LIBRARY UNIVs sty OF CAiJfORNIA SAM Bh&SO IWReMKIwM (PS _ < s < THE GENTLE GRAFTER THE GENTLE GRAFTER BY ' O. HENRY Author of "The Four Million," "The Voice of the City," "The Trimmed Lamp," "Strictly Business," "Whirligigs," Etc. PUBLISHED BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY FOR REVIEW OF REVIEWS CO. 1920 COPYRIGHT, 1904, 1907, I008, BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN Copyright, 1906, by The Frank A. Munsey Company CONTENTS PAGE The Octopus Marooned 3 Jeff Peters as a Personal Magnet . . . . 18 Modern Rural Sports 33 The Chair of Philanthromathematics ... 45 The Hand That Riles the World .... 58 The Exact Science of Matrimony . ... 71 A Midsummer Masquerade 85 Shearing the Wolf 99 Innocents of Broadway 112 Conscience in Art 126 The Man Higher Up 137 A Tempered Wind 160 Hostages to Momus 198 The Ethics of Pig 222 THE GENTLE GRAFTER THE OCTOPUS MAROONED "A TRUST is its weakest point," said Jeff Peters. "That," said I, "sounds like one of those unintel- ligible remarks such as, 'Why is a policeman?' " "It is not," said Jeff. "There are no relations between a trust and a policeman. My remark was an epitogram — an axis — a kind of mulct'em in parvo. What it means is that a trust is like an egg, and it is not like an egg. If you want to break an egg you have to do it from the outside. The only way to break up a trust is from the inside. Keep sitting on it until it hatches. Look at the brood of young col- leges and libraries that's chirping and peeping all over the country. Yes, sir, every trust bears in its own bosom the seeds of its destruction like a rooster that crows near a Georgia colored Methodist camp meeting, or a Republican announcing himself a candi- date for governor of Texas." I asked Jeff, jestingly, if he had ever, during his checkered, plaided, mottled, pied and dappled career, conducted an enterprise of the class to which the 3 4 The Gentle Grafter word "trust" had been applied. Somewhat to my surprise he acknowledged the corner. "Once," said he. "And the state seal of New Jersey never bit into a charter that opened up a solider and safer piece of legitimate octopusing. We had everything in our favor — wind, water, police, nerve, and a clean monopoly of an article indispensa- ble to the public. There wasn't a trust buster on the globe that could have found a weak spot in our scheme. It made Rockefeller's little kerosene specu- lation look like a bucket shop. But we lost out." "Some unforeseen opposition came up, I suppose," I said. "No, sir, it was just as I said. We were self- curbed. It was a case of auto-suppression. There was a rift within the loot, as Albert Tennyson says. "You remember I told you that me and Andy Tucker was partners for some years. That man was the most talented conniver at stratagems I ever saw. Whenever he saw a dollar in another man's hands he took it as a personal grudge, if he couldn't take it any other way. Andy was educated, too, besides having a lot of useful information. He had acquired a big amount of experience out of books, and could talk for hours on any subject connected with ideas and discourse. He had been in every line of graft The Octopus Marooned 5 from lecturing on Palestine with a lot of magic lan- tern pictures of the annual Custom-made Clothiers' Association convention at Atlantic City to flooding Connecticut with bogus wood alcohol distilled from nutmegs. "One Spring me and Andy had been over in Mex- ico on a flying trip during which a Philadelphia cap- italist had paid us $2,500 for a half interest in a silver mine in Chihuahua. Oh, yes, the mine was all right. The other half interest must have been worth two or three hundred thousand. I often wondered who owned that mine. "In coming back to the United States me and Andy stubbed our toes against a little town in Texas on the bank of the Rio Grande. The name of it was Bird City ; but it wasn't. The town had about 2,000 inhabitants, mostly men. I figured out that their principal means of existence was in living close to tall chaparral. Some of 'em were stockmen and some gamblers and some horse peculators and plenty were in the smuggling line. Me and Andy put up at a hotel that was built like something between a roof- garden and a sectional bookcase. It began to rain the day we got there. As the saying is, Juniper Aquarius was sure turning on the water plugs on Mount Amphibious. 6 The Gentle Grafter "Now, there were three saloons in Bird City, though neither Andy nor me drank. But we could see the townspeople making a triangular procession from one to another all day and half the night. Everj'body seemed to know what to do with as much money as they had. "The third day of the rain it slacked up awhile in the afternoon, so me and Andy walked out to the edge of town to view the mudscape. Bird City was built between the Rio Grande and a deep wide ar- royo that used to be the old bed of the river. The bank between the stream and its old bed was crack- ing and giving away, when we saw it, on account of the high water caused by the rain. Andj 7 looks at it a long time. That man's intellects was never idle. And then he unfolds to me a instantaneous idea that has occurred to him. Right there was organized a trust ; and we walked back into town and put it on the market. "First we went to the main saloon in Bird City, called the Blue Snake, and bought it. It cost us $1,200. And then we dropped in, casual, at Mexican Joe's place, referred to the rain, and bought him out for $500. The other one came easy at $400. "The next morning Bird City woke up and found itself an island. The river had busted through its old The Octopus Marooned 7 channel, and the town was surrounded by roaring tor- rents. The rain was still raining, and there was heavy clouds in the northwest that presaged about six more mean annual rainfalls during the next two weeks. But the worst was yet to come. "Bird City hopped out of its nest, waggled its pin feathers and strolled out for its matutinal toot. Lo ! Mexican Joe's place was closed and likewise the other little 'dobe life saving station. So, naturally the body politic emits thirsty ejaculations of surprise and ports helium for the Blue Snake. And what does it find there? "Behind one end of the bar sits Jefferson Peters, octopus, with a sixshooter on each side of him, ready to make change or corpses as the case may be. There are three bartenders ; and on the wall is a ten foot sign reading: 'All Drinks One Dollar.' Andy sits on the safe in his neat blue suit and gold-banded cigar, on the lookout for emergencies. The town marshal is there with two deputies to keep order, having been promised free drinks by the trust. "Well, sir, it took Bird City just ten minutes to realize that it was in a cage. We expected trouble; but there wasn't any. The citizens saw that we had 'em. The nearest railroad was thirty miles away ; and it would be two weeks at least before the river 8 The Gentle Grafter 2 o e a g o 5* 3 5J 09 e 8 ,0 The Octopus Marooned 9 would be fordable. So they began to cuss, amiable, and throw down dollars on the bar till it sounded like a selection on the xylophone. "There was about 1,500 grown-up adults in Bird City that had arrived at years of indiscretion ; and the majority of 'em required from three to twenty drinks a day to make life endurable. The Blue Snake was the only place where they could get 'em till the flood subsided. It was beautiful and simple as all truly great swindles are. "About ten o'clock the silver dollars dropping on the bar slowed down to playing two-steps and marches instead of jigs. But I looked out the win- dows and saw a hundred or two of our customers standing in line at Bird City Savings and Loan Co., and I knew they were borrowing more money to be sucked in by the clammy tendrils of the octo- pus. "At the fashionable hour of noon everybody went home to dinner. We told the bartenders to take ad- vantage of the lull, and do the same. Then me and Andy counted the receipts. We had taken in $1,300. We calculated that if Bird City would only remain an island for two weeks the trust would be able to endow the Chicago University with a new dormitory of padded cells for the faculty, and present every 10 The Gentle Grafter Andy was especial inroaded by self-esteem »> The Octopus Marooned 11 worthy poor man in Texas with a farm, provided he furnished the site for it. "Andy was especial inroaded by self-esteem at our success, the rudiments of the scheme having origi- nated in his own surmises and premonitions. He got off the safe and lit the biggest cigar in the house. " 'Jeff,' says he, 'I don't suppose that anywhere in the world you could find three cormorants with brighter ideas about down-treading the proletariat than the firm of Peters, Satan and Tucker, incor- porated. We have sure handed the small consumer a giant blow in the sole apoplectic region. No?' "'Well,' says I, 'it does look as if we would have to take up gastritis and golf or be measured for kilts in spite of ourselves. This little turn in bug juice is, verily, all to the Skibo. And I can stand it,' says I. 'I'd rather batten than bant any day.' "Andy pours himself out four fingers of our best rye and does with it as was so intended. It was the first drink I had ever known him to take. 'By way of liberation,' says he, 'to the gods.' 'And then after thus doing umbrage to the heathen diabetes he drinks another to our success. And then he begins to toast the trade, beginning with Raisuli and the Northern Pacific, and on down the line to tic little ones like the school book combine and 12 The Gentle Grafter the oleomargarine outrages and the Lehigh Valley and Great Scott Coal Federation. " 'It's all right, Andy,' says I, 'to drink the health of our brother monopolists, but don't overdo the was- sail. You know our most eminent and loathed multi- corruptionists live on weak tea and dog biscuits.' "Andy went in the back room awhile and came out dressed in his best clothes. There was a kind of mur- derous and soulful look of gentle riotousness in his eye that I didn't like. I watched him to see what turn the whiskey was going to take in him. There are two times when you never can tell what is going to hap- pen. One is when a man takes his first drink ; and the other is when a woman takes her latest. "In less than an hour Andy's skate had turned to an ice yacht. He was outwardly decent and man- aged to preserve his aquarium, but inside he was im- promptu and full of unexpectedness. "'Jeff,' says he, 'do you know that I'm a crater « — a living crater?' " 'That's a self-evident hypothesis,' says I. 'But you're not Irish. Why don't you say 'creature,' ac- cording to the rules and syntax of America?' " 'I'm the crater of a volcano,' says he. 'I'm all aflame and crammed inside with an assortment of words and phrases that have got to have an exodus* « <1 The Octopus Marooned 18 I can feel millions of synonyms and parts of speech rising in me,' says he, 'and I've got to make a speech of some sort. Drink,' says Andy, 'always drives me to oratory.' 'It could do no worse,' says I. 'From my earliest recollections,' says he, 'alco- hol seemed to stimulate my sense of recitation and rhetoric. Why, in Bryan's second campaign,' says Andy, 'they used to give me three gin rickeys and I'd speak two hours longer than Billy himself could on the silver question. Finally they persuaded me to take the gold cure.' " 'If you've got to get rid of your excess verbiage,' says I, 'why not go out on the river bank and speak a piece? It seems to me there was an old spell-binder named Cantharides that used to go and disincorpo- rate himself of his windy numbers along the seashore." " 'No,' says Andy, 'I must have an audience. I feel like if I once turned loose people would begin to call Senator Bevcridge the Grand Young Sphinx of the Wabash. I've got to get an audience to- gether, Jeff, and get this oral distension assuaged or it may turn in on me and I'd go about feeling like a deckle-edge edition de luxe of Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth.' "'On what special subject of the theorems and 14 The Gentle Grafter topics does your desire for vocality seem to be con- nected with?' I asks. " 'I ain't particular,' says Andy. 'I am equally good and varicose on all subjects. I can take up the matter of Russian immigration, or the poetry of John W. Keats, or the tariff, or Kabyle literature, or drainage, and make my audience weep, cry, sob and shed tears by turns.' " 'Well, Andy,' says I, 'if you are bound to get rid of this accumulation of vernacular suppose you go out in town and work it on some indulgent citizen. Me and the boys will take care of the business. Everybody will be through dinner pretty soon, and salt pork and beans makes a man pretty thirsty. We ought to take in $1,500 more by midnight.' "So Andy goes out of the Blue Snake, and I see him stopping men on the street and talking to 'em. By and by he has half a dozen in a bunch listening to him ; and pretty soon I see him waving his arms and elocuting at a good-sized crowd on a corner. When he walks away they string out after him, talking all the time ; and he leads 'em down the main street of Bird City with more men joining the procession as they go. It reminded me of the old legerdemain that I'd read in books about the Pied Piper of Heid- sieck charming the children away from the town. The Octopus Marooned 15 5*5 o a § •5 "53 S 16 The Gentle Grafter "One o'clock came; and then two; and three got under the wire for place ; and not a Bird citizen came in for a drink. The streets were deserted except for some ducks and ladies going to the stores. There was only a light drizzle falling then. "A lonesome man came along and stopped in front of the Blue Snake to scrape the mud off his boots. "'Pardner,' says I, 'what has happened? This morning there was hectic gayety afoot ; and now it seems more like one of them ruined cities of Tyre and Siphon where the lone lizard crawls on the walls of the main port-cullis.' " 'The whole town,' says the muddy man, 'is up in Sperry's wool warehouse listening to your side-kicker make a speech. He is some gravy on delivering him- self of audible sounds relating to matters and con- clusions,' says the man. '"Well, I hope he'll adjourn, sine qua non, prettj soon,' says I, 'for trade languishes.' "Not a customer did we have that afternoon. At six o'clock two Mexicans brought Andy to the sa- loon lying across the back of a burro. We put him to bed while he still muttered and gesticulated with his hands and feet. "Then I locked up the cash and went out to see what had happened. I met a man who told me all The Octopus Marooned 17 about it. Andy had made the finest two hour speech that had ever been heard in Texas, he said, or any- where else in the world. "'What was it about?' I asked. "'Temperance,' says he. 'And when he got through, every man in Bird City signed the pledge for a year.' J )9 JEFF PETERS AS A PERSONAL MAGNET JEFF PETERS has been engaged in as many schemes for making money as there are recipes for cooking rice in Charleston, S. C. Best of all I like to hear him tell of his earlier days when he sold liniments and cough cures on street corners, living hand to mouth, heart to heart with the people, throwing heads or tails with fortune for his last coin. "I struck Fisher Hill, Arkansaw," said he, "in ■«* buckskin suit, moccasins, long hair and a thirty- carat diamond ring that I got from an actor in Tex- arkana. I don't know what he ever did with the pocket knife I swapped him for it. "I was Dr. Waugh-hoo, the celebrated Indian med- icine man. I carried only one best bet just then, and that was Resurrection Bitters. It was made of life- giving plants and herbs accidentally discovered by Ta-qua-la, the beautiful wife of the chief of the Choc- taw Nation, while gathering truck to garnish a plat- ter of boiled dog for the annual corn dance. "Business hadn't been good at the last town, so I 18 Jeff Peters as a Personal Magnet 19 Life began to look rosy again*" 20 The Gentle Grafter only had five dollars. I went to the Fisher Hill drug- gist and he credited me for half a gross of eight- ounce bottles and corks. I had the labels and ingre- dients in my valise, left over from the last town. Life began to look rosy again after I got in my hotel room with the water running from the tap, and the Res- urrection Bitters lining up on the table by the dozen. "Fake? No, sir. There was two dollars' worth of fluid extract of cinchona and a dime's worth of aniline in that half-gross of bitters. I've gone through towns years afterwards and had folks ask for 'em again. "I hired a wagon that night and commenced sell- ing the bitters on Main Street. Fisher Hill was a low, malarial town ; and a compound hypothetical pneumo- cardiac anti-scorbutic tonic was just what I diagnosed the crowd as needing. The bitters started off like sweetbreads-on-toast at a vegetarian dinner. I had sold two dozen at fifty cents apiece when I felt some- body pull my coat tail. I knew what that meant ; so I climbed down and sneaked a five dollar bill into the hand of a man with a German silver star on his lapel. " 'Constable,' says I, 'it's a fine night.' " 'Have you got a city license,' he asks, 'to sell this illegitimate essence of spooju that you flatter by the name of medicine?' a Jeff Peters as a Personal Magnet 21 'I have not,' says I. 'I didn't know you had a city. If i can find it to-morrow I'll take one out if it's necessary.' " / commenced selling the bitters on Main Street." "'I'll have to close you up till you do,' says the constable. "I quit selling and went back to the hotel. I was talking to the landlord about it. 22 The Gentle Grafter " 'Oh, you won't stand no show in Fisher Hill,' says he. 'Dr. Hoskins, the only doctor here, is a brother-in-law of the Mayor, and they won't allow no fake doctor to practice in town.' " 'I don't practice medicine,' says I, 'I've got a State peddler's license, and I take out a city one wherever they demand it.' "I went to the Mayor's office the next morning and they told me he hadn't showed up yet. They didn't know when he'd be down. So Doc Waugh-hoc hunches down again in a hotel chair and lights a jimpson-weed regalia, and waits. "Bf" and by a young man in a blue necktie slips into the chair next to me and asks the time. " 'Half-past ten,' says I 'and you are Andy Tucker. I've seen you work. Wasn't it you that put up the Great Cupid Combination package on the Southern States? Let's see, it was a Chilian diamond engagement ring, a wedding ring, a potato masher, a bottle of soothing syrup and Dorothy Vernon — all for fifty cents.' "Andy was pleased to hear that I remembered him. He was a good street man ; and he was more than that — he respected his profession, and he was satisfied with 300 per cent, profit. He had plenty of offers to go into the illegitimate drug and garden seed busi- Jeff Peters as a Personal Magnet 23 ness ; but he was never to be tempted off of the straight path. "I wanted a partner, so Andy and me agreed to go out together. I told him about the situation in Fisher Hill and how finances was low on account of the local mixture of politics and jalap. And}' had just got in on the train that morning. He was pretty low him- self, arid was going to canvass the town for a few dol- lars to build a new battleship by popular subscription at Eureka Springs. So we went out and sat on the porch and talked it over. "The next morning at eleven o'clock when I was sitting there alone, an Uncle Tom shuffles into the hotel and asked for the doctor to come and see Judge Banks, who, it seems, was the mayor and a mighty sick man. "'I'm no doctor,' says I. 'Why don't you go and get the doctor?' "'Boss,' says he. 'Doc Hoskins am done gone twenty miles in de country to see some sick persons. He's de only doctor in de town, and Massa Banks am powerful bad off. He sent me to ax you to please, suh, come.' "'As man to man,' says I, 'I'll go and look him over.' So I put a bottle of Resurrection Bitters in roy pocket and goes up on the hill to the mayor's 24 The Gentle Grafter mansion, the finest house in town, with a mansard roof and two east iron dogs on the lawn. "This Mayor Banks was in bed all but his whiskers and feet. He was making internal noises that would have Lad everybody in San Francisco hiking for the parks A young man was standing by the bed hold- ing a cup of water. "'Doc,' says the Mayor, 'I'm awful s'ck. I'm about to die. Can't you do nothing for me?' " 'Mr. Mayor,' says I, 'I'm not a regular pre- ordained disciple of S. Q. Lapius. I never took a course in a medical college,' says I. 'I've just come as a fellow man to see if I could be of assistance.' " 'I'm deeply obliged,' says he. 'Doc Waugh-hoo, this is my nephew, Mr. Biddle. He has tried to alle- viate my distress, but without success. Oh, Lordy! Ow-ow-ow ! !' he sings out. "I nods at Mr. Biddle and sets down by the bed ind feels the mayor's pulse. 'Let me see your liver — your tongue, I mean,' says I. Then I turns up the lids of his eyes and looks close at the pupils of 'em. '"How long have you been sick?' I asked. " 'I was taken down — ow-ouch — last night,' says the Mayor. 'Gimme something for it, doc, won't you?' Jeff Peters as a Personal Magnet 25 "'Mr. Fiddle,' says I, 'raise the window shade a bit, will you?' " 'Biddle,' says the young man. 'Do you feel like you could eat some ham and eggs, Uncle James?' " 'Mr. Mayor,' says I, after laying my ear to his right shoulder blade and listening, 'you've got a bad attack of super-inflammation of the right clavicle of the harpsichord !' "'Good Lord!' says he, with a groan, 'Can't you rub something on it, or set it or anything?' "I picks up my hat and starts for the door. "'You ain't going, doc?' says the Mayor with a howl. 'You ain't going away and leave me to die with this — superfluity of the clapboards, are you?' w 'Common humanity, Dr. Whoa-ha,' says Mr. Biddle, 'ought to prevent your deserting a fellow- human in distress.' "'Dr. Waugh-hoo, when you get through plow* ing,' says I. And then I walks back to the bed and throws back my long hair. " 'Mr. Mayor,' sa} T s I, 'there is only one hope for you. Drugs will do you no good. But there is an- other power higher yet, although drugs are high enough,' says I. " 'And what is that ?' sa} T s he. " 'Scientific demonstrations,' says I. 'The triumph 26 The Gentle Grafter of mind over sarsaparilla. The belief that there is no pain and sickness except what is produced when we ain't feeling well. Declare yourself in arrears* Demonstrate/ "'What is this paraphernalia you speak of, Doc?' says the Mayor. 'You ain't a Socialist, are you?' '"I. am speaking,' saj's I, 'of the great doctrine of psychic financiering — of the enlightened school of long-distance, sub-conscientious treatment of fal- lacies and meningitis — of that wonderful in-door sport known as personal magnetism.' "'Can 3 t ou work it, doc?' asks the Mayor. " 'I'm one of the Sole Sanhedrims and Ostensible Hooplas of the Inner Pulpit,' says I. 'The lame talk and the blind rubber whenever I make a pass at 'em. I am a medium, a coloratura hypnotist and a spiritu- ous control. It was only through me at the recent seances at Ann Arbor that the late president of the Vinegar Bitters Company could revisit the earth to communicate with his sister Jane. You see me ped- dling medicine on the streets,' says I, 'to the poor. I don't practice personal magnetism on them. I do not drag it in the dust,' says I, 'because they haven't got the dust.' "'Will you treat my case?' asks the Mayor. " 'Listen,' says I. 'I've had a good deal of trouble Jeff Peters as a Personal Magnet 27 with medical societies everywhere I've been. I don't practice medicine. But, to save your life, I'll give you the psychic treatment if you'll agree as mayor not to push the license question.' " 'Of course I will,' says he. 'And now get to work, doc, for them pains are coming on again.' " 'My fee will be $250.00, cure guaranteed in two treatments,' says I. '"All right,' says the Mayor. 'I'll pay it. I guess my life's worth that much.' "I sat down by the bed and looked him straight in the eye. " 'Now,' says I, 'get your mind off the disease. You ain't sick. You haven't got a heart or a clavicle or a funny bone or brains or anything. You haven't got any pain. Declare error. Now you feel the pain that you didn't have leaving, don't you ?' " 'I do feel some little better, doc,' says the Mayor, 'darned if I don't. Now state a few lies about my not having this swelling in my left side, and I think I could be propped up and have some sausage and buckwheat cakes.' "I made a few passes with my hands. "'Now,' says I, 'the inflammation's gone. The right lobe of the perihelion has subsided. You're getting sleepy. You can't hold your eyes open any 28 The Gentle Grafter longer. For the present the disease is checked. Now, you are asleep.' "The Mayor shut his eyes slowly and began to 6nore. " 'You observe, Mr. Tiddle,' says I, 'the wonders of modern science.' " 'Biddle,' says he, 'When will you give uncle the rest of the treatment, Dr. Pooh-pooh?' " 'Waugh-hoo,' says I. 'I'll come back at eleven to-morrow. When he wakes up give him eight drops of turpentine and three pounds of steak. Good morning.' "The next morning I went back on time. 'Well, Mr. Riddle,' says I, when he opened the bedroom door, 'and how is uncle this morning?' " 'He seems much better,' says the young man. "The mayor's color and pulse was fine. I gave him another treatment, and he said the last of the pain left him. "'Now,' says I, 'you'd better stay in bed for a day or two, and you'll be all right. It's a good thing I happened to be in Fisher Hill, Mr. Mayor,' says I, 'for all the remedies in the cornucopia that the reg- ular schools of medicine use couldn't have saved you. And now that error has flew and pain proved a per- jurer, let's allude to a cheerfuller subject — say the Jeff Peters as a Personal Magnet 29 fee of $250. No checks, please, I hate to write my name on the back of a check almost as bad as I do on the front.' "'I've got the cash here,' says the mayor, pulling a pocket book from under his pillow. "He counts out five fifty-dollar notes and holds 'em in his hand. "'Bring the receipt,' he says to Biddle. "I signed the receipt and the mayor handed me the money. I put it in my inside pocket careful. " 'Now do your duty, officer,' says the mayor, grin- ning much unlike a sick man. "Mr. Biddle lays his hand on my arm. "'You're under arrest, Dr. Waugh-hoo, alias Peters,' says he, 'for practising medicine without au- thority under the State law.' 'Who are you?' I asks. 'I'll tell you who he is,' says Mr. Mayor, sitting up in bed. 'He's a detective employed by the State Medical Society. He's been following you over five counties. He came to me yesterday and we fixed up this scheme to catch you. I guess you won't do any more doctoring around these parts, Mr. Fakir. What was it you said I had, doc?' the mayor laughs, 'com- pound — well it wasn't softening of the brain, I guess, anyway.' MCI «<1 30 The Gentle Grafter Jeff Peters as a Personal Magnet 31 a 'A detective,' says I. "'Correct,' says Biddle. 'I'll have to turn you over to the sheriff.' " 'Let's see you do it,' says I, and I grabs Biddle by the throat and half throws him out the window, but he pulls a gun and sticks it under my chin, and I stand still. Then he puts handcuffs on me, and takes the money out of my pocket. "'I witness,' says he, 'that they're the same bills that you and I marked, Judge Banks. I'll turn them over to the sheriff when we get to his office, and he'll send you a receipt. They'll have to be used as evi- dence in the case.' "'All right, Mr. Biddle,' says the mayor. 'And now, Doc Waugh-hoo,' he goes on, 'why don't you demonstrate? Can't you pull the cork out of your magnetism with your teeth and hocus-pocus them handcuffs off?' '"Come on, officer,' says I, dignified. 'I may as well make the best of it.' And then I turns to old Banks and rattles my chains. " 'Mr. Mayor,' says I, 'the time will come soon when you'll believe that personal magnetism is a suc- cess. And 3'ou'll be sure that it succeeded in this case, too.' "And I guess it did. 32 The Gentle Grafter "When we got nearly to the gate, I says: 'We might meet somebody now, Andy. I reckon you better take 'em off, and — ' Hey? Why, of course it was Andy Tucker. That was his scheme \ and that's how we got the capital to go into business together." MODERN RURAL SPORTS JEFF PETERS must be reminded. Whenever he is called upon, pointedly, for a story, he will maintain that his life has been as devoid of incident as the longest of Trollope's novels. But lured, he will di- vulge. Therefore I cast many and divers flies upon the current of his thoughts before I feel a nibble. "I notice," said I, "that the Western farmers, in spite of their prosperity, are running after their old populistic idols again." "It's the running season," said Jeff, "for farmers, shad, maple trees and the Connemaugh river. I know something about farmers. I thought I struck one once that had got out of the rut ; but Andy Tucker proved to me I was mistaken. 'Once a farmer, al- ways a sucker,' said Andy. 'He's the man that's shoved into the front row among bullets, ballots and the ballet. He's the funny-bone and gristle of the country,' said Andy, 'and I don't know who we would do without him.' "One morning me and Andy wakes up with sixty 33 34 The Gentle Grafter eight cents between us in a yellow pine hotel on the edge of the pre-digested hoc-cake belt of Southern Indiana. How we got off the train there the night before I can't tell you; for she went through the village so fast that what looked like a saloon to us through the car window turned out to be a composite view of a drug store and a water tank two blocks apart. Why we got off at the first station we could, belongs to a little oroide gold watch and Alaska diamond deal we failed to pull off the day before, over the Kentucky line. "When I woke up I heard roosters crowing, and smelt something like the fumes of nitro-muriatic acid, and heard something heavy fall on the floor below us, and a man swearing. " 'Cheer up, Andy,' says I. 'We're in a rural community. Somebody has just tested a gold brick downstairs. We'll go out and get what's coming to us from a farmer ; and then yoicks ! and away.' "Farmers was always a kind of reserve fund to me. Whenever I was in hard luck I'd go to the crossroads, hook a finger in a farmer's suspender, recite the pros- pectus of my swindle in a mechanical kind of a way, look over what he had, give him back his keys, whet- stone and papers that was of no value except to owner, and stroll away without asking any questions. Modern Rural Sports 35 Farmers are not fair game to me as high up in our business as me and Andy was ; but there was times when we found 'em useful, just as Wall Street does the Secretary of the Treasury now and then. "When we went down stairs we saw we was in the midst of the finest farming section we ever see. About two miles away on a hill was a big white house in a grove surrounded by a wide-spread agricultural agglomeration of fields and barns and pastures and out-houses. "'Whose house is that?' we asked the landlord. " 'That,' says he, 'is the domicile and the arboreal, terrestrial and horticultural accessories of Farmer Ezra Plunkett, one of our county's most progressive citizens.' "After breakfast me and Andy, with eight cents capital left, casts the horoscope of the rural potentate. " 'Let me go alone,' says I. 'Two of us against one farmer would look as one-sided as Roosevelt using both hands to kill a grizzly.' " 'All right,' says Andy. 'I like to be a true sport even when I'm only collecting rebates from the ruta- bag raisers. What bait are you going to use for tins Ezra thing?' Andy asks me. " 'Oh,' says I, 'the first thing that come to hand in the suit case. I reckon I'll take along some of the 36 The Gentle Grafter new income tax receipts ; and the recipe for making clover honey out of clabber and apple peelings ; and the order blanks for the McGuffey's readers, which afterwards turn out to be McCormick reapers ; and the pearl necklace found on the train ; and a pocket- size goldbrick; and a — ' " 'That'll be enough,' says Andj^. 'Any one of the lot ought to land on Ezra. And, say, Jeff, make that succotash fancier give you nice, clean, new bills. It's a disgrace to our Department of Agriculture* Civil Service and Pure Food Law the kind of stuff some of these farmers hand out to us. I've had to take rolls from 'em that looked like bundles of mi' crobe cultures captured out of a Red Cross ambu- lance.' "So, I goes to a livery stable and hires a buggy on my looks. I drove out to the Flunkett farm and hitched. There was a man sitting on the front steps of the house. He had on a white flannel suit, a dia- mond ring, golf cap and a pink ascot tie. 'Summer boarder,' says I to myself. " 'I'd like to see Farmer Ezra Plunkett,' says I to him. " 'You see him,' says he. 'What seems to be on your mind?' "I never answered a word. I stood still, repeating Modern Rural Sj)orts 37 to myself the rollicking lines of that merry jingle, 'The Man with the Hoe.' When I looked at this farmer, the little devices I had in my pocket for buncoing the pushed-back brows seemed as hopeless as trying to shake down the Beef Trust with a mitti- mus and a parlor rifle. "'Well,' says he, looking at me close, 'speak up. I see the left pocket of your coat sags a good deal. Out with the goldbrick first. I'm rather more inter- ested in the bricks that I am in the trick sixty-day notes and the lost silver mine story.' "I had a kind of cerebral sensation of foolishness in my ideas of ratiocination; but I pulled out the little brick and unwrapped my handkerchief off it. "'One dollar and eighty cents,' says the farmer hefting it in his hand. 'Is it a trade?' " 'The lead in it is worth more than that,' says I, dignified. I put it back in my pocket. "'All right,' savs he. 'But I sort of wanted it for the collection I'm starting. I got a $5,000 one last week for $2.10.' "Just then a telephone bell rings in the house. '"Come in, Bunk,' says the farmer, 'and look at my place. It's kind of lonesome here sometimes. I think that's New York calling.' "We went inside. The room looked like a Broad* 38 The Gentle Grafter way stockbroker's — light-oak desks, two 'phones, Spanish leather upholstered chairs and couches, oil paintings in gilt frames a foot deep and a ticker hitting off the news in one corner. " 'Hello, hello !' says this funny farmer. 'Is that the Regent Theatre? Yes ; this is Plunkett, of Wood- bine Centre. Reserve four orchestra seats for Friday evening — my usual ones. Yes ; Friday — good-bye.' " 'I run over to New York every two weeks to see a show,' says the farmer, hanging up the receiver. 'I catch the eighteen-hour flyer at Indianapolis, spend ten hours in the heyday of night on the Yappian . Way, and get home in time to see the chickens go to roost forty-eight hours later. Oh, the pristine Hub- bard squasherino of the cave-dwelling period is get- ting geared up some for the annual meeting of the Don't-Blow-Out-the-Gas Association, don't you think, Mr. Bunk?' " 'I seem to perceive,' says I, 'a kind of hiatus in the agrarian traditions in which heretofore, I have reposed confidence.' " 'Sure, Bunk,' says he. 'The yellow primrose on the river's brim is getting to look to us Reubs like a holiday edition de luxe of the Language of Flowers with deckle edges and frontispiece.' "Just then the telephone calls him again. Modern Rural Sjwrts 39 "'Hello, hello!' says he. 'Oh, that's Perkins, at Milldale. I told you $800 was too much for that horse. Have you got him there? Good. Let me see him. Get away from the transmitter. Now make him trot in a circle. Faster. Yes, I can hear him. Keep on — faster yet. . . . That'll do. Now lead him up to the phone. Closer. Get his nose nearer. There. Now wait. No ; I don't want that horse. What? No; not at any price. He inter- feres ; and he's windbroken. Goodbye.' "'Now, Bunk,' says the farmer, 'do you begin to realize that agriculture has had a hair cut? You belong in a bygone era. Why, Tom L'awson himself knows better than to try to catch an up-to-date ag- riculturist napping. It's Saturday, the Fourteenth, on the farm, you bet. Now, look here, and see how we keep up with the day's doings.' "He shows me a machine on a table with two things for your ears like the penny-in-the-slot affairs. I puts it on and listens. A female voice starts up reading headlines of murders, accidents and other political casualties. " 'What you hear,' says the farmer, 'is a synopsis of to-day's news in the New York, Chicago, St. Louis and San Francisco papers. It is wired in to our Rural News Bureau and served hot to subscribers. 40 The Gentle Grafter On this table you see the principal dailies and weeklies of the country. Also a special service of advance sheets of the monthly magazines.' "I picks up one sheet and sees that it's headed: 'Special Advance Proofs. In July, 1909, the Cen- iury will say' — and so forth. "The farmer rings up somebody — his manager, I reckon — and tells him to let that herd of 15 Jerseys go at $600 a head; and to sow the 900-acre field in wheat ; and to have 200 extra cans ready at the sta- tion for the milk trolley car. Then he passes the Henry Clays and sets out a bottle of green chart- reuse, and goes over and looks at the ticker tape. "'Consolidated Gas up two points,' says he. 'Oh, very well.' 'Ever monkey with copper?' I asks. 'Stand back !' says he, raising his hand, 'or I'll call the dog. I told you not to waste } 7 our time.' "After a while he says: 'Bunk, if you don't mind my telling you, your compan}' begins to cloy slightly. I've got to write an article on the Chimera of Com- munism for a magazine, and attend a meeting of the Race Track Association tin's afternoon. Of course you understand by now that you can't get my proxy for your Remedy, whatever it may be.' "Well, sir, all I could think of to do was to go "'] Modern Rural Sports 41 out and get in the buggy. The horse turned round and took me back to the hotel. I hitched him and went in to see Andy. In his room I told him about this farmer, word for word ; and I sat picking at the table cover like one bereft of sagaciousness. " 'I don't understand it,' says I, humming a sad and foolish little song to cover my humiliation. "Andy walks up and down the room for a long time, biting the left end of his mustache as he does when in the act of thinking. "'Jeff,' says he, finally, 'I believe your story of this expurgated rustic ; but I am not convinced. It looks incredulous to me that he could have inoculated himself against all the preordained systems of bucolic bunco. Now, you never regarded me as a man of spe- cial religious proclivities, did you, Jeff?' says Andy. " 'Well,' says I, 'No. But,' says I, not to wound his feelings, 'I have also observed many church mem- bers whose said proclivities were not so outwardly developed that they would show on a white handker- chief if you rubbed 'em with it.' '"I have alwaj's been a deep student of nature from creation down,' says Andy, 'and I believe in an ultimatum design of Providence. Farmers was made for a purpose ; and that was to furnish a liveli- hood to men like me and you. Else why was we given 42 The Gentle Grafter brains? It is my belief that the manna that the Is- raelites lived on for forty years in the wilderness was only a figurative word for farmers ; and they kept up the practice to this day. And now,' says Andy, 'I am going to test my theory "Once a farmer, always a come-on," in spite of the veneering and the orifices that a spurious civilization has brought to him.' "'You'll fail, same as I did,' says I. 'This one's shook off the shackles of the sheep-fold. He's en- trenched behind the advantages of electricity, educa- tion, literature and intelligence.' " 'I'll try,' said Andy. 'There are certain Laws of Nature that Free Rural Delivery can't overcome.' "Andy fumbles around awhile in the closet and comes out dressed in a suit with brown and yellow checks as big as your hand. His vest is red with blue dots, and he wears a high silk hat. I noticed he'd soaked his sandy mustache in a kind of blue ink. '"Great Barnums?' says I. 'You're a ringer for a circus thimblerig man.' "'Right,' says Andy. 'Is the buggy outside? Wait here till I come back. I won't be long.' "Two hours afterwards Andy steps in the room and lays a wad of money on the table. " 'Eight hundred and sixty dollars,' said he. 'Let Modern Bural Sports 43 me tell you. He was in. He looked me over and began to guy me. I didn't say a word, but got out the walnut shells and began to roll the little ball on the table. I whistled a tune or two, and then I started up the old formula. "'Step up lively, gentlemen,' says I, 'and watch the little ball. It costs you nothing to look. There you see it, and there you don't. Guess where the little joker is. The quickness of the hand deceives the eye.' '"I steals a look at the farmer man. I see the sweat coming out on his forehead. He goes over and closes the front door and watches me some more. Directly he says: "I'll bet you twent}' I can pick the shell the ball's under now." "'After that,' goes on Andy, 'there is nothing new to relate. He only had $860 in cash in the house. When I left he followed me to the gate. There was tears in his eyes when he shook hands. "'"Bunk,"' says he, '"thank you for the onlv real pleasure I've had in years. It brings up happy old days when I was only a ' an agri- culturist. God bless you.'"" Here Jeff Peters ceased, and I inferred that his story was done. "Then you think" — I began. 44 The Gentle Grafter "Yes," said Jeff. "Something like that. You let the farmers go ahead and amuse themselves with poli- tics. Farming's a lonesome life; and they've been against the shell game before." THE CHAIR OF PHILANTHROMATHE- MATICS I SEE that the cause of Education has received the princely gift of more than fifty millions of dol- lars," said I. I was gleaming the stray items from the evening papers while Jeff Peters packed his briar pipe with plug cut. "Which same," said Jeff, "calls for a new deck, and a recitation by the entire class in philanthro- mathematics." "Is that an allusion?" I asked. "It is," said Jeff. "I never told you about the time when me and Andy Tucker was philanthropists, did I? It was eight years ago in Arizona. Andy and me was out in the Gila mountains with a two- horse wagon prospecting for silver. We struck it, and sold out to parties in Tucson for $25,000. They paid our check at the bank in silver — a thousand dollars in a sack. We loaded it in our wagon and 45 46 he Gentle Grafter drove cast a hundred miles before we recovered our presence of intellect. Twenty-five thousand dollars don't sound like so much when you're reading the annual report of the Pennsylvania Railroad or listen- ing to an actor talking about his salary ; but when you can raise up a wagon sheet and kick around your bootheel and hear every one of 'em ring against another it makes you feel like you was a night-and- day bank with the clock striking twelve. "The third day out we drove into one of the most specious and tidy little towns that Nature or Rand and McNally ever turned out. It was in the foot- hills, and mitigated with trees and flowers and about 2,000 head of cordial and dilatory inhabitants. The town seemed to be called Floresville, and Nature had not contaminated it with many railroads, fleas or Eastern tourists. "Me and Andy deposited our money to the credit of Peters and Tucker in the Esperanza Savings Bank, and got rooms at the Skyview Hotel. After supper we lit up, and sat out on the gallery and smoked. Then was when the philanthropy idea struck me. I suppose every grafter gets it sometime. "When a man swindles the public out of a certain amount he begins to get scared and wants to return part of it. And if you'll watch close and notice the The Chair of Pliilanthromatliematics 47 way his charity runs you'll sue that he tries to restore it to the same people he got it from. As a hydro- statical case, take, let's say, A. A made his millions selling oil to poor students who sit up nights studying political economy and methods for regulating the trusts. So, back to the universities and colleges goes his conscience dollars. ''There's B got his from the common laboring man that works with his hands and tools. How's he to get some of the remorse fund back into their over- alls? "'Aha!' says B, Til do it in the name of Edu- cation. I've skinned the laboring man,' says he to himself, 'but, according to the old proverb, "Charity covers a multitude of skins." ' "So he puts up eighty million dollars' worth of libraries ; and the boys with the dinner pail that builds 'em gets the benefit. "'Where's the books?' asks the reading public. "'I dinna ken,' says B. 'I offered ye libraries; and there they are. I suppose if I'd given ye pre- ferred steel trust stock instead ye'd have wanted the water in it set out in cut glass decanters. Hoot, for ye!' "But, as I said, the owning of . h money was beginning to give me philanthropies. It was the 48 The Gentle Grafter first time me and Andy had ever made a pile big enough to make us stop and think how we got it. "'Andy,' says I, 'we're wealthy — not beyond the dreams of average ; but in our humble way we are comparatively as rich as Greasers. I feel as if I'd like to do something for as well as to humanity.' " 'I was thinking the same thing, Jeff,' says he. 'We've been gouging the public for a long time with all kinds of little schemes from selling self-igniting celluloid collars to flooding Georgia with Hoke Smith presidential campaign buttons. I'd like, myself, to hedge a bet or two in the graft game if I could do it without actually banging the cymbalines in the Salvation Army or teaching a bible class by the Bertillon system.' " ' What'll we do ?' says Andy. 'Give free grub to the poor or send a couple of thousand to George Cortelyou?' " 'Neither,' says I. 'We've got too much money to be implicated in plain charity ; and we haven't got enough to make restitution. So, we'll look about for something that's about half way between the two.' "The next day in walking around Floresville we see on a hill a big red brick building that appears to be disinhabited. The citizens speak up and tell us that it was begun for a residence several years before The Chair of Philanthromathcmatics 49 by a mine owner. After running up the house he finds he only had $2.80 left to furnish it with, so he invests that in whiskey and jumps off the roof on a spot where he now requiescats in pieces. "As soon as me and Andy saw that building the same idea struck both of us. We would fix it up with lights and pen wipers and professors, and put an iron dog and statues of Hercules and Father John on the lawn, and start one of the finest free educa- tional institutions in the world right there. "So we talks it over to the prominent citizens of Floresville, who falls in fine with the idea. They give a banquet in the engine house to us, and we make our bow for the first time as benefactors to the cause of progress and enlightenment. Andy makes an hour- and-a-half speech on the subject of irrigation in Lower Egypt, and we have a moral tune on the phonograph and pineapple sherbet. "Andy and me didn't lose any time in philan- thropping. We put every man in town that could tell a hammer from a step ladder to work on the building, dividing it up into class rooms and lecture halls. We wire to Frisco for a car load of desks, footballs, arithmetics, penholders, dictionaries, chairs for the professors, slates, skeletons, sponges, twenty- seven cravenetted gowns and caps for the senior class, 50 The Gentle Grafter and an open order for all the truck that goes with a first-class university. I took it on myself to put a campus and a curriculum on the list; but the tele- graph operator must have got the words wrong, being an ignorant man, for when the goods come we found a can of peas and a curry-comb among 'em. "While the weekly papers was having chalk-plate cuts of me and Andy we wired an employment agency in Chicago to express us f. o. b., six professors im- mediately — one English literature, one up-to-date dead languages, one chemistry, one political economy — democrat preferred — one logic, and one wise to painting, Italian and music, with union card. The Esperanza bank guaranteed salaries, which was to run between $800 and $800.50. "Well, sir, we finally got in shape. Over the front door was carved the words: 'The World's Univer- sity; Peters Si Tucker, Patrons and Proprietors.' And when September the first got a cross-mark on the calendar, the come-ons begun to roll in. First the faculty got off the tri-weekly ess from Tucson. They was mostly young, spectacled and red-headed, with sentiments 1 between ambition and food. Andy and me got 'em billeted on the Floresvillians and then laid for the students. "They came in bunches. WIrs. Avery, who he said was high up in sociable and diplomatic rings and circles. "The next morning at 10 o'clock me and Andy called at her hotel, and was shown up to her recep- tion room. "This Mrs. Avery was a solace and a balm to the eyesight. She had hair the color of the back of a twenty dollar gold certificate, blue eyes and a system of beauty that would make the girl on the cover of a July magazine look like a cook on a Monongahela coal barge. "She had on a low necked dress covered with silver spangles, and diamond rings and ear bobs. Her arms was bare; and she was using a desk telephone with one hand, and drinking tea with the other. "'Well, boys,' says she after a bit, 'what is it?' "I told her in as few words as possible what we wanted for Bill, and the price we could pay. " 'Those western appointments,' says she, 'are easy. Le'me see, now,' says she, 'who could put that through for us. No use fooling with Territorial del- egates. I guess,' says she, 'that Senator Sniper would be about the man. He's from somewheres in the West. Let's see how he stands on my private menu card.' She takes some papers out of a pigeon- hole with the letter 'S' over it. The Hand that Riles the World 65 « ►« «o w fe 66 The Gentle Grafter " 'Yes,' says she, 'he's marked with a star ; that means "ready to serve." Now, let's see. "Age 55 ; married twice ; Presbyterian, likes blondes, Tolstoi, poker and stewed terrapin ; sentimental at third bot- tle of wine." Yes,' she goes on, 'I am sure I can have your friend, Mr. Bummer, appointed Minister to Brazil.' " 'Humble,' says I. 'And United States Marshal was the berth.' " 'Oh, yes,' says Mrs. Avery. 'I have so many deals of this sort I sometimes get them confused. Give me all the memoranda you have of the case, Mr. Peters, and come back in four days. I think it can be arranged by then.' "So me and Andy goes back to our hotel and waits. Andy walks up and down and chews the left end of his mustache. " 'A woman of high intellect and perfect beauty is a rare thing, Jeff,' says he. " 'As rare,' says I, 'as an omelet made from the eggs of the fabulous bird known as the epidermis,' says I. " 'A woman like that,' says Andy, 'ought to lead a man to the highest positions of opulence and fame.' " 'I misdoubt,' says I, 'if any woman ever helped The Hand that Riles the World 67 a man to secure a job any more than to have his meals ready promptly and spread a report that the other candidate's wife had once been a shoplifter. They arc no more adapted for business and politics,' says I, 'than Algernon Charles Swinburne is to be floor manager at one of Chuck Connor's annual balls. I know,' says I to Andy, 'that sometimes a woman seems to step out into the kalsomine light as the charge d'affaires of her man's political job. But how does it come out? Say, they have a neat little berth somewhere as foreign consul of record to Afghanis- tan or lockkeeper on the Delaware and Raritan Canal. One day this man finds his wife putting on her overshoes and three months supply of bird seed into the canary's cage. "Sioux Falls?" he asks with a kind of hopeful light in his eye. "No, Arthur," says she, "Washington. We're wasted here," says she. "You ought to be Toady Extraordinary to the Court of St. Bridget or Head Porter of the Island of Porto Rico. I'm going to see about it." " 'Then this lady,' I says to Andy, 'moves against the authorities at Washington with her bag- gage and munitions, consisting of five dozen indis- criminating letters written to her by a member of the Cabinet when she was 15 ; a letter of introduc- 68 The Gentle Grafter tion from King Leopold to the Smithsonian Institu- tion, and a pink silk costume with canary colored spats. "'Well, and then what?' I goes. 'She has the letters printed in the evening papers that match her costume, she lectures at an informal tea given in the palm room of the B. & O. Depot and then calls on the President. The ninth Assistant Secretary of Commerce and Labor, the first aide-de-camp of the Blue Room and an unidentified colored man are waiting there to grasp her by the hands — and feet. They carry her out to S. W. B. street and leave her on a cellar door. That ends it. The nest time we hear of her she is writing postal cards to the Chinese Minister asking him to get Arthur a job in a tea store.' "'Then,' says Andy, 'you don't think Mrs. Avery will land the Marshalship for Bill?' " 'I do not,' says I. 'I do not wish to be a septic, but I doubt if she can do as well as you and me could have done.' " 'I don't agree with you,' says Andy. 'I'll bet you she does. I'm proud of having a higher opinion of the talent and the powers of negotiation of ladies.' "We was back at Mrs. Avery's hotel at the time The Hand that Riles the World 69 she appointee!. She was looking pretty and fine enough, as far as that went, to make any man let her name every officer in the country. But I hadn't much faith in looks, so I was certainly surprised when she pulls out a document with the great seal of the United States on it, and 'William Henry Humble' in a fine, big hand on the back. " 'You might have had it the next day, boys,' says Mrs. Avery smiling. 'I hadn't the slightest trouble in getting it,' says she. 'I just asked for it, that's all. Now, I'd like to talk to you a while,' she goes on, *but I'm awfully bus}', and I know you'll excuse me. I've got an Ambassadorship, two Consulates and a dozen other minor applications to look after. I can hardly find time to sleep at all. You'll give my com- pliments to Mr. Humble when you get home, of course.' "Well, I handed her the $500, which she pitched into her desk drawer without counting. I put Bill's appointment in my pocket and me and Andy made our adieus. "We started back for the Territory the same day. We wired Bill: 'Job landed; get the tall glasses ready,' and we felt pretty good. "Andy joshed me all the way about how little I knew about women. 70 The Gentle Grafter " 'All right,' says I. Til admit that she surprised me. But it's the first time I ever knew one of 'em to manipulate a piece of business on time without getting it bungled up in some way,' says I. "Down about the edge of Arkansas I got out Bill's appointment and looked it over, and then I handed it to Andy to read. Andy read it, but didn't add any remarks to my silence. "The paper was for Bill, all right, and a genuine document, but it appointed him postmaster of Dade City, Fla. "Me and Andy got off the train at Little Rock and sent Bill's appointment to him by mail. Then we struck northeast toward Lake Superior. "I never saw Bill Humble after that." THE EXACT SCIENCE OF MATRIMONY "AS I have told you before," said Jeff Peters, "I never had much confidence in the perfidiousness of woman. As partners or coeducators in the most innocent line of graft thev are not trustworthy." "They deserve the compliment," said I. "I think they are entitled to be caHed the honest sex." "Why shouldn't they be?" said Jeff. "They've got the other sex either grafting or working overtime for 'em. They're all right in business until they get their emotions or their hair touched up too much. Then you want to have a flat footed, heavy breathing man with sandy whiskers, five kids and a building and loan mortgage ready as an understudy to take her desk. Now there was that widow lady that me and Andy Tucker engaged to help us in that little mat- rimonial agency scheme we floated out in Cairo. "When you've got enough advertising capital — say a roll as big as the little end of a wagon tongue — there's money in matrimonial agencies. We had about $6,000 and we expected to double it in two 71 72 The Gentle Grafter months, which is about as long as a scheme like ours can be carried on without taking out a New Jersey charter. "We fixed up an advertisement that read about like this : "Charming widow, beautiful, home loving, 32 years, pos- sessing $3,000 cash and owning valuable country property, would remarry. Would prefer a poor man with affectionate disposition to one with means, as she realizes that the solid virtues are oftenest to be found in the humble walks of life. No objection to elderly man or one of homely appearance if faithful and true and competent to manage property and invest money with judgment. Address, with particulars. Loxely, Care of Peters & Tucker, agents, Cairo, 111. " 'So far, so pernicious,' says I, when we had finished the literary concoction. 'And now,' says I, *where is the lady?' "Andy gives me one of his looks of calm irrita- tion. "'Jeff,' says he, 'I thought you had lost them ideas of realism in your art. Why should there be a lady? When they sell a lot of watered stock on Wall Street would you expect to find a mermaid in it? What has a matrimonial ad got to do with a lady?' " 'Now listen,' says I. 'You know my rule, Andy, that in all my illegitimate inroads against the legal letter of the law the article sold must be existent, The Exact Science of Matrimony 73 visible, producible. In that way and by a careful study of city ordinances and train schedules I have kept out of all trouble with the police that a five dollar bill and a cigar could not square. Now, to work this scheme we've got to be able to produce bodily a charming widow or its equivalent with or without the beauty, hereditaments and appurtenances set forth in the catalogue and writ of errors, or here- after be held by a justice of the peace.' " 'Well,' says Andy, reconstructing his mind, 'maybe it would be safer in case the post office or the peace commission should try to investigate our agency. But where,' he says, 'could you hope to find a widow who would waste time on a matrimonial scheme that had no matrimony in it?' "I told Andy that I thought I knew of the exact party. An old friend of mine, Zeke Trotter, who used to draw soda water and teeth in a tent show, had made his wife a widow a year before by drinking some dyspepsia cure of the old doctor's instead of the liniment that he always got boozed up on. I used to stop at their house often, and I thought we could get her to work with us. " 'Twas only sixty miles to the little town where she lived, so I jumped out on the I. C. and finds her in the same cottage with the same sunflowers and 74 The Gentle Grafter roosters standing on the washtub. Mrs. Trotter fitted our ad first rate except, maybe for beauty and age and property valuation. But she looked feasible and praiseworthy to the eye, and it was a kindness to Zeke's memory to give her the job. " 'Is this an honest deal you are putting on, Mr. Peters,' she asks me when I tell her what we want. " 'Mrs. Trotter,' says I, 'Andy Tucker and me have computed the calculation that 3,000 men in this broad and unfair country with endeavor to secure your fair hand and ostensible money and property through our advertisement. Out of that number something like thirty hundred will expect to give you in exchange, if they should win you, the carcass of a lazy and mercenary loafer, a failure in life, a swin- dler and contemptible fortune seeker. " 'Me and Andy,' says I, 'propose to teach these preyers upon society a lesson. It was with difficulty,' says I, 'that me and Andy could refrain from form- ing a corporation under the title of the Great Moral and Millennial Malevolent Matrimonial Agency. Does that satisfy you?' '"It does, Mr. Peters,' says she. 'I might have known you wouldn't have gone into anything that wasn't opprobrious. But what will my duties be? Do I have to reject personally these 3,000 ramscal- The Eooact Science of Matrimony 75 lions vou speak of, or can I throw them out in bunches?' "'Your job, Mrs. Trotter,' says I, 'will be prac- tically a cynosure. You will live at a quiet hotel and will have no work to do. Andy and I will attend to all the correspondence and business end of it. "'Of course,' says I, 'some of the more ardent and impetuous suitors who can raise the railroad fare may come to Cairo to personally press their suit or ■vhatever fraction of a suit they may be wearing. In that case you will be probably put to the inconven- ience of kicking them out face to face. We will pay you $25 per week and hotel expenses.' "'Give me five minutes,' says Mrs. Trotter, 'to get my powder rag and leave the front door key with a neighbor and you can let my salary begin.' "So I conveys Mrs. Trotter to Cairo and estab- lishes her in a family hotel far enough away from mine and Andy's quarters to be unsuspicious and available, and I tell Andy. " 'Great,' says Andy. 'And noT that your con- science is appeased as to the tangibility and proxim- ity of the bait, and leaving mutton aside, suppose we revenoo a noo fish.' "So, we began to insert our advertisement in news- papers covering the country far and wide. One ad 76 The Gentle Grafter was all we used. We couldn't have used more without hiring so many clerks and marcelled paraphernalia that the sound of the gum chewing would have dis- turbed the Postmaster-General. "We placed $2,000 in a bank to Mrs. Trotter's credit and gave her the book to show in case anybody might question the honesty and good faith of the agency. I knew Mrs. Trotter was square and re- liable and it was safe to leave it in her name. "With that one ad Andy and me put in twelve hours a day answering letters. "About one hundred a day was what came in. I never knew there was so many large hearted but in- digent men in the country who were willing to ac- quire a charming widow and assume the burden of in- vesting her money. "Most of them admitted that they ran principally to whiskers and lost jobs and were misunderstood by the world, but all of 'em were sure that they were so chock full of affection and manly qualities that the widow would be making the bargain of her life to get 'em. "Every applicant got a reply from Peters & Tucker informing him that the widow had been deeply impressed by his straightforward and inter- esting letter and requesting them to write again; The Exact Science of Matrimony 77 09 O O O 78 The Gentle Grafter stating more particulars ; and enclosing photograph if convenient. Peters & Tucker also informed the applicant that their fee for handing over the second letter to their fair client would be $2, enclosed there- with. "There you see the simple beauty of the scheme. About 90 per cent, of them domestic foreign noble- men raised the price somehow and sent it in. That was all there was to it. Except that me and Andy complained an amount about being put to the trouble of slicing open them envelopes, and taking the money out. "Some few clients called in person. We sent 'em to Mrs. Trotter and she did the rest ; except for three or four who came back to strike us for carfare. After the letters began to get in from the r. f. d. dis- tricts Andy and me were taking in about $200 a day. "One afternoon when we were busiest and I was stuffing the two and ones into cigar boxes and Andy was whistling 'No Wedding Bells for Pier' a small, slick man drops in and runs his eye over the walls like he was on the trail of a lost Gainesborough paint- ing or two. As soon as I saw him I felt a glow of pride, because we were running our business on the level. The Exact Science of Matrimony 79 " 'I see you have quite a large mail to-day,' says the man. "I reached and got my hat. "'Come on.' says I. 'We've been expecting you. Ill show you the goods. How was Teddy when you left Washington?' "I took him down to the Riverview Hotel and had him shake hands with Mrs. Trotter. Then I showed him her bank book with the $2,000 to her credit. " 'It seems to be all right,' says the Secret Service. " 'It is,' says I. 'And if you're not a married man I'll leave you to talk a while with the lady. We won't mention the two dollars.' " 'Thanks,' says he. 'If I wasn't, I might. Good day, Mrs. Peters.' "Toward the end of three months we had taken in something over $5,000, and we saw it was time to quit. We had a good many complaints made to us ; and Mrs. Trotter seemed to be tired of the job. A good many suitors had been calling to see her, and she didn't seem to like that. "So we decides to pull out, and I goes down to Mrs. Trotter's hotel to pay her last week's salary and say farewell and get her check for the $2,000. "When I got there I found her crying like a kid that don't want to go to school. 80 The Gentle Grafter "'Now, now,' says I, 'what's it all about? Some- body sassed you or you getting homesick?' " 'No, Mr. Peters,' says she. 'I'll tell you. You ^rc^Mw*e— »i " ' Mr. Peters, I'm in love.' ' was always a friend of Zelce's, and I don't mind. Mr. Peters, I'm in love. I just love a man so hard I can't bear not to get him. He's just the ideal I've always had in mind.' The Exact Science of Matrimony 81 " 'Then take him,' says I. 'That is, if it's a mu- tual ease. Does he return the sentiment according to the specifications and painfulness you have de- scribed?' " 'He does,' says she. 'But he's one of the gentle- men that's been coming to see me about the advertise- ment and he won't marry me unless I give him the $2,000. His name is William Wilkinson.' And then she goes off again in the agitations and hysterics of romance. "'Mrs. Trotter,' says I, 'there's no man more sympathizing with a woman's affections than I am. Besides, you was once the life partner of one of my best friends. If it was left to me. I'd say take this $2,000 and the man of your choice and be happy. "'We could afford to do that, because we have cleaned up over $5,000 from these suckers that wanted to marry you. But,' says I, 'Andy Tucker is to be consulted. " 'He is a good man, but keen in business. He is my equal partner financially. I will talk to Andy,' says I, 'and see what can be done.' "I goes back to our hotel and lays the case before Andy. " 'I was expecting something like this all the time,' says Andy. 'You can't trust a woman to stick by 82 The Gentle Grafter you in any scheme that involves her emotions and preferences.' "'It's a sad thing, Andy,' says I, Ho think that we've been the cause of the breaking of a woman's heart.' " 'It is,' says Andy, 'and I tell you what I'm will- ing to do, Jeff. You've always been a man of a soft and generous heart and disposition. Perhaps I've been too hard and worldly and suspicious. For once I'll meet you half way. Go to Mrs. Trotter and tell her to draw the $2,000 from the bank and give it to this man she's infatuated with and be happy.' "I jumps up and shakes Andy's hand for five min- utes, and then I goes back to Mrs. Trotter and tells her, and she cries as hard for joy as she did for sor- row. "Two days afterward me and Andy packed up to go. "'Wouldn't you like to go down and meet Mrs. Trotter once before we leave?' I asks him. 'She'd like mightily to know you and express her encomiums and gratitude.' " 'Why, I guess not,' says Andy. 'I guess we'd better hurry and catch that train.' "I was strapping our capital around me in a mem- ory belt like we always carried it, when Andy pulls a The 'Exact Science of Matrimony 83 « What's this?' says I.' 84 The Gentle Grafter roll of large bills out of his pocket and asks me to put 'em with the rest. "'What's this?' says I. " 'It's Mrs. Trotter's two thousand,' says Andy. " 'How do you come to have it?' I asks. " 'She gave it to me,' says Andy. 'I've been call- ing on her three evenings a week for more than a month.' "'Then are you William Wilkinson?' says I. "'I was,' says Andy." A MIDSUMMER MASQUERADE 6(1 'SATAN," said Jeff Peters, "is a hard boss to work for. When other people are having their vaca- tion is when he keeps you the busiest. As old Dr. Watts or St. Paul or some other diagnostician says: 'He always finds somebody for idle hands to do.' "I remember one summer when me and my partner, Andy Tucker, tried to take a laj^off from our pro- fessional and business duties; but it seems that our work followed us wherever we went. "Now, with a preacher it's different. He can throw off his responsibilities and enjoy himself. On the 31st of May he wraps mosquito netting and tin foil around the pulpit, grabs his niblick, breviary and fishing pole and hikes for Lake Como or Atlantic City according to the size of the loudness with which he has been called by his congregation. And, sir, for three months he don't have to think about business except to hunt around in Deuteronomy and Proverbs and Timothy to find texts to cover and exculpate such little midsummer penances as dropping a couple ©I 85 86 The Gentle Grafter looej' door on rouge or teaching a Presbyterian widow to swim. "But I was going to tell you about mine and Andy's summer vacation that wasn't one. "We was tired of finance and all the branches of unsanctified ingenuity. Even Andy, whose brain rarely ever stopped working, began to make noises like a tennis cabinet. " 'Heigh ho !' says Andy. 'I'm tired. I've got that steam up the yacht Corsair and ho for the Riviera ! feeling. I want to loaf and indict my soul, as Walt Whittier says. I want to play pinochle with Merry del Val or give a knouting to the tenants on my Tarrytown estates or do a monologue at a Chau- tauqua picnic in kilts or something summery and out- side the line of routine and sand-bagging.' " 'Patience,' says I. 'You'll have to climb higher in the profession before you can taste the laurels that crown the footprints of the great captains of indus- try. Now, what I'd like, Andy,' says I, 'would be a summer sojourn in a mountain village far from scenes of larceny, labor and overcapitalization. I'm tired, too, and a month or so of sinlessne9S ought to leave us in good shape to begin again to take away the white man's burdens in the fall.' "Andy fell in with the rest cure idea at once, so we A Midsummer Masquerade 8? struck the general passenger agents of all the rail- roads for summer resort literature, and took a week to study out where we should go. I reckon the first passenger agent in the world was that man Genesis. But there wasn't much competition in his day, and when he said : 'The Lord made the earth in six days, and all very good,' he hadn't any idea to what extent the press agents of the summer hotels would plagiar- ize from him later on. "When we finished the booklets we perceived, easy, that the United States from Passadumkeg, Maine, to El Paso, and from Skagway to Key West was a para- dise of glorious mountain peaks, crystal lakes, new laid eggs, golf, girls, garages, cooling breezes, straw rides, open plumbing and tennis ; and all within two hours' ride. "So me and Andy dumps the books out the back window and packs our trunk and takes the 6 o'clock Tortoise Flyer for Crow Knob, a kind of a dernier resort in the mountains on the line of Tennessee and North Carolina. "We was directed to a kind of private hotel called Woodchuck Inn, and thither me and Andy bent and almost broke our footsteps over the rocks and stumps. The Inn set back from the road in a big grove of trees, and it looked fine with its broad porches and a 88 The Gentle Grafter L I WUIIMI ' ' . ' Dumps the books out of the back window. A Midsummer Masquerade 89 lot of women in white dresses rocking in the shade. The rest of Crow Knob was a post office and some scenery set an angle of forty-five degrees and a welkin. * "Well, sir, when we got to the gate who do you suppose comes down the walk to greet us? Old Smoke-'em-out Smithers, who used to be the best open air painless dentist and electric liver pad faker in the Southwest. "Old Smoke-'em-out is dressed clerico-rural, and has the mingled air of a landlord and a claim jumper. Which aspect he corroborates by telling us that he is the host and perpetrator of Woodchuck inn. I intro- duces Andy, and we talk about a few volatile topics, such as will go around at meetings of boards of di- rectors and old associates like us three were. Old Smoke-'em-out leads us into a kind of summer house in the j'ard near the gate and took up the harp of life and smote on all the chords with his mighty right. "'Gents,' says he, 'I'm glad to see j-ou. J\Liybe you can help me out of a scrape. I'm getting a bit old for street work, so I leased this dogdays empo- rium so the good things would come to me. Two weeks before the season opened I gets a letter signed Lieut. Peary and one from the Duke of Marlborough, each wanting to engage board for part of the summer. 90 The Gentle Grafter " 'Well, sir, you gents know what a big thing for an obscure hustlery it would be to have for guests two gentlemen whose names are famous from long as- sociation with icebergs and the Coburgs. So I prints a lot of handbills announcing that Woodchuck Inn would shelter these distinguished boarders during the summer, except in places where it leaked, and I sends 'em out to towns around as far as Knoxville and Charlotte and Fish Dam and Bowling Green. " 'And now look up there on the porch, gents,' says Smoke-'em-out, 'at them disconsolate specimens of their fair sex waiting for the arrival of the Duke and the Lieutenant. The house is packed from rafters to cellar with hero worshippers. '"There's four normal school teachers and two abnormal ; there's three high school graduates be- tween 37 and 42 ; there's two literary old maids and one that can write; there's a couple of society women and a lady from Haw River. Two elocutionists are bunking in the corn crib, and I've put cots in the hay loft for the cook and the society editress of the Chat- tanooga Opera Glass. You see how names draw, gents.' "'Well,' says I, 'how is it that you seem to be biting your thumbs at good luck? You didn't use to be that way.' 'A Midsummer Masquerade 91 "'I ain't through,' says Smoke-'em-out. 'Yester- day was the day for the advent of the auspicious per- sonages. I goes down to the depot to welcome 'em. Two apparently animate substances gets off the train, both carrying bags full of croquet mallets and these magic lanterns with pushbuttons. " 'I compares these integers with the original sig- natures to the letters — and, well, gents, I reckon the mistake was due to my poor eyesight. Instead of be- ing the Lieutenant, the daisy chain and wild verbena explorer was none other than Levi T. Peevy, a soda water clerk from Asheville. And the Duke of Marl- borough turned out to be Theo. Drake of Murfrees- borough, a bookkeeper in a grocery. What did I do? I kicked 'em both back on the train and watched 'em depart for the lowlands, the low. " 'Now you see the fix I'm in, gents,' goes on Smoke-'em-out Smithers. 'I told the ladies that the notorious visitors had been detained on the road by some unavoidable circumstances that made a noise like an ice jam and an heiress, but they would arrive a day or two later. When they find out that they've been deceived,' says Smoke-'em-out, 'every yard of cross barred muslin and natural waved switch in the house will pack up and leave. It's a hard deal,' says old Smoke-'em-out. 92 The Gentle Grafter s » i-s; 8 « '1 A Midsummer Masquerade 93 'Friend,' says Andy, touching the old man on the aesophagus, 'why this jeremiad when the polar regions and the portals of Blenheim are conspiring to hand you prosperity on a hall-marked silver salver. We have arrived.' "A light breaks out on Smoke-'em-out's face. "'Can you do it, gents?' he asks. 'Could ye do it? Could ye play the polar man and the little duke for the nice ladies ? Will ye do it ?' "I see that Andy is superimposed with his old hankering for the oral and polyglot system of bunco- ing. That man had a vocabulary of about 10,000 words and synonyms, which arrayed themselves into contraband sophistries and parables when they came out. " 'Listen,' says Andy to old Smoke-'em-out. 'Can we do it? You behold before you, Mr. Smithers, two of the finest equipped men on earth for inveigling the proletariat, whether by word of mouth, sleight-of- hand or swiftness of foot. Dukes come and go, ex- plorers go and get lost, but me and Jeff Peters,' says Andy, 'go after the come-ons forever. If you say so, we're the two illustrious guests you were expecting. And you'll find,' says Andy, 'that we'll give you the true local color of the title roles from the aurora borealis to the ducal portcullis.' The Gentle Grafter •9 Co. CO <35 A Midsummer Masquerade 95 "Old Smoke- 'em-out is delighted. He takes me and Andy up to the inn by an arm apiece, telling us on the way that the finest fruits of the can and lux- uries of the fast freights should be ours without price as long as we would stay. "On the porch Smoke-'em-out says: 'Ladies, I have the honor to introduce His Gracefulness the Duke of Marlborough and the famous inventor of the North Pole, Lieut. Peary.' "The skirts all flutter and the rocking chairs squeak as me and Andy bows and then goes on in with old Smoke-'em-out to register. And then we washed up and turned our cuffs, and the landlord took us to the rooms he'd been saving for us and got out a demijohn of North Carolina real mountain dew. "I expected trouble when Andy began to drink. He has the artistic metempsychosis which is half drunk when sober and looks down on airships when stimulated. "After lingering with the demijohn me and Andy goes out on the porch, where the ladies are to begin to earn our keep. We sit in two special chairs and then the schoolma'ams and literaterrers hunched their rockers close around us. 96 The Gentle Grafter "One lady says to me : 'How did that last venture of yours turn out, sir?' "Now, I'd clean forgot to have an understanding with Andy which I was to be, the duke or the lieuten- ant. And I couldn't tell from her question whether she was referring to Arctic or matrimonial expedi- tions. So I gave an answer that would cover both cases. "'Well, ma'am,' says I, 'it was a freeze out — right smart of a freeze out, ma'am.' "And then the flood gates of Andy's perorations was opened and I knew which one of the renowned os- tensible guests I was supposed to be. I wasn't either. Andy was both. And still furthermore it seemed that he was trying to be the mouthpiece of the entire Brit- ish nobility and of Arctic exploration from Sir John Franklin down. It was the union of corn whiskey and the conscientious fictional form that Mr. W. D. Howletts admires so much. " 'Ladies,' says Andy, smiling semicircularly, 'I am truly glad to visit America. I do not consider the magna charta,' says he, 'or gas balloons or snow- shoes in any way a detriment to the beauty and charm of your American women, skyscrapers or the archi- tecture of your icebergs. The next time,' says Andy 9 A Midsummer Masquerade 97 'that I go after the North Pole all the Vanderbilts in Greenland won't be able to turn me out in the cold — I mean make it hot for me.' " 'Tell us about one of your trips, Lieutenant,' ^ays one of the normals. '"Sure,' says Andy, getting the decision over a hiccup. 'It was in the spring of last year that I sailed the Castle of Blenheim up to latitude 87 de- grees Fahrenheit and beat the record. Ladies,' says Andy, 'it was a sad sight to see a Duke allied by a civil and liturgical chattel mortgage to one of your first families lost in a region of semiannual days.' And then he goes on, 'At four bells we sighted West- minster Abbey, but there was not a drop to eat. At noon we threw out five sandbags, and the ship rose fifteen knots higher. At midnight,' continues Andy, 'the restaurants closed. Sitting on a cake of ice we ate seven hot dogs. All around us was snow and ice. Six times a night the boatswain rose up and lore a leaf off the calendar so we could keep time irith the barometer. At 12,' says Andy, with a lot af anguish in his face, 'three huge polar bears sprang down the hatchway, into the cabin. And then — ' '"What then, Lieutenant?' says a schoolma'am, excitedly. 98 The Gentle Grafter "Andy gives a loud sob. " 'The Duchess shook me,' he cries out, and slides out of the chair and weeps on the porch. "Well, of course, that fixed the scheme. The women boarders all left the next morning. The land- lord wouldn't speak to us for two days, but when he found we had money to pay our way he loosened up. "So me and Andy had a quiet, restful summer after all, coming away from Crow Knob with $1,100, that we enticed out of old Smoke-'em-out playing seven up." SHEARING THE WOLF JEFF PETERS was always eloquent when the ethics of his profession was under discussion. "The only times," said he, "that me and Andy Tucker ever had any hiatuses in our cordial intents was when we differed on the moral aspects of graft- ing. Andy had his standards and I had mine. I didn't approve of all of Andy's schemes for levying contributions from the public, and he thought I al- lowed my conscience to interfere too often for the financial good of the firm. We had high arguments sometimes. Once one word led on to another till he said I reminded him of Rockefeller. " 'I know how you mean that, Andy,' says I, 'but we have been friends too long for me to take offense, at a taunt that you will regret when you cool off. I have yet,' says I, 'to shake hands with a subpoena server.' "One summer me and Andy decided to rest up a spell in a fine little town in the mountains of Ken- tucky called Grassdale. We was supposed to be horse 99 100 The Gentle Grafter drovers, and good decent citizens besides, taking a summer vacation. The Grassdale people liked us, and me and Andy declared a secession of hostilities, never so much as floating the fly leaf of a rubber concession prospectus or flashing a Brazilian diamond while we was there. "One day the leading hardware merchant of Grass- dale drops around to the hotel where me and Andy stopped, and smokes with us, sociable, on the side porch. We knew him pretty well from pitching quoits in the afternoons in the court house yard. He was a loud, red man, breathing hard, but fat and re- spectable beyond all reason. "After we talk on all the notorious themes of the day, this Murkison — for such was his entitlements — takes a letter out of his coat pocket in a careful, careless way and hands it to us to read. "'Now, what do you think of that?' says he, laughing — 'a letter like that to ME!' "Me and Andy sees at a glance what it is : but we pretend to read it through. It was one of them old time typewritten green goods letters explaining how for $1,000 you could get $5,000 in bills that an ex- pert couldn't tell from the genuine; and going on to tell how they were made from plates stolen by an em- ployee of the Treasury at Washington. Shearing the Wolf 101 nznx UU_U LL.LU iU_l_U 102 The Gentle Grafter "Think of 'em sending a letter like that to ME !* says Murkison again. " 'Lot's of good men get 'em,' says Andy. 'If you don't answer the first letter they let you drop. If you answer it they write again asking you to come on with your money and do business.' " 'But think of 'em writing to ME !' says Murki- son. "A few days later he drops around again. "'Boys,' says he, 'I know you are all right or I wouldn't confide in you. I wrote to them rascals again just for fun. They answered and told me to come on to Chicago. They said telegraph to J. Smith when I would start. When I get there I'm to wait on a cer^- tain street corner till a man in a gray suit comes along and drops a newspaper in front of me. Then I am to ask him how the water is, and he knows it's me and I know it's him.' " 'Ah, yes,' says Andy, gaping, 'it's the same old game. I've often read about it in the papers. Then he conducts you to the private abattoir in the hotel, where Mr. Jones is already waiting. TIktv show you brand new real money and sell you all you want at five for one. You see 'em put it in a satchel for you and know it's there. Of course it's brown paper when you come to look at it afterward.' Shearing the Wolf 103 I. -Si 104 The Gentle Grafter "'Oh, they couldn't switch it on me,' says Murki« son. 'I haven't built up the best paying business in Grassdale without having witticisms about me. You say it's real money they show you, Mr. Tucker?' " 'I've always — I see by the papers that it al- ways is,' says Andy. " 'Boj's,' says Murkison, 'I've got it in my mind that them fellows can't fool me. I think I'll put a couple of thousand in my jeans and go up there and put it all over 'em. If Bill Murkison gets his eyes once on them bills they show him he'll never take 'em off of 'em. They offer $5 for $1, and they'll have to stick to the bargain if I tackle 'em. That's the kind of trader Bill Murkison is. Yes, I jist believe I'll drop up Chicago way and take a 5 to 1 shot on J. Smith. I guess the water'll be fine enough.' "Me and Andy tries to get this financial misquo- tation out of Murkison's head, but we might as well have tried to keep the man who rolls peanuts with a toothpick from betting on Bryan's election. No, sir ; he was going to perform a public duty by catching these green goods swindlers at their own game. Maybe it would teach 'em a lesson. "After Murkison left us me and Andy sat a while prepondering over our silent meditations and heresies of reason. In our idle hours we always improved our Shearing the Wolf 105 HCSvetfintQto 4 Of courze, it's brown pap*" 106 The Gentle Grafter higher selves by ratiocination and mental thought. " 'Jeff,' says Andy after a long time, 'quite un- seldom I have seen fit to impugn your molars when you have been chewing the rag with me about your conscientious way of doing business. I may have been often wrong. But here is a case where I think we can agree. I feel that it would be wrong for us to allow Mr. Murkison to go alone to meet those Chicago green goods men. There is but one way it can end. Don't you think he would both feel better if we was to intervene in some way and prevent the doing of this deed?' "I got up and shook Andy Tucker's hand hard and long. " 'Andy,' says I, 'I may have had one or two hard thoughts about the heartlessness of your cor- poration, but I retract 'em now. You have a kind nucleus at the interior of your exterior after all. It does you credit. I was just thinking the same thing that you have expressed. It would not be honorable or praiseworthy,' says I, 'for us to let Murkison go on with this project he has taken up. If he is de- termined to go let us go with him and prevent this swindle from coming off.' "Andy agreed with me ; and I was glad to see that Shearing the Wolf 107j he was in earnest about breaking up this green goods scheme. " 'I don't call myself a religious man,' says I, 'or a fanatic in moral bigotry, but I can't stand still and see a man who has built up a business by his own efforts and brains and risk be robbed by an unscrup- ulous trickster who is a menace to the public good.' "'Right, Jeff,' says Andy. 'We'll stick right along with Murkison if he insists on going and block this funny business. I'd hate to see any money dropped in it as bad as you would.' "Well, we went to see Murkison. '"No, boys,' says he. 'I can't consent to let the song of this Chicago siren waft by me on the summer breeze. I'll fry some fat out of this ignis fatuus or burn a hole in the skillet. But I'd be plumb diverted to death to have you all go along with me. Maybe you could help some when it comes to cashing in the ticket to that 5 to 1 shot. Yes, I'd really take it as a pastime and regalement if you boys would go along too.' "Murkison gives it out in Grassdale that he is going for a few days with Mr. Peters and Mr. Tucker to look over some iron ore property in West Virginia. He wires J. Smith that he wit! set foot in 108 The Gentle Grafter the spider web on a given date ; and the three of us lights out for Chicago. "On the way Murkison amuses himself with pre- monitions and advance pleasant recollections. " 'In a gray suit,' says he, 'on the southwest .corner of Wabash avenue and Lake street. He drops the paper, and I ask how the water is. Oh, im r , my, my !' And then he laughs all over for five minutes. "Sometimes Murkison was serious and tried to talk himself out of his cogitations, whatever they was. "'Boys,' says he, 'I wouldn't have this to get out in Grassdale for ten times a thousand dollars. It would ruin me there. But I know you all are all right. I think it's the duty of every citizen,' says he, 'to try to do up these robbers that prey upon the public. I'll show 'cm whether the water's fine. Five dollars for one — that's what J. Smith offers, and he'll have to keep his contract if he does business with Bill Murkison.' "We got into Chicago about 7 p. m. Murkison was to meet the gray man at half past 9. We had dinner at a hotel and then went up to Murkison's room to wait for the time to come. " 'Now, bo3 T s,' says Murkison, 'let's get our gump- tion together and inoculate a plan for defeating the enemy. Suppose while I'm exchanging airy bandage Shearing the Wolf 109 with the gray capper you gents come along, by ac- cident, you know, and holler: "Hello, Murk'" and shake hands with symptoms of surprise and familiar- ity. Then I take the capper aside and tell him you all are Jenkins and Brown of Grassdale, groceries and feed, good men and maybe willing to take a chance while away from home.' " ' "Bring 'em along," he'll say, of course, "if they care to invest." Now, how does that scheme strike you?' "'What do you say, Jeff?' says And} 7 , looking at me. "'Why, I'll tell you what I say,' says I. 'I say let's settle this thing right here now. I don't see any use of wasting any more time.' I took a nickel-plated .38 out of my pocket and clicked the cylinder around a few times. " 'You undevout, sinful, insidious hog,' says I to Murkison, 'get out that two thousand and lay it on the table. Obey with velocity,' says I, 'for otherwise alternatives are impending. I am preferably a man of mildness, but now and then I find myself in the mid- dle of extremities. Such men as you,' I went on after he had laid the money out, 'is what keeps the jails and court houses going. You come up here to rob these men of their money. Does it excuse you?' I 110 The Gentle Grafter asks, 'that they were trying to skin you? No, sir; you was going to rob Peter to stand off Paul. You are ten times worse,' says I, 'than that green goods man. You go to church at home and pretend to be a decent citizen, but you'll come to Chicago and com- mit larceny from men that have built up a sound and profitable business by dealing with such contemptible scoundrels as you have tried to be to-day. How do you know,' says I, 'that that green goods man hasn't a large family dependent upon his extortions? It's you supposedly respectable citizens who are always on the lookout to get something for nothing,' says I, 'that support the lotteries and wild-cat mines and stock exchanges and wire tappers of this country. If it wasn't for you they'd go out of business. The green goods man you was going to rob,' says I, 'studied maybe for years to learn his trade. Every turn he makes he risks his money and liberty and maybe his life. You come up here all sanctified and vanoplied with respectability and a pleasing post office address to swindle him. If he gets the money you can squeal to the police. If you get it he hocks the gray suit to buy supper and says nothing. Mr. Tucker and me sized you up,' says I, 'and came along to see that you got what you deserved. Hand over the money,' says I, 'you grass fed hypocrite.' Shearing the Wolf 111 "I put the two thousand, which was all in $20 bills, in my inside pocket. " 'Now get out your watch,' says I to Murkison. 'No, I don't want it,' says I. 'Lay it on the table and you sit in that chair till it ticks off an hour. Then you can go. If you make any noise or leave any sooner we'll handbill you all over Grassdale. I guess your high position there is worth more than $2,000 to you.' "Then me and Andy left. "On the train Andy was a long time silent. Then he says : 'Jeff, do you mind my asking you a ques- tion?' "'Two,' says I, 'or forty.' "'Was that the idea you had,' says he, 'when we started out with Murkison ?' "'Why, certainly,' says I. 'What else could it have been? Wasn't it yours, too?' "In about half an hour Andy spoke again. I think there are times when Andy don't exactly under- stand my system of ethics and moral hygiene. " 'Jeff,' says he, 'some time when you have the leisure I wish you'd draw off a diagram and foot- notes of that conscience of yours. I'd like to have it to refer to occasionally. > » INNOCENTS OF BROADWAY I HOPE some day to retire from business," said Jeff Peters; "and when I do I don't want anybody to be able to say that I ever got a dollar of any man's money without giving him a quid pro rata for it. I've always managed to leave a customer some little gewgaw to paste in his scrapbook or stick between his Seth Thomas clock and the wall after we are through trading. "There was one time I came near having to break this rule of mine and do a profligate and illaudable action, but I was saved from it by the laws and stat- utes of our great and profitable country. "One summer me and Andy Tucker, my partner, went to New York to lay in our annual assortment of clothes and gents' furnishings. We was always pom- pous and regardless dressers, finding that looks went further than anything else in our business, except maybe our knowledge of railroad schedules and an autograph photo of the President that Loeb sent us, probably by mistake. Andy wrote a nature letter once ana sent it in about animals that he had seen 112 Innocents of Broadway 113 caught in a trap lots of times. Loeb must have read it 'triplets,' instead of 'trap lots,' and sent the photo. Anyhow, it was useful to us to show people as a guar- antee of good faith. "Me and Andy never cared much to do business in New York. It was too much like pothunting. Catch- ing suckers in that town, is like dynamiting a Texas lake for brass. All you have to do anywhere between the North and East rivers is to stand in the street with an open bag marked, '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 office orders and Canadian money, and that's all there is to New York for a hunter who loves his profession. So me and Andy used to just nature fake the town. We'd get out our spyglasses and watch the wood- cocks along 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 hops agency in a side street about eight inches off Broadway me and Andy had thrust upon us the acquaintance of a New Yorker. We had beer together until we discovered that each of us knew a man named Hellsmith, traveling for a stove factory in Duluth. This caused us to remark that 114 The Gentle Grafter the world was a very small place, and then this New Yorker busts his string and takes off his tin foil and excelsior packing and starts in giving us his Ellen Terris, beginning with the time he used to sell shoe- laces to the Indians on the spot where Tammany Hall now stands. "This New Yorker had made his money keeping a cigar store in Beekman street, and he hadn't been above Fourteenth street in ten years. Moreover, he had whiskers, and the time has gone by when a true sport will do anything to a man with whiskers. No grafter except a boy who is soliciting subscribers to an illustrated weekly to win the prize air rifle, or a widow, would have the heart to tamper with the man behind with the razor. He was a typical city Reub — I'd bet the man hadn't been out of sight of a sky- scraper in twenty-five years. "Well, presently this metropolitan backwoodsman pulls out a roll of bills with an old blue sleeve elastic fitting tight around it and opens it up. " 'There's $5,000, Mr. Peters,' says he, shoving it over the table to me, 'saved during my fifteen years of business. Put that in your pocket and keep it for me, Mr. Peters. I'm glad to meet you gentlemen from the West, and I may take a drop too much. I Innocents of Broadway 115 want you to take care of my money for me. Now, let's have another beer.' u'd better keep this yourself,' says I. 'We "I leant you to take care of my money for me." are strangers to you, and you can't trust everybody you meet. Put your roll back in your pocket,' says I. 'And you'd better run along home before some 116 The Gentle Grafter farm-hand from the Kaw River bottoms strolls in here and sells you a copper mine.' " 'Oh, I don't know,' says Whiskers. 'I guess Little Old New York can take care of herself. I guess I know a man that's on the square when I see him. I've always found the Western people all right. I ask you as a favor, Mr. Peters,' says he, 'to keep that roll in your pocket for me. I know a gentleman when I see him. And now let's have some more beer.' "In about ten minutes this fall of manna leans back in his chair and snores. Andy looks at me and says: 'I reckon I'd better stay with him for five minutes or so, in case the waiter comes in.' "I went out the side door and walked half a block up the street. And then I came back and sat down at the table. " 'Andy,' says I, 'I can't do it. It's too much like swearing off taxes. I can't go off with this man's money without doing something to earn it like taking advantage of the Bankrupt act or leaving a bottle of eczema lotion in his pocket to make it look more like a square deal.' " 'Well,' says Andy, 'it does seem kind of hard on one's professional pride to lope off with a bearded pard's competency, especially after he has nominated Innocents of Broadway 117 you custodian of his bundle in the sappy insouciance of his urban indiscrimination. Suppose we wake him up and see if we can formulate some commercial sophistry by which he will be enabled to give us both his money and a good excuse.' "We wakes up Whiskers. He stretches himself and yawns out the hypothesis that he must have dropped off for a minute. And then he says he wouldn't mind sitting in at a little gentleman's game of poker. He used to play some when he attended high school in Brookl} r n ; 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 a solution to our financial troubles. So we all three go to our hotel further down Broad- way and have the cards and chips brought up to AncW's room. I tried once more to make this Babe in the Plorticultural Gardens take his five thousand. But no. " 'Keep that little roll for me, Mr. Peters,' says he, 'and oblige. I'll ask vou fer it when I want it. I guess I know when I'm among friends. A man that's done business on Beekman street for twenty years, right in the heart of the wisest little old village on earth, ought to know what he's about. I guess I can tell a gentleman from a con man or a flimflammer 118 The Gentle Grafter 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 the table 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 his hand, 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 the table and looked sadly out of the window at the street cars. " 'Well, gentlemen,' saj T s the cigar man, 'I don't blame }'ou for not wanting 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 gentlemen going to be in the city?' "I told him about a week longer. He says that'll suit him fine. His cousin is coming over from Brook- lyn that evening and they are going to see the sights of New York. His cousin, he says, is in the artificial limb and lead casket business, and hasn't crossed the bridge in eight years. They expect to have the time of their lives, and he winds up by asking me to keep his roil of money for him till next day. I tried to make him take it, but it only insulted ham to mention it. Innocents of Broadway 119 "'I'll use what I've got in loose change,' says he. 'You keep the rest for me. I'll drop in on you and Mr. Tucker to-morrow afternoon about 6 or 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 feed us two Elijahs so hard that if we turned 'em down again we ought to have the Audu- bon Society after us. It won't do to put the crown aside too often. I know this is something like pater- nalism, but don't you think Opportunity has skinned its knuckles about enough knocking at our door?' "I put my feet on the table and my hands in my pockets, which is an attitude unfavorable to frivolous thoughts. " 'Andy,' says I, 'this man with the hirsute whis- kers has got us in a predicament. We can't move hand or foot with his money. You and me have got a gentleman's agreement with Fortune that we can't break. We've done business in the West where ; jt's more of a fair game. Out there the people we skin are trying to skin us, even the farmers and the remittance men that the magazines send out to write up Goldh'elds. But there's little sport in New York city for rod, reel or gun. They hunt here with either 120 The Gentle Grafter one or two things — a slungshot or a letter of intro- duction. The town has been stocked so full of carp that the game fish are all gone. If you spread a net here, do you catch legitimate suckers in it, such as the Lord intended to be caught — fresh gu}'s who know it all, sports with a little coin and the nerve to play another man's game, street crowds out for the fun of dropping a dollar or two 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 the first counter they see with an iron railing to it, and factory girls and little shop- keepers that never leave the block they do business on. That's what they call suckers here. They're nothing but canned sardines, and all the bait you need to catch 'em is a pocketknifc and a soda cracker. " 'Now, this cigar man,' I went on, 'is one of the types. He's lived twenty years on one street without learning as much as you would in getting a once- over shave from a lock jawed barber in a Kansas crossroads town. But he's a New Yorker, and he'll brag about that all the time when he isn't picking up live w r ires or getting in front of street cars or paying out money to wire-tappers or standing under a safe that's being hoisted into a sky-scraper. When a Innocents of Broadway 121 New Yorker does loosen up,' says I, 'it's like the spring decomposition of the ice jam in the Allegheny River. He'll swamp 3 7 ou with cracked ice and back- water if you don't get out of the way. " 'It's mighty lucky for us, Andy,' says I, 'that this cigar exponent with the parsley dressing saw fit to bedeck us with his childlike trust and altruism. For,' says I, 'this money of his is an eyesore to my sense of rectitude and ethics. We can't take it, Andy; you know we can't,' sa3 T s I, 'for we haven't a shadow of a title to it — not a shadow. If there was the least bit of a way we could put in a claim to it I'd be willing to see him start in for another twenty years and make another $5,000 for himself, but we haven'^ sold him anything, we haven't been embroiled in a trade or anything commercial. He approached us friendly,' says I, 'and with blind and beautiful idiocy laid the stuff in our hands. We'll have to give it back to him when he wants it.' " 'Your arguments,' says Andy, 'are past criti- cism or comprehension. No, we can't walk off with the money — as things now stand. I admire }^our conscious way of doing business, Jeff,' says Andy, 'and I wouldn't propose anything that wasn't square in line with your theories of morality and initiative. 'But I'll be away to-night and most of to-morrow «