How much _is_ your bill?' and the other feller'd say ten
dollars, or fifteen, or may be twenty-five, if they thought I had
that much, and the first feller'd say, 'Well, here's a gentleman
from up my way, and I guess he'll advance me that much on my cheque
if I make it worth his while. He knows me.' And the first thing you
know--he's been treatin' you, and so polite, showin' you round, and
ast you to go to the theayter--you advance the money, and you keep
on with the first feller, and pretty soon he asks you to hold up a
minute, he wants to go back and get a cigar; and he goes round the
corner, and you hold up, and _hold_ up, and in about a half an
hour, or may be less time, you begin to smell a rat, and you go for
a policeman, and the next morning you find your name in the papers,
'One more unfortunate!' You look out for 'em, young feller! Wish I
_had_ let that one go on till he done something so I could
handed him over to the cops. It's a shame they're allowed to go
'round, when the cops knows 'em. Hello! There _comes_ my mate,
_now_." The young man spoke as if they had been talking of his
mate and expecting him, and another young man, his counterpart in
dress, but of a sullen and heavy demeanour very unlike his own brisk
excitement, approached, flapping a bank-note in his hand. "I just
been tellin' this young feller about that beat, you know."

"Oh, he's all right," said the mate. "Just seen him down on Tremont
Street, between two cops. Must ha' caught him in the act."

"You don't say so! Well, that's good, anyway. Why! didn't you' get
it changed?" demanded the young man with painful surprise as his
mate handed him the bank-note.

"No, I didn't. I been to more'n twenty places, and there ain't no