Across our two dishes of spaghetti, in a corner of Provenzano's restaurant, Jeff Peters was explaining to me the three kinds of .
Every winter Jeff comes to New York to eat spaghetti, to watch the in East River from the depths of his chinchilla overcoat, and to lay in a supply of Chicago-made clothing at one of the Fulton street stores. During the other three seasons he may be found further west—his range is from Spokane to Tampa. In his profession he takes a pride which he supports and defends with a serious and unique philosophy of . His profession is no new one. He is an incorporated, uncapitalized, for the reception of the restless and unwise dollars of his fellowmen.
In the of stone in which Jeff seeks his annual lonely holiday he is glad to of his many adventures, as a boy will whistle after sundown in a wood. Wherefore, I mark on my calendar the time of his coming, and open a question of privilege at Provenzano's concerning the little wine-stained table in the corner between the rakish rubber plant and the framed palazzio della something on the wall.
"There are two kinds of graft," said Jeff, "that ought to be wiped out by law. I mean Wall Street , and burglary."
"Nearly everybody will agree with you as to one of them," said I, with a laugh.
"Well, burglary ought to be wiped out, too," said Jeff; and I wondered whether the laugh had been .
"About three months ago," said Jeff, "it was my privilege to become familiar with a sample of each of the aforesaid branches of illegitimate art. I was sine qua grata with a member of the housebreakers' union and one of the John D. Napoleons of finance at the same time."
"Interesting combination," said I, with a yawn. "Did I tell you I bagged a duck and a ground-squirrel at one shot last week over in the Ramapos?" I knew well how to draw Jeff's stories.
"Let me tell you first about these barnacles that the wheels of society by poisoning the springs of rectitude with their upas-like eye," said Jeff, with the pure gleam of the muck-raker in his own.
"As I said, three months ago I got into bad company. There are two times in a man's life when he does this—when he's dead broke, and when he's rich.
"Now and then the most business runs out of luck. It was out in Arkansas I made the wrong turn at a cross-road, and drives into this town of Peavine by mistake. It seems I had already assaulted and disfigured Peavine the spring of the year before. I had sold $600 worth of young fruit trees there—plums, cherries, peaches and pears. The Peaviners were keeping an eye on the country road and hoping I might pass that way again. I drove down Main street as far as the Crystal Palace drugstore before I realized I had committed upon myself and my white horse Bill.
"The Peaviners took me by surprise and Bill by the and began a conversation that wasn't disassociated with the subject of fruit trees. A committee of 'em ran some trace-chains through the armholes of my vest, and escorted me through their gardens and .
"Their fruit trees hadn't lived up to their labels. Most of 'em had turned out to be persimmons and dogwoods, with a or two of blackjacks and poplars. The only one that showed any signs of bearing anything was a fine young cottonwood that had put a hornet's nest and half of an old corset-cover.
"The Peaviners our fruitless stroll to the edge of town. They took my watch and money on account; and they kept Bill and the as hostages. They said the first time one of them dogwood trees put forth an Amsden's June peach I might come back and get my things. Then they took off the trace chains and jerked their thumbs in the direction of the Rocky Mountains; and I struck a Lewis and Clark lope for the rivers and impenetrable forests.
"When I intellectualness I found myself walking into an unidentified town on the A., T. & S. F. railroad. The Peaviners hadn't left anything in my pockets except a plug of chewing—they wasn't after my life—and that saved it. I bit off a and sits down on a pile of ties by the track to recogitate my sensations of thought and .
"And then along comes a fast freight which slows up a little at the town; and off of it drops a black bundle that rolls for twenty yards in a cloud of dust and then gets up and begins to spit soft coal and interjections. I see it is a young man broad across the face, dressed more for Pullmans than freights, and with a cheerful kind of smile in spite of it all that made Phœbe Snow's job look like a chimney-sweep's.
"'Fall off?' says I.
"'Nunk,' says he. 'Got off. Arrived at my destination. What town is this?'
"'Haven't looked it up on the map yet,' says I. 'I got in about five minutes before you did. How does it strike you?'
"'Hard,' says he, twisting one of his arms around. 'I believe that shoulder—no, it's all right.'
"He stoops over to brush the dust off his clothes, when out of his pocket drops a fine, nine-inch burglar's steel jimmy. He picks it up and looks at me sharp, and then grins and holds out his hand.
"'Brother,' says he, 'greetings. Didn't I see you in Southern Missouri last summer selling colored sand at half-a-dollar a to put into lamps to keep the oil from exploding?'
"'Oil,' says I, 'never explodes. It's the gas that forms that explodes.' But I shakes hands with him, anyway.
"'My name's Bill Bassett,' says he to me, 'and if you'll call it professional pride instead of , I'll inform you that you have the pleasure of meeting the best burglar that ever set a gum-shoe on ground drained by the Mississippi River.'
"Well, me and this Bill Bassett sits on the ties and exchanges as artists in kindred lines will do. It seems he didn't have a cent, either, and we went into close . He explained why an able burglar sometimes had to travel on freights by telling me that a servant girl had played him false in Little Rock, and he was making a quick get-away.
"'It's part of my business,' says Bill Bassett, 'to play up to the when I want to make a riffle as . 'Tis loves that makes the bit go 'round. Show me a house with a swag in it and a pretty parlor-maid, and you might as well call the silver melted down and sold, and me spilling truffles and that stuff on the napkin under my chin, while the police are calling it an inside job just because the old lady's nephew teaches a Bible class. I first make an impression on the girl,' says Bill, 'and when she lets me inside I make an impression on the locks. But this one in Little Rock done me,' says he. 'She saw me taking a ride with another girl, and when I came 'round on the night she was to leave the door open for me it was fast. And I had keys made for the doors upstairs. But, no sir. She had sure cut off my locks. She was a Delilah,' says Bill Bassett.
"It seems that Bill tried to break in anyhow with his jimmy, but the girl emitted a succession of noises like the top-riders of a tally-ho, and Bill had to take all the between there and the . As he had no baggage they tried hard to check his departure, but he made a train that was just pulling out.
"'Well,' says Bill Bassett, when we had exchanged memories of our dead lives, 'I could eat. This town don't look like it was kept under a Yale lock. Suppose we commit some mild that will bring in temporary expense money. I don't suppose you've brought along any hair or rolled gold watch-chains, or similar law-defying swindles that you could sell on the to the pikers of the paretic populace, have you?'
"'No,' says I, 'I left an elegant line of Patagonian diamond and rainy-day sunbursts in my valise at Peavine. But they're to stay there until some of those black-gum trees begin to the market with yellow clings and Japanese plums. I reckon we can't count on them unless we take Luther Burbank in for a partner.'
"'Very well,' says Bassett, 'we'll do the best we can. Maybe after dark I'll borrow a from some lady, and open the Farmers and Drovers Bank with it.'
"While we were talking, up pulls a passenger train to the depot near by. A person in a high hat gets off on the wrong side of the train and comes tripping down the track towards us. He was a little, fat man with a big nose and rat's eyes, but dressed expensive, and carrying a hand-satchel careful, as if it had eggs or railroads bonds in it. He passes by us and keeps on down the track, not appearing to notice the town.
"'Come on,' says Bill Bassett to me, starting after him.
"'Where?' I asks.
"'Lordy!' says Bill, 'had you forgot you was in the desert? Didn't you see Colonel Manna drop down right before your eyes? Don't you hear the of General 's wings? I'm surprised at you, Elijah.'
"We overtook the stranger in the edge of some woods, and, as it was after sun-down and in a quiet place, nobody saw us stop him. Bill takes the silk hat off the man's head and brushes it with his sleeve and puts it back.
"'What does this mean, sir?' says the man.
"'When I wore one of these,' says Bill, 'and felt embarrassed, I always done that. Not having one now I had to use yours. I hardly know how to begin, sir, in explaining our business with you, but I guess we'll try your pockets first.'
"Bill Bassett felt in all of them, and looked disgusted.
"'Not even a watch,' he says. 'Ain't you ashamed of yourself, you whited sculpture? Going about dressed like a head-waiter, and financed like a Count! You haven't even got carfare. What did you do with your transfer?'
"The man speaks up and says he has no assets or valuables of any sort. But Bassett takes his hand-satchel and opens it. Out comes some collars and socks and a half a page of a newspaper clipped out. Bill reads the clipping careful, and holds out his hand to the held-up party.
"'Brother,' says he, 'greetings! Accept the apologies of friends. I am Bill Bassett, the burglar. Mr. Peters, you must make the acquaintance of Mr. Alfred E. Ricks. Shake hands. Mr. Peters,' says Bill, 'stands about between me and you, Mr. Ricks, in the line of and . He always gives something for the money he gets. I'm glad to meet you, Mr. Ricks—you and Mr. Peters. This is the first time I ever attended a full of the National Synod of Sharks—housebreaking, swindling, and financiering all represented. Please examine Mr. Rick's , Mr. Peters.'
"The piece of newspaper that Bill Bassett handed me had a good picture of this Ricks on it. It was a Chicago paper, and it had of Ricks in every paragraph. By reading it over I harvested the intelligence that said Ricks had laid off all that portion of the State of Florida that lies under water into town lots and sold 'em to alleged innocent from his magnificently furnished offices in Chicago. After he had taken in a hundred thousand or so dollars one of these purchasers that are always making trouble (I've had 'em actually try gold watches I've sold 'em with acid) took a cheap excursion down to the land where it is always just before supper to look at his lot and see if it didn't need a new paling or two on the fence, and market a few lemons in time for the Christmas present trade. He hires a surveyor to find his lot for him. They run the line out and find the flourishing town of Paradise Hollow, so advertised, to be about 40 rods and 16 poles S., 27 degrees E. of the middle of Lake Okeechobee. This man's lot was under thirty-six feet of water, and, besides, had been so long by the and gars that his title looked .
"Naturally, the man goes back to Chicago and makes it as hot for Alfred E. Ricks as the morning after a prediction of snow by the weather bureau. Ricks defied the allegation, but he couldn't deny the alligators. One morning the papers came out with a column about it, and Ricks come out by the fire-escape. It seems the alleged authorities had beat him to the safe-deposit box where he kept his winnings, and Ricks has to ho! with only feetwear and a dozen 15-and-a-half English in his shopping bag. He happened to have some left in his book, and that took him as far as the town in the wilderness where he was spilled out on me and Bill Bassett as Elijah III. with not a raven in sight for any of us.
"Then this Alfred E. Ricks lets out a that he is hungry, too, and denies the hypothesis that he is good for the value, let alone the price, of a meal. And so, there was the three of us, representing, if we had a mind to draw syllogisms and parabolas, and trade and capital. Now, when trade has no capital there isn't a dicker to be made. And when capital has no money there's a in steak and onions. That put it up to the man with the jimmy.
"'Brother bushrangers,' says Bill Bassett, 'never yet, in trouble, did I desert a . Hard by, in yon wood, I seem to see unfurnished . Let us go there and wait till dark.'
"There was an old, cabin in the grove, and we three took possession of it. After dark Bill Bassett tells us to wait, and goes out for half an hour. He comes back with a armful of bread and spareribs and pies.
"'Panhandled 'em at a on Washita Avenue,' says he. 'Eat, drink and be leary.'
"The full moon was coming up bright, so we sat on the floor of the cabin and ate in the light of it. And this Bill Bassett begins to .
"'Sometimes,' says he, with his mouth full of country produce, 'I lose all patience with you people that t............