Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel], May 22, 1910, Page 10, Image 54

About Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1900-1911

Image provided by: University of California, Riverside; Riverside, CA

                
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BABES IN THE JUNGLE
MONTAGUE BILVBB, the finest street man and
art grafter in the West, Bays to me once In
Little Rock:. "If you ever losi> your mind,
Billy, and get too old to do honest swindling among
grown men, go to New York. In the West B sucker
is born every minute; but in New York they appear
in chunks of roe—you can 't count "em! ''
Two years afterward 1 found that I couldn't re
member' the names of the Russian admiral*, and I
noticed some gray hairs over my left ear; so I knew
the time had arrived for me to take Silver's advice.
I struck New York about noon one day, and took a
walk up Broadway. And I run against Silver himself,
all encompassed up in a spacious kind of haberdash
ery, leaning against a hotel and rubbing the half
moons on his nails with a silk handkerchief.
"Paresis or superannuated?" I asks him.
"Hello, Billy," says Silver; " I in glad to see you.
Yes, it seemed to me thai the West was accumulating
a little too much wiseness. I 'ye been saving New
York for dessert. I know it's a low-down trick to
take things from these people. They only know this
and that and pass to and fro and think ever and anon.
I'd hate for my mother to know I was skinning these,
weak-minded ones. She raised me better."
"Is there a crush already in the waiting rooms of
the old doctor that docs skin grafting!" I asks.
"Well, no," says Silver; you needn't back Epi
dermis to win to-day. IYe only been here a month.
But I'm ready to begin; and the member! of Willie
Manhattan '■ Sunday school duss, each of whom has
volunteered to contribute a portion of cuticle toward
this rehabilitation, may as well send their photos to
the Evening Daily,
"I've been studying the town," says Silver, "and
reading the papers every day, and I know it as well
as the cat in the city hall knows an O 'Sullivan. Peo
ple here lie down on the floor and scream and kick
when you art the least bit slow about taking money
from them. Come up in my room and I'll tell you.
We'll work the town together, Billy, for the sake of
old times.''
Silver takes mo up in a hotel. He bai a quantity of
irrelevant objects lying about,
'' There 's more ways of gett ing money from these
metropolitan hayseeds," lays Silver, "than there is
of cooking rife in Charleston, S. C. They'll bite at
anything. The brains of most of 'em commute. The
wiser they nre in intelligence the less perception of
cognizance they have. Why, didn't ii man the other
day sell J. P. Morgan an oil portrait of Rockefeller,
Jr., for Andrea del Sarto's celebrated painting of the
young Saint John!
"You see that bundle of printed stuff in the corner,
Billy? That's gold mining stock. I started out one
day to sell that, but I quit it in two hours. Why?
Got arrested, for blocking the street. People fought
to buy it. I sold the policeman a block of it on the
way to the station house, and then I took it off the
market. I don't want people to give me their money.
I want some little consideration connected with the
transaction to keep my pride from being hurt. I want
'em to guess the missing letter in Chic —go, or draw
to a pair of nines before they pay me a cent »f
money.
"Now there's another little scheme that worked so
LOS ANGELES HERALD SUNDAY MAGAZINE
"Mr. Morgan hammers on the floor with his cane, swearing in a loud tone of voice."
O. HENRY
easy I had to quit it. You see that bottle of blue ink
on the table I tattooed an anchor on the back of my
hand and wont to a bank and told 'em I was Admiral
Dewey 's nephew.. They .offered to cash my draft on
him for a thousand, but I didn't know my uncle's
first name. It shows, though, what an easy town it is.
As for burglars, they won go in a house now unless
there's a hoi supper ready and a few college students
to wait on 'em. They're slugging citizens all over
the upper part of the" city, and I guess, taking the
town from end to end, it's a plain case of assault and
Battery."
"Monty," says I, when Silver had slacked up, "you
may have Manhattan correctly discriminated in your
perorative, but I doubt it. I've only been in town two
hours, but it don't dawn upon me that it's ours with
a cherry in it. There ain't enough rus in urbe about
it to suit mo. I'd be a good deal much better satis
fied if the citize-ns had a straw or more in their hair,
and run more to velveteen vests and buckeye watch
charm. They don't look easy to me."
"You've got it, Billy," says Silver. "All emi
grants have it. New York's bigger than Little Rock
or Europe, and it frightens a foreigner. ■ You'll be all
right. I tell you I feel like slapping the people here
because they don't send me all their money in laundry
baskets, with germicide sprinkled over it. I hate to
go down on the street to get it. Who wears the dia
monds in this town? Why, Winnie, the Wiretapper's
wife, and Bella, the Buncosteerer's bride. New
Yorkers can be worked easier than a blue rose on a
tidy. The only thing that bothers me is I know I'll
break the cigars in my vest pocket when I get my
clothes all full of twenties."
"I hope you are right, Monty," says I; " but I
wish all the same I had been satisfied with a small
business in Little Rock. The crop of farmers is never
so short out there but what you can get a few of 'em
to sign a petition for a new postoffice that you can
discount for $200 at the county bank. The people
here appear to poss3ss instincts of self-preservation
and illiberally. I fear me that we are not cultured
enough to tackle this game."
"Don't worry," says Silver. "I've got this Jay
ville-near-Tarrytown correctly estimated as sure as
North river is the Hudson and East river ain't a river.
Why, there are people living in four blocks of Broad
way who never saw any kind of a building except a
skyscraper in their lives I A good, live hustling West
ern man ought to get conspicuous enough here inside
of three months to incur either Jerome's clemency or
Lawson 's displeasure.''
"Hyperbole aside," says I. "do you know of any
immediate system of buncoing the community out of
a dollar or two except by applying to the Salvation
army or having a fit on Miss Helen Gould's door
steps!"
"Dozens of 'em," says Silyer. "How much cap
ital have you got, Billy
"A thousand," I told him.
"I've got $1,200," says he. "We'll pool and do a
big piece of business. There 's so many ways we can
make a million that I don't know how to begin."
The next morning Silver meets me at the hotel and
he is all sonorous and stirred with a kind of silent
joy-
"We're to meet J. I. Morgan this afternoon,"
says ho. "A man I know in the hotel want* to in
troduce us. He's a friend of his. lie says he liket
to meet people from the West."
'•That sounds nice and plausible," says I. "1
like to know Mr. Morgan."
"It won't hurt us a bit," says Silver, "to get ac
quainted with a few finance kings. I kind of like the
social way New York has with strangers."
T ) man Silver knew was named Klein. At 3
o'clock Klein brought his Wall street friend to see us
in Silver's room. "Mr. Morgan" looked some like
hit | Ctures, and he had a Turkish towel wrapped
aron his left foot, and he walked with a cane.
"Mr. Silver and Mr. l'escud," says Klein. "It
sounds superfluous," says he, "to mention the namo
of the greatest financial "
"Cut it out, Klein," says Mr. Morgan. "I'm gla;l
to know you gents; I take great interest in the West.
Klein tells me you're from Little Rock. I think I've
a railroad or two out there somewhere. If either of
you guys would like to deal a hand or two of stu 1
poker I "
"Now, Pierpont," cuts in Klein, "you forget!"
"Excuse me, gents!" says Morgan; "since ['ye
had the gout so bad I sometimes play a social gnmpof
cards at my house. Neither of you never knew On
eyed Peters, did you, while you was around Littl'i
Rock! He lived in Seattle, New Mexico."
Before wo could answer, Mr. Morgan hammers 01
the floor with his cane and begins to walk up »ud
down, swearing in a loud tone of voice.
"They have been pounding your stocks to-day on
the street, Pierpont?" asks Klein smiling.
"Stocks! No!" roars Mr. Morgan. "It's thai
picture I sent an agent to Europe to buy. I jutt
thought about it. He cabled me to-day that it ain't
to be found in all Italy. I'd pay $50,000 to-morrow
for that picture—yes, $75,000. I give the agent a la
carte in purchasing it. I cannot understand why the
art galleries will allow a Do Vinchy to "
"Why, Mr. Morgan," says Klein; "I thought you
owned all of the De Vinchy paintings."
"What is the picture like, Mr. Morgan!" asks
Silver. '' It must bo as big as the side of the Flat
iron building."
"I'm afraid your art education is on the bum, Mr.
Silver," says Morgan. "The picture is 27 inches by
42; and it's called ' Love's Idle Hour.' It represents
a number of cloak models doing the two-step on the
bank of a purple river. The cablegram said it might
have been brought to this country. My collection will
never be complete without that picture. Well, so long,
gonts; us financiers must keep early hours."
Mr. Morgan and Klein went away together in a cab.
Me and Silver talked about how simple and unsus
pecting great people was; and Silver said what a
shame it would be to try to rob a man like Mr. Mor
gan; and I said I thought it would be rather impru
dent, myself. Klein proposes a stroll after dinner;
and me and him and Silver walks down toward Sev
enth avenue to see the sights. Klein sees a pair of
cuff links that instigate his admiration in a pawnshop
window, and we all go in while he buys 'em.
After we got back to the hotel and Klein had gone,
(Continue! 1- on Paye U.)
MAY 22, 1910.
Copyright, luio, by
Djubleduy, Page & Co.