The mirror., 1914-06-25
WORKING 4 JOB
ON A BIG BLUFF
After Bsing the Victim Of a Chicago Knock
Out, This Inmate Follows the Advice
Of a friend and Tys His Hand at d
New Job.
BUT HE COULDN'T COOK
By Book Worm

During some of your travels up,
down, through and across this coun-
try; did you ever meet up with one
of those Good Advice boys? You
know the kind / mean, one of those
wind jammer fellows, that's always
telling somebody else just how to
| get by, and just what they'd do if
they were you, and you had never
happened.
l had the pleasure of meeting just
such dub once; and as we lounged
in the smoking car on jerk water
local, that was snailing through
Iowa's fertile farm lands. he was
putting me hep as to just how to get
by in legitimate way, on the sixty
five cents that then possessed.
Always make bluff" he said,
always, no matter if it's on a job
building sky-scrapers. or singing
hash in Pittsburg Joe's Madison
Street soup house."
Well. | made bluff alright. In
fact, several bluffs; but they were
not bluffs of taking contracts for the
erection of another Woodwork
proposition, or building elecric rail
roads across the Sahara. They were
only little bluffs, more on the Pitts
burg Joe order, but even so, they
were tolerable big bluffs for me.
You see, about two weeks prevl-
Gus to meeting this human advice
dispensary, l lands in Chicago on a
stock train. with one hundred and
fifty big round, shining samoleans
in my strides, and a new ten dollar
John B. Stetson on my roof-garden.
I'd only been on the ranch nine
long months that stretch. so you can
see that | was over abundantly sup
piled with superfuous energy, to
help me invest that one-hundred
and fifty on Chicago wet life. In
those days Chicago always met you
half way with the glad mitt, so as
to be sure you'd invest it.
The Old Game
| loped around town most of the
day doing errands for the boss, and
in the mean time trying to dodge
those secondhand clothing sharks,
who were trying to make me believe
| was the poorest, raggedest dressed
man in town. l didn't get much OF
chance to start circulating that
roll of mine until evening. About
eleven O'clock | was dog trottine
out State street, when'a young fuzzy
steps up behind me and jerks off my
ten dollar John B., and gives it a
sail down into a basement stairway:
then she skips off laughing.
/ was little sore at first. but then
l thought. pshaw! what's the diff
A jokes a joke, and down l goes
into the basement after my sky
piece. | stoops over to pick it up,
and next minute-I mean the next
day, Iwakes up in the Cook County
Hospital. with couple of staff doc
tors and two or three student nurses
standing round the bed, while my
head was lost in two-hundred feet
of 'bandages.
Of course ] don't have to tell you
about the policeman, who accidently
took a stroll down that street about
2 a. M, and as accidently found me
on the basement stairs, minus coin,
minus my railroad ticket back to
Laramie, and most of all, minus
consciousness; of course you already
know that. But. you do not know.
that had little old ten spot in the
toe of my left boot. and that, that
little old ten spot was the where
with-all that happened to bring me,
two weeks later, into conversation
with the previously mentioned Mr..
Good Advice.
Lands in Iowa
l left the poor fellow with nerve
racking thousand miles-as he ex-
pressed it-still to travel, and gets
off at the little old dinky depot,
in little old dinky town, in the
very midst of that fertile Iowa farm
ing country. Hopkins, was the
name of the place. And I'd like to
sav. that chances are. il. wOuld make
any ones kins hop to have to live
there.
/ galfoped up the main thorough
fare, which was about two-hundred
feet long. and began to note the
mammoth structures that the town
possessed. Directly opposite me
was false front. two-story structure.
Across the top of it there was big