“Just think, Georgie,” said the talkative one, looking at me, “what a four-bit piece would do for us. What a life-saver! We’ll both get a ‘sixer’ in the morning if we go in front of the judge with our teeth rattlin’ so we can’t put up a talk. If I had a decent shot for the morning I could talk him out of it.
“And that rat, Finnerty, the trusty,” the talker spoke to me now, “has got a ton of it out there to sell, but he wouldn’t give us a jolt if we had the horrors.”
“Can you buy it from Finnerty?” I asked him, interested.
“Can you? Why, that guy Finnerty would peddle you a six-shooter and a road map if you had the coin, and then snitch on you to the desk sergeant, the rat,” he finished.
At that time morphine and opium were almost as cheap as tobacco. Fifty cents’ worth would last them a day. I hastily dug up a half dollar and gave it to him. In answer to his call Finnerty appeared, took the half dollar, and from his shirt pocket drew a bundle of neatly folded packets of morphine. In plain sight of the desk sergeant he counted out the required number of parcels and put them into the purchaser’s hand extended through the bars. They were divided at once.
Georgie said to his partner. “I think we’d better cook up a shot just to see if the stuff is all right. That Finnerty would peddle you chloride of lime if he happened to run out of ‘morph.’” This seemed to be a very rational reason for taking another shot, and they did.
Given a sufficient quantity of hop, no fiend is ever at a loss for a sound reason for taking a jolt of it. If he is feeling bad he takes a jolt so he will feel good. If he is feeling good, he takes one to make him feel better, and if he is feeling neither very bad nor very good he takes a jolt “just to get himself straightened around.”
Along about two in the morning a young chap about twenty was brought in to the desk. While he was being searched the two hypos had their eyes glued on him. “He ain’t got a dime,” said Georgie to his partner when the searching was done. The desk man gave the young fellow his cigarettes and he was locked in with us. He was neat, well dressed, and very wise looking. He sniffed at the hypos, gave me half a glance, adjusted his tie, and polished his shoes by rubbing each foot on the back of the opposite leg. He hung a cigarette on his lower lip and felt about for matches, but found none.
“Hey, you,” snapping his fingers at Georgie, “gimme a match.” Georgie gave him a few. “I’ll be out of here in an hour,” said the newcomer, inhaling his smoke. “I’ll send you in anything you want. I’m a quick connector. I can get a ten-dollar piece before I get out of the block—sucker born every minute, you know.”
“Yes, I know,” Georgie replied. “I’m sorry for them poor suckers. They’re all asleep down in the Palace Hotel and you’re up here in the can begging matches. There’s one born every minute, all right, but there’s two wise guys going to jail every minute, an’ beggin’ matches.”