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Show BABES IN THE JUNGLE " By O. Henry (Copyrlcht. mil. by tha, Whe.!er Syndicate, Syn-dicate, Inc.) Montagu. RUver, th. finest afreet man and art rrater In the West, says to me once In Little Rock: "If you ever lose your mind. Hilly, and s;et too old to do honest swindling amonr grown men, go to New York. In the West a sucker Is born every minute; but In New York they appear In chunk, of roe you can't count 'em!' Two years afterward I found that I couldn't remember the namea of the Ruaalan admirals, and I noticed some gray hairs oyar my left ear; ao I knew the time ha. arrived for me to take tlllver'a advice. know I'll break the cigars In Tnv vest pocket wten 1 get my clothes aU full of twenties.' "I hope you are right, Monty,' says I; "but 1 wish all the same 1 bad been satisfied with a small buniness in little Rock. The crop of farmers Is never ao short out there but what you can get a few of 'em to sign a petition for a new postofflce that you can discount for 9200 at tha county bank. The people here appear ap-pear to possese instincts of eelf-preeerva-tion and illiberallty. I fear me that we are not cultured enough to tackle tbls game." '"Don't worry, says Pllver. Tve got this Jayvl I la-near-Tarry town correctly estimated as aure aa North river la the Hudson and East river ain't a river. Why. there are people living in four blocks of Broadway who never saw any kind of a building except a skyscraper In their Uvea! A good, live hustling Western man ought to get conspicuous enough here inside of three-. months to incur either Jerome's clemency or iawson'a dlspleaa-ure." "They have been pounding your stocks toduy on the street, Pierpont?" auks Klein, smiling. "Stocki"! No!" roars Mr. Morgan. "It's that picture 1 sent an agent to Kurone to buy. I just thought about tt. He cabled me today that It ain't to be found In all Italy. I d pay 150,000 tomorrow for that picture yes 97K.OOO. I give the agent a la carte In purchasing It. It cannot understand un-derstand why the art galleries wiU allow al-low a De Vlnchy 'to' "Why. Mr. Morgan," says Klein; "I thought you owned all of th. D Vlnchy paintings." "What la the picture Ilk., Mr. Morgan?" Mor-gan?" asks 8ilver. "It must be as big as the side of the Flatlron building. "I'm afraid your art .vlucation Is on the bum, Mr. silvers," says Morgan. "The picture Is 27 Inches by K; and It Is called 'Love's Idle Hour.' It represents a number of cloak models doing the two-step two-step on the bank of a purple river. The cablegram aald It might have been brought to this country. My collection will never be complete without that pic- I struck New York about noon one day. and took a walk up Broadway. And T run against U liver himself, all encompassed encom-passed up In a spacious kind of haberdashery, haber-dashery, leaning a sains t a hotel and rubbing the half moont A fcis-fia.ls with a silk handkerchief. : "Paresis or superannuated?" X aaks him. "Hello. Billy." aaye Hilver; "I ra glad to aee you. Yes. It seemed to me tnat the West was accumulating a little too much wtsertese. I've been saving New York for dessert. I know it's a low dowa 1 trick to take things from these people. They onlyknow this and that and pass" to and fro and think ever and anon. I'd hate for my mother to know I was skin : ning these weak minded ones. Hhe raised ture. Well, so long, gents; us financier must keep early hours." Mr. MorgajLSniLKleinent aaajr 1T-grthrr 1T-grthrr in a cab. Me and Silver talked about how simple and unsuspecting great people was; and Bllver naid what a shame It would be to try to rob a man like Mr. Mora;an, and I said I thought It would be rather Imprudent, myself. Klein proposes pro-poses a stroll after dinner; and me and him and Silver walks down toward fler-enth fler-enth avenue to see the sights. Klein sees a pair or cuff links that Instigate his admiration ad-miration In-a pawnshop window, and we all go In while he buys 'em. After we got back to the hotel and Klein had gone. Silver Jumps at me and waves his hands. "Did you see it?" says he. THd you see It, Billy?" "What?" I asks. "Why. that picture that Morgan wants. It'a hanging In that pawnshop, behind the denk. I didn't say anything because Klein was there-, it's the article sure aa you live. The girls are as natural a paint can make them, all measuring 34 and 1 and 42 skirts, if they had any skirts, and they're doing a buck and wing on the bank of a river with the blues. What did Mr. Morgan say hs'd give for! It? Oh, don't make me tell you. They can't know what it la in that pawnshop." When the pawnshop opened ths next morning me end Bllver was standing there as anxtoua aa If we wanted to soak our Sunday suit to buy a drink. We sauntered Inside and began to look at watch chains. "That's a violent specimen of a chromo you've got up there." remarked Silver, casual, to the pawnbroker. "But I kind of eruhuae over the girl with the shoulder, blades and red bunting. Would an offer of $2.25 for It cause you to knock over any fragile articles of your stock In hurrying hur-rying It off the nail?" The pawnbroker smiles and goes on showing ua plate watch chains. That picture," says he, "was pledged a year aao by an Italian gentleman. I loaned him $aU0 on It. It la called 'Ixve's Idle Hour and It la by Leonard de Vinchy. Two days ago the legal time expired, and It became an unredeemed pledge. Here Is a style of chain that Is worn a great deal now." "Hyperbole aside," says I, "do you know of any immediate system of bunkoing bun-koing the community out of a dollar or two except by ftpplylitar tn ih WiUvaHnn-Army WiUvaHnn-Army or liavlng a fit on Miss Helen Uould's doorsteps?" "Doxens of m," says Silver. "How much capital have you got, Billy?" "A thousand," I told him. 'I've got $l!0." says he. "We'll pool and do a big piece of buatness.There's many ways we CArt make a million that I don't know how to begin." The next morning Silver meets me at the hotel and he is all sonorous and atirred with a kind of silent joy. "We re to meet J. V. Morgan this aft-ernoo.i." aft-ernoo.i." says he. "A man I know In ths hotel wints to introduce us. He's a friend of his. He ays he likes to meet people from ths West." "That sounds nice and plausible," says X, "I d like to know Mr. Morgan." "It won't hurt us a bit," says Sliver, "to get acquainted with a few finance klncs. I kind of like the social way New York has with strangers." The man Silver knew was named Klein. At S o'clock Klein brought his Wall street friend to aee ua in Silver's room. "Mr. Morgan" looked some like his picture, pic-ture, and he had a Turkish towel wrapped around his left foot, and he walked with a cane. "Mr. Silver and Mr. Peecud," says Klein. "It sounds superfluous." says he, "to mention the name of tha greatest financial" "Cut It out, Klela." says Mr. Morgan. Mor-gan. "I'm glad to know you gents; I take great Interest In the West. Klein tells me you're from Utile Rock, I think I've a railroad or two out there somewhere. some-where. If either of you guys would like to deal a -hand or two of stud poker 1 " "Now. I'ierpont," cuts in Klein "you forget V "Excuse me. genta! says Morgan; "since I've had the gout so bad I sometimes some-times play a social game of cards at my house. Neither of you ever knew Ore-eyed Ore-eyed Peteis. did you, while you was around Little Hock?" He lived In -attle. N. M." Before we could answer. Mr. Morgan Mor-gan hammers on the floor with hla cane and begins to walk up and down swearing in a loud tone of voice ) me better."- "Ia there a crush already In the waiting wait-ing rooms of the old doctor that does akin grafting?" 1 aska "Well, no." says Silver; "you needn't hack Epidermis to win today. I've only been here a month. But I'm ready to begin; and the members of Willie Man-hat Man-hat tag's Sunday school class, each of whom hae volunteered to contribute a portion of cuticle toward thia rehabilitation, rehabilita-tion, may as well send their photoa to the Kvenlng Daily. "I've been studying the town, save Silver, ''and reading the papers every day, and I know it as well aa the cat in ths city hall knows an O'Sullivan. People Peo-ple here he down on the floor and scream and kick when ou are the least bit slow about taking money from them. Coma up In my room and I'll tell you. We'll work the town together, Billy, for the sake of old times." Silver takes me up In a hotel. He has a quantity of irrelevant objects lying about. "There's more ways of getting money from these metropolitan hayseeds," sav 8ilver, "than there ia of cooking rice In Charleston. S. C. They'll bite at anything. any-thing. The brains of most of 'em commute. com-mute. The wiser they are In Intelligence Intelli-gence the less perception of cognisance ihey have. Why. didn't a man the other day sell J. P. Morgan an oil portrait of Rockefeller Jr. for Andrea del Sarto's celebrated painting of the young Saint John! "You see that bundle of printed stuff In the corner. Billy? That's gold mining atock. started out one day to sell that, but quit it In two hours. Why? Got arrested for blocking the street. People fought to buy It. T sold the policeman a block of It on the way to the elation house, and then I took It off the market. 1 don't want people to give me thetr money. I want some little consideration connected with the transaction to keep in v nrlrisa from belns hurt. 1 want m in ciiu sji iifi 1 1 t ii iwur max ana mi- ver paid the pawnbroker fi'OOO and walked out with the picture. Silver got Into a cab with It and started for Morgan's office. of-fice. I goes to the hotel and waits for turn. In two hours Silver comes back. "Did you see Mr. Morgan V I asks. "How much did he pay you for It?" Silver sits down and fools with a tas-ael tas-ael n the table cover. ' "I never exactly saw Mr. Morgan." he saya, "because Mr. Morgan's been In Kurope for a month. But what's worrying me, Billy, Is this: The department stores have all got that same picture on sale, framed, for $3.4. Andy they charge It.iO for the frame aionathat's what I can't understand." to guess the missing letter In Chic go, or draw to a pair of mines before they psjr me a cent of money. "Now there s another little scheme that worked ao easy 1 had te quit It. You aee that botUe of blue ink on the Ubla? I tattooed -an arwhor on the back of my hand and went to a bank and told m I was Admiral Dewey's nephew. They i offered to oash my draft on him for a ! thousand, but I didn't know my ancle's first name. It shows, though, what an easy town It Is. As for burglars, they won't go tn a houre now unless there's a hot supper ready and a few college atudenla to wait on 'em. They're slugging slug-ging cittsene all over the upper part of the city and I guess, taking the town from end to end. it's a plain case of assault and battery. "Monty." says 1. when 8 liver had slacked up. "vou rosy have Manhattan correctly discriminated In your perora-tlve, perora-tlve, but I doubt It. I've only been tn town two hours, but It don't dawn upon me that It'a ours with a cherry In It. There Isn't enoue-h rue in urbe about It to ault me. I d be a good deal much better bet-ter satisfied if the citiaens had a straw or more in their hair, and run more to velveteen vests and buckeye watch chsrms. They don't look easy ta ma" t "You've got It, Billy." says Silver. "All emigrants have It. New York a bigger big-ger than Little Ro k or Furope. and it I frightens a foreigner. You'll be all right, i I tell you I feel like slapping the people here because they don't send me all their I money In laundry baskets, with tnn-I tnn-I clde sprinkled over It. I bate to go dowa the street to get It. Who wears the diamonds dia-monds In this town? Why, Winnie, the W Strapper's wife, end Bells, the Bunko-oteerer Bunko-oteerer s bride. New Yorkers - can be worked easier than a blue rose on a tidy. Th oaly thing that bothers me la X 1 1 . - |