Читать книгу Twenty Years a Detective in the Wickedest City in the World - Clifton R. Wooldridge - Страница 77

A glance seems to show that the bank owes your new acquaintance many thousands. He then tells how it happened, how he came to be without a cent when he was so far to the good with his banker. It's a complicated tale, too long to tell here. There are lost letters, the cashing of checks for friends and, confidentially, a touch of the pace that flattens bank accounts. By this time you see your finish. When you seek to escape you find yourself backed up to the wall with no chance to sidestep. The best you can do is to scale the original touch from $1 to 50 cents, thereby making 50 cents for yourself and 50 cents for the "toucher."

To "stand for" all the "touches" that are made in Chicago one would require an income far in excess of that enjoyed by most. Those that are responded to are those in cases where the donor generously thinks that the "toucher" really needs the money. Probably in the vast majority of cases there is no delusion as to the fiction woven in order to drag forth the nickel, the dime, the quarter or the dollar. Often it is worth the price to hear the fiction.

But after all one feels refreshed when a frank but hoarse and trembling hobo says:

"Say, Mister, me t'roat is baked and me coppers sizzlin'. Gimme de price of a drink. Did you ever feel like jumpin' from de bridge fur lack of a stingy little dime fur booze?"

Here, you feel, is no misrepresentation. Here you may invest a dime without feeling that you have been stung.