Sins of the Cities of the Plain
them at once, so I almost always get at least five pounds, and sometimes more, as I take care to write and borrow as much as I can afterwards. There’s nothing like bleeding one of these old fellows; and young ones are better still—they are so easily frightened.”
         He told me lots of tales of different people he had victimized in that way.
         My other acquaintance, George Brown, comes on a different line of business. His plan is to pick up a swell, and ride about with him in a cab.
         Many gentlemen are too nervous to take a boy home with them, or, in fact, to go to any house; but they like to get a young fellow in a cab, and either frig him or get him to do it to themselves.
         G.B. would do all this, and wait ‘till his prize was quite or nearly drunk; then rob him of his pocketbook, purse, or watch, as the case might be, very frequently even taking the rings off his fingers if he had any.
         “Jack,” he said to me the other day, “what a fool you are not to go in for the same lay as I do. You would get hundreds where you now only get tens.
         “I had a rare lark with a Jewish man the other day. I knew he belonged to some city financial firm. He was too smart to get drunk; but took me down to the Star and Garter at Richmond on a Saturday afternoon (no doubt he had been to his synagogue in the morning). Well, we had a first-rate dinner, and by way of dessert I handled and sucked his rather worn-out prick ‘till he spent, and he did the same to me; but I don’t like Jews or any dark complexioned types, I so prefer the fair-haired sort, so I made up my mind to make him pay well for it.
         “At length when he ordered a last bottle of fizz, and took out his purse to pay the bill, I could see he had very little more than a tenner left, which no doubt was intended for me; and so it was. Directly the waiter was gone out of the room, he tossed it across the table to me, saying; There’s a little bit of paper for you, George. It’s good pay for an hour or two, my boy. I wish I would make money as easily!’
         “Of course I pocketed the flimsy; but never made any remark, except: Is that all for what I have let you do?’
         “Why, you don’t even thank me for being liberal!’ he remarked rather angrily.
         “’Nothing to thank you for; I could wipe my arse on that! I mean to have a cool hundred; as I know it’s nothing to you, who can swindle more than that any day in the city. Shall I call at your Cornhill office for it on Monday, or will you give me an I.O.U.?’
         “’You bugger! You shan’t have a damn’d penny more?’ he growled out, putting on his hat. Tm going!’
         “’ Not ‘till you square me, Mr. Simeon Moses!’ I said, speaking as loudly as possible. ‘You know you have been acting indecently towards me, and showing me a volume of the “Romance of Lust!” Would you like a bobby to find that book on you?”
         “You should have seen him start as I mentioned his real name.
         “’Hush! Hush! for God’s sake speak a little lower! What do you want? I’ll sent you the money.’
         “’No you won’t! I’ll call for it anywhere you like to leave a hundred quid for me; but you must give me the rings off your fingers as security, to be returned when I get the money, on my word of honour.’
         “He was too frightened not to comply at once, and told me to take them to a certain house in a little street out of Harley Street, any time after ten o’clock the next Sunday evening.
         “I knew the house very well. It was kept by a great big bully, who had been a soldier, so, thinking perhaps there would be a little trouble in making him hand over the tin, I borrowed a small life-preserver from a friend by way of precaution, then went for a settlement.
         The bully opened the door himself.
         “’Has Mr. Simeon Moses left a hundred pounds

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