They went along a dark side street, but Tham had no chance to get the money. He tried to get his man intoxicated in another resort, but found that he could not.
So they drifted about the city for two hours, and finally Thubway Tham began to have hopes.
The countryman began exhibiting the first signs of intoxication. Tham decided that he’d make the attempt soon now. And then the visitor to the city took the wind out of his sails.
“You look like an honest young feller,” he said. “And you know all about this town. I can’t enjoy myself while I’m worryin’ about my money. You take it—here—and keep it for me. Give me a bill whenever I ask for it.”
“Nothin’ doin’,” said Thubway Tham.
“You take it!” the other commanded, pressing it upon him.
“All right,” Tham said, in a voice of resignation.
“You see, I ain’t afraid of you, young feller. I know where you work. If you run off with that money, I’d just go to that cigar store tomorrow and get it, you betcha!”
“Yeth?” Tham risked.
Thubway Tham was astounded. Here was a man trusting him with money—the man he had hoped to rob. He glanced at the bills and saw that they totaled more than a hundred dollars, and fifty dollars of it, he supposed, was Craddock’s.
The situation appealed to Thubway Tham. He knew that he could evade the countryman in some resort that had doors opening onto two streets, but he decided to be honest for the time being.
“Thith ith thertainly my inthane moment,” he told himself. “I mutht be gettin’ old or thomethin’ like that!”
He followed the countryman for two hours more. They changed some of the bills, but when midnight came, and the visitor decided that he would return to his hotel and go to bed, there remained something like seventy-five dollars. Thubway Tham handed it back, made the other count it and acknowledge the amount correct, and then parted from his man with a feeling that he had done a worthy action.
He drifted into one of the saloons they had patronized earlier in the evening, and the proprietor hailed him.
“You can’t play any game like this on me, Tham,” he said.
“What ith the matter with you?”
“You were in here with a friend—fellow who looked like a hick. You bought the drinks and changed a ten. And the ten is a bad one—that’s what’s the matter with me.”
Tham glanced into the man’s face and knew that he spoke the truth.
“That wath not my money,” he said. “I’ve been thtung again! And by a hick! Here’s a good ten for it. Great Thcott!”
Tham had a horrible idea. Were all the bills he had passed counterfeit? Had the visitor to the city played him for an easy mark, got him to pass the money so that, if an arrest came, Tham would be the one arrested?
And Thubway Tham was known well in all the places where he had changed bills. The proprietors would be quick to complain about it. Crooks themselves, for the most part, they would not have another crook play them.
With a heavy heart Thubway Tham began making the rounds. It was as he had expected—several men called him to account. Thubway Tham gave good bills and collected the bad ones, and explained how he had been worked. That was the worst of it—he had to explain to square himself; he had to admit that he had been played for an easy mark!
He handed over all the good money he possessed. In the last place, he could not replace a bad five, but he explained and promised to do so the following day. And then, with rage in his heart, he walked toward Union Square.
Thubway Tham was deadly angry now. He plunged into the subway, got into a crowded car, “lifted a leather,” and got out at Twenty-eighth street. He walked up to the next station, entered the subway again, lifted another leather, and got out at Times Square. He took out bills and dropped the wallets. Thubway Tham was collecting for the misfortunes of the day.
It was two o’clock in the morning when he entered the dingy room far downtown, the room that was his home. He investigated and found that the proceeds of the night’s work amounted to more than two hundred dollars.
“Played for a thucker by a hick!” he exclaimed. “It doth not pay to try to be honetht! Inthane moment ith ethactly right! But it ith a good joke on Craddock!”
THUBWAY THAM’S THANKSGIVING DINNER
Thubway Tham stood across the street from Union Square, his mouth drooping at the corners, his general appearance that of a man who did not have a friend in the world and but few relatives.
You are acquainted with Thubway Tham, of course, the clever little pickpocket who lisped and who worked at his nefarious pursuit only in the subway during rush hours, two facts that caused his nickname to come into being. That name now was one to conjure with in the city’s underworld.
On this, the day before the annual Thanksgiving feast, Thubway Tham leaned against the wall of a building and almost snarled as he looked at the jostling throngs. He scarcely knew whether to weep or curse. He felt that he was experiencing mingled friendlessness, loneliness, and the old-fashioned blues. Thubway Tham was at the point where a man begins to pity himself.
“Well, well, if it isn’t my old friend, Tham!” said a voice at his elbow. There was a certain amount of sarcasm in the voice, and Thubway Tham grunted his displeasure as he whirled around to face Detective Craddock.
Craddock knew Thubway Tham for what he was. He had sworn to “get” Thubway Tham and to see that he spent a long term in the big, cold prison up the river. But at every crisis Thubway Tham appeared to be favored of the gods to such an extent that he always escaped. Detective Craddock, to get Thubway Tham, had to “catch him with the goods,” and he knew it.
“Thith ith enough,” Thubway Tham said now. “Thith ith the latht thtraw! Now I am goin’ to butht thomething wide open! Jutht ath I wath moanin’ to mythelf about not havin’ any friendth for Thankthgivin’, you come along with your ugly fathe and make me feel worthe! Thith ith the lath thtraw!”
“Why, Tham, you’re not homesick, or anything like that, are you?”
“I ain’t even got a home to be homethick about, you poor thimp!”
“Remorseful because of your mode of life, Tham, old boy?”
“You make me thick,” Tham complained. “I ain’t got any mode of life, whatever that ith! I ain’t nobody and I ain’t got nuthin! I’m jutht a thilly ath!”
“Aren’t you a bit hard on yourself, Tham?”
“And you—” Tham sputtered in his wrath. “You—all you do ith pethter me to death. You follow me around like a dog thmellin’ a thteak. I don’t thee why they have to have Thankthgivin’ anyway. Thilly old idea!”
“Why, Tham, on that day we give thanks because we have had a year of plenty.”
“I’ve had plenty of you the patht year, all right,” Tham told him. “It ain’t right for a man to be pethtered all the time by the thame fly cop!”
“You know why, Tham. You’re going to make a little slip one of these days, and then you are going up the river. It can’t last, Tham, old rooster!”
“If I made thith thlip right under your nothe, you wouldn’t thee it,” Tham told him. He started to move away.
“Going to take a little ride in the subway, Tham?” Craddock asked. “Because, if you are, I’m going right along. It appears that about every time you take a ride in the subway, some gentleman of means reports that his pocketbook is unaccountably missing.”
“I thuppothe I am to blame for every purthe in town that ith thlit,” Tham said.
“Perhaps not every purse, Tham, old boy, but for quite a quantity of them.”
“Thay! I am on the thquare today, and I don’t want to be pethtered. I ain’t feelin’ well,” Thubway Tham explained. “Maybe it ith my thtomach.”
“Don’t let it be your nerves, Tham. If those fingers of yours begin to itch and tingle, they might get you into trouble. However, you may be a clever dip, but you are not a liar. If you tell me on your word of honor that you are in a blown funk today and do not intend
to work, I’ll go about my business and leave you alone.”
“You got my word,” Tham said.
Detective Craddock made an elaborate bow.
“In that case, Tham, go your way in peace,” he said. “But may Heaven help you if I find later that I have been double crossed!”
“Did I ever double crothe anybody?” Tham angrily demanded. “Don’t I alwayth play thquare? Don’t you forget that I’m an honetht crook! Double crothe! You make me thick! Thilly ath!”
Thubway Tham turned his back upon Detective Craddock’s laughing face and walked away. He felt the grip of a great loneliness upon him again. It was true that he did not have a relative in all the world, and such friends as he possessed were friends of short standing—acquaintances, rather—and were not to be trusted too far. The only time Thubway Tham had been “sent away” was through a stool pigeon he had taken to his bosom, believing him to be an honest man.
He walked on around Union Square, and finally came to a stop before a large restaurant and café. It was time to eat, but Thubway Tham was no slave to habit; he ate when hunger called for food and not at stated hours.
He glanced through a big window and watched the diners. On the morrow, he knew, several thousand would eat their Thanksgiving dinners in that restaurant, and almost all of them would be eating it with friends. Tham could not remember when he had eaten one except alone, and again his heart grew sad.
He appeared to come to a sudden decision, for he hurried through the door and declared that he wished to speak to the manager. The cashier sent for his superior.
“I want to order a Thankthgiving dinner,” Thubway Tham told him.
“Yes, sir—glad to serve you, sir,” the manager said, he glanced at Thubway Tham’s clothes, which were not of the costliest, but the manager knew better than to judge solely by a man’s clothes.
“A regular dinner for ten,” Thubway Tham went on. “I want the whole thtuff, with all the trimmin’. And I want the oythterth jutht right and the thelery crithp!”
“I shall make it a point to see that you are well served, sir.”
“I want that dinner ready at one o’clock,” Tham went on. “Ten of uth—at a thpecial table.”
“Yes, sir. We can do it for a dollar and a half a plate, sir.”
“Thay! I want a dinner,” Thubway Tham said. “I want thomething extra thpethial! And, now that I come to think of it, we’ll make that dinner for twenty—five dollarth a plate.”
“Dinner for twenty—one hundred dollars—yes, sir. And—er—it is usual in such cases for a little deposit—”
“Of courthe,” said Tham. He took two ten-dollar bills from his pocket and extended them. “I’ll pay you the retht tomorrow when I come to dinner.”
“Thank you, sir—that will be satisfactory. And the name?”
“Joneth,” said Thubway Tham.
II.
Thubway Tham’s breast was swollen like that of a pouter pigeon as he went out upon the street. He had talked and acted like a man of substance. He actually had ordered a dinner for nineteen friends and himself, a dinner that was to cost one hundred dollars, and he had paid twenty dollars down in advance to make sure of the service.
“All I got to do now ith to get nineteen friendth and eighty dollarth,” he told himself.
He didn’t know where to turn to get his guests and, as for the eighty dollars, he had given his word to Detective Craddock that he would not enter his beloved subway this day with the object of relieving some gentleman of his valuables.
Thubway Tham spent another hour wandering around the streets and considering this problem. And then he thought of newsboys.
It often had appeared to Thubway Tham that Thanksgiving Day was a national institution for newsboys. When the holiday approached, almost everybody planned a dinner for newsies he knew, and grinning ladies and gentlemen stood about the tables and watched them gorge themselves.
Tham knew that some of the newspapers furnished these dinners, and he guessed that the newsies grew tired of them at times. He decided to invite nineteen of them to a special dinner, where they would be treated as honored guests instead of objects of wonder.
Thubway Tham found that the first newsie he approached looked upon him with suspicion. But finally he made himself clear, and the newsie was delighted. He spoke for himself and four friends, and he directed Thubway Tham to a boy on a certain other corner who could supply more guests. Thubway Tham spent another two hours delivering personal invitations to the special dinner to be given by “Mr. Joneth” at a certain restaurant at a certain hour the following day.
That night Tham felt some nervousness as he thought of it. Being host at a dinner for twenty was something new in the life of Thubway Tham. And he had less than two dollars in his pocket, and would have to hand the restaurant manager eighty before his guests could be served. In the event of failure, Thubway Tham could merely remain away from the restaurant and ignore his guests, of course, but Thubway Tham was a gentleman of honor in some things. He had invited guests to a dinner, and he would supply the dinner and funds to pay for it.
* * * *
It was eight o’clock on the morning of Thanksgiving Day when Thubway Tham, dressed as carefully and as elaborately as possibly, entered the subway far downtown, where he lived, and caught a train bound for a district up the island.
His lips curled into a sneer as he looked at the others in the car. There was small chance here for Thubway Tham to get his eighty dollars, the crowd having the appearance of not possessing one-tenth that sum.
Thubway Tham rode to Times Square and emerged upon the street. There seemed to be a sort of unsettled look about the city. Thubway Tham realized that it was because this was a holiday. The same old crowds were not in the same old places at the same hours. The routine of the city was disrupted.
And then a thought of horror came to him. Perhaps because of this condition, there would be no jostling crowds no rush hours in the subway. There would be large theater crowds at the matinee hour, of course, but that would be too late for his purpose. Tham had ordered dinner for one o’clock.
He plunged into the subway again and rode down one station to Grand Central. There were less than half a dozen persons in the car in which he rode, and when the station was reached he found that there was no jostling crowd there. And there he felt a touch on his arm, and whirled around to find Detective Craddock at his elbow.
“Enjoying Thanksgiving, Tham?” Craddock asked. “It’s a great old holiday! But don’t you think you are a bit far uptown?”
“I’ve got a perfect, right—” Tham began.
“I know you have, Tham. As I remarked on a previous occasion, your right certainly is perfect—meaning the right hand and the manner in which it can invade a man’s pocket, of course. And your left isn’t so bad, either.”
“Thay! Are you goin’ to pethter me again today?” Thubway demanded. “It ith bad enough to have no friendth or relativeth on thuth a day, without bein’ pethtered too. It ith about all a man can thtand!”
“Ah! Want to make another little promise pact—word of honor until the holiday is over, or something like that?”
“I do not make any dealth with the devil,” Thubway Tham told him. “You talk like a thilly ath!”
“Ah! That means of course, that you are out for the stuff today, since you refuse to give me your word you’ll do nothing wrong. Well, I suppose I’ll have to toddle along right behind you and protect the wallets of the public.”
“Thay! I am gettin’ thick of thith! You thtay away from me onthe in a while!”
“Can’t afford to do it, Tham. I’ve got to be handy when you make that slip, you know.”
“You and your thlipth!”
“Now, don’t get angry, Tham. A man never is fully efficient when he is angry, and when a man is not efficient, slips occur. You want to watch out for that slip, Tham, for if you give the judge a chance he’s going to hang quite a number of years on your record.”
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“If I let you catch me, I ought to get a million yearth,” Tham told him.
“Want to make that promise of yours good for today, then?”
“No, thir! I don’t promithe nuthin’!”
“On the warpath then, are you?”
“Yeth, thir—I am!”
III.
A train was just roaring into the station. Tham entered a car, Detective Craddock following, went through it rapidly, and sprang through the doorway and out just as the door started to close. But Craddock got out, too.
“A little slow that time, Tham,” he said. “You worked that trick on me once, you know.”
Thubway Tham made no reply. He was thoroughly angry now. It was almost ten o’clock in the morning, and Tham had to have eighty dollars before one o’clock to keep faith with the guests he had invited. He was commencing to feel desperate. Three hours was a short time in which to accomplish his purpose, especially when the subway crowds were not what they should have been and Detective Craddock was at his heels.
He ascended to the street and for half an hour dodged here and there, but failed to evade Craddock. It appeared that the detective was determined this day—he did not intend to lose sight of Thubway Tham. They did not speak, but now and then they glared at each other.
Tham went over to Broadway again and sought a crowd into which he could plunge and shake off Craddock, but Broadway did not seem to be dealing in crowds today. So Tham gave a sigh of resignation, went into the subway again, and traveled to Union Square.
Craddock was two paces behind him when he went up to the street, and stood looking at the battleship replica and the blue jackets around it. Tham saw one of the newsboys he had invited to dinner, and the newsie stopped work long enough to wave a hand at him and grin.
Why, they were anticipating that dinner, Tham told himself. He had made friends merely by inviting them. They’d speak to him after this whenever he passed them on the street. He’d have friends!
But, unless he got the eighty dollars, what then? They’d point him out with scorn as the man who invited nineteen newsboys to a Thanksgiving dinner and then did not show up to furnish the food.
The Thubway Tham Megapack Page 19
