Josie laughed. Mrs. Leslie’s feeling in regard to tramps and foreigners was a common one with persons born and raised in the country. They encouraged neither tramping nor immigration.
“We have two beggars at Burnett & Burnett’s,” said Josie, “one at the front entrance and one at the back. It is against my principles to give to street beggars but I have a hard time getting by those two. The Associated Charities are constantly asking the public not to encourage beggars but send them to the A. C. so that they can look into their cases. I am sure they are right, and good citizens should uphold them; but beggars such as we have at our front and back entrances seem to be able to appeal against reason and I am sure they reap a substantial harvest. When charitable ladies get up tag days for their pet concerns they should man the stations with just such beggars instead of attractive young girls.”
“I thought begging on the street was against the city ordinances,” said Mrs. Leslie.
“Oh, they get around all laws by pretending to sell something. This beggar man at the front door sells lead pencils and the woman at the back goes through the motions of selling newspapers. She never has the last edition and always whines if anyone wants change. She is a husky looking person and I believe is well fed, in spite of the pretext she makes of dining off crusts.”
“Poor thing!” exclaimed Mary. “I’m sorry for her even though she may be a fraud.”
“Of course there is no easy way of making an honest living,” laughed Josie, “whether it be pounding a typewriter or—selling notions.” It was on the tip of Josie’s tongue to say lying in wait for shoplifters. “Begging is not such a bad way to spend your time if you are interested in human nature. Of course it must be rather hard on the man at the front entrance because he wears a patch over one eye and part of his game is to keep the other one half shut. That means he can’t see all that is going on, but who knows? He may be able to see more with half an eye than many persons can with two wide open ones.”
“The beggar I saw in the hall had a patch over his eye. I noticed it particularly, and felt sorrier than ever for him. I’d have given him something if he hadn’t hurried away so fast when I came in.”
“A great many beggars seem to be minus one eye,” said Josie. “I remember reading once of a great French detective who captured a notorious criminal, who was operating as a blind beggar with a patch over his eye, because the pseudo-beggar inadvertently changed blind eyes. The detective had passed him many times on the Pont Neuf in Paris, where the beggar had stood for weeks and weeks whining a pitiful tale. Now this detective, like all good ones, let nothing escape him, and he had noticed that the blind beggar wore a patch over his right eye. One morning the patch had moved to the left one. That set Mr. Detective to thinking and he watched the man. When darkness came the man stopped begging for the day, hobbled from the bridge into a nearby crooked street and there he straightened up, took off the telltale patch and walked briskly along the side walk. Then it was an easy matter to track him to his luxurious lair. Begging was merely a side line, as burglary on a large scale was his real profession. He was attempting to conceal his identity under the cloak of a mendicant.”
“I still say, poor fellow,” said Mary.
“And I say,” said Mrs. Leslie shrewdly, “that if I were a detective I’d wonder what on earth made you, Josie, go into being a shop girl. I begin to think it is nothing but a side line with you.”