Part 6

I had on brogan shoes which I had fresh-tallowed for the day. My stockings were home-knit and bulged out in folds over the tops of my shoes. But I was not so keenly self-conscious of my footwear as of the rest of my outfit, because Levant boys wore brogans quite commonly. My trousers were my special sore point, for even in Levant they had been ridiculed. In the first place, the cloth was a glazy, stiff stuff; in the second place, my good mother did not understand how to cut out a boy’s pants. There was just as much fullness in the front as in the seat. I kept denting in that fullness with my fists when I was unobserved. I found that by stooping quite a bit when I walked or stood I was able to keep the fullness caved in and less noticeable. It was a wonder I did not become permanently humpbacked while I was wearing out those pants. The legs of them were like twin stovepipes, and almost as unyielding. They crackled at the knees when I sat down. Add to those items of attire a hickory shirt, for which I had made a false bosom out of a shingle painted white, a paper collar, and a butterfly bow made of a gingham rag, a hard hat which was a paternal hand-me-down; they called them “dips.” It was a good name. The hat was exactly the shape of the bowl of a table-spoon.

As I leaned back and gaped up at that gorgeous stranger on the platform, straightening myself and letting my forward fullness swell as it would, there was born in me that unconquerable hankering--wild desire to be dressed like that--sometime! To say to myself--sometime--“Now I am dressed right! Everything about me is just as it should be!”

To base my ideas on the outfit “Diamond Dick” wore was probably evidence of the cheap streak in me, I say, but when you consider me as I stood there, and then consider the lily, is there not some excuse?

I confess with some shame that during my hiding in the city, while I was tucked away in that boarding-house room, my chief regret was not that I was out of a job, was not that I had battered the face of my employer, but was because I could not go out and swell around the streets and the amusement places wearing that suit and looking that picture of myself which had been the ideal that lulled me to sleep every night during my boyhood.

I was having some of those dreams while I sat there and gazed up at the ceiling. At last a big dream had come true. I owned that suit and I knew I looked mighty well in it. I had put in a good many hours in front of the looking-glass making sure of that fact. But now that I owned it I was getting none of the thrills and but little of the satisfaction I had looked forward to. Realized ambitions in my case--and probably it’s true in most cases--have always seemed to have a lot of discomforting tag-ends tied to them. I was practically a prisoner in a dingy room, I could not go out and sport around in my new regalia, and Jodrey Vose, who had undertaken to make a man of me, was sitting across the table, scowling at me with a great deal of disfavor.

“Have you taken up drinking along with the rest, young Sidney?”

“No, sir; and I never shall. I’m sure of that, sir.”

“What are you going to do next?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’d better go back to Levant.”

“I’ll never do that.”

“Dod writes that your uncle has been enlarging his business and is making a lot of money and is going to run for town office. He must need a chap like you and has probably forgotten any little trouble he might have had with you.”

But I shook my head.

“You don’t expect me to do anything more for you, do you?”

Again I shook my head. That homesick feeling was swelling up once more.

“I hear that they are fitting out another Cocos Island expedition to hunt for the Peru treasure-ship. You might be able to sign on there. But it’s a fake job. There’s no sunken ship. However, you’ll get wages.”

“I believe I’ll try the Pacific coast, sir.”

He slid his forefinger back and forth slowly under his nose.

“It might do, son. I have thought of the same jump, myself. I have waited now till I’m too old. What started me thinking about it some years ago was the _Golden Gate_ proposition. What troubled me about making up my mind was that some said the treasure had been got out of her and others said there was some guesswork. Nobody seemed to be willing to produce any proof that the treasure was still there. Looking back, I can see now why all interested parties would naturally rather have it thought that the treasure wasn’t there. But when a fellow like me has his living to make he doesn’t want to take too many chances. And the one job I did go on sickened me of treasure-hunting on somebody’s guesswork.”

He was silent for a time.

“I am sorry you are in your scrape, young Sidney. You’re done for as a diver in these parts for a time. Try the Pacific. I don’t say it’s a bad idea.” He grinned at me. “If you recover the _Golden Gate_ treasure drop me a postal card.”

Then he went away, making no more ado about the matter of our parting. I was not surprised by that manner of leave-taking. I am a Yankee myself, and I had found myself wishing that when he went he would walk off without jawing me or coddling me.

I counted my money and sent out for some railroad folders and trailed my finger across the map--and stayed right on in the city, week after week. I don’t know exactly what I had lost--ambition or pluck or what it was! But that was a spell in my life when I was a plumb, square loafer, and rather enjoyed myself--reading cheap novels and playing solitaire in the daytime, then getting in with some of the rest of the boarders and playing poker evenings. In Levant we used to play for beans in barn-chambers. I had a country boy’s shrewdness in that game, and the city fellows did not get much of my money away from me; nor did I get any particular amount of theirs.

However, the pastime did bring me into touch with some sporting characters and with some queer characters, too. There were men who were hiding the same as I was. The fact that I was under cover gave me open sesame to their confidence. They talked a great deal, whiling away dull hours in the day. Several were in the house where I was stopping, and after a time I dared to go visiting around a bit evenings and went along to other houses, in the locality.

It was all new to me, this “flash” side of fife, and I listened to their stories with eyes and mouth open. I conceived an idea of writing out these stories into a book, and after I got back into my room nights I would jot down all I had heard, names and all. I had all the nicknames of operators down pat--those names rather fascinated me. There were names which were based on personal peculiarities or blemishes or system of operating. I found out that a great many of the parties were linked, either by relationship or by gang ties, and that the wise boys among the crooks or the police officers could tell in many cases just what crowd had operated, providing the identity of one man could be revealed. I reckon I calculated in those times that I was going to make an exposé, for I made many notes about the different coteries and their associates.

I will say at this point that I have no intention of writing such a book, and I have gone into a bit of detail about the matter in order that certain following activities of mine may be understood. Otherwise, I might, later on, be thought to be advertising myself as one of those know-it-all and do-it-all heroes of fiction instead of a plain and ordinary chap who has been swayed by circumstance and governed by accident in large measure.

But I did get a lot of fresh and lively information out of those chaps with whom I was thrown in.

After a time they were not at all bashful about asking me if I wouldn’t like a lay in some of their operations.

They frankly said that they had the best luck in country communities. Understand that they proposed nothing except brace games! No safe-breakers in that lot! They said I had an honest way about me that would take well in the country districts.

My money was getting so low I listened with increasing interest. I cannot say that I was tempted, exactly. But I was beginning to wonder how I was ever going to make a go of it if I didn’t get some money. My Pacific trip was all off by that time! My capital had shrunk below the price of a ticket.

They told me that a regular village skinflint with lots of money was, in most cases, a prime victim if the right bait was offered; with the right bait he bit more easily than the more liberal kind of an individual, because the skinflint was more crazy to make money fast and was already used to getting high rates of interest for all money he let out. They were making constant search for old chaps in country communities, well-to-do men who would be tempted to grab at a rich chance or could be induced to serve as decoys to pull in the neighbors, provided a sufficient rake-off were offered.

There, too, was another thing which surprised me--that so often really prominent men could be secured as decoys. The knaves I was training with gave me a lot of stories of the kind; in most cases, so they said, the men seemed to talk themselves into believing that they were offering the neighbors an opportunity to make money.

If I had not been idle and very curious, and all the time wondering how I could make a little money for myself, a lot of this would have gone into one ear and out of the other.. But I was in the mood to take it all in, and so, in that foolish belief that I could write a story, I set down many names and many instances until I had well filled a sheaf of papers which I sewed together into a sort of note-book.

There were various side-lines of the craft of cheaters where I was allowed to be an observer. I watched one of the chaps make up his face for a trip and learned about false beards attached by spirit gum. There was a cute little mustache in his kit and I asked him to affix it to my upper lip. He allowed me to keep it on when I asked permission.

I felt so much confidence in that alteration of my features that I went directly to my room, put on that raiment of my yearning ambition, took in hand my cane, and went forth into the open.

One who has remained long within-doors gets used to the confinement after a time and the desire to go out is dulled; there are persons who have voluntarily remained in bed in perfect health for years; but, once the plunge outside is made, the desire for further liberty grows by what it grasps in the blessedness of outdoors. I determined to be free from then on and to test the quality of that freedom. It was astonishing what confidence I felt in myself when I walked abroad in that rig, casting side-glances at myself in store windows as I walked. It is amazing what the right sort of clothes will do for a man’s grip and grit.

I went down to the docks and walked about, deliberately seeking to put myself in the path of Anson C. Doughty. He did come face to face with me after a time, looked at me with considerable interest, for plug-hats were none too common in that locality, and passed on with bland indifference. My transition was too much for him; I was the butterfly that had emerged from the pupa of a diving-dress. After that I bestowed no further thought on dangers to be apprehended from Anson C. Doughty.

I was more concerned with speculation on where my next meal was coming from, for I was flat broke. I suppose that fact had something to do with driving me out on the street; it was not wholly proud eagerness to show myself in that suit of clothes.

All of a sudden I received direct proof that a plug-hat is occasionally something to conjure by.

Perhaps it is on the principle that advertising pays; a man with slick, silk headgear is supposed to be at least something which can be classed under the title of “professor.” At any rate, I was hailed by that title by a man who stood in a broad doorway. I stopped and he had something interesting to say to me.

VIII--“TAKING IT OUT” ON A SUIT OF CLOTHES

THAT doorway was solidly banked with banners frescoed in gaudy colors and roughly painted; they advertised a show within. A few glances I had time to give while I walked toward the man who had hailed me, revealed that there were on tap such features as “Petrified Mormon Giant,” “Siamese Susie,” “Mammoth Peruvian Cockatoo,” and others. Over the door was heralded in big letters: “Dawlin’s Mammoth Wonder Show.”

I guessed that the man in the doorway might be Dawlin. He wore a corduroy suit, with gaiters, and a broad-brimmed cowboy hat was canted on one side of his head. By the way in which he was looking me over I could see that I was suiting him.

“Hitched up with a show?” he asked.

I told him that I was not, and I said it with considerable curtness. To be sure, the personality and garb of Showman Shrady had formed my early ideal, and I ought to have felt gratified, I suppose, when this man took me for a showman. But I was pricked a little by the thought that my appearance seemed to grade me on that plane. “Want to hitch on?”

“What makes you think I’m in the show business?”

“I had you sized that way on account of the scenery.” I gathered that he meant my clothes.

“I don’t see any circus signs on this suit of mine,” I told him.

“Oh, say, I didn’t mean to offend--but it’s usually only sports and professionals who tog that way down in this part of the town. If you’re a gent you seem to be off your beat.”

There was nothing offensive about the man--he seemed a good-humored chap who was a little cheeky.

“Well, what if I had been a showman--what about it?”

“I was going to offer you a lay--here at the door.”

“Selling tickets?”

“Good gad, no, man! I want you for the spiel--for the oratory--tongue-work--hooking the hicks! You’re rigged out just right. You must know that the better the front we put on at the door, the better the business inside! But excuse me if I got the tags shifted!”

I swung my cane with one hand and with the other hand in my pocket sifted coins through my fingers. There were not many coins. I needed more in a hurry. It had been impressed on me that in spite of all my pride in my attire I did not look like a “gent”; it was certain that I did not feel like one. Disappointment was curdling pride in me; my clothes had gone back on me. I entertained a sort of a grudge against them. All of a sudden I made up my mind to get back at those garments which had cost me so much money and now repaid me in contentment so niggardly.

“It would be all new business for me. Can I do it, do you suppose?” I asked the man.

“Looks are half the battle. You’ve got capital in your clothes to start with. You don’t look like a souse! The last two I have had on the door pawned their rigs for rum. I’ve got the patter stuff all written out. All you’ve got to do is study it and reel it off like you used to recite pieces in school.”

“What’s the pay?”

Seeing surrender in my face, he winked and crooked his finger in invitation to me to follow him inside. He led me into a narrow little office. He offered a drink and a cigar, and I refused both.

“Gee! Some principles, hey? Now, if you’re a church member I reckon you won’t stand for the lay!”

“I’m devilish far from being a church member,” I told him.

“I don’t like to open up too much till I know a little something about you. Can you tell me?”

I told him enough to make him pretty much at ease.

“Do you know any of the right kind in this locality--the sporting bunch?”

I gave a roster of acquaintances that made his eyes glisten.

“Oh, then, you’re all right!” he cried, slapping my knee. “In _my_ business a fellow has to try the ice before he slides out too far. I’m coming right across to you.” He waved his hand to indicate his establishment. “This show is only a hinkumginny, you know!”

“I thought so,” I said, calmly. I hadn’t the least idea what he meant, but I knew that one needed to act wise with wise gentlemen.

“We run the gazara game and phrenology.”

I nodded and winked an eye as if I had been quite sure of that fact right along.

He scratched a few figures on a wisp of paper and pushed it to me across the desk-slide on which he had set out the whisky-glasses.

“That’s the split,” he said, grinning. Still it was all Greek to me.

“I know places doing half our business and paying twice as much--and every once in a while having to settle a squeal, at that! But I’ve got a cousin at headquarters--see? Nothing to it! Now you can understand what a sweet little pudding you’re pulling alongside of.”

I was wishing I could understand better, though I was developing a dim notion that he was talking about money paid for protection from the law. He pulled back the paper and tore it up.

“Only fifty a week,” he said; “it’s nothing. I’m thinking of throwing in another twenty-five without their asking. It beats laying up treasures in heaven!”

I agreed.

“Now as to a lay for you! Of course, first of all, I have to grab off my fifty of the net--it’s my show and my pull! Then there’s the ‘Prof’--Professor Jewelle. He has his twenty-five per cent. I’ll tell you straight, now, I have been getting by with those dickerdoodles I’ve had out on the stand for fifteen per cent., and ‘prof’ and I have divided the other ten. But they were crumby! Their suits were wrinkled worse than an elephant’s dewlap, and the nap of their plug-hats was fruzzled up like the fur in the mane of the Australian witherlick. No pull to that class! The jaspers jogged right past without being a mite impressed. If you grab in with us your looks and your style make you worth a lay of twenty-five per cent. Now what say?”

“I’ll grab,” I told him, and never did a man hire with less idea of just what kind of a business he was entering or what pay he was going to get for his labor.

“You say your name is Ross Sidney,” said the boss, remembering what I had told him. “Mine is Jeff Dawlin, Ross, and there’s no mistering among partners.” He gave me a few dirty sheets of paper. “There’s your spiel all written out. You can add your own talk as you work into the spirit of the thing. The idea is get them to stop, look, listen--and then coax till they come in. If they come out squealing, you go on and bawl them--bawl them down! There’s some good work to be done in that line--and you’re husky and can scare ’em, providing Big Mike hasn’t already scared ’em enough. There isn’t a thing in the show but what’s a fake--of course you understand that. Most of ’em are too ashamed to squeal.”

He was leading me into the inner mysteries of the place while he talked. He made no reference to the objects which were ranged around the sides of the big room, plainly despising them as curiosities which could not possibly interest anybody. But they interested me mightily and I lagged behind to give each one a glance in passing.

“Siamese Susie” was made up of a couple of big wax dolls confined in a single dress. “The Peruvian Cockatoo” manifestly had been, when he was alive, the humble master of some up-country barn-yard; now he was tricked out with all sorts of dyed false feathers, including an enormous topknot. The “Mormon Giant” was a papier-mâché figure, and there was a hideous thing labeled “Mermaid” constructed of the same material as the giant. There were a few other nondescript exhibits in dingy glass cases or mounted on stands draped in dirty hangings. I had never seen a collection of more shameless frauds. I began to understand that I had not been let in on the main proposition for money-making.

On one side of the room there were curtains lettered: “Professor Jewelle, the World’s Greatest Seer.” The professor came out when Dawlin called for him. He wore a wig and false white whiskers, and had watery eyes, and a breath like a whiff from a distillery chimney. A big brute of a man was loafing in one corner of the room, and I reckoned that this person must be Big Mike; I had seen many such of the bouncer sort when I had made my rounds, hunting for experiences.

Mr. Dawlin introduced me, and I seemed to make a good impression.

When he slyly slid out the information that I, too, had been having troubles which had kept me under cover for some weeks, I noted that I stood even higher in their estimation.

As we talked on I began to feel a bit ambitious. I thought I might be able to improve business.

“Look here,” I suggested, “why not put a tank in here and let me do some of my diving stunts? It would be a novelty--there really doesn’t seem to be much to the show as it stands.”

“Say, I haven’t pulled a greenhorn into camp, have I?” inquired Mr. Dawlin with a good deal of tartness. “Show? Good gad! who ever said we wanted a show?”

I did not know what to say to that and so I did not answer.

“What do you think I would be doing, or the ‘prof’ would be doing, while the jethros were crowded around you? We wouldn’t be doing a thing in the line of the regular graft. The main idea of this concern is to get ’em in here where there’s nothing to take up their minds after they’ve had one look around the place. Then they begin to feel that they want to get something for their money. So the ‘prof’ hands ’em the dome dope--feels their bumps--and I feed ’em the gazara stuff. How many times have I got to tell you what this place is?”

“Oh, I’m wise,” I said, trying hard to look that way. “But of course I’m anxious to do all I can to help.”

“The zeal of youth! The zeal of youth!” prattled the professor. He seemed to me to be pretty much of an old fool. He had that smug, cooing way with him--all put on like the airs of a country undertaker. He came across to me before I could understand what he was about and stuck his thumb onto a spot on the top of my head and pressed with his forefinger a little lower down. “Yes, approbativeness well developed and conscientiousness--this where my finger--”

“Oh, shut up!” snorted Mr. Dawlin. “Don’t cry to put that stuff over among friends.”

“However,” the professor went on, continuing to fondle my head, “the development of the brain upward, forward, and backward, from the medulla--”

“Save it for the cud-wallopers, I tell you!”

“If this young man is going to have his say about me in front, I want him to know that the science of phrenology has a good exponent here,” said the professor.

I reckon he had seen me looking him over without a great amount of liking and was anxious to put on a bit of a front.

“He’ll say that you’ll read all heads free of charge, and that’s _all_ he’ll say,” stated Mr. Dawlin. “It isn’t necessary for him to know the difference between a medulla and a free-lunch pickle--and I don’t believe _you_ know, yourself. Ross, we want to open the doors again to-morrow. Do you think you can get the gist of that patter into your head overnight?”

I thumbed the dirty sheets and said I’d do my best. Therefore, I went to my room and applied myself. There was a lot of extravagant guff about the curiosities, flowery flapdoodle of the usual barker sort.

The next morning I was able to make some sort of a try at it from the stand, for I have said before that I always was more or less cheeky. A sort of a fluffy-ruffle damsel with bleached hair was in the ticket-office and there never was a young fellow yet who did not try on a little extra swagger when a girl was hard by. She smiled at me encouragingly when I had arrested the attention of a few passers, some of whom bought tickets and went in. I guess I must have smiled back, for Dawlin, who was standing in the doorway, appraising my first efforts, came and climbed up beside me and growled in my ear.

“You’re breaking in fine. Only put a little more punch and sing-song into it! And, by the way, the dame who is shuffling the pasteboards--she’s private goods--mine!”

“I don’t want her,” I said, with considerable heat.