“George!” called out Jim, and I drew up beside the curb, as quickly as I could control my mettled horses.
“Glad to see you, Jim,” I said, shaking his hand. He was a happy, handsome fellow, with dark hair and mustache, and on the under side of thirty.
“I wish you’d help me out,” said he. “I’ve got ten thousand in ten-dollar notes, fresh from the United States Treasury. Mind you, they haven’t been in circulation—I’d like you to do that. There’s ten per cent in it for you, without doubt.”
Then, briefly, he told me how he got the money. I thought well of the offer made me and so informed him, and making an appointment at the Sinclair House in Broadway at Eighth Street, we parted.
It seemed that a New England congressman Jim knew was much addicted to the gaming table. They met at Willard’s Hotel in Washington, and later on were gambling together. It was rather of a queer combination, this United States legislator and a sneak thief, but they became chummy, and therein lies the secret. Of cash the congressman had none too much, without having to settle gambling bills, and when luck was against him, there were moments when it would seem to him that the muzzle of a pistol at his head wasn’t the worst thing in the world.
“A clerk in the United States Treasury counting-room tells me that packages of new money lie around loose in there, like so much waste paper,” the congressman said to Burns one day, when his funds were low and his conscience hard; “couldn’t you get away with one?”
“Nothing easier,” was Burns’s assuring response.
In Jim’s room at the Willard it was decided what to do, and the congressman was to get twenty-five per cent of the proceeds. His only part would be the “stalling.” In other words, he would talk to the clerk while Jim took the package.
They went separately to the Treasury Department, one morning about eleven o’clock, to do the job. The congressman, who was well acquainted with the clerk, did his part splendidly. Not a dozen feet away on the counter lay two packages of greenbacks. That could be told by the wrapping paper, though there was nothing visible to the casual observer to indicate how much money each package contained. One was about the size of a square loaf of baker’s bread, and the other a trifle larger. The counter was of the old-fashioned open sort, with none of the wicker windows of to-day.
Our congressman deftly talked the clerk’s face away from the coveted prize, and at the opportune moment Jim slipped the larger package in the big pocket of his top-coat—a pocket that was designed for the purpose, and had been the resting-place, temporarily at least, of many a “touch.” Jim walked from the building and so did the congressman presently, having bade the clerk a pleasant adieu.