Page:The Sins of the Cities of the Plain.djvu/170

 at once, or I'll raise the house, and a pretty scandal it will be!'

"That frightens them at once, so I almost always get at least five pounds, and sometimes more, as I take care to write and borrow as much as I can afterwards. There's nothing like bleeding one of these old fellows; and young ones are better still—they are so easily frightened."

He told me lots of tales of different people he had victimized in that way.

My other acquaintance, George Brown, comes on a different line of business. His plan is to pick up a swell, and ride about with him in a cab.

Many gentlemen are too nervous to take a boy home with them, or, in fact, to go to any house; but they like to get a young fellow in a cab, and either