut wrappers and naphtha.

  "'Hello, Profess!' he shouts. 'How's your conduct?'

  "I rumpled my hair some more and gave him a blue glass stare.

  "'Sir,' says I, 'are you Cornelius T. Scudder? Of Pittsburg,Pennsylvania?'

  "'I am,' says he. 'Come out and have a drink.'

  "'I've neither the time nor the desire,' says I, 'for such harmfuland deleterious amusements. I have come from New York,' says I, 'on amatter of busi--on a matter of art.

  "'I learned there that you are the owner of an Egyptian ivory carvingof the time of Rameses II., representing the head of Queen Isis in alotus flower. There were only two of such carvings made. One has beenlost for many years. I recently discovered and purchased the other ina pawn--in an obscure museum in Vienna. I wish to purchase yours. Nameyour price.'

  "'Well, the great ice jams, Profess!' says Scudder. 'Have you foundthe other one? Me sell? No. I don't guess Cornelius Scudder needs tosell anything that he wants to keep. Have you got the carving withyou, Profess?'

  "I shows it to Scudder. He examines it careful all over.

  "'It's the article,' says he. 'It's a duplicate of mine, every lineand curve of it. Tell you what I'll do,' he says. 'I won't sell, butI'll buy. Give you $2,500 for yours.'

  "'Since you won't sell, I will,' says I. 'Large bills, please. I'm aman of few words. I must return to New York to-night. I lectureto-morrow at the aquarium.'

  "Scudder sends a check down and the hotel cashes it. He goes off withhis piece of antiquity and I hurry back to Andy's hotel, according toarrangement.

  "Andy is walking up and down the room looking at his watch.

  "'Well?' he says.

  "'Twenty-five hundred,' says I. 'Cash.'

  "'We've got just eleven minutes,' says Andy, 'to catch the B. & O.westbound. Grab your baggage.'

  "'What's the hurry,' says I. 'It was a square deal. And even if it wasonly an imitation of the original carving it'll take him some time tofind it out. He seemed to be sure it was the genuine article.'

  "'It was,' says Andy. 'It was his own. When I was looking at hiscurios yesterday he stepped out of the room for a moment and Ipocketed it. Now, will you pick up your suit case and hurry?'

  "'Then,' says I, 'why was that story about finding another one in thepawn--'

  "'Oh,' says Andy, 'out of respect for that conscience of yours. Comeon.'"