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130 IV. A Stuyvesant Square Pick-up.

It is August, 1895—several weeks after Buddie McDonald had left me in the lurch, as he had his legal wife, and as he probably through life went on deserting quondam soulmates when having no more use for them. Furthermore, during this single summer that I frequented the Rialto, I found it a barren stampingground for myself. Nearly all my Lotharios were of the moneyed class that go out of the city for the heated term, or at least while away their evenings at a shore resort in the suburbs. For I did not drift with solid business young men, but with those who sought an easy life. The book-makers were at Saratoga, the vaudeville artists at seaside theatres. Even professional gamblers preferred Saratoga or Long Branch during the months that fools with money to burn went to those places rather than,to little old Fourteenth Street.

But in June I was fortunate in being introduced to some refined "young fellows" living near Stuyvesant Square, five minutes walk from the Rialto. Business or a slim pocketbook kept them in the city. I therefore formed the habit of staging my impersonation sprees in the Square—a park of about six acres. Within four weeks I had been introduced to several score young bloods—so many because all belonged to a neighboring club the talk of which I came to be on my advent because of my ultra-androgynism and female-impersonation. The majority liked to flirt with