ENCOURAGING PICKPOCKETS
The pawn shops were practically unregulated by law in those days and the German girl's painful experience as a customer, instead of making her angry, impressed her with great admiration. There was a field for an ambitious person, and if ambition is a virtue none was ever more virtuous in that particular than "Mother."
But how to enter this profitable industry was the question. To be a pawn-broker has always required capital. That is, it always has for anyone but this woman, who had none. She made a hurried survey of the pawn shops along the Bowery and elsewhere, and among others noticed the place of one William Mandelbaum.
William was unmarried, rather weak willed for a man of his calling, lazy, and afflicted with chronic dyspepsia. He cooked his own meals over a kerosene lamp, which was undoubtedly the cause of his indigestion. "Mother" Mandelbaum introduced herself as Fredericka Goldberg, and offered to cook and tend store at nominal wages.
The "nominal wages" item secured her the position and the cooking made her firm in it. Within a week, William's digestion was better than he could ever remember since boyhood; he had gained seven pounds in weight and business was growing beautifully—all on account of the capable Fredericka.
At the end of the week, William and Fredericka had a business talk. Fredericka didn't want an increase in wages. She didn't want any wages at all. It was partnership or nothing. William ate one meal cooked by himself and then surrendered. Within a few weeks they were married. Mrs. Mandelbaum forever afterward was the head of the house of Mandelbaum.
Among her customers Mrs. Mandelbaum noticed an occasional one who would hurry in and get what he could on a miscellany of watches and small pieces of jewelry. These hasty, furtive young men and boys took what they could get and showed little disposition to haggle. Also, they never returned to redeem their pledges.
Mrs. Mandelbaum's Special Devices for Dealing with Thieves, and the Secret Trap-Door Escape.