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, financial coups—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 the hopes 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 Colorado for 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 Clivir was 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 of rugs, 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 discumfortable whin 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" people are 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 a connoisseur of 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're on, 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 that won'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're on, 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."

"And that, 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 in the 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 wrote home 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.