“I believe I’ll try the Pacific coast, sir.”
He slid his forefinger back and forth slowly under his nose.
“It might do, son. I have thought of the same jump, myself. I have waited now till I’m too old. What started me thinking about it some years ago was the Golden Gate proposition. What troubled me about making up my mind was that some said the treasure had been got out of her and others said there was some guesswork. Nobody seemed to be willing to produce any proof that the treasure was still there. Looking back, I can see now why all interested parties would naturally rather have it thought that the treasure wasn’t there. But when a fellow like me has his living to make he doesn’t want to take too many chances. And the one job I did go on sickened me of treasure-hunting on somebody’s guesswork.”
He was silent for a time.
“I am sorry you are in your scrape, young Sidney. You’re done for as a diver in these parts for a time. Try the Pacific. I don’t say it’s a bad idea.” He grinned at me. “If you recover the Golden Gate treasure drop me a postal card.”
Then he went away, making no more ado about the matter of our parting. I was not surprised by that manner of leave-taking. I am a Yankee myself, and I had found myself wishing that when he went he would walk off without jawing me or coddling me.
I counted my money and sent out for some railroad folders and trailed my finger across the map—and stayed right on in the city, week after week. I don’t know exactly what I had lost—ambition or pluck or what it was! But that was a spell in my life when I was a plumb, square loafer, and rather enjoyed myself—reading cheap novels and playing solitaire in the daytime, then getting in with some of the rest of the boarders and playing poker evenings. In Levant we used to play for beans in barn-chambers. I had a country boy’s shrewdness in that game, and the city fellows did not get much of my money away from me; nor did I get any particular amount of theirs.
However, the pastime did bring me into touch with some sporting characters and with some queer characters, too. There were men who were hiding the same as I was. The fact that I was under cover gave me open sesame to their confidence. They talked a great deal, whiling away dull hours in the day. Several were in the house where I was stopping, and after a time I dared to go visiting around a bit evenings and went along to other houses, in the locality.
It was all new to me, this “flash” side of fife, and I listened to their stories with eyes and mouth open. I conceived an idea of writing out these stories into a book, and after I got back into my room nights I would jot down all I had heard, names and all. I had all the nicknames of operators down pat—those names rather fascinated me. There were names which were based on personal peculiarities or blemishes or system of operating. I found out that a great many of the parties were linked, either by relationship or by gang ties, and that the wise boys among the crooks or the police officers could tell in many cases just what crowd had operated, providing the identity of one man could be revealed. I reckon I calculated in those times that I was going to make an exposé, for I made many notes about the different coteries and their associates.
I will say at this point that I have no intention of writing such a book, and I have gone into a bit of detail about the matter in order that certain following activities of mine may be understood. Otherwise, I might, later on, be thought to be advertising myself as one of those know-it-all and do-it-all heroes of fiction instead of a plain and ordinary chap who has been swayed by circumstance and governed by accident in large measure.