Page:Autobiography of an Androgyne 1918 book scan.djvu/175

Rh never seen before, or with youthful soldiers or sailors. Even some youthful policemen went skylarking with me on the back streets after all the inhabitants had gone to bed. Most of the police on the Bowery knew me as a fairie, but were always friendly. This street at that time was the wide-open " red-light " district for the un-Americanized laborer and for the common soldier or sailor.

When I felt feeble and fatigued—then my usual condition—flirtation quickened the heart's action and the flow of blood. I forgot my weariness, and if shivering with the cold before, my body now glowed with warmth.

Incorrigible thieves, who had only just learned that I was a fairie, have immediately grasped me on a brightly lighted street thronged with pedestrians, and ransacked my pockets, while clasping me to their breast and crying out: "Oh how she loves me! Oh how she loves me!" Their purpose was to create the impression on those who were hurrying by that I was embracing them. Some adolescent ruffians demanded money every time they ran across me, and helped themselves to all I had if I refused them. If they found nothing, they would sometimes beat me in their disappointment. Some would promise me a beating when we next met unless I brought them a stipulated sum.

Occasionally boys hardly in their teens would demand blackmail. I was entirely innocent of even carrying on conversation with them, but they knew me through the adolescents of their neighborhood. The charges of these mere boys, though entirely false, were feared much more than those of adults, because it would have been a far