The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1899-09-18
THE HONEST NIGHT LINER
EMPTY POCKETS OF J1GS NOT DUE
10 C1BMEN NECESSARILY.
Opportunities In the WAY of Watches
and Big Rolls VtrtuousIy Scorned-
Men Who Hide Their Property or Bee
come Generous When Drunk.

wv
Sixth avenue night-liner who was
smoking a p. m. pipe and 'rubberin'
for trade" some O. these DRINKS ache
ME.
They gimme the lid buzz and the st.
Vftalzes' waltz, I'm talking about the
kind O DRINKS we're always touching
for their supers and gig lamps and
rolls If you'd listen to their end of it,
I've had a lot of experience with 'em
since | began to do a night shift with
this old kifty-nitch of an after dark
one-hoss bus. | was figuring it UP the
other day | found out that if I'd actu-
| ally rolled all of the DRINKS that We
accused me of rolling EN- in the twelve
years that I've been owing it with a
night shay, I'd be worth an even 500, 900
to-day. I'd just about be rlggin' up a
yacht to go out and meet Dewey now
If I'd pinched half the wads and shiny
stones that DRINKS have accused me Of
swiping after they've got the booze out
O themselves and done the next-morn-
/ Ing hurry hunt through their clothes
But here | am. still on the stand. wear
| ing bum hat and bum shoes, and only
two pihts beneath me belt since mid
night
Il don't say that all of em come
around day or so after they've woke
up and tell me that | went through their
clothes while they were in high ball
trance in my hack the night befort last
and pinched everything they had on
EN-; about one in twenty Of the DRINKS
is about the figure, I guess, This one
| a III
stands Of the night-liners If he's lost
| anything while toying with his little
foot. And he always digs up the man
that tootod him around, for we can
| always remember our customers. espe-
! cially the DRINKS, and we've got no rea-
son to deny that we've carted EN-
around when they were booty and
| chanting through their tooues. well,
| we up and say Yes, | druv you around
a-Tuesday night Then the yap goes
ahead and tells us that we've got his
1928 diamond studded watch and 1926
of his coin on our clothes, and that
| we'd better cough it up right quick If
view ant to go on enjoyin' open-air
life. In nine cases out of ten the guy
that throws up this kind of spiel
when he sobers up has on'y give us
half fare for totin' him around all
night, telling us when we druv up to
the door of his house and lifted him out
to come around next Decoration Day,
or something like that for the rest of
the price of his ride. Drive EN- to the
station? Well you read about all the
case like that that happen. A night
liner never drives a drunk to the clnk
with the green lights in front unless he
looks and acts like a beat It's too
much like work, gettin' up in the
morning and appearing against 'em.
Some ducks are never able to punch it
through their blocks that il they've
really been touched we're not the peo-
pie that do the touching. They take
in all the gin-mills on an eight mile
swing, and get themselves mixed up
with all kinds o. pushes; and yet we're
the foaters that always have to listen
to this wake-up whoop about having
made the sudden sweep of the belong
ings and dust after they get sober
enough to see what sailors they've
made of themselves
The yahoos that Just get sober by the
time you've druv them to where they
live after sleeping in your rig for a
couple of hours and then when they go
to pay their fares suddenly find they've
been gone through are the queerest
ducks to deal with you ever saw. l /
had one of em the other night. He was
leaning up against an awning pole
and thinking when / found him on
Twenty-third street, along toward II
o'clock. He was jagged proper
pretty well logged out guy, around
forty, and with the gllnty stones all
over him. He'd got through thinking
just as ] druv up, and started to let |
the merry yell out of him. He'd have |
been ~pnched if | hadn't corraled him |
and offered to pack him around. He |
climbed in and went to sleep so quick |
that he didn't have time to tell me |
where to take him / gave him the |
prod, but it's no go. All he says is, |
'G'wan out o room. you fellers, and |
femme go to sleep and then he fell |
into such a snooze that an earthquake |
couldn't have joted him out of it, |
drives around town slow, for an hour or
So and then | climbed down and gives
him the prod again, This time he
rubbed his lamp and looked at his
watch.
It's long rattle between EN-, he
says, and then he orders me to take
him to a swell hotel cafe. BY I o'clock
he was cornered up right again, and
one Of his friends brought him out of
the last joint he stopped at. His friend
told me where he lived, up. on Eighty
third street in rich plant. and | carried
him up there, Well when he got out,
fell out, he dug nto his money kick to
shake out the price of the ride | had
give him. and there waen't so much as
a piece O. roofin tin in it. He jabbed
his hands into all the rest of his pock-
cts. No dust anywhere. He was kind
o. steady by this time and mad. Then
he felt on his watch pocket. No super.
1t was a beauty, too. for I'd seen it
when he pulled ii out. He reached up
to feel for his pin. Milky pin either.
He held up his left hand to look for
his big solitaire ring, and it wasn't
there. BY this time he was pretty near
as sober as | was, and a heap more
red -headed
Say look a-here, you,' says he to
me. / We been touched
"'Thats so?' says |. 'Where?'
That's up to YOU says he, looking at
1