Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Don-a-dreams.djvu/240

 Bowery. They accepted him as a young fellow "down on his luck," and were more indifferent to him than he was to them. One of them asked him for a match, and merely nodded at Don's polite reply that he was sorry he had none—nodded as if the answer was what he had expected. The manager, in the exit, as Don went out, pleaded hoarsely: "Say, 'bo, fer G's sake, shove 'em up. String 'em. String 'em." And Don did not reply—because he did not understand.

He was coming out from the second push of the final take—returning to his pocket the dime which he had just received from the manager—when a hand was laid on his shoulder from behind and he looked around at the grinning Dixon, the man who had been tout for the unspeakable Vandever.

"Well, I'm dd!" he said. "If you ain't the slickest con on the walk. Yuh took me all right! Yuh played me fer a sucker." Don stared at his admiring smile of good fellowship. "What sort o' back-cappin' were yuh tryin' to come on me anyway, that day?"

"What?"

"Aw, shuffle 'em. Shuffle 'em," he laughed. "I'm on."

"I don't understand what you're talking about."

Dixon spat on the sidewalk and smiled undiscouraged. "Say, what's the use? I got a graft worth two o' this dd supper show here—if yuh want some boostin'—out on Coney. It's playin' too close to the cushion fer me. An' these touts—I been sizin' 'em up—they ain't the thing. They'd get the turn called on 'em, first hand. Yuh're the guy I want. Yuh've got a mug to steer Mary's little lamb." He saw the