"One of the Ten Commandments," I replied, "says, 'thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain,' and between you and me, Kate, the commandment does not say that widows have the monopoly on cursing. It is a sin, anyway, whether it is a man, a girl or a widow."
This was too deep for Kate.
"Stop preaching, Jim," she said, "and give me a drink," and I did. After she had drunk half-a-dozen glasses of beer she felt better.
Women are queer, anyway. No matter how bad they are, they are always good. All women are thieves, or rather petty pilferers, bless them! When I was just beginning to graft again, and was going it easy, I used to work a game which well showed the natural grafting propensities of women. I would buy a lot of Confederate bills for a few cents, and put them in a good leather. When I saw a swell-looking Moll, evidently out shopping, walking along the street, I would drop the purse in her path; and just as she saw it I would pick it up, as if I had just found it. Nine women out of ten would say, "It's mine, I dropped it." I would open the leather and let her get a peep of the bills, and that would set her pilfering propensities going. "It's mine," she would repeat. "What's in it?" I would hold the leather carefully away from her, look into it cautiously and say: "I can see a twenty dollar bill, a thirty dollar bill, and a one hundred dollar bill, but how do I know you dropped it?" Then she'd get excited and exclaim, "If you don't give it to me quick I'll call a policeman." "Madam," I would reply, "I am an honest workingman, and if you will give me ten dollars for a reward, I will give you this valuable purse." Perhaps she would then say: "Give me the pocket-book and I'll give you the money out of it." To that I would reply: "No, Madam, I wish you to receive the pocket-book just as it was." I would then hand her the book and she would give me a good ten dollar bill. "There is a woman down the street," I would continue, "looking for something." That would alarm her and away she would go without even opening the leather to see if her money was all right. She wouldn't shop any more that day, but would hasten home to examine her treasure—worth, as she would discover to her sorrow, about thirty cents. Then, no doubt, her conscience would trouble her. At least, she would weep; I am sure of that.
When I got my hand in again, I began to go for stone-getting, which was a fat graft in those days, when the Lexow committee was beginning their reform. Everybody wore a diamond. Even mechanics and farmers were not satisfied unless they had pins to stick in their ties. They bought them on the installment plan, and I suppose they do yet. I could always find a laborer or a hod-carrier that had a stone. They usually called attention to it by keeping their hands carefully on it; and very often it found its way into my pocket, for carelessness is bound to come as soon as a man thinks he is safe. They probably thought of their treasure for months afterwards; at least, whenever the collector came around for the weekly installments of pay for stones they no longer possessed.
It was about this time that I met General Brace and the Professor. One was a Harvard graduate, and the other came from good old Yale; and both were grafters. When I knew them they used to hang out in a joint on Seventh Street, waiting to be treated. They had been good grafters, but through hop and booze had come down from forging and queer-shoving to common shop-lifting and petty larceny business. General Brace was very reticent in regard to his family and his own past, but as I often invited him to smoke opium with me, he sometimes gave me little confidences. I learned that he came from a well-known Southern family, and had held a good position in his native city; but he was a blood, and to satisfy his habits he began to forge checks. His relatives saved him from prison, but he left home and started on the downward career of graftdom. We called him General Brace because he looked like a soldier and was continually on the borrow; but a good story always accompanied his asking for a loan and he was seldom refused. I have often listened to this man after he had smoked a quantity of opium, and his conversational powers were something remarkable. Many a gun and politician would listen to him with wonder. I used to call him General Brace Coleridge.
The Professor was almost as good a talker. We used to treat them both, in order to get them to converse together. It was a liberal education to hear them hold forth in that low-down saloon, where some of the finest talks on literature and politics were listened to with interest by men born and bred on the East Side, with no more education than a turnip, but with keen wits. The graduates had good manners, and we liked them and staked them regularly. They used to write letters for politicians and guns who could not read or write. They stuck together like brothers. If one of them had five cents, he would go into a morgue (gin-mill where rot-gut whiskey could be obtained for that sum) and pour out almost a full tumbler of booze. Just as he sipped a little of the rot-gut, his pal would come in, as though by accident. If it was the General who had made the purchase, he would say: "Hello, old pal, just taste this fine whiskey. It tastes like ten-cent stuff." The Professor would take a sip and become enthusiastic. They would sip and exclaim in turn, until the booze was all gone, and no further expense incurred. This little trick grew into a habit, and the bar-tender got on to it, but he liked Colonel Brace and the Professor so much that he used to wink at it.
I was in this rot-gut saloon one day when I met Jesse R——, with whom I had spent several years in prison. I have often wondered how this man happened to join the under world; for he not only came of a good family and was well educated, but was also of a good, quiet disposition, a prime favorite in stir and out. He was tactful enough never to roast convicts, who are very sensitive, and was so sympathetic that many a heartache was poured into his ear. He never betrayed a friend's confidence.
I was glad to meet Jesse again, and we exchanged greetings in the little saloon. When he asked me what I was doing, I replied that I had a mortgage on the world and that I was trying to draw my interest from the same. I still had that old dream, that the world owed me a living. I confided in him that I regarded the world as my oyster more decidedly than I had done before I met him in stir. I found that Jesse, however, had squared it for good and was absolutely on the level. He had a good job as shipping clerk in a large mercantile house; when I asked him if he was not afraid of being tipped off by some Central Office man or by some stool-pigeon, he admitted that that was the terror of his life; but that he had been at work for eighteen months, and hoped that none of his enemies would turn up. I asked him who had recommended him for the job, and I smiled when he answered: "General Brace". That clever Harvard graduate often wrote letters which were of assistance to guns who had squared it; though the poor fellow could not take care of himself.
Jesse had a story to tell which seemed to me one of the saddest I have heard: and as I grew older I found that most all stories about people in the under world, no matter how cheerfully they began, ended sadly. It was about his brother, Harry, the story that Jesse told. Harry was married, and there is where the trouble often begins. When Jesse was in prison Harry, who was on the level and occupied a good position as a book-keeper, used to send him money, always against his wife's wishes. She also complained because Harry supported his old father. Harry toiled like a slave for this woman who scolded him and who spent his money recklessly. He made a good salary, but he could not keep up with her extravagance. One time, while in the country, she met a sporting man, Mr. O. B. In a few weeks it was the old, old story of a foolish woman and a pretty good fellow. While she was in the country, her young son was drowned, and she sent Harry a telegram announcing it. But she kept on living high and her name and that of O. B. were often coupled. Harry tried to stifle his sorrow and kept on sending money to the bladder he called wife, who appeared in a fresh new dress whenever she went out with Mr. O. B. One day Harry received a letter, calling him to the office to explain his accounts. He replied that he had been sick, but would straighten everything out the next day. When his father went to awaken him in the morning, Harry was dead. A phial of morphine on the floor told the story. Jesse reached his brother's room in time to hear his old father's cry of anguish and to read a letter from Harry, explaining that he had robbed the firm of thousands, and asking his brother to be kind to Helene, his wife.