As I have said, my friends and acquaintances in New York were comparatively few at the start. As I hark back over the beginning year in that city I do not believe that I knew intimately more than six men, and they, like myself, were also beginners so far as New York was concerned. Strangely enough nearly every one of us came from somewhere in the West, a fact which leads me to ask whether in such a city as New York Westerners, Southerners and Easterners do not inevitably drift together through some strange law? Certainly that little coterie of young men of which I had the honor to be a part, came together, for better or for worse, unannounced, not caring whom they met and yet pushed on by circumstances to band together as Westerners.
We were called the Griffou push. Nearly every member of this organization was a writer of some kind, or intended to be. Perhaps I was the first of the original intimates in this little gathering to take up residence at the Griffou Hotel in Ninth Street, which for several years was our regular rendezvous and from which we got our corporate appellation. I began to live therealmost immediately after my preliminary work for the Pennsylvania Company. There was something quaintly foreign about the place at that time that satisfied my soul, and it was located in the Washington Square neighborhood, which will never be outdone in my affections by any other in New York. Although I have lived all over the city, somehow on leaving the ferry, coming back to New York on a journey, my steps naturally turn toward lodgings near the Washington arch. I think that several of the other young men have always felt likewise about this locality. Anyhow, here I began my fight for a place in the city's business. I have said that we were writers, or rather aspirants for distinction, as such. Why all of us should have picked out this activity as the one in which we thought we could do best I can hardly explain. That we were overweaningly literary on first coming together does not seem to me to be the case. One or two had written what were called academic essays at the time, but none, I think, had done much money-making writing. For some reason—perhaps it looked like the easiest thing to do—we all threw our lot in with that army of men and women in New York who try to make their living with their pens.
I tried first for a position as a police reporter. I thought that if my experience and training had prepared me to write about anything in a big city they had fitted me for reportorial work as an observer in police and criminal circles. My ambition in this direction came to nothing. I honestly tried for the position in question on several newspapers, but the editors did not see theirway clear to be enthusiastic about my ability. For several years after starting out in New York I continued to annoy editors with my notions on their police reporting, but without avail. As I had once been ambitious to be foreign correspondent, and thought that with perseverance I could fill the bill, so, during the years that I begged to be made a police reporter, another disappointment and chagrin had to be jotted down in my notebook. Perhaps it is just as well now that I did not succeed in my efforts with the editors along these lines. But whether this be so or not I propose here, in what is my own book and nobody else's, to give a short outline of what I believe police reporting could be developed into if undertaken seriously.
In late years I have become convinced that that daily newspaper which will keep a careful record of criminal goings on in this country—not locally, but taking in all of the country that it can cover—doing this day after day conscientiously, presenting to the public the criminal facts about ourselves as we make them—will be doing a work which will make its police reporting invaluable and will earn for it the grateful thanks of all students of crime.
In a way I have in mind for a daily record of the nation's crime, the presentation of our annual crime as found in the ChicagoTribunewhen it makes up our debit and credit account along these lines. It seems to me perfectly feasible for a newspaper to gather the daily news in the criminal world, so far as it should be given to the public, in as interesting and as useful a way as thatof theTribuneand certain other newspapers. I firmly believe that it would do good for us to see ourselves just as we are in the criminal looking-glass every morning of the year, not excepting Sundays. Statistics, quiet accounts of crimes committed, anecdotes, illustrative incidents proving no theories, but merely making graphic the volume of crime in our midst and its intensity—all these factors would probably have to come into the scheme I have in mind. The essential factor, however, must be that inexorable display of our criminality as a people. There is no gainsaying the fact that we are all ready, or are soon going to be, if jail and court records tell the truth, the most criminally minded nation on earth. This is not a pleasant fact or prospect. The function of the police reporter, as I understand it, should be to keep this forlorn state of affairs ever present in our minds until we wake up and say that this can no longer be. Such a man, if he does his work well, is deserving of as high a salary as his managing editor. High crime in the United States is one of the most appalling problems staring us in the face and demanding a solution. The description of it, its awful significance, its menacing proportions—these things are not yet treated daily, as they ought to be, by any newspaper known to me.
To all this there are those who will reply: "But our children read the newspapers, our mothers, wives and sisters read them. Why increase the criminal copy in the papers which must go into our homes? Why not suppress as much as possible all reference to what is criminal and sinful?"
My reply to these queries is that crime has become such a part of our national character that it is high time that we have a criminal thermometer indicating to us honestly and fairly our criminal feverishness. The police reporter as here considered may be likened unto the orderly in our hospitals, who puts a thermometer somewhere in or about us and attempts to determine our physical temperature. The orderly comes to us regularly, according to the physician's orders throughout the day; and at night, or on the following morning, the attending physician receives an accurate report of how our pulse has beaten for twelve or twenty-four hours, as the case may be.
I throw out the suggestion that our well-trained police reporter acquainted with police conditions and police departments, should be able to tell us every night and morning how we are getting along as criminals and as citizens of the republic, with our welfare at heart.
But to return to the Griffou push and to those early years of struggle with editors and what-not. Perhaps the finest sensation I experienced during those years was found in weekly trips to Park Row, usually to theSunoffice, where I handed in my bill for space and collected such money as was due me. I shall never forget how proud I was one Saturday, when, with seventeen dollars' space money in my inside pocket, I strolled back to Ninth Street, through the Bowery—or the Lane, as "Chuck" Conners prefers to call it. I remember passing a dime museum. That old boyish fever to see the animals and the wheels go round came over me. It isimpossible to tell now how much the visit to this miraculous institution cost me. I do recall, however, that on arriving later on at the haunt of the Griffou push my seventeen dollars were in a strangely dilapidated state. I have never seen several of them since this experience, but on looking back upon it I cannot say that I regret their loss. To be able on a Saturday night to foregather with the push and tell a story about how you had been "done" in the Lane or elsewhere caused much merriment, and I think healthy criticism. As beginners in the great city, as stragglers fighting to make our way, as men who knew that the years were passing by altogether too rapidly—who does not feel this way, say after thirty?—we were decidedly critical of one another, and were very prone to tell an alleged delinquent member of our company what we thought he ought to do to make a success of himself. But, after all, we were youngsters in spirit and temperament, and were far more given to laughing at our gatherings than to moping or solemnizing.
It hardly seems fair for me to mention here the names of the others in this aggregation, although I would be inclined to say only friendly things of them. Our original four, as the Griffou push was constituted as far as I am concerned, have remained staunch friends, if not boys, to this day. Later the push developed into a larger collection of men, and I am sorry to say that some of these newcomers have passed on into another world.
The men that I began with I will call Hutch, Alfred and Morey. Morey now owns an automobile, and,when I send him copy, is in a powerful position to turn said copy down. Hutch is writing books, and every now and then writes us how glad he is that the days of the push are no more and that he can bask under the Italian sun in his own righteousness. Alfred has become a literary philosopher and thinks that beginning in New York, as we did, looks better at a distance.
It has been my experience, and I suppose that of most men, that the attainment of a purpose is always accompanied by a touch of disappointment, weariness of spirit, even disgust, and such is in proportion to the amount of effort that has been put forth in order to attain. This, by the way, is but one of the penalties thatWanderlustimposes on those who listen to and obey its compelling call. I know whereof I speak, you must remember. Time and again when reaching the goal appointed by my vagabond instincts I have had amauvais quatre d'heureof it when trying to overcome this reaction of thought and feeling that was sure to set in and last for a longer or shorter period, according to what lay ahead of, or around me. At such junctures, do what I would, there came the insistent queries: "Well, and what have you gotten in return for it all?" "Have your efforts brought you a single thing that is of real value to you?" "How about the time and strength that you have wasted in securing—what?" "What next and why?" "How is it all going to end?"—and many more disturbing suggestions of a similar sort. Of course, the spell of the "blues," as I was pleased to callthese promptings of conscience or common-sense—I think the terms to be interchangeable—would be followed by my taking to the road again, literally or otherwise. But the inquisition of myselfbymyself was so certain to be waiting for me at the close of the tramp or exploit, that I often half-dreaded, rather than welcomed, the termination of the latter.
These things are said because I am reminded that, during all my wanderings, I never felt the "chill of achievement" strike me so sharply as it did on that April afternoon, when the liner on which I had returned to America left quarantine and began to steam slowly up the bay. Around and ahead were sights that I had been dreaming of and longing for many moons to again feast my eyes on. The Staten Island and Bay Ridge shores, flushed with tender green, slid by us; Liberty lifted a high beckoning hand of welcome, the Brooklyn warehouses, Governor's Island, New Jersey's fringe of masts and funnels, the fussy tugs, the blunt-nosed, business-like ferryboats, and Manhattan itself, with its line of sky-scrapers like unto jagged teeth, chewing the upper air, were all so familiar and had been so much desired! And yet came a sudden apathy regarding them and a dissatisfaction with them and myself that seemed to sicken and palsy. I actually began to wish that I need not get off the boat at all, but, instead, might stay on her until she turned her nose again toward the lands in which, a week or so before, I had been so utterly discontented. And why? Who can explain the hidden springs of the human mentality?
You would hardly believe it, if I were to tell you, that a like attitude or condition of mind is by no means uncommon in the case of a crook (commonly called a "gun") who has finished a long "bit" or term in prison. Naturally, the man puts most of his time in thinking and planning about what he will do when the day comes for him to shake hands with the governor and to take train to where he may be going. But the reaction sets in with the hour of release, and there comes a more or less marked distaste for, or dislike of, the very things to which the ex-prisoner has been looking forward for years perhaps. Sometimes the man has been working out a way by which he can "square it," or live an honest life in the future. I am sorry to say, however, that the "guns" who, having "done their spots," keep on the square thereafter, are few indeed. Usually the thoughts of the "lagged" criminal are directed toward perfecting means and methods of "nicking a swell swag and doing the get-away"—in other words, of stealing a considerable amount of money or valuables without being arrested. But, as with the rest of us, the "gun" seems to suffer from temporary brain-fag when he comes into physical contact with things and affairs that before had been known to him mentally. So, instead of his plans being put in action, a newspaper item like this not infrequently appears:
John Smith, no address, was arrested last evening at Broadway and Fortieth Street, charged with being drunk and disorderly and assaulting an officer. In court this morning, Policeman Jones said that the prisoner had insulted and annoyed a number of citizens, had kicked overthe outside showcases of a tobacconist, and had struck Jones several times before he could be subdued. Smith was recognized in court as "Conkey," otherwise John Richardson, a crook, who was released from State Prison only a few days since at the termination of a four years' sentence for burglary. In view of his record, he was held in default of $2,000 bail for trial at Special Sessions.
John Smith, no address, was arrested last evening at Broadway and Fortieth Street, charged with being drunk and disorderly and assaulting an officer. In court this morning, Policeman Jones said that the prisoner had insulted and annoyed a number of citizens, had kicked overthe outside showcases of a tobacconist, and had struck Jones several times before he could be subdued. Smith was recognized in court as "Conkey," otherwise John Richardson, a crook, who was released from State Prison only a few days since at the termination of a four years' sentence for burglary. In view of his record, he was held in default of $2,000 bail for trial at Special Sessions.
It is well for us, who claim to belong to the respectable classes, that this pruning of intention in the presence of fact is the rule rather than the exception. The public would be in a pretty pickle if the Powers that Prey invariably gave practical expression to their prison-fed fancies; for these last, as I have reason to know, if they are put in operation, rarely fail to accomplish their purpose. Perhaps seventy-five per cent. of the really big "jobs" that are successfully "pulled off" have their inception in the "stir" or penitentiary, or in State prison, the details being worked out by the "mob" or gang with which the discharged "gun," the author of the "plant," is affiliated. As the crook who gets a term of years generally gets it on the score of his professional ability, and as there is little or nothing during his "bit" to interfere with his thinking of thoughts, it is no wonder that his schemes seldom miscarry if they ever reach the stage of actual test.
From photograph taken in St. PetersburgJosiah Flynt, in His "Garb of the Road," while Tramping in Russia
Outside of the criminal, it may be that we ourselves, and our friends, also, are none the worse because our powers of execution are numbed or hindered for a like reason. What an unbearable world this would be, if every man could give expression to the fads and fancies that, to use the phrase of the Under World, "wos eatin'him"! And what a readjustment of social, commercial and personal affairs would be necessary in order to insure one the bare essentials of existence under the circumstances!
I'll pass over the hour or so of gloom and doubt that was mine before our steamer tied up at her pier, and merely say, that, as soon as I descended the gangway and touched what, under the circumstances, stood for dry land, my depression went by the board and I was my own man again. I found myself eying the awaiting crowd inquisitively, in order to see whether it contained any familiar faces, welcome or the reverse. I may add that, for reasons which it isn't necessary to explain, I had not notified any of my friends of my intention to return to the United States. Hence a meeting with acquaintances would be the outcome of chance rather than of design.
It was with a mixture of pique, anger and regret, tempered—if I must confess it—with a touch of amusement, that I realized that my welcome home came in the shape of a broad smile from as clever a crook as ever turned a trick in Wall Street with the aid of a mahogany-fitted suite of offices and—the law itself.
It is a somewhat natural, although, if you come to think it over, rather an unreasonable expectation, that prompts us to look upon those whom we first meet on landing on a foreign, or on our native shore, as representative of the people of the country in general. But, after all, while the longshore population of every land is rather different from the rest of the inhabitants, the former,in Europe at least, exhibit the national earmarks to a degree sufficient to satisfy the average tourist. I need hardly add that such earmarks are, to an extent, of a distinctive and significant nature. The costumes, gestures, manners and the language of the longshore advance guard, always seem to me to have a due relation each to each, and to those other things that the traveler meets further inland.
Something like these thoughts came to me, as I mechanically returned the smile of the man who was making his way through the crowd, dodging the line of stewards and baggage that was swirling over the ship's side. It was a silly and unpatriotic thought, no doubt, and it was probably parented by a variety of factors, including my familiarity with the Under World, but it came to me with cynical force and humor that there was something not entirely inappropriate in the fact that a well-dressed, amiable-looking, and apparently prosperous individual, of devious morals and crooked methods, should be so much in evidence on the threshold of a land, so to speak.
Now, don't misunderstand me. I don't wish to imply by the foregoing that we are a nation of criminals large and small, and that, hence, we were, in this instance, properly represented on the pier head by my smiling friend. But I do earnestly believe that the American public does not, as yet, realize the danger that arises from the big masses becoming accustomed to the current and growing dishonesty of the small classes. I say "accustomed to," meaning thereby that the public apparently accepts the dictum that if a man or corporation steals on a sufficiently big scale, not only is the law paralyzed by the legal lights who are willing to accept retaining fees from thieves, but, in addition, our youths are taught to regard such thievery as equivalent to success.
My observation has taught me that crime is like water—it steeps from the top. A nation is, more or less, patterned after its prominent men. If these, when subjected to moral analysis, turn out to be simply "dips" who operate on a large scale, so much the worse for the nation, for, while the example of the men in question may not be followed in degree by the multitude, it surely is in kind. I'll defy any one to disprove this assertion by means of municipal or historic data. On the other hand, I could, if necessary, show that, in repeated cases, financialcoups—so called—and "deals," and all the rest of the legalized robberies in high places, were followed or accompanied by a rushing business in the magistrates' or criminal courts.
Once upon a time, "Chi"—as Chicago is known to the Under World—was the headquarters for crooks of all grades and types—including the authors of wheat corners and so forth. But New York is or will be, so I take it, the gathering place for most of the manipulators of the financial world. I venture the prophecy that, when the fact is established that the metropolis is their favorite roosting place, there will be a corresponding activity on the part of the local "guns" of all descriptions, budding or full blown, from the office boy, who swipes postage stamps, to the up-to-date gopher-man, who cleans out a "peter" or safe with the help of a pocket laboratory and electric drills.[1]
I do not think that the needs of this story call for the name of the man with the smile. Up to the time of writing, he has kept out of prison, and the Upper World holds him to be a reputable person in consequence—which is the way of the Upper World, which judges a man on the score of results rather than on that of actions. That he and the other members of his mob are not viewing the Hudson scenery through barred windows, is, I believe, due to the fact that one of his pals is an astute and eminently respectable lawyer, who, because he knows his business as thoroughly as he does, can make the law serve the very crooks whom it is supposed to suppress. By this it will be gathered that he was and is one of those sharks known as financial lawyers, who infest the tempestuous seas of the financial district. He is a member of the Union League, and of a Fourth Avenue church, and has been identified with several citizens' movements having to do with the betterment of certain phases of municipal administration. He is one of the meanest unmugged "guns" that has ever helped to graft pennies from a sick widow's chimney stocking. This is no figure of speech. The enterprises which he and his mob spring on the public are especially designed to appeal to thehopes and fears of those whose knowledge of financial affairs and personal means are equally small. The victims invariably include a goodly percentage of women who, being without advisers, are anxious to invest their scant savings, and having an idea that Wall Street is, somehow or other, a place for making money, hand over fist, stand ready to swallow the mendacious yarns that form the basis of the printed matter of the corporations or "pools" in question.
All grafting is of course bad from the viewpoint of the Upper World, although the Under World thinks otherwise. But I honestly believe that the real "dip," "moll-buzzer," "peter-man," "prop-getter," "thimble-toucher," "queer-shover," "slough-worker," "second-story man," or any other form of "gun," looks upon the "paper-pipers," such as my crook of the pier and his associates were, in much the same manner as a bank robber regards an East Side door-mat thief.
The last that I heard of the man, and that quite recently, was, that he and his pals were floating a company that allegedly proposed to manufacture and sell a paint "which entered into the substance of the material on which it was used, so became part and parcel of it, and, in consequence, was practically indestructible." I quote from the preliminary pamphlet that was sent to the "suckers" who nibbled at the glittering bait of the concern's newspaper advertisements.
The public would probably fight shy of—(we will call him John Robins, which approximates his trade name) if it knew that he has "done time" in Coloradofor burglary, and was run out of at least one other Western State for separating people from their money in a manner not recognized by city or mining camp laws. The "gun" fraternity—at least a large part of it—knows the facts in his case, but it isn't in the business of putting "the good guys next to the graft," or, in other words, of telling tales out of school.
The police and the Pinkerton Detective Agency are "wise"; but in these cases again, there is no official reason for action against Robins and his mob, while, on the other hand, there may be, and probably are, very excellent reasons for leaving him alone. I fancy that my readers will understand what I mean.
There was a sort of double end to my knowledge of and acquaintance with the man. Both began with complaints that had been sent to a metropolitan newspaper by a "sucker" whose jaws had gotten tangled up with and pricked by the hook that lay concealed in the Robins literary matter, which, in this instance, had to do with a land deal. For what he thought to be sufficient reasons, the city editor of the newspaper assigned me to investigate.
That same night, and by mere luck, I ran up against an old-time slope crook, "Split" Kelly by name, whom I had once known quite well. I asked him if he could give me any information about Robins, and he then told me that about the promoter which I have related and which, by the way, I later confirmed through other informants.
"How long ago since all this happened?" I asked.
"Fifteen or twinty years, maybe," answered "Split." "Thin 'Th' Tooth'—we called him that because wan uv his teeth in th' front of him was missin', ouin' to it bein' in th' way of the fist of a flatty [policeman]—giv out that he was goin' to square it. This was in 'Frisco, moind ye. An' th' squarin' took th' shape uv turnin' mouthpiece [informant to the police]. An' thin things began comin' agin the mob a-plinty. Big Bill Murray, I moind, was wan of the first that was hauled before th' Front Office [Police Headquarters] an' framed up fur a whit of a strong-arm job. Likewise, was there 'Sweet' Schneider, a clever dip at thot, an' Jimmy Cole—he was stretched for a four spot—an' 'Cat' Walters—an'—will, a dozen or more uv purty decint bhoys, the names un all uv which I disrimimber."
"But how about the percentage?" I asked, meaning the money paid to the police by crooks in return for "protection."
"In thim days," explained "Split," "thar was some sort of mix-up in the Front Office; some ov th' pircint bein' hild out by thim as had th' handlin' un it, as it came frish from th' guns. Ye'll onderston', Cig., by thot which soide th' beefin' came from. An' whin this Tooth uv yourn began his tip-off, the Front Office guys thot claimed they had bin done dirt, says, 'Ef we ain't in on the game as we should be, why, no game goes.' An' they begins to throw it in to us, as I've said. 'Twas th' owld story, Cig., th' owld story. Whin there's trouble in th' Front Office, 'tis worked off on the guns."
"And so, Split," said I, "you too got your bit through Tooth?" I had detected the tone of personal dislike to "Tooth" in the old fellow's talk, and made a guess at the reason.
"Ye guess roight, me chickin, though how ye guessed, th' divil knows, seem' 's I said nawthing. An' why th' mug put th' rap on me I'm not knowin'. T'ree days before I was jumped into th' sweat-box, I staked him to a tin-spot, for I'd touched for a fat leather." And "Split" scowled darkly.
"And what happened next?"
"Split" held an imaginary match between his thumb and forefinger, blew twice, and shook his head. By which I knew that the guns that had been squealed on, or the mob with whom they were associated, had twice tried to take Robins's life or "put his light out," and had failed in so doing.
"And then?"
"Thin," replied the veteran, easily, "me brave bucko framed it up that there was too much free lead floatin' in th' oir in thim parts, an' nixt comes news that he had been pinched for connin' a bunch of Eastern towerists at Manitou. But his fall-money [funds for such emergencies!] greased the elbows [bribed the detectives] an' he made th' git away all right, all right, an' th' rest ye know. An' from that time on I nivir seen or hear uv him till wan day, three years since. Thin Clivir Saunders, an old-time 'Frisco gun, tills me that Tooth was gaffin [residing] in way up sthyle on Eighty-sivinth Street, Wist, aginst th' Park. I misdoubted, but Clivirwas roight, fur I stalled th' crib, an' sure enough me ex-friend comes out an' hops abourd his big gas-buggy an' away loike a wad uv easy. 'Oh, Ya,' ses I, 'somethin' doin'.' An' I tips off Clivir, an' th' nixt day whin Tooth's chaw—choof—what th' —— is that Frinch name, anyhow, Cig.?—whin th' feller with th' goggles sets her spinnin', a husky auto in which was me an' Clivir, slips in th' track uv Tooth an' nivir loses soight uv him 'te we marks him down in wan of thim Hivin-hitting office joints on lower Broadway.
"But I was dead leary of followin' on below th' Loine [the margin of the financial district in New York City, beyond which it is supposed that no crook can venture owing to the unwritten law of the police]. An' I ses so, to Clivir.
"'Ef 'tis safe for him,' says he, ''tis sure safe for we'—which was untrue, seein' that at th' toime I had a suspishun that I was bein' rapped by a mouthpiece regardin' a trifle of a book belongin' to th' twintieth cousin, more or liss, of somebody at th' Front Office. An' 'tis bad, as ye know, Cig., to buck th' Front Office dirict, or troo its twintieth cousin, fur, if ye do, th' fingers [policemen] 'll get hould uv ye by fair manes or by foul if they can.
"Howsinndever, we plants frind Tooth in his hang-out, an' th' nixt day pays him a visit, bein' drissed in our fall-togs [good clothes worn in court when on trial] an' intinding to borrow a trifle fur th' sake uv th' ould days. His nibs has a sure swell joint, with lots of nifty dames hittin' thim typewritin' masheens, an' lots ofrugs, an' brass, an' shiny wood, an' other things that we knowed was glimpsed to catch suckers.
"Well, me and Clivir said we wanted to chin Tooth about a private an' confidenshul investment—thim was Clivir's wurrds—only av coarse we didn't call him Tooth, but 'Misther Robins.' And prisintly a laad with a load uv gilt buttons on his second sthory, escoorts us into th' inside office of Tooth himself. An' an illigant joint uv it, it was at thot.
"Tooth knowed us at wanst as I see, and I see, too, his fingers sthray toward a black tin box on th' disk to his right.
"'Ye can sthay your hond, ould pal,' says Clivir, aisy like, 'we are goin' to act like the gints we look. Guns, the t'ree uv us maybe,' says he, 'but thare'll only be t'ree an' no more on exhibishun in this here palashul joint of yours, onless indade ye insist on a show-down, which is unlikely!' Clivir had a fine lay-out of langwidge, so he had.
"'Will,' says Tooth, looking at us with the swate exprission of a fly-cop who's had his leather reefed, 'what th' divil do ye two want?'
"'Me frind,' says Clivir, politely, an' pointin' to me, 'lost his sense uv touch during th' payriod that he spint in th' stir uv a famous Wistrin city, injoying th' grub an' ripose uv th' same through th' fayvour uv yourself, Tooth. An' bein' in destitoot circumstances ivir since, he is sure come to ask ye to make good for disthroyin' his manes uv turnin' a dishonist pinny.'
"Tooth nivir turned a hair, but I was discumfortablewhin I saw th' smoile uv him. He threw his chair a thrifle closer to th' telephone an' thin he says in a voice that was unplisintly quiet:
"'Listen, you mugged guns. You think you kin call th' turn on me an' so want to touch for a few centuries [$100 bills], an' after that fur a few more, and after that some more yet. Let me till you that you'll not only not get a red-un out uv me, but, if ivir I see th' mugs uv ye within a half-acre of this joint again, I'll tip off th' Front Office an' put ye where ye belong. Oh, it's aisy enough fur me to do it, so it is. A wurrd to th' Big Man, or th' payple uptown, sayin' that two bustid crooks was thrying to blackmail me—me, th' prisident of a large an' repitable corporashun, to say nothing uv me soshul and personal sthanding—an' where wud ye be? How could th' half uv us in a game like I'm runnin', kape goin', if Mulberry Street an' the Big Man, didn't privint the likes uv you from botherin' thim uv us who've bin a bit mixed up with gun graft in th' past? To privint ye thin from takin' chances this side uv th' Loine in th' future, I give it to ye straight thot we're so will looked afther by thim who can do it—an'do, mind ye—thot th' touch uv this button or th' touch of this wan would mane a couple of husky fly-cops, who'd shake th' shell off ye, before ye got th' framin' up thot would make ye sick uv York fur th' rist of yer days. An' now git, th' pair of yez.'"
"An', Cig., we got, feelin' like th' sneak who foinds he's swiped a jar uv moldy pickles.
"'I thought I knowed th' whole uv th' graft game,'said Clivir, whin we'd got clear uv the joint, 'by theory, anyhow,' sez he, 'but, Split, take it from me, th' only people who's really on to it, an' knows th' size uv it, an' th' shape uv it, an' th' spread uv it, an' where it begins an' how it inds, an'what's in it, is th' Front Office an' th' guys behind it.'
"Which words was thrue, Cig.—they was sure thrue."
The next day, I called on Robins with the letter from the alleged victim of the land deal enterprise, asking him what he had to say about it.
He opened a desk, produced a box of cigars, passed them to me, and, looking me straight in the eyes, said, with a smile: "And what sort of answer do you want, anyhow?"
Whereupon I felt and saw that I was up against a cool, clever confidence man who had chosen to "work" in the Wall Street district instead of amid the environments of the usual sort.
Now you may or may not know it, but the confidence man of tip-top attainments cultivates the control and expression of his features with as much care as does the professional beauty—this for the reason that his looks are among his most valuable assets. For the first stage in "turning a trick," whether this be done in a Broadway hotel or a downtown office building, is for the operator to get a hold on the confidence of his victim by impressing him with his, the former's, frankness and honesty through the medium of his steady gaze, cheery smile and sincerity of expression in general. But "wise" peopleare not taken in by these things. Apart from all else, those who have had much to do with criminals—whether mugged or unmugged—will tell you that there is such a thing as the "crook eye," which invariably gives its owner away. It is, as I once heard a clever detective put it, "an eye behind the eye"—a something sinister peeping out from the bland and childlike gaze which the "con" turns on his prospective gull.
Robins's eyes were big and blue and clear, and almost infantile in their expression. Nevertheless, as he faced me smiling, I saw the "crook's eye" sizing me up, and I knew that old "Split's" story was more or less true. And, on the impulse of the moment, I began "throwing it into him" in the "patter" of the Under World.
Robins's eyes narrowed for an instant, but that was all. His command of his countenance was simply lovely. And I, as aconnoisseurof things having to do with gun-dom, could not but sit and admire. Then he smiled, not quite so nice a smile as those he had been giving me. Mr. Robins realized that the need for professional effort had passed.
"Well," he said, after a meditative pause, "see that you'reon, or think you are. And now what?" The laugh with which he finished the sentence was so unmistakably real that I at once became wary.
"I guess you know enough of reporters," I said, rather lamely, "to understand that I'm here to ask whether the complaints in this letter are founded on fact or otherwise."
"Fact in one sense," he replied, cheerily, "but thatwon't do this squealer any good, because we're protected on that score, as I'll show you."
He produced one of the agreements that were in force between his concern and its patrons—or "suckers"—and pointed out a "joker" in it which legally, but certainly not morally, rendered invalid the charge of swindling on the part of the letter writer.
"You must have a mighty clever lawyer behind you," I couldn't help saying.
"Yes," replied Robins, complacently, "he knows his business and he's one of us. We have to be prepared for kicks of this sort, because our business breeds 'em. They come our way all the time."
He spoke with cynical frankness.
"I'm going to use that remark of yours in my story," I said.
"See here, cull," he retorted, dropping into the vernacular of the Under World, and wheeling his chair suddenly so as directly to face me, "I don't know who you are outside of your card; but, as I said before, you'reon, so it seems, and I don't want to treat a good guy like you on the cross. It's no use your wasting my time or me wasting yours in jollying.But you can't get a line in your newspaper that's going to queer me.See? And in no other paper in this little burg. Understand? I guess you know all about reporting down to the ground. But there's some sides of the newspaper business that you ain't next to yet. This is one of them. You may as well quit right here as far as I am concerned, for nixy a line of roast goes that you push out about me."
"Andthat, too, goes in my story," I replied, rather hotly.
He smiled indulgently, yawned, and rose. "Come and have lunch with me some day," he said. "You seem a spry boy, and I may throw something in your way."
"I've got stuff for a front-page display," I reported to the city editor half an hour later.
"I—ah—don't think we need it," replied the little man with the tired eyes whom I addressed. "You can put in a bill for your time, but—you needn't write it. Orders from the old man."
I knew that the advertising end of the newspaper had once more been wagging the editorial tail, and that, once again, it had been decided that it was better to protect a rogue rather than lose his half-page "ad." in the Sunday edition, to say nothing of his quarter pages during the balance of the week!
Robins knew whereof he spoke when he assured me that there was "nothing doing" in regard to himself. When I left his office, he simply telephoned his advertising agent, explaining the situation. The latter, in turn, telephoned the business department of the newspaper, and—there you are.
Curiously enough, Robins seemed to take a fancy to me for some reason or other. On more than one occasion he made me an enticing offer to enter his employ as publicity man or press agent. But I couldn't swallow my prejudice against his "plants" in the first place, and I had other and sufficiently lucrative affairs in hand inthe second. Still, we ran into each other at times, and he never failed to jolly me on the score of my failure to show him up.
To return to our meeting on the pier head; after an apparently hearty greeting from him, he asked if I had seen "Peck" Chalmers on board. He explained that Chalmers was to have returned to America on the steamer on which I had crossed, but apparently hadn't.
"Of course," said Robins, "Peck would have come under a monacher [alias], so I wasn't sure if he was on the passenger list or not."
I knew the fellow he spoke of, a quiet, elderly, well-mannered and cleanly shaven man of forty-five or so, who looked like a minister in mufti, but who, in reality, was a clever gambler and "con gun"; one of Robins's own profession.
Robins went on to explain that Peck had gone abroad to see if the "wire-tapping" game or its equivalent could be worked in Great Britain.
"He went broke over—what do you think?—the give-away of an up-State fly-cop with caterpillars in his whiskers and grass-seed in his hair. Think of it—Peck, one of the best men in the business, busted by a bumble-bee, fresh off the dogwood! It happened this way: The State cop [State detective] looked as if he had come to see what was going on at Yard's Town Hall, but he really was a sharp lad who had mixed it up with a lot of good people, as we later found out. Well, Peck's mob picked him up as easy, and he toted them along till they almost hated to take the three thousand that he wrotehome for. To show how much in earnest he was, he let Peck himself mail the letter to the Savings Bank at Geehaw Corners, ordering the cashier to sent the oof to Peck direct, to be placed on a horse that the innocent was to be tipped off to, day after to-morrow.
"So that day, the jay was allowed to win a hundred and fifty, and had a joyous time of it with the mob. At about midnight, Peck and the whole bunch were pinched, and think how they felt when the country cop threw back his coat and flashed a State detective badge! It cost the mob down to their shirt buttons to get out of the mess."
"How is the wire game in New York?" I queried.
"Never better, pal!" was the instant reply. "Everything is smooth with the Front Office, and the suckers are so thick that we can't attend to 'em."
"We?" I said.
Robins laughed. "I'm saying nothing. I'm a respectable business man with offices—here's my card."
With that we parted.
You can find a moral in all this—and you're welcome to it.
I have often wondered whence and wherefore that queer—what shall I call it, satisfaction, pride?—which I think a good many of us feel at being on nodding or talking terms with notorious characters. Please remember that I am now speaking as Josiah Flynt, the respectable citizen, and not as Josiah Flynt, the man of the Under World.
My capacity "for to see and to admire," as Mr. Kipling says, was fairly active in the most depressing days of my speckled past. The "seeing and admiring" is the privilege of the spectator who, because he is such, may be near the crowd and not of it. So, in a sense, I stood aloof, my insatiable curiosity often prompting me simply to observe where otherwise I might have freely partaken. This curiosity was one of my few saving graces, although it is only recently that I have become aware of its being so.
But this—may I call it philosophic?—habit of observation, and the making of many incidental and disreputable friendships, is or was, a totally distinct thing from the prideful zest with which John Brown, father, taxpayer,and pew-renter turns to James Jones, ditto, ditto, and ditto, and says:
"Notice that chap who nodded to me? That's 'Corky Bunch,' who fought and nearly killed Jimmy Upcut out in Colorado last year. He rents his flat from us."
Or it may be that James Jones will say something like this:
"That's 'Billy the Biff' who just said 'morning' to me. You know—leader of the Redfire gang. Said to have killed nine men. But they can't send him to the chair because he does all the thug work round election time for Barney O'Brill, the 'teenth ward boss. Ain't such a bad looker, is he? Swell dresser, too. Buys his shirts at our store." And Jones, who is as law-abiding a citizen as ever lived, turns to his friend a face which is pink with satisfaction.
Again—not long after my last return to New York, I made the acquaintance of a nice old gentleman who is the senior partner of a wholesale stationery concern, father of a fine family, deacon of a Harlem church, member of a citizens' committee, and much more of that sort of thing. Likewise, and for certain reasons which are not important enough to explain, I was introduced to him under another name than my own. He had been to New York's Chinatown once or twice in tow of a professional guide, who, knowing what was expected of him, had filled his patron with amazing stories of the quarter and its residents. The guide had, furthermore, introduced his charge to the fake opium joints, the fan-tangames and alleged highbinder clubs which are in turn arranged for the reception and the mulcting of visitors. Therefore the old fellow felt fully capable of playing leader himself the next time a collection of country cousins visited town, and I was invited to join the party.
"You needn't hesitate to come along," gurgled the ancient, cheerfully. "When you are with any one that knows Chinatown as well as I do, there isn't a bit of danger, believe me. It's only strangers to the place that are likely to get into trouble."
And this to me!
However, I went, and the large glee with which he pointed out, as hatchet-men and gamblers and lottery keepers and opium-joint proprietors and members of various tongs and of this society and that guild, inoffensive Chinese, who were in reality shopkeepers or laundry-men who had come down to Pell or Mott streets in order to have a night off, was a sight to see. It vouched for the industrious imagination of the professional guide, and when it was all over, and we were on our way uptown again, he beamingly remarked that unless people mixed with all sorts and conditions of folk they—the people—were likely to get very narrow. In other words, you could only round out your life by rubbing shoulders with disreputables.
I have already offered, or rather suggested, one explanation of this social phenomenon, and now another occurs to me. Haven't you, when a youngster, thrust your toes out under the blankets on a winter's morningfor the express purpose of accentuating the comfort of the bed when you drew them back again? I guess you have. And so, I think, respectable people like to emphasize their respectability by bringing it into close, if temporary, contact with its antithesis. A shudderful joy results, no small part of which arises from the conviction that we are not like unto the other men.
Something like that which I have just set down came to me on the second day of my return to New York, while riding downtown on a Sixth Avenue car. It was Monday morning, and three-fourths of the passengers were bargain-hunting women, judging by their conversation. On the rear platform were two "moll-buzzers," or pickpockets, who make a specialty of robbing the fair sex, and sitting near the front door was a stylish, "well-groomed," reserved woman, whom I at once recognized as "Angeles Sal," or Sarah Danby, one of the cleverest women who ever stole a purse. There came to me a thrill of the feeling of which I have been speaking. I felt a pleasant glow of superiority in that I, alone, of all the people in the car, was so well versed in the affairs of the Under World that I knew that some of the dwellers therein were on board. I awaited the things which I felt sure were soon to happen.
They came somewhat more quickly than I had imagined.
At Herald Square the car stopped to let a half dozen of the women alight. Besides the "moll-buzzers," there were two or three other men on the rear platform, which was, in consequence, somewhat crowded. This was preciselyas the pickpockets desired. Scarcely had the last woman gotten into the street when there came a loud shriek from one of them.
She turned, grabbed the hand-rail of the car that by this time had begun to move, and yelling, "I've been robbed!" ran along with it without loosening her grip. Naturally, every remaining passenger jumped to his feet, and I saw "Angeles Sal" press into a group that were clustered at the windows.
Events followed with surprising celerity. The car halted with a jerk, one of the "moll-buzzers"—the "stall," by the way—opened the near platform gate, jumped into the roadway, and disappeared as completely as if the earth had swallowed him. The other seemed to vanish into thin air and simultaneously a police officer appeared at both front and rear doors.
Instinctively my eyes sought Sal. She was in the act of getting out from among the others, and by a single swift movement stood in front of me. Then she made a scarcely audible sound with her lips—something like the ghost of a kiss—and as her right hand passed to the left, apparently for the purpose of opening a hand-bag which was hanging from her left wrist, I felt something drop into the folds of a newspaper which I was carrying in an upright fashion between my hands, its lower edges resting on my knee. The woman had recognized me as of the Under World, had given me the thief's call for help and caution, and had planted her "swag" on me without further parley. Indeed, there wasn't time for talk, only time for action. Thenext instant, the excited little woman who had been "touched," burst into the car, accompanied by a third policeman.
"Now, madam," said the detective, brusquely, "is there anybody here whom you think lifted your purse? If so, pick the person out and we will go to the station house." The woman hesitated, glancing from face to face.
"This is infamous," said Sal, in a tone of well-bred anger to a lady who was standing by her side. "We are all of us, so it seems, practically accused of theft." And she moved toward the front door.
"You will excuse me, lady," said the officer on guard, "but you will please stop in the car until this party has said her say out."
Sal flushed indignantly, and drew herself up with magnificent haughtiness. Then she pulled out her cardcase.
"If you don't know me, my good man," she remarked, quietly, "I suppose you have heard of my husband?" And she passed him a pasteboard.
The detective simply wilted as he glanced at the card.
"I beg your pardon, madam," he said. "No offense meant; line of duty, you know, madam." And, mumbling more apologies, he helped her off the car and made way for her through the crowd that had gathered.
Later I learned that Sal had "sized up" the detective as unknown to her. She had the audacity to make it appear—on her cards—that she was the wife of a certain member of the judiciary who was the owner of an international reputation.
It should be added that the cards stood her in good stead on several occasions. But when the shining light of the bench began to get polite notes from department stores in which he was requested to be good enough to ask his wife to be somewhat more discreet in her methods of "obtaining expensive goods, inasmuch as some of our assistants to whom Mrs. —— is not known, may cause her inconvenience," he began to investigate. These communications meant that she had been caught shoplifting and had only squeezed out of the scrapes by hergrande damemanner and her visiting cards.
In the meantime I had been sitting with Sal's swag "fiddled," or concealed, in my newspaper and expecting a squeal from the "touched" one every instant.
The squeal didn't come off, however. Neither did the excited little woman identify her despoiler. So the police departed and the car went on. I took an early opportunity of disembarking, and in a convenient place examined that which the newspaper contained—I don't mean the news.
Sal's graft proved to be a small gold or gilt purse, which contained a few bills and a couple of valuable rings, which were evidently on their way to a jeweler's for repairs. One was a cluster ring of diamonds and rubies that had had its hoop broken. The other had two big, white stones, set gypsy fashion—it was a man's ring, or rather the stones were so set. But one of the diamonds having loosened had been removed and sewed up in a bit of muslin which, in turn, was secured to the ring itself. The purse evidently belonged to a woman.
Now, you would have thought that the moment that the cry of "thief" was raised, the owner of the rings would have assured herself that the valuables were all right, and would remain so. That thought by the same token would mark you as a denizen of the Over instead of the Under World.
Angeles Sal was not only an expert with her hands, but also a student of human nature. For that matter most "guns" are those whose graft is somewhat out of the ordinary. So, when the "squeal" was put up, she kept a keen eye on the women passengers and saw most of them slap their hands on that part of their persons where their valuables were hidden. The action was involuntary, as it always is in such cases. It told Sal all she wanted to know.
She selected to "touch" a woman who was carrying a suede hand-bag, the fastenings of which were of the dumb-bell order. This woman had, when the outcry was raised, spasmodically touched the lower part of the bag, felt it a moment, and, satisfied, turned her attention to the crowd outside. This was Sal's cue, and it was an easy matter for her to "teaze" the bag open, extract the purse, and re-shut the former. Her knowledge of everyday people's nature had taught her that if the idea of the rings being safe was once fixed in their owner's mind the latter would, in consequence, be safer to "touch" than she would be under ordinary circumstances.
This reminds me that a good many of the successful "get-aways" of the Powers that Prey are due to an insight into the workings of the human mentality ratherthan to agile fingers or elaborate kits of tools. If you know what the other man is going to do next, he is yours, or rather his belongings are. This is an aphorism that is always in order in the Under World. So it is that "guns" are always studying the art of forecasting. So well are most "plants" arranged, in consequence, that, for the most part, when they fail it is on account of the interposition of the unexpected rather than from any defects in the plan of campaign.
If the foregoing story interests you at all it will probably be on the score of its being an illustration of the so-called "honor among thieves." In other words, you will have come to the conclusion that Sal, thinking that she recognized in me a member of the Under World, threw herself and her "swag" on my presumed "honor," trusting to luck for us to meet again and "divvy" on the usual terms that exist between pal and pal; for, in all cases of a "touch," the parties to it share alike. Now, as a matter of fact, Sal's motive was of an entirely different kind. She knew that she was in a tight place, saw one chance of saving her booty, and took it. That was all that it amounted to, and, from her point of view, she did perfectly right. Newspapers and cheap novels are responsible for a whole lot of romantic humbug in regard to pickpockets and their doings, from the time of Robin Hood down, including the "thieves' honor" proposition.
It is proper for me to add that I advertised the purse and the rings as being "found," and they were, in due time, restored to their owner.
I have often been asked as to whether "honor among thieves" is fact or fiction. The question is not easy to answer. In the first place, honor is a relative term, its interpretation, so it seems to me, depending on place, person and circumstance. Those casuists of the cynical sort who affirm that all human motive is based on selfishness, will hardly except the attribute in question from their generalization.
However open to criticism this same generalization is, so far as it applies to the average citizen, I am certainly inclined to accept it when the crook is concerned. The business of attaching to yourself things that don't belong to you is plainly of a very selfish nature. It has its inception as well as its execution in a desire to get as much possible pleasure with as little possible trouble as may be, and that, too, while ignoring the incidental rights of anybody and everybody.
This statement, as I take it, is a pretty fair definition of selfishness of any and every description. As most motives take color from the acts from which they spring or to which they relate, it follows that the "honor" which we are pleased to think of as existing between rogues, is in reality a something which is prompted by a due regard for the persons or the purses of the self-same individuals. This distinguishes the honor that obtains in the Under World from that which is mostly in evidence in the Over World. In the latter instance the factor of one's good name or character is involved; it is absent in the former. From this characterization you will infer, as I intend you shall, that the "honor" ofthe Powers that Prey is but a poor sort of a thing after all, and is, as I have intimated, but personal interest more or less thinly disguised.
Still, sometimes the disguise is so clever that it looks like the real thing—to the outsider; but "wise" people rarely fail in tracing the reasons which prompt a rogue to refuse to give away a pal. Even when his doing so means a long term in prison as against immunity if he would only use his tongue to "peach" on his associate and therefore cause that person's conviction.
In such cases the newspapers, so I've noticed, are apt to give the mum one a species of glorificationwhich is never deserved. I want the words set up in italics; they deserve that distinction. Let me repeat, the crook who cannot be got to "flash" on his gang, either by the third degree at the "Front Office"—the often brutal inquisition at police headquarters—the prison chaplain, or the district attorney's staff, is never dumb because his "honor" prompts him to remain so. It is his self-interest that bids him keep his mouth shut.
Some seven years ago, a bank in a little New Jersey town, about fifty miles due west of New York, was one night "done up" in good shape. The "peter-men," of whom there were four, secured something like eighteen thousand dollars in greenbacks, to say nothing of a bunch of negotiable papers and a couple of small jewel safes, weighing about a hundred pounds each. The rich residents of the locality used to store their sunbursts, tiaras and rings in these safes, which, by the way, were kept in the main safe of the bank. This was known tothe gang who turned the trick, and the big safe proving easy, the little ones "fell" in consequence.
The "guns" who were on the job hailed from the West, and had been working together for some years. They were all "good people," as the detective phrase is for clever crooks. There was "Bandy" Schwarz, an old-timer, who had seen the inside of every "stir and jug" west of the Missouri; "Ike" Mindin, otherwise "Beak," an expert with the drills and levers; "Sandy" Hope, a notorious cracksman of Chicago birth and criminal reputation, who, at the time of the New Jersey "plant," was wanted in Kansas City in connection with the shooting of a watchman of a dry goods store; and another man who shall be nameless, so far as I am concerned. I may add, however, that at this writing he is living in New York, and has a fairly prosperous undertaking business (of all things!), having "squared it" for a half dozen or more years. If he should happen to read this, he will know that the small, weazen-faced chap who used to be about a good deal with Pete Dolby's gang in the old days in Chicago, isn't ungrateful. Following the breaking up of Dolby's crowd, through the stool-pigeon, "Dutch Joe," I would many a time have had to "carry the banner," or walk the streets all night if it hadn't been for this man, who was always ready to give up a bed or a cup of coffee.
As I've said before, the "get-away"—that is, the method of escaping with the "swag"—is always carefully worked out by the framers of a "plant," or proposed robbery. In this case it was of a rather elaboratesort. The safe was to be drilled and jimmied instead of being blown, because of the proximity of houses to the bank. Then the plunder was to be loaded into a buggy, the wheels of which were rubber-tired, while the horses' hoofs were wrapped in cloth to deaden their sound. The buggy was then to be driven to an appointed spot near South Amboy, where a cat-boat in charge of Sandy would be in waiting, to which the articles were to be transferred. Then the craft was to be rowed off to a fishing-ground, where the day was to be spent, and as night fell, was to head for Gravesend Bay, where it was believed that the valuables could be gotten on shore without suspicion, either as fish or as the outfit of a fishing party.
But the unexpected happened. The "getaway" was begun all right, but a couple of miles from the bank the buggy broke down under the weight of the two safes. This was about four-thirty and in June. Now, it so happened that the cashier of the bank was to take his vacation during the following week, and in consequence he was getting to his work ahead of time, and on this particular morning reached the bank at five-thirty o'clock. Fifteen minutes later, the local police and population were scouring the surrounding country, the "Front Offices" of New York, Philadelphia and other big cities were being notified, and a net, so to speak, was drawn tightly around the scene of the "touch" from which there was no escape. It all ended by Bandy and Mindin being caught while trying to "cache" the safes in a wood near to the scene of the breakdown. The third man haddisappeared with the currency. Mindin tried to scare the pursuing Jerseymen by shooting, but got filled with buckshot in consequence.
Bandy absolutely refused to "peach" on his pals. He was bullied, coaxed, threatened, prayed over, offered immunity and in other ways tempted to tell. It turned out afterwards that the cause of all this effort on the part of the police was that somehow or other they had got a hint that Sandy Hope was mixed up with the job, and they wanted him the worst way on account of the Kansas City affair. In other words, they were willing to let a "peter-man" go for the sake of getting a man-killer. Bandy stood it out, though, and was finally sentenced to seven years in prison.
Not long before I last left for Europe, I happened into a prosperous, hybrid sort of store in a pretty town about an hour's ride from New York. It was one of those shops where you can buy nearly everything, from stationery to Japanese ware, with tobacco, candy and dress goods in between. Behind the counter, with a blue apron covering his comfortable paunch and the capital O legs, from which he got his "monacher," was Bandy himself.
Now, the etiquette of the Under World doesn't permit of one pal even recognizing another in the everyday world unless the "office" is given and such a recognition is desired—and safe. Hence, while I knew that Bandy knew me and he knew that I knew it, I gave no sign of that fact. Yet as he passed me the pack of cigarettes for which I had asked, my forefinger tapped the back ofhis hand twice, which, in the sign language of the Under World, is equivalent to "I want to chin with you." Bandy coughed a slight, guttural cough and gave a hardly noticeable jerk of his head toward the rear of the store. He had replied that he was willing to "chin" and that the room at the back was all right for that purpose. Whither we went when the other customer in the place had been served and had departed.
I needn't tell about the reminiscences we exchanged. I will come direct to that part of our conversation which had to do with his exhibition of crook "honor" on the lines related.
"You certainly wouldn't 'beef,'" I said tentatively. "Many a man fixed like you were would have let his clapper loose all right. And the newspapers did you proud. 'Twas a fine front you put up, and the gang ought to be proud of you."
"Proud nothing!" said the reformed crook, impatiently. "And seems to me, Cig., that you've caught the patter of those nutty newspaper guys who is always stinging the dear public about guys who never go back on pals, because they're built that way and all the rest of such guff."
He stopped disgustedly.
"Here's the straight of it. Up to the time that we frisked a joint in Chi that happened to be owned by the brother of a cop, we—the four of us—was doing well and had a lot of fall money [large reserve sum for use in case of emergencies]. Well, the gang agreed that if one of us was copped out, the others would look out forhis piece of fall money, and, what was more, while he was put away, he should get a share of one-eighth of all touches, which same could be sent to his wife or kids, as the case might be. That was good enough, wasn't it?"
I nodded and Bandy went on.
"That was the reason why I didn't turn mouthpiece. Another was," he smiled grimly, "that it was quite clearly understood that any one of us who opened his mouth to the policeonce, wouldn't do sotwice. Sandy Hope, I mind me, was fond of announcing this fact in a kind of casual way. Not that we mistrusted each other, but it was well for everybody to know that the man who tried any stalling off would have his light put out just as soon as it could be arranged."
"But," I said, "supposing that the crowd didn't keep its word—got away with the fall-money and the percentage on the touches while you were in jail?"
"In that case," answered Bandy, without a moment's hesitation, "all bets would be off. The gentleman in custody would make a cry that would be heard in every detective bureau in America. There would be an immediate decrease in the population of crooks. Why, I know enough about Sandy to get his neck——" he stopped suddenly.
"And was this, too, understood by the gang?"
Bandy shifted uneasily on his seat.
"You make me weary—honest you do, Cig. What's the matter with you? You know just as well as I do that every gang of crooks knows just what I've beentelling you. If it weren't true,what's to keep them from squealing every time they get arrested?"
In this last sentence Bandy summed up the whole question of honor among thieves, and for this reason I have told the foregoing at some length. The repentance of a thief rarely, if ever, includes restitution. This statement anyhow applies to the veterans. With the younger men it is somewhat otherwise, and then usually through the administrations of the prison chaplain. But after having served a prison term for the first time the young crook adopts the sophistry and cynicism of his elders in crime. The only time that a thief feels regret for his misdeeds is when the latter has been fruitless, or when the proceeds have been lost to him.
What I have said about crooks not peaching on each other does not apply to the professional stool-pigeon, or "mouthpiece," who, by the way, is part and parcel of every police force in every city and town in this country and abroad. But these fellows can hardly be classed as genuine crooks, at least in the great majority of instances. They are rather the Pariahs of the Under World—hated, despised and tolerated for precisely the same reason that curs are allowed to roam through the streets.
It goes without saying that as long as the "mouthpiece" forms an integral part of the police system of civilization, so long will there be a real, although not admitted, alliance between the Powers that Prey and the Powers that Rule, with an incidental weakening and demoralization of the latter.
Finally, there are times and seasons in which theUnder World of its own volition gives up an offender. But these occasions are rare, and only when it is felt that the individual must be sacrificed for the good of the community. Usually there is a political pact in these rare happenings.