The weekly Floridian. [volume] (Tallahassee, Fla.) 1867-19??, 1881-08-02
KEENE's CUFFS.


How He Gave Himself Clean Away
TO q WasherwOmam.
San Francisco Postl
"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 din
ners the other day; "the fact is, that no
matter how clever and thorough mans
system of stock operating may be, there
is always occurring some little unforeseen
and apparently insignificant circumstance
that is forever knocking the best laid
plans into a cooked hat"
6" As how ?"
"Well, for instance, about a year ago
/ was doing good deal in Lake Shore,
and counted on making big clean up.
discovered, however, that there was some
hidden influence in the market that was
always against me- 1t didn't exactly de-
feat my plans, but it lessened the profits.
/ soon saw that there was some operator
who kept informed as TO my movements
in time to make me pay for his knowledge"
Broker gave you awayP ?" said several.
"Not at ALL never gave an order in
advance, and, besides, l used as now half
a dozen brokers, and also gave cross
and dummy orders in plenty. One
day, while was standing at the window
of my uptown place, cogitating over this
state of affairs, an elegant private coupe
drove past and stopped just around the
corner from my Office. 1t contained
richly dressed lady and ragged looking
girl. The latter got out, rang my base
ment bell and was admitted / sent for
| on1 xx,ho
] girl might be.
"'She comes for the wash sir, he said.
"'Does she generally come in coupe p
I inquired.
"Why no, sir, said my man, very
much surprised; her mother, the wash
erwoman, 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, 80 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-6fth
street. The coupe then kept straight on
down to Wall street and stopped in front
of brokers' Office, where the lady alight-
ed with my entire lot of soiled shirt cuffs
in her hand.''
"Shirt cufs!" cried the entire COM
pany.
EXACTLY; shirt cuffs. / saw through
it all in a moment. You see, amor
rather was-a great hand while at dinner,
or at the theatre in the evening, to think
over my plans for the next day, and to
make memorandums on my cuffs to con-
suit before starting down town the next
morning. My washerwoman had found
this out, and had been quietly 'coppering'
my game by means OF my cuffs for over
q year"
e. Well, by Jove!" said Sam Ward,
pausing for single instant in the sacred
mystery of salad dressing
cts the cold fact" continued Keene.
In less than eight months she had cleaned
up over 100000, and was washing my
clothes-at least the cuffs-in an $50, 900
house. She had diamonds and horses until
you couldn't rest"
"You didn't make any more cuff mems,
after that ?" laughed several.
"Well, not many-just few" said
the great operator, holding his burgundy
up to the light. ct believe I kept it up
about month longer, at the end Of
which time I had raked in the washer
woman's bank account, and even had a
mortgage on the brown stone house. 1t
was queer coincidence, wasn't it? But
perhaps the information she found on the
cuffs after that wasn't as exact as it had
been, somehow, nor IS reliable"
| And the "King of the Street" " emptied
his glass with an indescribable wink that
made Beach, who was short on Harlem,
shiver like q cat who had just swallowed
live mouse.