The weekly miner. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1878-1881, 1881-07-05

"The fact is said Jim keene, the great
New York rival of Jay Gould, as he relaxed
his usual %taciturnity under the genial in
f1uence OF one OF Sam Wards dinners the
other day, ''the fact Is, that no matter how
clever and thorough a mans system of stock
operating may be, there is always occurring
some littlel unforeseen and apparently insig-
nifcant circumstance hat is forever knocking
the best laid plans into a cooked hat"
GAS how ?"
"Well, for instance, about a year ago l was
doing a good deal in Lake Shore, and count
ed on making a big cleanup. l discovered,
however, that some hidden influence in the
market was always against me. 1t didn't
exactly defeat my plans, but it lessened the
profits. l soon saw hat there was solne OPP
orator who was kept Informed as to my
movements in time to make me pay for his
knowledge"
aBroker gave you away ?" said several.
"Not at all. l never ave an order in ad-
vance, and, besides, l used as now half a dozen
brokers, and also gave Gross and dummy
ing at the window of my uptown place, cogi-
tating over this state of affairs, an elegant
private coupe drove past and stopped just
around the corner from my door. 1t contained
a richly dressed lady, and a ragged little girl.
The latter got out, rang my basement bell,
and was admitted. l sent for my man ser
want and inquired who the girl might be-"
'She comes for the wash, sir" he said.
"Does she generally come in a coupe ?" in
quired.
"Why, no sir" said my man, very much
surprised; cher mother, the washerwoman,
is very poor"
"Just then my own carriage drove around
for me, and as it passed the other l could see
the lady eagerly sorting the soiled clothes in
her lap. This excited my curiosity, so l had
my driver follow along behind. Pretty soon
the coupe stopped, and the dirty little girl got
out with the bundle and went into a brown
stone front OH Twenty-ninth street. The
coupe then kept straight OIL down to Wall
street, and stopped in front Of a brokers' Of
flee, where the lady alighted with
my entire lot of soiled shirt cuffs in her hand.
"Shirt cuffs ?" cried the entire company.
"EXactly shirt cuffs. l saw through it all
in a moment. You see, l amor rather was
"a great hand while at dinner, or at the the
ater in the evening, to think over
my plans for the next day and
to make memorandum on my cuffs
to consult before starting down Town in the
morning. My washerwoman had found this
out and had been quietly 'coppering' my
game by means of my cuffs for over a year."
"Well, by Jove!" said Sam Ward, pauslng
for a single instant in the sacred mystery OF
salad dressing.
sits the cold fact" continued keene. 'ln
less than six months she had cleaned mp over
100000 and was washing my clothes-at
least the cuffs-in all $4,000 house,. She had
diamonds and horses until you couldn't rest
"You didn't make any more cuff mems. af-
ter that" laughed several.
"Well, not many-just a few" said the
great operator, holding his Burgundy up to
the light.
81 believe l kept it up a month longer, at
the end of which time l had raked in the
washerwoman's bank account and even had
a mortgage on the brown stone front. 1t was
a queer coincidence wasn't? But perhaps
the information she found on the cuffs after
that wasn't as exact as it had been,
somehow, nor as reliaole.'
And the "kIng of the Street. emptied his
glass with an indescribable wink that made
Beach, who was short on Harlem, shiver like
a cat who had swallowed a live mouse -
st. Louis Globe Democrat.