The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1881-06-30
JIM KEENE'S WASHERW0-
MAN.

"The fact is" said Jim Keene, The
great New York rival to Jay Gould
as he relaxed his usual taciturnity
under the genial influence of one Of
Sam Wards dinners, the other day
che fact is, that no matter how
clever and thorough a mans system
of stock operating may be, there is
always occurring some little unfor-
seen and apparently insignificant
circumstance that is forever knock
ing the best laid plans into cooked
hat"
LAS how?"
well, for instance, about veal
ago | was doing a good business in
Lake Shere, and counted on making
a big clean up, l discovered, how,
ever, that there was some hidden
influence in the market that was
| always against me. 1t didn't ex-
| actly defeat my plans, but it lessened
the profits. | soon saw that there
was some operator who was kept
informed as to my movements in
time to make me pay for his knowl-
edge"
Broker gave you away?" said
several.
"Not at all. [ never gave an or
der in advance, and besides, l used
as now half a dozen brokers, and
also gave cross and dummy orders
in plenty. One day, while L was
standing at the window of my up
town place. cogitating over the state
of affairs, an elegant private coupe
drove past, and stopped just around
the corner from my door. 1t con-
tanned richly-dressed lady and a
ragged-looking girl. The latter got
out, rang my basement bell, and
was admitted. I sent for my man
servant, and inquired who the girl
might be.
"She comes for the wash, Sir" he
said.
"Does she generally come in a
private coupe ?"I inquired.
"'Why, no, sir said my man, very
much surprised; her mother, the
washerwoman, is very poor
"Just then my own carriage drove
around for me, and as it passed the
other 1 could see the lady eagerly
sorting the soiled clothes in the
coupe on her lap. This excited my
curiosity, so 1 had my driver follow
along behind. Pretty soon the
coupe stopped, and the dirty
little girl got out with
the bundle and went into brown
stone front on Twenty-ninth street.
The coupe then kept straight on
down to Wall street and stopped in
front of a brokers' Office, where the
lady alighted with my entire lot of
soiled shirt cuffs in her Eand."
"Shirt cuffs ?"icried the entire COM
pany.
Exactly; shirt cuffs. 1 saw
through it all in a moment. You
see [ amor rather was-a great
hand while at dinner, or at the the
atre in the evening, to think over
my plans for the next day, and to
make memoranda 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 year.
"Well, by Jove!" said Sam Ward,
pausing for a single instant in the
sacred mystery of salad dressing.
Its the cold fact" continued
Keene. I'm less than eight months
she had cleaned up over 100000
and was washing my clotheS-at
least the cuffs-in an SIS 700 house.
She had diamonds and horses until
you couldn't rest"
You didn't make any more cuff
mems, after that?" laughed several.
"Wel, not many, just a few" said
the great operator. holding up his
Burgundy to the light. Il believe |
kept it up about a month longer, at
the end of which time [ had raked
in the Washerwoman'S bank ac
count, and even had a mortgage on
the brown stone house. 1t was a
queer coincidence, wasn't it? But
perhaps the information she found
on the cuffs after that wasn't as eX-
act as it had been, somehow, nor as
reliable"
And the "king of the street"
emptied his glass with an indescrib-
able wink that made Beach, who.
was short on Harlem, SILVER like a
cat who had just swallowed a live
mouse.-San Francisco Post.