Читать книгу Twenty Years a Detective in the Wickedest City in the World - Clifton R. Wooldridge - Страница 72

"He had a lot of literature either really from a big church, charitable organization, or fraudulently printed, and he explained to me that I was to sell these 25 cents a copy for the benefit of the heathen somewhere, or home missions. I was to get 25 per cent of the money resulting from such sales.

"About a week later, when I had received $12 besides a little expense money from him. I discovered that he was keeping all the money. I took the rest of the literature and destroyed it. Three days later, when I was hungry, I rather regretted destroying it.

"I joined a circus that was moving toward my home town in Western Iowa, intending to leave it there and quit being a tramp. I was then down in Eastern Pennsylvania. I was a canvas hand. We went west by a tortuous route, and I never could accumulate enough coin to pay my way home, so was forced to stick to the place for many weeks.

"The second week one of the canvas hands came to me and asked me to circulate a subscription paper among the men for the benefit of one Will Turner, a member of the band, who, he said, had dropped off the train while running over from the last stop, and badly injured himself.