The Gentle Grafter Page 9

  INNOCENTS OF BROADWAY

  "I hope some day to retire from business," said Jeff Peters; "and whenI do I don't want anybody to be able to say that I ever got a dollarof any man's money without giving him a quid pro rata for it. I'vealways managed to leave a customer some little gewgaw to paste in hisscrapbook or stick between his Seth Thomas clock and the wall after weare through trading.

  "There was one time I came near having to break this rule of mine anddo a profligate and illaudable action, but I was saved from it by thelaws and statutes of our great and profitable country.

  "One summer me and Andy Tucker, my partner, went to New York to lay inour annual assortment of clothes and gents' furnishings. We was alwayspompous and regardless dressers, finding that looks went further thananything else in our business, except maybe our knowledge of railroadschedules and an autograph photo of the President that Loeb sent us,probably by mistake. Andy wrote a nature letter once and sent it inabout animals that he had seen caught in a trap lots of times. Loebmust have read it 'triplets,' instead of 'trap lots,' and sent thephoto. Anyhow, it was useful to us to show people as a guarantee ofgood faith.

  "Me and Andy never cared much to do business in New York. It wastoo much like pothunting. Catching suckers in that town is likedynamiting a Texas lake for bass. All you have to do anywhere betweenthe North and East rivers is to stand in the street with an open bagmarked, 'Drop packages of money here. No checks or loose bills taken.'You have a cop handy to club pikers who try to chip in post officeorders and Canadian money, and that's all there is to New York for ahunter who loves his profession. So me and Andy used to just naturefake the town. We'd get out our spyglasses and watch the woodcocksalong the Broadway swamps putting plaster casts on their broken legs,and then we'd sneak away without firing a shot.

  "One day in the papier mache palm room of a chloral hydrate and hopsagency in a side street about eight inches off Broadway me and Andyhad thrust upon us the acquaintance of a New Yorker. We had beertogether until we discovered that each of us knew a man namedHellsmith, traveling for a stove factory in Duluth. This caused us toremark that the world was a very small place, and then this New Yorkerbusts his string and takes off his tin foil and excelsior packing andstarts in giving us his Ellen Terris, beginning with the time he usedto sell shoelaces to the Indians on the spot where Tammany Hall nowstands.

  "This New Yorker had made his money keeping a cigar store in Beekmanstreet, and he hadn't been above Fourteenth street in ten years.Moreover, he had whiskers, and the time had gone by when a true sportwill do anything to a man with whiskers. No grafter except a boy whois soliciting subscribers to an illustrated weekly to win the prizeair rifle, or a widow, would have the heart to tamper with the manbehind with the razor. He was a typical city Reub--I'd bet the manhadn't been out of sight of a skyscraper in twenty-five years.

  "Well, presently this metropolitan backwoodsman pulls out a roll ofbills with an old blue sleeve elastic fitting tight around it andopens it up.

  "'There's $5,000, Mr. Peters,' says he, shoving it over the tableto me, 'saved during my fifteen years of business. Put that in yourpocket and keep it for me, Mr. Peters. I'm glad to meet you gentlemenfrom the West, and I may take a drop too much. I want you to take careof my money for me. Now, let's have another beer.'

  "'I want you to take care of my money for me.'"]

  "'You'd better keep this yourself,' says I. 'We are strangers toyou, and you can't trust everybody you meet. Put your roll back inyour pocket,' says I. 'And you'd better run along home before somefarm-hand from the Kaw River bottoms strolls in here and sells youa copper mine.'

  "'Oh, I don't know,' says Whiskers. 'I guess Little Old New York cantake care of herself. I guess I know a man that's on the square when Isee him. I've always found the Western people all right. I ask you asa favor, Mr. Peters,' says he, 'to keep that roll in your pocket forme. I know a gentleman when I see him. And now let's have some morebeer.'

  "In about ten minutes this fall of manna leans back in his chair andsnores. Andy looks at me and says: 'I reckon I'd better stay with himfor five minutes or so, in case the waiter comes in.'

  "I went out the side door and walked half a block up the street. Andthen I came back and sat down at the table.

  "'Andy,' says I, 'I can't do it. It's too much like swearing offtaxes. I can't go off with this man's money without doing something toearn it like taking advantage of the Bankrupt act or leaving a bottleof eczema lotion in his pocket to make it look more like a squaredeal.'

  "'Well,' says Andy, 'it does seem kind of hard on one's professionalpride to lope off with a bearded pard's competency, especially afterhe has nominated you custodian of his bundle in the sappy insoucianceof his urban indiscrimination. Suppose we wake him up and see if wecan formulate some commercial sophistry by which he will be enabled togive us both his money and a good excuse.'

  "We wakes up Whiskers. He stretches himself and yawns out thehypothesis that he must have dropped off for a minute. And then hesays he wouldn't mind sitting in at a little gentleman's game ofpoker. He used to play some when he attended high school in Brooklyn;and as he was out for a good time, why--and so forth.

  "Andy brights up a little at that, for it looks like it might be asolution to our financial troubles. So we all three go to our hotelfurther down Broadway and have the cards and chips brought up toAndy's room. I tried once more to make this Babe in the HorticulturalGardens take his five thousand. But no.

  "'Keep that little roll for me, Mr. Peters,' says he, 'and oblige.I'll ask you fer it when I want it. I guess I know when I'm amongfriends. A man that's done business on Beekman street for twentyyears, right in the heart of the wisest old village on earth, ought toknow what he's about. I guess I can tell a gentleman from a con man ora flimflammer when I meet him. I've got some odd change in my clothes--enough to start the game with, I guess.'

  "He goes through his pockets and rains $20 gold certificates on thetable till it looked like a $10,000 'Autumn Day in a Lemon Grove'picture by Turner in the salons. Andy almost smiled.

  "The first round that was dealt, this boulevardier slaps down hishand, claims low and jack and big casino and rakes in the pot.

  "Andy always took a pride in his poker playing. He got up from thetable and looked sadly out of the window at the street cars.

  "'Well, gentlemen,' says the cigar man, 'I don't blame you for notwanting to play. I've forgotten the fine points of the game, I guess,it's been so long since I indulged. Now, how long are you gentlemengoing to be in the city?'

  "I told him about a week longer. He says that'll suit him fine. Hiscousin is coming over from Brooklyn that evening and they are going tosee the sights of New York. His cousin, he says, is in the artificiallimb and lead casket business, and hasn't crossed the bridge in eightyears. They expect to have the time of their lives, and he winds up byasking me to keep his roll of money for him till next day. I tried tomake him take it, but it only insulted him to mention it.

  "'I'll use what I've got in loose change,' says he. 'You keep the restfor me. I'll drop in on you and Mr. Tucker to-morrow afternoon about 6or 7,' says he, 'and we'll have dinner together. Be good.'

  "After Whiskers had gone Andy looked at me curious and doubtful.

  "'Well, Jeff,' says he, 'it looks like the ravens are trying to feedus two Elijahs so hard that if we turned 'em down again we ought tohave the Audubon Society after us. It won't do to put the crown asidetoo often. I know this is something like paternalism, but don't youthink Opportunity has skinned its knuckles about enough knocking atour door?'

  "I put my feet up on the table and my hands in my pockets, which is anattitude unfavorable to frivolous thoughts.

  "'Andy,' says I, 'this man with the hirsute whiskers has got us in apredicament. We can't move hand or foot with his money. You and mehave got a gentleman's agreement with Fortune that we can't break.We've done business in the West where it's more of a fair game. Outthere the people we skin are trying to skin us, even the farmers andthe rem
ittance men that the magazines send out to write up Goldfields.But there's little sport in New York city for rod, reel or gun. Theyhunt here with either one of two things--a slungshot or a letter ofintroduction. The town has been stocked so full of carp that the gamefish are all gone. If you spread a net here, do you catch legitimatesuckers in it, such as the Lord intended to be caught--fresh guys whoknow it all, sports with a little coin and the nerve to play anotherman's game, street crowds out for the fun of dropping a dollar ortwo and village smarties who know just where the little pea is? No,sir,' says I. 'What the grafters live on here is widows and orphans,and foreigners who save up a bag of money and hand it out over thefirst counter they see with an iron railing to it, and factory girlsand little shopkeepers that never leave the block they do businesson. That's what they call suckers here. They're nothing but cannedsardines, and all the bait you need to catch 'em is a pocketknife anda soda cracker.

  "'Now, this cigar man,' I went on, 'is one of the types. He's livedtwenty years on one street without learning as much as you wouldin getting a once-over shave from a lockjawed barber in a Kansascrossroads town. But he's a New Yorker, and he'll brag about that allthe time when he isn't picking up live wires or getting in front ofstreet cars or paying out money to wire-tappers or standing under asafe that's being hoisted into a skyscraper. When a New Yorker doesloosen up,' says I, 'it's like the spring decomposition of the icejam in the Allegheny River. He'll swamp you with cracked ice andback-water if you don't get out of the way.

  "'It's mighty lucky for us, Andy,' says I, 'that this cigar exponentwith the parsley dressing saw fit to bedeck us with his childliketrust and altruism. For,' says I, 'this money of his is an eyesore tomy sense of rectitude and ethics. We can't take it, Andy; you knowwe can't,' says I, 'for we haven't a shadow of a title to it--not ashadow. If there was the least bit of a way we could put in a claimto it I'd be willing to see him start in for another twenty years andmake another $5,000 for himself, but we haven't sold him anything,we haven't been embroiled in a trade or anything commercial. Heapproached us friendly,' says I, 'and with blind and beautiful idiocylaid the stuff in our hands. We'll have to give it back to him when hewants it.'

  "'We can't take it, Andy.'"]

  "'Your arguments,' says Andy, 'are past criticism or comprehension.No, we can't walk off with the money--as things now stand. I admireyour conscious way of doing business, Jeff,' says Andy, 'and Iwouldn't propose anything that wasn't square in line with yourtheories of morality and initiative.

  "'But I'll be away to-night and most of to-morrow Jeff,' says Andy.'I've got some business affairs that I want to attend to. When thisfree greenbacks party comes in to-morrow afternoon hold him here tillI arrive. We've all got an engagement for dinner, you know.'

  "Well, sir, about 5 the next afternoon in trips the cigar man, withhis eyes half open.

  "'Been having a glorious time, Mr. Peters,' says he. 'Took in all thesights. I tell you New York is the onliest only. Now if you don'tmind,' says he, 'I'll lie down on that couch and doze off for aboutnine minutes before Mr. Tucker comes. I'm not used to being up allnight. And to-morrow, if you don't mind, Mr. Peters, I'll take thatfive thousand. I met a man last night that's got a sure winner atthe racetrack to-morrow. Excuse me for being so impolite as to go tosleep, Mr. Peters.'

  "And so this inhabitant of the second city in the world reposeshimself and begins to snore, while I sit there musing over things andwishing I was back in the West, where you could always depend on acustomer fighting to keep his money hard enough to let your consciencetake it from him.

  "At half-past 5 Andy comes in and sees the sleeping form.

  "'I've been over to Trenton,' says Andy, pulling a document out of hispocket. 'I think I've got this matter fixed up all right, Jeff. Lookat that.'

  "I open the paper and see that it is a corporation charter issuedby the State of New Jersey to 'The Peters & Tucker Consolidated andAmalgamated Aerial Franchise Development Company, Limited.'

  "'It's to buy up rights of way for airship lines,' explained Andy.'The Legislature wasn't in session, but I found a man at a postcardstand in the lobby that kept a stock of charters on hand. There are100,000 shares,' says Andy, 'expected to reach a par value of $1. Ihad one blank certificate of stock printed.'

  "Andy takes out the blank and begins to fill it in with a fountainpen.

  "'The whole bunch,' says he, 'goes to our friend in dreamland for$5,000. Did you learn his name?'

  "'Make it out to bearer,' says I.

  "We put the certificate of stock in the cigar man's hand and went outto pack our suit cases.

  "We put the certificate of stock in the cigarman'shand."]

  "On the ferryboat Andy says to me: 'Is your conscience easy abouttaking the money now, Jeff?'

  "'Why shouldn't it be?' says I. 'Are we any better than any otherHolding Corporation?'"