"A little job to-night uptown."
"Can't you put me next?"
"It's my friend's."
This with a nod toward me. The little job uptown was mine. Never having heard before of the little job uptown I declined to put any one next; and we gave the sailorman coin to do a hornpipe for the sitters, and left, presumably, to do the little job. We left in an odor of sanctity, almost of reverence; we were supposed to be accomplished cracksmen, and in high fortune; princes and millionaires of the Under World.
A finished actor—I come back to that—and the streets were his stage, and the first chance word his cue. In a house he was not at home; when he put on the uniform he must wear at dinner, he put off his memory, his experience, his wit. His anecdotes, his good stories, lived in his "business suit," and refused to wear a Prince Albert or a Tuxedo even, and waved him farewell at the mere sight of a crush-hat. Make no mistake; the anecdotes were as clean as what he has published; but he was to the end a boy; he was shy; and except on his own stage he was shy to the point of silence or of stammering. He knew books; the books dealing with the Under World he knew rather well; but I fancy he never read them except when he was ill. His book was the men in the street; any man, in any street; policemen, cabby, convict, or men of gentle breeding; him he would read from dawn to dawn very shrewdly and gaily, so long as the tobacco was good; and if the tobacco was not good he would still read. I have given one instance of his getting under a man's guard, of his turning him inside out and inspecting him, not unkindly. It was his habit to get under the guard of everyone he met, to turn them inside out, and inspect them, not unkindly. He talked to any one, every one, who gave him an opening; but the man who got the first hearing was the vagabond. In our strollings we never passed one without a halt, and an interview, and copy. "They are all friends, humbugs," he said philosophically; "I have been one of them myself." But he always gave generously for his means, and though he had begun by censuring me for giving, for giving in ignorance, he expected me always also to give.
Again, one anecdote must serve for many. The scene was Fifth Avenue, two blocks north of Washington Square. The petitioner was a well-set-up, firm-built Englishman, clean-shaven, aged twenty-five, who said to me:
"I beg your pardon?"
"Yes?" I said and halted.
"It's rather beastly, but I need a drink and I haven't a penny—not a sou."
I said "Diable," and put my hand into my pocket. The man's clothes, accent and bearing presumed so much that if he needed a drink he needed food. At once Flynt intervened. What was said I do not know; the two stepped aside; but presently there was laughter from both Flynt and my beggar; and we three sat at table later, and told tales, and flushed one another's secrets. My beggar was a gentleman ranker out on a spree (it is Kipling of course), damned to all eternity, but his guard once broken he was amusing, and Flynt knew the trick to break his guard.