Sketches of Gotham

A LITTLE EASY MONEY

A great many years ago, when Tom Byrnes was the able and efficient chief of the detective force of New York, a certain class of women, very much in evidence around the hotels and resorts, were known, from the peculiar manner of their work, as Badger Molls.

There was one in particular who had added a spectacular dance to her many other accomplishments and which helped her not a little in meeting the right kind of people.

To be a Badger Moll a woman had to have nerve, assurance, a fair amount of good looks, be able to read character and keep her wits about her at all times. There were occasions when she was up against it so good and strong that it didn’t seem as if there was one chance in a hundred for her to do her part of the trick, but in ninety times out of a hundred she landed the bundle of the victim.

That is to say, of course, with the aid of her confederate.

The old days of the Moll have gone by, but the new days have come and they are here now. The new representative is of a higher class, of a superior education, is more adept, and, as a rule, gets more money.

It is worthy of note that during the past ten years only two big jobs have fallen through—that is, so far as is known—and these things usually become known when they are brought to the notice of the police.

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A handsomely gowned woman, with a bearing that would deceive almost anyone, comes down the line. She looks like my lady from Fifth avenue, but if you will notice her eyes you will see in them the look of a huntress.

She is on the trail of men, and it is a rare thing for her to make a mistake. Mistakes in her business, you know, sometimes spell Sing Sing, as a lady by the name of Moore will tell you if you ever meet her and she should become confidential.

As she passes the hotels you will notice this particular woman hesitates in her stride, she goes into the low gear and she looks questioningly at the men who are standing about.

It is the glance of an expert, but it is cleverly veiled.

Even though you and I know her and know what her business is, we are attracted by her to a certain extent, just as people are attracted by a magnificent tigress or leopard in the menagerie. They have fangs and claws, but they are hidden, and being concealed are forgotten for the time.

This is a human tigress, but she is not on the scent of blood, she’s trailing bank rolls.

There is, however, nothing unusual in that, when you come to think of it, because that is what four-fifths of the world is doing, and the other fifth is being chased and knows it.

The tigress throws in her high speed and passes on until she has reached the entrance to another hotel, and here the scent of prey comes strongly to her nostrils.

A fine-looking man of about fifty years is leaning carelessly against one of the marble columns. He has

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 dined well, anyone can see that, and he is half way into his after-dinner cigar. He is in the ripe stage; the time to ask a favor, or to have a courtesy extended. He is at peace with himself and everybody else, and as the tigress passes by he gets a flash of those black eyes which tell him a story that while it is not new, is always interesting, especially under these circumstances, when he is a thousand miles from home.

There are few men, anyhow, who can stand temptation when they are strangers in a strange city. Man is a companionable sort of a proposition and to be at his best must have society.

This one, who is perhaps the father of an interesting family, and who is above reproach in his native city, and who would become indignant at the thought of a street flirtation, involuntarily straightens himself up, and taking a firmer hold of his cigar, glances after the slowly retreating figure of the lady with the black eyes.

It’s a trim shape, by Jove; and look at that ankle.

A peach.

“Nothing common about her,” he soliloquizes. “Just a nice girl, perhaps, who is a bit lonely, too.”

And then, at that particular moment, the “nice girl,” who has been sauntering very slowly, turns around and looking directly at him, smiles.

A woman’s smile.

Cast off your lines, my boy, and on your way, for the magnetism of that smile has you lashed to the mast, but you don’t know it yet. What you have in your mind is that you’ll just take a little walk and have a little talk, just to fill in a few lonely hours, you know.

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So he leaves the mooring of his hotel and trails the trailer.

One short block he walks, and then just as he is about to come abreast of her she turns about and meets him with the same smile that has been doing duty for the past five years.

She knew he had reached that particular spot by that woman’s intuition, keyed up so fine as to be on feather edge all the time.

Her little bow is modest—even coy. It is like the bow of a school girl who is afraid she is not doing quite the right thing, but who is just a trifle reckless, and is willing to take a chance or two just for a lark.

“How do you do?” she asks.

“Great; how are you; fine night; where are you going?” he rattles off, trying to appear at ease, and be the real fellow.

“I was just taking a walk. You see, it was so quiet in the house, and I sat there all alone until I just thought I would die, so I came out to get a little fresh air and see if I couldn’t walk myself tired before bed time.”

That accounts for her being out, of course, and it is very nicely delivered, too; besides, it gives the man a chance to say something, and he is prompt to say it.

“All alone? You don’t mean to say that you live all alone?”

Oh, no; she doesn’t live all alone all the time. But Jack—that’s her husband, you know—he is on the road—commercial man, you see, the best and dearest fellow in all the world, and it’s such a horrid position he has, too, always traveling. He went away just a month ago on his Western trip, to be gone two months,

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 think of it; almost an age. He’s with the big dry goods house of Wools & Muslins, the biggest in New York. But next year Jack is going to have an office position and then everything will be all right.

“After that,” she goes on, “Jack and the baby and I will be quite happy.”

“The baby? Have you a baby?”

“Why, of course.”

“And you say you are lonely? I should think that the baby would——”

“Yes, of course, so it would, but don’t you see, Jack’s mother, who lives with us, went to visit some friends in the country—Montclair, do you know where that is?—and she thought it would do the little fellow good and she took him along, and now I am so sorry I let him go.”

Isn’t it too beautiful for anything, and isn’t she an artist of whom Jack ought to be very proud?

“Well, I am a little lonely myself,” says the business man from Dayton, O., “and I think you and I ought to cheer one another up. What do you think about that proposition?”

“Well, I don’t know. It’s very nice to have you talk to me, but I feel a little bit frightened about it all. You know I never spoke to a strange man on the street before like this, and I am sure that Jack wouldn’t like it if——”

“Yes, but Jack isn’t here now. Who knows what he is doing? You know these traveling men when they get away from home and home ties have been known to——”

“Yes, but not my Jack. You don’t know him. He would never do anything wrong, for he told me so.”