Another instance: Some working man or washing woman, having saved up
a little money for a rainy day, reads an alluring advertisement in a
newspaper that a party was looking for a small loan on valuable family
jewelry and diamonds. The interest offered is much higher than that
allowed by any savings bank. Diamonds, as everybody knows, are just
as good as money and offer perfect security. In hopes of profiting
a little more on their savings, such prospective victims respond to
the advertisement. The party looking for the loan appears to be a
well-dressed, smoothly-talking man, who represents himself to be the
scion of a wealthy or aristocratic family temporarily in hard luck. He
produces a pawn shop ticket, on the face of which appears that some
pawn broker had advanced on certain diamonds a large sum of money, say
$500.
[Illustration:
Two minds with but a single thought;
Two heads that beat us all.
]
Now, it is a matter of common knowledge that pawn brokers know their
business, and that no pawn broker would advance more than one-third,
or, at the highest, one-half of the actual value of the articles
pledged. It is that common belief which the swindler makes, as it
were, the psychic basis for his operations. The victim having once
jumped at the conclusion that the diamonds offered as security must be
worth at least $1,000 or thereabouts, the rest becomes easy.