“I know you could. I am only a baby.”
“Hah hah! A baby!”
“Say, you have a handsome face.”
“Me hansome! Stop your kiddin.”
“Really you are handsome. I am going to tell you a secret. I am a woman-hater. I am really a girl in a fellow’s clothes. I would like to get some fellow to marry me. You look beautiful to me. Would you be willing to?”
“How much does it cost yer to git married? Give me a V [meaning five dollars] and I’ll be yourn, or else git out of here.”
My statement that I had not that amount with me brought the threat of a pummeling. I was beginning to wish I was far away, but concealed my uneasiness as best I could. After a few minutes more of conversation, several pals happened to come along. He called out, “I’ve got a fairie here!” and clutching my shoulder with one hand, he clinched his other fist, shook it threateningly in my face, and demanded: “Hand out your money! Hand out your money!”
First Robbery and Assault.
Frightened to death, I handed him all the coin I had, amounting to a little more than a dollar. I protested I had no more, and after they had searched my pockets and felt my clothing all over for concealed bills, one of them gave me a blow in the face. With that wonderful agility which supposedly grave danger to one’s life can arouse, I sprinted away, one of the ruffians pursuing a few steps and giving me several blows in the back. But I was so terrified that I did not halt until I had run several blocks. Panting and exhausted, I seated myself on a door-step and felt that I was forever cured of seeking a paramour. I called to mind the biblical text, “The way of the transgressor is hard,” and I felt glad that it was hard so as to help me never to transgress again.
But after I had rested, my intense desire for fellatio induced me to make an endeavor in another poor neighborhood. I passed many groups of ruffians congregated in front of bar-rooms, but must find some solitary adolescent. At last I ran across one standing in front of a factory, evidently, as I later concluded, its watchman. I walked past him several times, unable to pluck up courage to speak. But he called out angrily: “Who are you looking at?”