A SHARP GAME.
A man calling himself Doctor Thorne is frequently seen in the city boarding houses. He is a married man, which fact, of course, makes him all the more dangerous to his victims, as he contrives to support at their expense not only himself, but his wife and children. The Doctor is a burly, heavily-bearded gentleman (at least in manner); his wife, a more accomplished Jeremy Diddler than himself, is one of the softest- spoken and most amiably-seeming of her sex. The Doctor plays his little game as follows: He obtains first-class rooms at first class prices, pledging as security for the payment of these prices a large assortment of really valuable baggage in the line of clothes and linens. Having taken possession of his rooms he is, after a week's time, suddenly called by business to Chicago or St. Louis; he will settle the little balance due on his return. He accordingly departs, but not to St. Louis, or Chicago—oh, dear, no. He understands a trick worth two of that. He simply hires a little room in a retired street at the lowest possible rent, and there resides. His wife and children—two boys, one aged ten, the other twelve, and both very "smart"—take him his meals daily, in a basket, in their pocket, or by other means, as the case may be, the meals being furnished unwittingly by the victimized landlady with whom his family are sojourning. But more than meals are taken from the boarding house. The baggage is also taken away, piece after piece, secretly, and conveyed to the little room where the "head and father" of this interesting family resides. So one day, after an unaccountable absence of Dr. Thorne from home, and after the receipt by his wife of daily letters from her husband, but no money, though money is always expected by the next mail, the whole family disappear, one by one, and never return. The landlady congratulates herself upon the fact that she retains at least the baggage—but alas, upon an examination she finds that nothing is left her in lieu of the month's board for three people and a week's board for the fourth, saving some empty trunks. For a few days subsequent to this denouement, Dr. Thorne and family live in retirement. Then they boldly emerge and repeat the same series of operations in other localities of this much beswindled city.