THE CONFIDENCE GAME.
"You never were a good man," said Mrs. Smithers, looking down at the
floor and moving her foot restlessly, "but I didn't think you would
have become so bad as you have. However, I shall have to make a
compromise with you. Name your terms."
"Now you're talking," answered Thompson, with a smile of satisfaction.
"In the first place, I want all the money and jewelry you can lay your
hands on. You can say the house was robbed."
"Yes, you shall have all," Mrs. Smithers replied.
"Secondly, I must have Tommy."
"For what?"
"No business of yours. If you don't let Tommy come with me, I will see
Mr. Smithers, and upset the whole caboodle. Don't you forget it."
"You want to make him as bad as yourself, I know you do," she said,
impetuously, "and I will not let him go."
"All right. I'll stay here till Smithers comes back from the dry-goods
store where he is employed, and the chances are that he will kick the
pair of you out when he hears what I have to say."
"Is this manly or just, Thomas?" she asked.
"Neither one nor the other; but I have to do something in New York this
time, or I shall be sent up to the island for the winter," replied
Thompson, looking piercingly at her with his one eye. "Take your
choice."
"Come here, Tommy," said his mother.
"What is it, mamma?" he asked, taking her hand tenderly.
"Will you go with your father?"
"Yes, to save you, mamma," answered Tommy.
"Then go, and God be with you," she said, and rising, went to a
handsome bureau, which she opened with a key.
Taking a roll of bills and some jewelry from a secret drawer, she
handed them to the stranger, adding:
"They are all I have."
The man's eyes gloated over the plunder which he counted, exclaiming:
"Twenty dollars, three rings, a bracelet and a pair of diamond rings.
Little enough, but I will make it do."
Covering her face with her hands, the weak-minded and unfortunate woman
shed an abundance of tears.
"Come on," said Thompson to Tommy; "you're mine now. D'ye hear--or do
you want a gentle reminder from the toe of my boot?"
"You needn't kick me," replied Tommy. "What I say I never go back on."
Bestowing an affectionate look on his mother, he followed the stranger
from the house, and in silence they made their way to the ferry, by
means of which they crossed over to New York.
Thompson took him to a house in Dey Street, where he boarded, and when
they were alone in a room, he lighted his pipe, and began to talk.
"How do you suppose I get my living, sonny?" he inquired.
"Best way you know how, I guess," answered Tommy.
"Precisely. Sometimes I am a gambler, at others a thief, now and then a
monte man; but here, where I am not known by the police, I mean to work
the confidence game."
"How's that done?" asked Tommy.
"It's as simple as playing policy. We'll go out presently and look for
a victim. I can always tell a countryman. When I point him out to you,
it will be your job to go up to him and say:
"How are you, Mr. Jennings?"
"But suppose his name isn't Jennings?"
"Of course it isn't," replied Thompson, "and he'll say: 'My name is not
that, you've made a mistake.' Then you say: 'Didn't my father work for
yours in Buffalo,' and he'll most likely answer by telling his real
name and address, after which you beg his pardon, and fall back to tell
me who he is."
"What then?"
"I shall go up to him, you keeping in the background, accost him by
his real name, and worm myself into his confidence, the end of which
will be that I shall get all his money and valuables out of him in some
saloon."
"That's cheating," said Tommy, bluntly.
"I know it's a State's prison offense; but a man must live, and I'm
too far gone to work now," replied Thompson. Putting down his pipe,
and replacing his hat on his head, he told Tommy to accompany him to
Broadway to make his first attempt at the game of confidence.
Thompson was not yet acquainted with Tommy's aptitude for making
blunders, or he would not have been so pleased at getting him as a
decoy for unwary strangers.
They walked on till they came near Grand Street, where Thompson saw an
individual upon whom he thought he could practice.
He was tall and gaunt, with a restless, inquisitive air, looking into
shop windows, and staring about him as if everything was new and he
wanted to take in all he could during a limited stay in the city.
"Here's the bloke!" exclaimed Thompson. "Go and do what I told you, and
leave me to play him for a sucker."
"All right," answered Tommy.
The boy approached the stranger, and pulling his sleeve, accosted him,
saying:
"How are you, Mr. Jennings?"
The man stopped abruptly, and with a sharp, clear eye scanned his face.
Instead of answering as Tommy expected, he exclaimed:
"How long have you been at this game, bub?"
"Not long, sir," replied Tommy, in his simple way. "I only started on
it just now."
"As I thought. Who put you up to it?"
"That man behind, sir, who is leaning against the lamp-post."
"If I told you my name you were to fall back and tell him, and then
he'd come up to me?"
"Yes, sir," he said, "you were a greenhorn, and he'd play you for a
sucker."
The tall man smiled.
"He never made a greater mistake in his life," was the reply.
"I'm pretty well posted on all these tricks, and I've paid for my
experience."
"What will I say to him?" asked Tommy.
The tall man advanced to where Thompson was waiting, but when the
latter saw him coming he concluded that something was wrong, and ran.
A chase ensued. Thompson ran into the arms of an officer, who held him
till the tall man came up.
"What's the charge?" asked the officer.
"He tried to play confidence on me. I'm a detective connected with
Central office. Take him to headquarters, while I find the boy. You
know me, officer. I'm Maccabe."
"I guess I ought to," answered the policeman.
"Curse the boy! Did he give me away?" asked Thompson.
"In the worst way, but without meaning it," was the answer.
"If I'd known he was such a fool, I'd never have traveled with him,"
growled Thompson, bestowing some choice oaths on Tommy, "and when I
come out, after doing the time I suppose you'll give me, I'll have
satisfaction out of his hide."
"Stop your chinning. You're my prisoner," said the officer, hauling him
off to Mulberry Street.
Maccabe, the detective, who had assumed an innocent air and a rough
sort of dress on purpose to throw thieves off their guard, looked
around for Tommy. He was nowhere to be seen.
Tommy had done the most sensible thing he ever did in his life, which
was to run away to the ferry and go home again, consequently the
detective couldn't catch him. But the absence of Tommy did not save
Thompson, who was sent to the island as a rogue and a vagabond for
three months.
In the solitude of his cell he had ample opportunity to plan his
revenge upon the boy, and we must leave him to brood over his future
plans while we return to Jersey City. It was afternoon when Tommy
reached the house.
His father had left the store early, and was with Mrs. Smithers in the
parlor, the latter being hysterical.
"What's the matter with you?" he heard his father say. "I ask for the
money in the bureau and all you do is to cry."
Tommy entered the room, and his mother no sooner saw him than she
caught him in her arms, and kissed and hugged him as if she had never
expected to see him again.
"Oh! my dear, dear boy," she exclaimed, "Heaven be thanked you are
restored to me."
"I ran away from the man, mother, when the police took him," said Tommy.
"Hush!" she cried, placing her fingers on her lip, warningly.
Mr. Smithers was interested. He saw that something of an unusual nature
had occurred during his absence, and he was determined to find out what
it was.
"What man?" he inquired.
"My father," replied Tommy, innocently. "He wasn't dead, and turned up
to-day."
"O-oh!" said Smithers, with a prolonged whistle; "that's how the cat
jumps, hey? Now I can see where the money went. Soh! the late lamented
Thompson has come back, and you're not my wife by law."
Mrs. Smithers bestowed a wrathful look on Tommy.
She would not for the world that Smithers should have got even the
least glimmering of what had taken place that day.
But it was too late for regrets. He knew all now.
She lay perfectly passive on the lounge, while Mr. Smithers closely
questioned Tommy, drawing from him all the facts connected with
Thompson's unexpected return from the West, and the circumstances of
his visit.