Evening Star Newspaper, December 17, 1922, Page 79

T r When It's All Over Effie Makes Suggestion That Partners May Be Robbing Wall Street. Dreams of Bonds, Preferred Stocks and Common 5hqres——~Tn71:y May and Associate Find New Developments After Preparing to Bill T hemselves as Odd Job Queens of America. I meantime we had been written up by ELL, it was this way. The @ Young lady reporter who had de- West Side branch of the ‘.m-u.eu our enterprise quité en- Handy Andy Shops had |thusiastically. Effie had shied a little been running only lit-|at S0 much publicity, but T told her tle over a week before we (it coudnw't do us a bit of harm and were swamped with orders and miak- | WISt o more or less useful. s a nice income. There was no ST “\ M BY SEWELL FORD. trick about it. Simply the idea had IGHT as well be getting used caught on. We were filliag a long- to that sort of thing.” says I, felt want. vou know we've billed ourselves | Ot course, Effie—that Mrs. Ad- me the Odd-job Queens of shaw—was tickled pink over her first 3 | you don't think anything big will come of it, do you? | “But { really venture into business. She reported That hubby was still stunned over her sudden cpush into a game that he thought could only be played by male “What's tc not?" says L Hlah-Blahs, but that all the protest |Stop us? Aren't we making a good e registered now o sulk at the | thing on each of our shops now? You | table whenever they met for meals, | know our net profits for last week. | . at dinner. | And we are working only a few| I glaring into | blocks d6f 2 York. Think of the| “Why don’t you! miles and miles of streets, all solid | wiich w, a4 love to sec i I ew e soup,” offer him the job of manager of with apartment buildings and houses, | Branch No. 2 and behind every push-button are | Which zot a gizsle out of Eme. |leaky water saps, sagging doors, ! “Wouldn't that be rich!” says she.|broken window weight cords, shelf- | “But, Trilby May. do vou think we |less clothes closets—all waiting for | Andys to come and fix| If we don’t do the work | ir Handy ke in Mr. Ad- | th up. ghaw 2" no one else will. You know how that | “No. no.” s “Risk another ) | branch just now, “Absolutely,” says L “Were not | pikers, you know. If we run two shops and make ‘em pay, why not ree, or a dozen, or half a hundred? Tl tell you; we'll promote Andy Mill- <h, put him in charge of the West Side branch, and open up another on the East Side. We'll do it today.” And we did u should have seen TIE SESSION LASTED NEARLY ALL THE AFT) LGRS CUPS OF BLACK COFFEE I DR K. is, and why. The odd-job field has! ignored, overlooked. Too trife !tling, 1 suppose. You can get a con- | heen we uny Such | tear one down, or put a steam | tha = do it, I|h plant: but where can you| Place. but IE Eive n when you need a pane of glass expect I can. S ifaw on you for | Set in a basement window, some loose | aidrys BUEE SRS Lathroom fixtures tightened, and a| o 1 can gome of My savings s £ up som gt} tew licks of pantry?’ o the Handy Andy Shops,” says 1 tha you to two weel th de That's the answer,” says L “And| ¥ tomorrow there'll be exactly three | of “em for goodness knows how many | 1illion homes to draw on. Just think, | % 4 ¢ gure just what the!™ < | 1 COULDN'T flgure Y dressing the | Effie! Thousands and thousands of | notion would O an edd- doors that will not shut, bureau draw- | part as branch manager ¢ S0 T jers that stick, windows that i neither g0 up nor down. Some of ‘em | have been that way for months, some | for years, causing strong men to! amd weak women {o weep. rom Bangor, Me., to Kamloops, B. C from Cloquet, Minn., to Largo, Fla. , shop, but T did hope aireut and a uragement an you? When Andy afte first o n u never far r lence the en ean tell, though, et w NG <howed up was tha w uptown s .| =i sident an vank ey | he building on i me to appraise the buil ‘;' : m“m_ mpered handy men who can use a | al es 1 “'-»‘I ;‘\r r‘k‘ ne one minute, a putty knife the! idd=d wre xt, and finish off with a few strokes | white; all at $2 an hour, | h payment required when vou sign the time card. They don't know we're | here, but we know the jobs are there | and were headed that way. We are | going ahead a bit slow just now. ! new branch every week is what we' i should try to do. But just wait unti!! | we strike our stride. I figure that | Andy bes misfit when he hand outiit that -d me from a told me his A spruced eredited of inside word a4 av tule of woe. Of ¢ up a bit since, but I saost of the improvem have it to the neat form, such as all our Ay Jue denim uni Andys wear. n't at all prepared for the brald-bound cutaway. the strived |opout twenty branches willtake care | sants and the K ring tie around ie high white collar. 1F it h.’\lln.l S nalt e e N wn for the he-man size folintain pen bulging from his u R |S e e R e e et I might have thought he W cither just coming from or just going 0 a church wedding. Also Andy had, barbered to the last word, his| over the bald spot | |Jump to Philadelphia. Then Bridge- | port, New Haven, Fall River, Hart- | ford, Springfield. Boston. After that we'll start west. By that time, though, we'll need to have general offices, heads of departments, efficlency stems, and so on. There'll be gen- cen ‘iin hair plastered <nd his ragged mustache trimmed and axed until only nifty shadow of | decorated his long upper lip. | eral managers, assistant managers, ‘How about it.” eh? S Andy.|vice presidents, directors. Probably rvously smoothing the crown of his we'll have to have a bullding of our \rd-boiled 11d. “Will 1 do like this?™ |own. Youl sit in one big room, fac- “Will you!” a “Why, you're a | ing 5th avenue, and I'll be in another, In that cos- |and when 1 want to spring a new they'd let you pass the plate at|idea on ‘you, or find out how soon or sit in at a Standard Oil | you're going to lunch, T'll have to ask ting, or lay a corner sfone } my secretary to tell the phone girl to | Where did you collect | send word to vour secretary that I'm u for the money,” | calling you on the wire.” ~Off'm Wally Dugan's widow, in| «gow silly!” giggles Effie. Jersey City,” says he. “Floor walker | «rhat's what you get to in big busi- + the kitehen furnishin’ -department. pece™ says I “And ours Say, Wally was, and about my size. Kind|can't you see the way it's bound to of a second cousim, but at that I|grow? Can't help it. For well be wouldn't have got the clothes only | doing odd jobs for tie nation.” ‘he's got engaged lately to a tile-| «But when we get them all done? setter that's too fat to wear "‘"‘-,sugnesls Effie. Highteen bucks for the lot and an| «“That will be,” says'], “when all the, \vory-handled cane thrown in. I ain’t|chewing gum has been chewed up, uite worked myself up to the cane | when every man has enough safety yet, Miss Dodge.” razor blades and every woman ehough | *Xever mind, Andy, you will” 5ayS | hair nets. 0ad jobs are always bob- You're coming on fasf | bing up. Finish them in one home Didn't notice them, did you?' says|today, and three months from now e, holding out his hands, palm down. there'll be another warped door, an- So help us!” says L “Varnished other smashed window. e shall nails and everything! Say, that mani- |need a regular standing army of curist must have been a misacle |Handy Andys to keep up with the woerker, or else she used a sand blast. | work.’ But can you manage the men, all| “That's so” says she. ‘“Thousands gussied up like that, Andy?” of them. But where can we find so ~“po I hire and fire, Miss Dodge?” [ many? he asks. “We shall absorb the army of the “Oh, that follows,” says L. unemployed,” says I, “and that will “Then watch me” says he. I'm|solve one of our great industrial prob- sonna make that bunch of bimbos|lems. Workmen are always getting step some from now on.” thrown out, from one reason or another; Which was why we could both|always drifting here and there, hunt- Jeave to declde on a location for the |ing for nmew places, waiting for mills o Dbranch. Twg days later we had |and factories to reopen. We'll take ‘em ot alwost ready o open, and in the i iur as loug as they want o stay.’' L perfect knockout, Andy. tume t. Mark's, I ! our shops stretched from tractor to build a house for you, orim in A of New York, say fifteen in Brooklyn, | “is a man who has large investments | don't come back.” We'll tide them over the slack spellg, keep 'em busy at fair wages, and tinker up everything that needs tinkering in all the broad land. Isn't that service? Eh?’ [ ¥ ¥k k¥ EPFIE gasped and her baby blue eyes opened wider than ever. “It —its almost staggering to think about, Trilby May,” says she. “Can we do it —just u “We don’t have to,” says L YAll we need to do is to start the snowball right, and then sit back and see it rqll. Oh, of course, we can give it a shove o but mostly we'll be telling somebody <¢c how to do the shoving.” “I—1 don't know,” says Effle, shak. “It all sounds so—big el ing her Mead. that 'm a little frightened about go- | ing on. “Pooh!” says I “You'll soon get used to it. Besides, we haven't built that skyscraper yet, and all that's on he card today is for us to rustle up another vacant store—the third link in the Handy Andy chain. Come ahead.” We were a little over two hours about it, and soon after luncheon T | was back at the office in No. 1, with |a map of the United States spread going so happen to it within the next out on my desk planning how it would look when it was all dotted | wigh little red spots, showing where | to coast. In other words, I was soarinz. You know—vision stuff. coast And I expect T was still well above | the clouds wken Miss Moss, my twenty-dollar stenographer, jogged v elbow. entleman to see you, Miss Dodge,” says sh ays . “What? Oh, y He was a big, important looking old boy; one of these round-faced, owl- close-cropped white mustache and a heavy chin. “Miss Dodge?” says he. Right,”” says I ‘You are the—er—originator and president of the Handy Andy Shops Company, I understanc?” he went on. I nodded. ‘With that he took a chair, parke Will | pis derby on the corner of my desk | and Ritched up close. “I am Mr. Ter- hune of Ross, Miller & Terhune's,’ |says he, shoving out a card with a! Broad street address. “I see,” says I. “Attorneys. going to be sued, or something’ call to us to send our blue|“ugp not at ail, Miss Dodge” says it? How splendi he. “I—represent a client who is somewhat interested in vour venture; read about it in the newspapers, you know; and has taken a glance at one of your shops.” “Ye-e-es?" says I, wondering what was coming next. “That's*nice and folksy of him, I'm sure.” EEE R. TERHUNE blinked at me sol- emn. “My client,” he goes on, Then | in varlous lines of business. He made | we'll begin to spread out—one branch [a fortune out of a patent coflar but- | | yT looks reasonable. That Terhune; ton, another out of a cough drop, half a million from a new kind of wash- ing powder. T may add, too, that he has lost a lot of money on different schemes which were failures. But he’s always dipping into something new, always on the lookout for the novel, the unique.” “A sporty promoter, eh?” saysel. That got me another blink. ‘“Pro- motor is hardly the term I should use for a man of his standing,” says the lawyer. “Financial engineer, let ‘us say.” “Oh, very well,” says I, “so long as you don’t pull that old one about his being a captain of Industry. But what then? We dow’t need any back- ing. ‘We've got it in the bank.” “Ah, of course,” says Mr. Terhune. “For such a bustness you would need merely a small capital. And this may be only a passing fad of his. How- ever, for the moment he seems in- terested in your little enterprise R = “Little!” says I. “Well,” says he, glancing around the basement office and shrugging his shoulders, “you wouldn’t call it a tre- mendous affair, would you?” “Never mind the size now,” says L ‘What's the proposition?” “I was getting to that” says he. “My client is willing to make you the right or left mow and then;; We're \must be!” says I. “Now I'm sure these’s a Santa Claus.” Mr. Terhune hitched forward in his i chair, excited at that. He almost !Leamed at me. “Then—then you are | ready to accept his offer?” he asks. | “Me?" says I “Say, I may look like 'a poor fish, but honest, there are mo- ments when I show almost human in- telligence, This happens to_be® one of them. Sell the Handy Andy Shops for fifteen thousands! Not so you'd notice it.” ‘Twenty, then,” he puts in. “Call off the auction,” says I. “Didn’t see any red flag out as you came in, | aid you? No. Then I'l sketch out | your next move, Mr. Terhune. You toddle back to your client friend, who ! squeezes fortunes out of cough drops, | skims half a millon from a tub of | soap suds; and tell him that Trilby | May Dodge isn't putting her big ideas {on the bargain counter. Not today. |Tell him I'm tickled pink that he | should see a good thing in the odd-job { business, only add that I saw it first iand that we're already a going con- | cern, with a copyrighted trade mark {and our heoks sunk into the field. Lit- ! tle enterprise, eh? Say, take a look at this map. Do you know what's i six months?” * %k * JELL, I'd already practiced my i ‘ * patter on Effle, so it came fairly | easy off the tongue, but as I fed it to | Mr. Terhune I threw in a few flourishes 1 hadn't thought of before. I've no doubt 1 spread It on thick about the way we were going to grow, and how we knew exactly how to turn the trick, and where to get the men, and all that. “Talk about your chain store sys- !tem,” says I. “Why, when we get |the Handy Andy Shops established | we're going to make a tobacco outfit look like the pop and peanut stands outside the main tent. There's a place for us in every town big enough to have a movie house, and we aim to fill it. In time every family will come to {depend on our I Just as they do on the letter carrier and the milkman. We are going to establish \& service that will become a part of | the daily life of the people, such as the telephone and the electric light; and when the booster club of a boom town gets out a board of trade pam- phlct it will print in red letters on the cover—‘Main line freight and passenger service, four hotels, ten churches, three banks, and a Handy Andy Shop. That's the little enter- prise, Mr. Terhune, your collar button plunger wants us to trade in for what Tl be charging up to the firm ay an incidental traveling expense item by next fall. Say, it's a wonder he don’t strike the Standard Oil folks with an | NOON, AND GOODNESS KNOWS HOW MANY LITTLE offer to take over their pipe lizes on a fifty-fifty basis. Anyway, tell him he's got another guess coming.” 1 had the old boy purple in the back noises like a trained seal at feeding itime. “Ye-e-es, Miss Dodge,” says he, will report your—er—re- luctance. | And with that he backs out, ning himself with his derby hat. Of course, T had to call up my fan- aint put on in the but- | aveq, pink-cheeked persons, with a partner right away and bulletin the news. “Now I know we've got some- thing good, Effie,” says L. “What do You think? Wall street has discov- ered us.” “Has what?" says she. “Found out that the Handy Andy Shops mean big money,” says L {“I've had a grand larceny offer from 4 & promoter who must have started| the baby’s | his career by robbing bank.” “How—how much?” asks Effie. “What he called his high bid was twenty thousand,” says T. “Real says she. “Why, that is twice as much as we've put in, isn't{victims were as bad as the gamesters, | What did you tell | him, Trilby May?" . “An earful, ys 1. “But all it amounted to was a tee-hee and a polite invitation to take the air.” “You—you refused an offer lke that!” gasps Effie. | “Absolutel. says I “I sent it | back to him so strong that he’ll need {a mask and catcher’s mitt to handle; {the throw. Oh, yves, I'm quite sure |he knows now that we're going to skim the cream off this pan ofirselves. | Anyway, T1l bet that particular one * 1 person must have told his man | that he'd met a carroty-haired young | woman who was either crazy in the I head or else she could sniff a million | just as far as he could. And being stopped suddenly that way ought to |be enough for him. He'd probably | drop it and look for another cough | drop or something. But, say, those were the thoughts iof last week. Something has hap- pened since then. Th-huh! I'm still a bit dizzy over it, and until I can get my lawyer to sketch it out for Ime in plain language I'm more or {less vague myself as,to what It all | amounts to. . | But Mr. Terhune came back, Yes. | With his hat off before he started | down the basement steps. His client | wished to meet us personally. No, he | wouldn't think of asking us to go | downtown. He would come up. Any- | where. Perhaps we would do him the homor of having luncheon with him. “You'll be there, too; ch, Mr. Ter- hune?” T asked. “Oh, naturally,” says he. “And -per- haps Mr. Ross or Mr. Miller, and an associate of my client’s.” | “Huh!” says L “Well, we'll come, just to see what it's like.” That's when I told Effie we'd got to of the neck by that time and making | . HE, SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, DECEMBER 17, 1922—PART 4 TRILBY MAY SOARS A BIT |TRAILING THE CARDBOARD QUEENS ) i BY E. H. SMITH. liner, says Mr. “Little Eddie” Mallon, who watches the piers to trap the professional gamblers who haunt the big liners. risky for men, says this observant officer, and women are succeeding to the cardboard crown. port. From many sides come the tales of games on the great ocean greyhounds, where smart women have carried off the stakes and been suspected of professionalism and per- haps of cheating. on hearing that something in petti- ‘What cardmen of the succeeding gen- jof their tricks on the railroads and |in small gambling houses, is a brle “I don’t believe it.” And there is ’gflmbler and card cheat. The 6ld- time gambler exepresses it in sweep- {ing terms when he says: “There never wes a moll that could handle cards” A somewhat tame para- phrase, perhaps, of the thief’s “There never was but cne square cop, and he's dead.’ Yet there is some truth in the stories of a mew era in gambling and the intrusion of women into the pro- fessional field. This latter has been coming about gradually by the force of several agencies. * * 1 WO generations ago the incessant gambling that went on aboard the { river packets was at all times accom- i panied by rough-and-tumble fights, jsun play, knife duels, mob attack: on the gamblers and a complete arra; of every manner of rowdyism. The often worse. of a frontier people. | possible place in it. In the last generation came a race iol half-gamesters and half-confidence {men. They plaved in either field, as i circumstances and opportunity dic- tated. Their gambling was done on trains, in the innumerable gambling | nouses that throve in every sizable It was the gambling Women had no {town and city, and occasionally in hotels when a special victim had been lured. Women could be used in such operations only on the rare occasions {wheh the victim was some wealthy {gallant who was best baited with ! femininity. The stockman who had |come to the nearest large.city and ! disposed of a trainload of steers or i hogs; {who had made money in ofl or mines, {and come to the city and the provincial _church-pillar banker who went to the city twice a year to get off his chest the iniquity he sedulously concealed at home— these were typical victims. { When women were employed in the | schemes of gamblers in that day they { were not, except in rare cases, either of special intelligence or unusual beauty. They were light-headed. No | amount of patience could teach them F course, the papers aren't ready yet. Our two sets of attorneys are still working on prospects are that the Handy Andy | 'Shops Company will no longer be a | close corporation. There'll be bonds, and ‘preferred stocks, and common shares and I don’t know what else. Effie and I are to have a lot of "em. Salaries, too. And cash Oh, just gobs of cash. Bonus, or something. Any- way, 1t's goinz to bulge my bank bal- ance. And the odd-job business is to £o on and on, just as I said it would. Only Effie and 1 haven't got to o hunting around for vacant stores and checking up work bills any more. I ghould say. not. There will be experts an offer to take over everything youl pick out some attorneys of our own— | for all that work, and we shall tell and so on—for a lump sum.” “Oh, is he?” says I. “And how big would the lump sum up if the Jump- ing was good?” “Why,” says he, fiddling with his watch chain and giving me a wise look,” he—er—authorized me to offer as high as fifteen thousand.” “Roubles,” says I, “or marks?" “Oh, Hollars, my dear young lady,” says he. “That is, a certified check for that amount. At least, he is pre- pared to—" “What a pertectly h nice man he luncheon conference in a private din- ing room at the Ritz; regular big business powwow—secretaries and stenographers in the ante-room, ‘neverything. Effie had her permanent freshened up for the occasion and | wope_her mew. silver fox fur. I splur@ed on a real jade pendant and flashed miy’@wn cigarettes. The ses- rly all the afternoon, nows how many little ffee I drank. Perhaps been so fidgety these sion lasted and goodnes cups of blac that's why T’ Jlast two day Yhave—good will, fixtures, Investmentsi jive ones. And we did. There was a | the experts how to do it. “Honestly now,” says Effie, only this maqrning, “I feel as if we were rob- bing those Wall street people.’ “Hang onto it, Effie,” says I. “It's a unique feeling. I doubt if any one else ever had one just like it." “But don’t you have it—just a lit- tle?” she insists. «I¢f I do,”\says I, “you can tell by watching my fingers when they get a chance to close over that settlement check. Somehow I have a hunch that my grip is going to be good.” B (Copyright, 1922, by Sewell l'tm!.)‘ A transatlantic . In these prohibigive days the | gambling profession has grown too | Nor is he the' solo authority for this amusing re-’ the man from the inland town, to celebrate, | {to play a sucesstul hand of poker to i notoriously a man’s game. Naturally, the card man despised such women and felt uncomfortable in any opera- tion where they were employed. But great changes h%ve taken place among gamblers, among their vic- tims and among the women who con- sort with them. Moreover, there has been a considerable mutation in the games used. Today's gamblers are different from those of the earlier generations in several particulars. They are less in- clined to rough work and they try to {assume an air of education and cul- ture, whereas their fathers strove to What an old-time packet gambler | seem rustic and stupid. This change First of all, the gradual “refinement’ from the Misslssippl boats would say | was forced, of course, by a change in| of the methods of gamblers and the {the victims. The old gambler played tainment. The old crudities have dis- tricks are vastly more clever and | subtle. Finally, the stakes played for today are from ten to a thousand and their money permits them to use elaborate schemes and plans which worked for small money. The change in the victims has al-|Stage, the Tesult being that certain | oe yacing and ot ) ] | player may become an expert dice EMINISM everywhere, even in match the skill of any first or even | thrower In a few months or less time. the cardroom of the occan |8econd rate man. And poker was then! As a result of this feminine famili- {arity with bridge and craps, New | York city has lately been afflicted with a number of apartments wher | attractive women have lured the cele { brant out-of-town buyer and done {him to ruin with their patent cheats. ! There was such a case in the news- papers within recent weeks. Any man-about-Brgadway knows of dozen other such webs of the feminine | spiders. » * % x x . gambler for his involved procecdings | atmosphere about gambling has made coats had inherited his demesne iS:for the rube; his successor works on: the gaming world habitable for wom- iquite beyond reproduction in print. men of position and sometimes of at-' en. Aain, the sexual underworld, from which women are constantly recruit- eration say, the men who did most|qppeared from card cheating: today's! ed for the purposes of all sorts of lawbreakers, has been abolished as a | geographical area and profoundiy | changed otherwise. The same women m.\methlns ln:eremlly lnfcredibla a_box.x: | times as great as in the old days. The { Who once inhabited thesgzones under woman {n the role of professional | peirer camblers are highly prosperous degrading conditions now live in the | apartment next door. and seem to the { casual eye no different from others. were impossible to the old player who , There 15, too, a constant contact of | Gne of the men to whom he has bee the gambling world with that of the a: EANTIME, in the last twenty-five years, there has been a change | in the kind of women available to the boats. The gamblers and two or three handsome woman confederat board the liners separateiy. The i women pose in the usual fashion and manage to meet the gulls, who mi ven have been selected before the sailing of the ship, This is don lin certain types of big confiden games, through agents or commnis | sioners of the big gambie n various towns. These latter keep their ev pecled for rich men of loose inelin tions who are planning to go abroad, just as they used to wateh for aupe o be introduced to ti game. The gamb! “molls” take the age 1o meet the Whichever on pens to please lures him in ler own way all her arts to get him interested {and perhaps emotionally involved. At the same time she sees that her new friend the cach of whom poses as in som. manner distinguisicd, wealthy or it fluential. When the ship is half was across the gambling begins and th dupe is usually permitted to win i little. Meantime Le is being defily filled full of stories o | thing gambling venture a great sur. in London. gentleman follow.r r sporting even | introduced Is a ready been noted in part, but an im-, (yPes of theatrical women are often | uoon"hich money may be ventured. | portant phase of it needs special mention. There has sprung up to 2 large prosperity in this country, with- | burlesque and honkytonk chorus girls | poojien 1 in the last generation, a class of busi- ness men, made tp of several Levan- | tine races, among whom gambling is ! an endemic fever. These persons play | whenever there is opportunity and for very high stakes. They practice all | sorts of tricks among themselves and /are what the professional gambler | calls “half-wise,” and by that token especially susceptible to the shatper | who is really wise and able to entrap them through their own venality. ok % % H games. Whereas poker was for- merly the one and only game—ex- cept for such frauds as monte and { keno and such house games as faro—: bridge whist and craps now figure | very largely in the games on the | ocean boats and elsewhere. The two- {dice game was’adoptgd because its paraphernalia is small and easily con- { cealed and because it gives fast and | furfous action and permits of swift |winning and losing of laarge i amounts. Bridge; on the-other hand, ! was taken over by gamblers and their | victims because it was the social | | | game, the smart thing to play. One | must not forget that there is always bit of social climbing and syco- phancy involved in the motives of the | gambler's sucker. All these matters have had some- | thing to do with the gradual intro- duction of women into professional | gaming circles. It is patent that a | great many women have played | bridgé for the better part of two dec- ‘a.lles and that some of them are | adepts. It is also a fact that all man- | ner of gamnbling has had a great and that card playing, which was once practically under the ban among | women, has now come to be one of ‘melr special amusements. In certain | social strata the play is often for | likes to .risk. And a great many women have latterly taken up craps, | once confined to the alleys and empty | lots, the street urchin, the minor | gambling house and the gangster, and still referred to as “Ethiopian golt.” | If bridge is a game which women g0 {in for strongly through its social | popularity, craps is ) game for wom- en because of other considerations.- It ! is simple, it may be played anywhere and its cheats are easy to learn. The two dice of the crap game may be crookedly handled in one of two ways, either by loading the dice or by triek | throwing. A comparatively simple sleight-of-hand feat by means of which the initiate can throw the win- ning pips four out of every five at- | tempts can be learned in a short time, and the woman who has the patience to practice long and carefully with the “bones” is thereafter able to take almost any pair of straight dice and hold an enormous advantage over other players. This is, remember, & mere physical trick, nowise to be compared with the psychological in- tricacles of good poker playing. A woman who would mever, by any far chance, become even a fair poker HE next factor is the change in | vogue among the women of the cities | javailable to the cheats, entirely dif- | ferent kinds of women from the old | sometimes empleyed by the forerun- ners of our present-day sharpers. this quasi-felonious world from the iranks of better educated and better | situated women whom disasters of various kinds have overcome. inine gambling talent available, but i that is yet far from saying that the | gambler either aboard the liners or { elsewhere. As a matter of fact, she | is simply the confederate of the man, as she i in various types of con | fidence games, and the same women | who are 'used in the winter seacon as lures for victims of the wirctappers and other swindlers operating at the | Florida resorts, are to be found on the ships going to Europe and com- ing back in the warmer seasons. | Frequently these women act as { lures and nothing more.’ They drape { approaches of selected victims, whom | they then introduce to card sharpers, + Just as they pick up moneyed swains on the beaches and golf links of the | south and turn them over at the right ! mement to their male confederates, | who continue and complete the opera- | tion of fraud. On shipboard, however; because of the sharp watch that has been posted for some years, these women often sit into the games with the victims and their own principals. Jerome Blatz of Oshkosh, who is going to Europe to spend a little excess money, catches sight of Miss Dlish on deck and manages to get her eye and attention or to bring about an introduction. Miss Dlish shortly pre- sents the infatuated Blatz to her gambler, whom she has previously “talked up” as a big Boston financier, |a wealthy southern manufacturer, or | Whatever character seems to suit the | occasion or the mimetic talents of ‘em. But the | higher stakes than the average man; the gambler. This gamester, called the steerer, receptive to Blatz, is not too pleasant or ho catches the | and immediately sets out to win his way into the graces of people who don't want him. He forces himself upon the steerer, through the kind intervention of Miss Dlish. of bridge is suggested in the most casual way. The woman admits she Iikes to play. Another player is soon { found in the person of another gam- bier, who is likewise introduced as a person of importance. One session leads to another and the last finds | Mr. Blaz sadly denuded of cash. It enjoy some kinds of celebrity on the musical comedy stage and in motion pictures have been employed in the rolg. of Miss Diish. * % % x HE latest plan of the gamblers and their woman confederates is a bit more Intricate and was born of a necessity imposed by the in- creasing watchfulness of ships' of- ficers and thelr direct methods of dealing with gamblers. It involves no crooked gambling aboard the | | D TR R | There are also constant recruits to ! Thus there is now plenty of fem- . | woman has displaced the man as chief | themselves on deck and permit the idea that he is considered inferior | A game | is a fact that women whose names Otherwise he is an insider, who nows of a plan to trim some rici ools in a London club. Before he knows it the gull ha swallowed tie story and is eager to participate in the coup, having been . subtly and skillfully got into this frame of mind by the charmer, who |is constantly at side and plays m in the smok- a strong hand with 1 ing room games. At last the combination reach | London, the dupe intreduced into the club where the great eme is to b | worked. He meets c n very Eng- lish looking and acting gentleme who snub him d ally and earn b mmediate wrath. le does not, of course, suspect that the club and ail {its members ure part of what ix called a plant. a specially arranged |and baited trap. He docsn't know that the haughty Englishmen ar | confederates. any more than he sus cnds of being decoys and | pects his fri | samble: By skillful mgnagement the man | got to put up a large sum to financa |a gambling schem At the erux | something goes amiss and the n iloses all, to the unbridled curs and complaining of the gambler. ! have usually arranged to “lo J | of ‘their moeney along with his, general mancuvered so sk fully t all appears to hav made t blund. The Billiard Ball. THE globe of ivory that is knocked 1 about a table in a game of bil- {liards costs, if of g |least $ This represents |in money. There is, however, more important and formidabie ele- | ment in the price that has been pa; | for it. The billiard ball of pure ivol | represents, as it lies white and glis- | tening upon the cioth, an expenditure | of human blood as well as of money. Elephants’ tusks are brought down | to the African coast for the most part i by ‘caravans, generally in charge of | Arabs who. have been trading in th interior. Very often they have plek- ,ed up slaves as well as ivory, but this | phase of the matter may be left out wi | i a fa | of the account. It is estimated that every large caravan bringing ivory to the coast | has cost more than 160 human live through fights and murders in the course of the expedition. Thirty mor: {men are likely to have succumbed to |fevers and other diseases and the | fatigues of the march. The hunting of the el~phants and the capture of the ivory are very likely to have caused the death of ten men altogether. Such casualties lare the rule in elephant hunting rather than the exception. An average tusk does not furnish more than enough material for two good billiard balis. Of course, the re- imainder of the ivory in each tusk is made use of in other ways. A per- fectly cut billiard ball requires spe- cial quality, or so-called “nerve” which is found only in one part of the tusk. The chances are that a billiard ball of the first quality has cost at least one human life, and there is not one such ball which may not be truly sesd to be stained with men's blood. ]