“What name?” inquired the election clerk of the leader of the squad, who was red-haired and freckled and had a black eye. The young gangster glanced down at a slip of paper in his hand to refresh his memory.
“Isadore Mendelheim,” he said then.
“That’s not your real name, and you know it!” said a suspicious challenger for the reform ticket.
“It is me name,” said the repeater, “and I’m goin’ to vote under it—see?”
From down the line came a voice:
“Don’t let that guy bluff you, Casey. Soitin’ly your name is Mendelheim!”
§ 110 A Detail of Figures
Grand Central Pete was a noted bunco-steerer of the old days, but could neither read nor write. Once he fell upon hard times, and he and a younger but equally luckless confidence man undertook to beat their way on a freight train to Washington. A brake-man kicked them off at Trenton.
It was getting late and neither of them had a cent. Across the tracks from where they had landed was a hotel and right next door was an express office. Pete had an idea. He went into the express office, begged one of those large manila envelopes such as are used for transporting currency, filled the envelope with pieces of newspaper cut to the size of banknotes, and sealed it carefully.
“Now then,” he said to his partner, “you take your fountain pen and write on the back of that there envelope ‘$9,000.’ Then we’ll go over to that hotel and explain that we’ve lost our baggage, and I’ll hand this envelope to the clerk and ask him to lock it in the safe. He’ll look at the figures on the back—and he’ll take us for moneyed guys and give us rooms and grub until we can raise a stake.”