My arrival in the metropolis was unaccompanied by any newspaper
comment or by any particular excitement on the part of the inhabitants.
I simply landed, after a seven hours' journey from Boston, with a
considerable quantity of fine raiment--rather too fine, as I soon
discovered, for the ordinary uses of a serious-minded, working
youth--some fifty odd dollars, and a well-developed bump of self-
confidence that was supported by a strong reserve resolution not
to let anybody get ahead of me. I had all the assurance of a man
double my years and an easy way of making acquaintances that was
destined to stand me in good stead, but I do not wish to be understood
as admitting that my manners were offensive or that I was in any
degree supercilious. I was simply a good fellow who had always
enjoyed the comradeship of other good fellows, and as a result felt
reasonably sure that the rest of the world would treat him kindly.
Moreover, I could dissemble without difficulty and, if occasion
arose, could give the impression of being a diffident and modest
young man, ready and anxious to order himself "lowly and humbly
before his betters."
Yet I had seen enough of the world to know that unless a man puts
a high appraisal upon his attainments and ability no one else is
likely to do so, and that the public takes one, nine times out of
ten, at his own valuation. Coming on the clay itself: I wore my
hair rather long, with an appreciable modicum of bear's grease well
rubbed in, side whiskers and white beaver, and carried a carpet
bag on which was embroidered a stag's head in yellow on a background
of green worsted. And the principal fact to be observed in this
connection is that, instead of creating a smile as I passed out of
the Grand Central Station, I was probably regarded as a rather
smart and stylishly dressed young man.
I had a card to some young actors in the city, given me by my
Thespian friends in Boston, and it proved but a short trip on the
horse-cars down Fourth Avenue to the locality, near the Academy of
Music, then as now frequented by the fraternity. I began my
professional career, then, by taking lodgings in an actors' boarding-
house, and I am free to confess that at the time I was undecided
whether to follow the bar or the boards. I have since frequently
observed that the same qualities make for success in both, and had
it not been for the fact that I found my new friends somewhat down
at the heels and their rate of emolument exceedingly low, as well
as for a certain little incident to be recounted shortly, I might
well have joined the group of future Booths and Forrests that
loitered along the near-by Rialto, looking for jobs as Roman soldiers
or footmen in some coming production.
But the change from my well-appointed lodgings in Cambridge and my
luxurious surroundings at the Cock and Spur to a distinctly shabby
theatrical boarding-house, where the guests plainly exhibited traces
of the lack of proper ablutional facilities and the hallways smelt
of cabbage and onions, was a distinct shock to my highly sensitive
tastes. However, my new acquaintances proved warm-hearted and
hospitable and did everything in their power to make me feel at my
ease, with the result that in spite of the cabbage and the wooden
slats that served as springs in my bed--which nearly filled the
rear hall bed-room I had hired for one week at four dollars and
twenty-five cents--I resolved to postpone entering upon an active
career until I should know the city better and have made a few
friends.
Those of my new comrades who were lucky enough to have employment
did not rise in the morning until the neighborhood of twelve o'clock,
and those who had no employment at all followed their example. I
thus found myself adopting of necessity, as it were, the pleasant
practice of sauntering out on Broadway after a one o'clock breakfast,
and of spending most of the afternoon, evening, and following
morning in or about the same locality. We usually went to some
theatrical show on what was known as "paper," and I afterward joined
my actor friends at a restaurant, where we sang songs and told
stories until the gas-lamps were extinguished and gray dawn crept
over the house-tops. Downtown--into the mysterious district of
Wall Street--I did not, as yet, go, and I might still be haunting
the stage entrances of the theatres had it not been for an adventure
in which I was an involuntary participant.
It so happened that among my new acquaintances was a careless,
rattle-brained youth known as Toby Robinson, who in spite of some
histrionic ability was constantly losing his job and always in
debt. He was a smooth-faced, rather stout, good-natured-looking
person, of the sort who is never supposed to have done harm to
anybody. Not long before he had enjoyed a salary of fourteen
dollars per week, but having overslept several times running he
had been discharged for absence from rehearsals. He had reached
the limit of his resources about the time of my arrival in the city
and had been in a most lugubrious frame of mind when I first had
the honor of his acquaintance. Suddenly, however, he appeared one
day with a large roll of bills and entered upon a period of
lubrication and open-handed hospitality, in which we all participated.
During this season of good cheer, as Toby and I were strolling down
Broadway one afternoon, an ugly looking man who had been following
us stepped forward and, touching my friend on the shoulder, said
gruffly:
"The captain wants to see you."
The uttering of these cryptic syllables produced a most extraordinary
effect upon my companion, for he turned deadly pale and the
perspiration collected in beads upon his temples, while he commenced
to wring his hands and bemoan his ill fortune.
"What is the trouble?" I inquired in great solicitude.
The belligerent stranger, however, pushing between us, grasped Toby
firmly by the arm and marched him across the street, while I trailed
behind in the nature of a rear guard. I had already begun to
suspect that the ugly man was none other than an officer of the
law, and visions of myself locked up in jail as a possible accomplice,
although innocent of wrong-doing, hovered in my mind. Toby, giving
every indication of guilt, slouched along beside his captor,
occasionally glancing shamefacedly over his shoulder.
We were now nearing a police station, and our companion, for the
first time showing any sign of personal interest, inquired if we
had a lawyer. On receiving a negative reply, the officer strongly
recommended our immediately retaining counsel in the person of one
Gottlieb, who could be found across the street from the police
station and whose precise whereabout were made obvious by means of
a large sign about six feet by three and one-half in size, reading
as follows:
ABRAHAM GOTTLIEB'S
LAW OFFICE
NOTARY DEEDS
RENTS COLLECTED BAIL BONDS
INSURANCE GENERAL ADVICE
Without giving Toby time for consideration the officer led us across
the street and into the stuffy little den occupied by the lawyer.
"Here's the gent I told you of," said he, nodding in the direction
of a hawk-faced little man smoking a vile cigar, who was sitting
with his feet upon a table. "I'll leave you alone," he added, and
sauntering across the threshold, took his stand in front of the
window outside.
"Howdy," remarked Gottlieb, without arising or removing his cigar.
"Mike tells me you're charged with obtaining money by false
pretences."
"What!" gasped Toby, grasping the table for support. "False
pretences!"
"Flying a bit of bad paper, eh? Come now, didn't you cash a check
on the Cotton Exchange Bank for about six hundred dollars when
there was only fifteen on deposit? Don't try to bluff me. I know
your sort. Lucky if you don't get ten years."
"Save me!" wailed Toby. "Yes, I did cash a check, come to think
of it, for that amount, but I had no idea my account had run so
low."
Mr. Gottlieb spat into a sawdust box under the table and winked
with great deliberation.
"How much have you got left?" he inquired indifferently.
Tony delved into his breeches and with trembling hands produced a
roll of bills still of some dignity. Gottlieb stretched forth a
claw, took them, placed them in his own pocket, and then swung his
feet to the floor with alacrity.
"Come on, my lads," he exclaimed, "and I'll show you how we get
the sinners off! All right, Mike." And he led the way across the
street and into the station-house, where poor Toby was searched
and his pedigree taken down by the clerk. It being at this time
only about eleven in the morning we were then conducted to the
nearest police court, where we found in attendance the unfortunate
hotel keeper who had so unwisely honored Toby's check.
"You rascal!" he shouted, struggling to reach my unfortunate friend.
"I'll show you how to take other people's money! I'll put you
where you belong!" But the officers haled him back and he was
forced to restrain himself until the could tell his story to the
judge. This, it so happened, was not to be for several hours, and
during this interval Gottlieb mysteriously vanished and as mysteriously
reappeared. It was half after three before the judge announced
that he would take up Toby's case. Now, the judge looked even more
of a rascal than did Gottlieb, which was paying his Honor a high
compliment, and I suspect that it was for this reason that the
complainant had in the meantime sent round for his own lawyer to
represent him. We were now pushed forward and huddled into a small
space in front of the rail, while the lawyers took their places
upon the platform before us.
"Your Honor," began the lawyer for the hotel man, "this fellow here
has swindled my client out of six hundred dollars by inducing him
to cash a worthless check."
"What have you to say, Mr. Gottlieb?" asked the judge.
"Confession and avoidance, your Honor," replied the attorney, with
what appeared to me to be the slightest possible drawing down of
his right eyelid. "Confession and avoidance. We admit the fact,
but we deny the imputation of guilt. My client, Mr. Robinson,
whose abilities as an actor have no doubt hitherto given your Honor
much pleasure, was so careless as to forget the precise amount of
his bank account and happened to draw a check for too large an
amount. No one was more surprised and horrified at the discovery
than he. And his intention is at once to reimburse in full the
complainant, whose action in having him arrested seems most
extraordinary and reprehensible."
"Your Honor," interrupted the other lawyer, "were there the slightest
possibility of any such outcome I should be glad to withdraw the
charge; but, as a matter of fact, this person is a worthless, lazy
fellow who has not a cent to his name, and who induced my client
to cash his check by leading him to believe that he was a man of
substance and position. No doubt he has spent the money, and if
not we might as well try to squeeze it out of a stone. This fellow
is guilty of a crime and he ought to be punished. I ask your Honor
to hold him for the grand jury."
"Well, Mr. Gottlieb," remarked the judge, "tell me, if you can,
why I should not lock your client up. Did he not falsely pretend,
by requesting the complainant to cash the check, that he had money
in the bank to meet it?"
"By no means, your Honor," answered Gottlieb. "The proffering of
a check with a request for money thereon is merely asking that the
money be advanced on the faith that the bank will honor the demand
made upon it. One who cashes a check does so at his own risk. He
has a full remedy at civil law, and if the bank refuses to pay no
crime has been committed. This is not a case for the penal law."
"That seems reasonable," said the judge, turning to the other.
"How do you make this out a crime? What false pretence is there
in merely inviting another to cash a check?"
"Why," answered the attorney, "if I ask you to cash a check for
me, do I not represent that I have a right to draw upon the bank
for the amount set forth? If not, no one would ever cash a check.
The innocent person who advances the money has the right to assume
that the borrower is not offering him a bad check. There is a
tacit representation that the check is good or that the maker has
funds in the bank to meet it."
"True--true!" nodded his Honor. "There is something in what you
say. What answer can you make to that, Brother Gottlieb?"
"I have a hundred good arguments," replied the lawyer in a low
tone. Then he added briskly: "But the intent, your Honor! There
can be no crime without a wrongful intent; and how can there have
been any such when my client honestly believed that he had the
money in the bank to meet the check?"
"But," cried the other, "he knew very well he had not!"
"What evidence have you to that effect?" queried Gottlieb. "You
say so, to be sure, but I, on the contrary, assert that he was
perfectly honest in the matter. Now, there is absolutely nothing
in this case to prove that he had any guilty knowledge to the effect
that his account was too low to meet the draft in question. You
have proven no scienter whatever."
"Ah!" exclaimed the judge. "That is it! You have shown no
scienter!"
"Exactly!" cried Gottlieb--"no scienter at all."
"But how in the world could I have proved a scienter?" wrathfully
demanded the lawyer. "I can't pry open the prisoner's skull and
exhibit his evil intent."
"No, but you could have shown that he knew he had only a few dollars
in the bank by the fact that he had previously tried to cash a
similar check and that it had been returned. In any event, my own
mind is clear on the subject. You have shown no scienter. The
prisoner is discharged."
Poor Toby was so overcome by his unexpected release that he began
to stammer out incoherent expressions of gratitude to the judge,
such as "Oh, thank you, your Honor! God bless your Honor! Thank
you, your Honor! I am an innocent man, your Honor!" until Gottlieb,
grasping him by the arm, dragged him away from the rail and pushed
him into the street. The complainant and his attorney indignantly
followed us, the former loudly deploring the way modern justice
was administered. Once outside Gottlieb shook hands with Toby and
told him if he were ever in trouble again to look him up without
fail. Toby promised gratefully to do so, and the lawyer was about
to leave us and enter his office when it occurred to me that he
still had my friend's roll of bills.
"But, Mr. Gottlieb," said I, "you are going to return Mr. Robinson's
money to him, are you not?"
"What!" he exclaimed, growing frightfully angry. "Give him back
his money! I have no money of his. It is he owes me money for
keeping him out of jail."
"But how about the roll of bills?" I protested. "You certainly do
not intend to keep all of that?"
"Certainly--that is my fee," he retorted calmly; "and small enough
it is too!"
"How much was there in that roll, Toby?" I asked.
"About five hundred dollars," answered my friend. "But let him
keep it, by all means!"
"Why," I exclaimed, "he has done nothing to earn such a fee. He
merely got up and said that you had no scienter--whatever that is.
It is not worth more than ten dollars."
"Ten dollars!" shouted Gottlieb. "Ten dollars! Why scienter is
one of the most complicated and technical defences known to the
law. Ten dollars! Scienter is worth a thousand! Your rascally
friend got his money for nothing, didn't he? He's lucky to be
outside the bars--for if I ever saw a guilty man he's one. Get
along, both of you, or I'll call an officer!"
And with that Gottlieb slipped inside his office and banged the
door.
"Come along, Quib!" urged Tony; "there's a great deal of truth in
what he says. I don't begrudge it to him. It was well worth it
to me."
"Lord!" I groaned. "Five hundred dollars just for scienter. If
that is the law, then I'll turn lawyer."
And with that idea growing more firmly each moment in my mind I
returned to the boarding-house with my friend.