Page:The Masses, Volume 1, Number 2.pdf/13

 examinations without having to study a bit more. Your gentlemanly friend, your bunco-steerer, had warned you of the game. He himself had picked out the Jack of Spades a number of times, and won. Then you fell into the trap and lost every cent. I know it all as if I had been there myself. You got into the clutches of regular confidence men. You don't have to stay in Berlin another hour." And the police commissioner laughed a full-throated laugh, while the unhappy mayor sat there staring into space in desperation.



"How much did the gang do you out of?"

"Every cent I had with me," the mayor wailed. "Some hundred odd dollars."

"Be glad it wasn't more. I'll give you the same amount."

The commissioner rang, gave the mayor a voucher, and told Stuppke, who had answered the bell, to show him to the cashier.

The mayor of S was almost moved to tears when he shook hands with the police commissioner of Berlin.

"A confidence man will never play his tricks on you," he said admiringly.

The commissioner, feeling flattered, smiled with official amiability, and when the mayor was gone, he had his Schallow summoned, to tell him all about the tragico-comic adventure of the poor mayor of S. Both laughed heartily.

A few hours later the police commissioner was sitting at his desk, deeply engrossed in work, when Stuppke entered, and announced:

"The Mayor of S."

"Again!" the commissioner exclaimed impatiently.

"It's a different one this time."

"A different one!" the commissioner cried, his eyes opening wide. He stared at Stuppke as if to make sure he was in his right senses.

"Perhaps S has two mayors, like Berlin. Sis becoming a metropolis."

"That will do," shouted the commissioner, who was getting very nervous. "Show him in."

The mayor of S, Kramer, the general-store-keeper, stepped in. He was an elderly gentleman, with a friendly but rather stupid face. He walked rapidly up to the commissioner—who inspected him sharply—and poured out a lot of words to tell the commissioner that he was the mayor whose coming Judge Mhad announced with recommendations to the commissioner.

"The mayor whose coming Judge M announced was here this morning already," said the commissioner, convinced the man speaking to him was a cheat.

The mayor of S acted as if he could not believe his ears.

The commissioner rang. Stuppke entered. The commissioner told him to summon Schallow. Schallow stepped in immediately.

"Schallow, do you know this man?"

Schallow looked at the mayor of S closely. No, he did not know him, and he knew everybody in the rogue's gallery. But he would look at the pictures again. Perhaps he would see one that would put him on the right track. And he left the office.

The commissioner remained alone in the room with the mayor, and put him through a severe examination. The mayor had arrived the evening before with the eight o'clock train from S and had gone to the Central Hotel. Strange. Just like the other one. He would have come to the commissioner sooner if a man who had gotten into his compartment at the last station and with whom he had entered into conversation had not told him that the commissioner would receive no visitors in the morning and was very disagreeable until after he had had lunch. The man somehow inspired confidence. He had spoken with the air of a person who knows what he is talking about. He made such a good impression upon the mayor that the mayor had told him his name and the purpose for which he was coming to Berlin. He had shown him a copy of the judge's letter, which he was bringing along as a credential.

The mayor of S ferreted out the copy of the letter from an enormous pocketbook and held the document out in his hand trembling.

"Incredible!" said the commissioner, beside himself.

"You may believe me," the mayor said simply. "I am not lying."

The commissioner looked at the man, who really made the impression of honesty.

"Impossible!" the commissioner exclaimed again.

"Why are you so surprised?" asked the mayor, and continued, "My new acquaintance knew Berlin well. I could tell that instantly. So I was very glad when he offered to spend the evening with me. He said he was a straw widower and was feeling lonely. I went to my hotel, washed up, and met the man again in the hotel lobby, where he was waiting for me. We walked about until we got hungry. We happened to pass a bodega, which my acquaintance recommended, and we went in."

"I know," the police commissioner said, excitedly. "They played piano there and sang, and some fellow-townsmen of your acquaintance were sitting at the same table, and they played a game that wasn't really a game, but a trick with the Jack of Spades. The Jack never turned up where you expected it would. After your acquaintance won several times, you tried your hand at it, and parted company with every cent you had. Oh, I know all about it. And you have come here now not only to get me to teach you the tricks of the confidence game, but also to borrow money.money." [sic]

"Exactly," said the mayor, though he should have been speechless with astonishment at the thorough, accurate knowledge of the affair that the commissioner displayed.

The police commissioner walked around his desk. He had been buncoed, that was clear. So he stopped before the mayor, and said to him:

"My dear fellow, you have been buncoed. You are the victim of a confidence man. You learned all about the confidence game last night, and you can now calmly return home to S. I will let you have fifty dollars and charge it up to the town of S."

The mayor sank back into a chair, and the commissioner of police, regaining his composure, said:

"I see through it all. No fooling me. I know the tricks of the trade."

At this point Schallow entered, scrutinized the mayor's face again, and said he could not find a face resembling

Here the police commissioner interposed:

"Never mind, Schallow. It's all right. Take the gentleman to the cashier, and let him have fifty dollars on his receipt."

Schallow looked at the commissioner of police, and said:

"Very well, sir."

A fine ear might have detected something like, "You don't say so!" in his formal reply.

The commissioner of police shook hands with the mayor of S, and said:

"Very pleased to have met you."

But that was an untruth. He was by no means pleased to have met him. And when he was alone, he lighted a cigar again, swallowed a glass of brandy, and muttered to himself:

"How the devil am I going to itemize those hundred dollars? I've got to fix that."

Then he resolved in the future to be a more careful man.

When Stuppke entered the office to lay something on the desk, the commissioner did not look up; which was very sensible, for there was a mischievous smile on Stuppke's face which would not have added to the commissioner's good humor had he seen it.