Grafting.
Jack
Henderson.
Grafting.
Indianapolis, Ind., 19—.
Dear Billy:—
Grafting is tipping on a large scale. The average man kicks because the porters, bell boys and waiters hold him up for his small change, but the chances are if you should find out all about the kicker you would find he was a grafter and one of the worst kind.
At the St. Louis exposition I wandered into a dancing hall where the Turkish dancers were going through their agonies, and in looking about the audience, I saw a bumpkin taking in the show. Beside him was his Sunday girl, who was trying to be shocked by the performance. After one or two looks she dropped her eyes and would not be comforted. The guy, who was grinning all over his face, had to take her out, but she was only doing what the grafter often does, playing to the grand stand. If that girl was my wife I would put a detective on her trail right from the start. She reminded me of a woman I saw in Los Angeles once.
This woman was married and very modest, but she got stuck on a friend of mine who was a good deal of a rounder, and she used to come down town to meet him two or three times a week. One day she was coming down in the car and a duffer winked at her. She was wild with indignation, shed tears in the car and demanded that the car be stopped and the conductor call a policeman. The masher left the car, the modest lady kept her appointment with her sweetheart and telephoned to her husband from their trysting place that she was home darning his socks.
The telephone is a great thing, Billy, and by the way it is the bellwether as a grafter. Just show this to the president of the old company in Chicago, he knows it. It doesn’t do to judge from appearances, Billy. Things are not always as they seem. Speaking of grafting, it doesn’t always mean money, but it costs money to go the pace. I was in a town not a hundred miles from this one a short time ago when I ran across Johnny Morgan. You remember Johnny, he was always one of the good boys. He was so d——d good it used to make me mad and I licked him often just because he was so good that it worried me. When Johnny got big enough he went to work instead of living on the old man, like you and I did, and I laid it up against him as much as I did his being good. It seems Johnny has gotten to be a crack salesman and is traveling for a school book house. Easiest thing in the world to sell, I should think, if a fellow has the best, but Johnny says not.