Indiana daily times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1914-1922, 1921-05-14

/ selling spoonful of chicken salad and
cream puff for 70 cents and calling it
business mems lunch.
Now / can go into square, honest
business, and give all them queer jobs
! the shake. I'm going to Cincinnati and
start a palm reading and clairvoyant
joint As Madame Saramaloi, the
Egyptian Sorceress, l shall give every
body a dollars worth Of good honest
representation. Good-by. boys. Take
my advice and go into some decent fake.
Get friendly with the police and news
papers and you'll be all right"
So then we all shook hands, and Miss
Malloy left us. Me and Buck also rose
up and sauntered off a few hundred
miles; for we didn't care to be aronud
when them marriage certificates fell due
With about $4,000 between us we hit
that bumptious little town off the New
Jersey coast they call New York.
III there ever was an aviary over
stocked with jays it is that Yaptown- on
You bet. Sos a piece of fypaper. You
listen close when they're buzzing and
trying to rull their feet out of the sticky
enough for us''-that's what they sing.
There's enough Reubs walk down
Broadway in one hour to buy up weeks
| output of the factory in Augusta, Maines
that makes Knaughtv Novelties and the
little Prime Plum bride gold finger ring
that sticks a needle in your friends hand
You'd think New York people was all
wise; but no. They don't get a chance
to learn Everything's toe compressed.
Even the hayseeds are baled hayseeds.
But what else can you expect from a
town that's shut off from the world by
the ocean on one side and New Jersey
on the other?
It's no place for an honest CRATER with
small capital. There's too big a pro-
| tective tariff on bunco. Even when Clio
vanni sells quart of warm worms and
chestnut hulls he has to hand out a pint
to an insectivOrous cop. And the hotel
man charges double for everything in
| the dill that he sends by the patrol
wagon to the altar where the duke is
about to marry the heiress
But old Badville near Consy rs the ideal
| burg for a refined piece Of piracy II you
can pay the bunco duty. Imported CRAFTS
come pretty high The custom house OF
iicers that look after 1t carry clubs. and
it's hard to smuggle IN even a bib and
tucker swindle TO work Brooklyn with
unless you can pay the toll But now.
me and Buck. b wing capital, descends
, upon New York TO try and trade the
metropolitan backwoodsmen a few glass
beads for real estate just as the Vans
did hundred or two years ago.
At an east side hotel we gets ac-
Quainted with Romulus G. Atterbury, a
man with the finest head for financial
operations l ever saw IL was alf~bald
and glossy except for gray side whisk-
clh CttAuE tHaL utdu DENluu an office
railing and you'd deposit a million with
IL without receipt This Atterbury was
well dressed, though he ate seldom and
the synopsis OF his talk would make the
conversation Of a siren sound like a cab
drivers kick He said be used to he a
member Of the Stock Exchange, but some
of the big capitalists got Jealous and
formed ring that forced him TO sell
his seat.
Atterbury got 10 liking me and Buck
and he begun TO throw on the canvas
for as some OF the schemes that had
caused his hair TO evacuate He had
one scheme for starting National
Bank on S45 that made tine Mississippi
/ Bubble look a solid as a glass marble.
/ He talked this to US for three days,
and when bis throat was good and sore
We told him about the roll We had
Atterbury borrowed 4 quarter from US
and went out and got A box Of throat
lozenges and started all over again.
/ This lime he talked bigger things, and
be got us to see EN- as he did The
scheme he laid out looked Ike a sure
winner. fand he talked me ana Buck
I into putting our capital against his
| FURNISHED dome Of thought. 1t looked
all right for a kid gloved graft. 1t
seemed to be just about an inch and a
half outside Of the reach OF the police.
and as money making as mint IL
was just what me and Buck wapted-a
regular business at a permanent stand,
Win an open ar spieuug Win EohslllLls
on the street corners every evening.
So, in six weeks you see a handsome
furnished set of offices down in the
Wall Street neighborhood, with THE
Golconda Gold Bond and Investment
Company" in gilt letters on the door.
And you see In bis private room, with
the door open, the secretary and treas
urer, Mr. Buckingham skinner, cos
TUNED like the lilies Of the c0nserva-
tory, with his high silk hat close TO
rs-HH
outside of an instantaneous reach for his
hat.
And you might perceive the president
and general manager. Mfr. r. @. After
bury, with his priceless polished poll,
busy In the main office room debating
letters to shorthand countess, VINO
has got pomp and a pompadour that
Is no less than q guarantee to investors
AT another desk the eye Is relieved
by the sight Of an ordinary man, at
tired with INSCRIPTIONS pla. mess, sit
ting with his feet up, eating apples, with
head. That man is no other than Colonel
Tecumseh (once "Parleyvoo'O Pickens,
the vice president Of the company.
"No recherche rags for me- l SAYS to
Atterbury, when We was organizing the
stage properties of the robbery. II m
a pIain man says 1, land do not use
palamas, French, or military hair
brushes Cast me for the role OF the
rhineetone-in- the rough or I don't go on
exhibition. II you can use me In my
natural, though displeasing form, do so. "
DRESS you upf" says Atterburyl "T
should say not! Just az you are you're
worth more to the business theG a whole
roomful of the things they pin chrysan-
themums on. You're to play the part Of
the solid but disheveled capitalist from
the far west You despise the conven-
tions You've got so many stocks you
can afford to shake socks. Conservative,
homely rough, shrewd, savlng-thats
your pose Its a winner In New York,
Keep your feet on the desk and eat
apples Whenever anybody comes In eat
an apple. Let 'em see you stuff the
Feelings in a drawer of your desk.
Look as economical and rich and rugged
as you can"
followed out Atterbury's instructions
1 played the Rocky Mountain capitalist
without ruchipg or frills. The way I de-
posted apple Feelings to my credit in a
drawer when any customers came in made
Hetty Green look like a spendthrft.
could hear Atterbury saying to victims,
as he smiled at me, indulgent and veneer
ating, That's our vice president. Colonel
Pickens fortune In western in
manners manners bur {. :. could Sign p'h his
check FOR half million simple
as q child wonderful head
conservative and careful almost
to fault"
Atterbury managed the business. Me
and Buck never quite understood all Of
It, though he explained II to us In full
1t seems the company was a kind of CO.
operative one, and everybody that bought
stock shared in the profits. First, we
officers bought up a controlling interest
we had to have that-of the shares at
30 cents a bundFed-Just whathe printer
charged us-and the rest went to the pub
lie at dollar each. The company guar
anteed the stockholders a profit of 10 per