a well-dressed woman approaches and her pity is
instantly aroused. She accosts him, and the aged one informs her
in a faint voice that he works in Harlem and has been sent by his
boss to set a pane of glass on Varick Street; but not knowing
exactly where Varick Street is, he has got off the elevated at
Fifty-ninth Street and finds that he is still several miles from
his destination. What woman, unless she had a heart of granite,
would not be moved by such a tale! She opens her purse and pours
its contents into his lap; for it is a psychological truth that,
if you can once get a woman up to the point of giving anything,
she will give all that she has. How often have I seen these old
men--the children of Gottlieb's brain--sitting patiently and silently
on the streets! And how often have they paid us handsome fees to
get them out of the "jug"!

In this catalogue of clients I must not forget "Banana Anna," who
recently, I am sad to say, met her Waterloo. Anna was a lady so
peculiarly gifted by the Almighty that she was able at will to
simulate a very severe physical mishap. I shall not describe with
any greater degree of particularity what her precise affliction
was, save to say that if genuine it would have entitled her to the
sympathy and generosity of mankind. It was the kind of thing that
might easily result from a fall; but which, in fact, under ordinary
circumstances gave her no inconvenience whatever.

Anna would conceal a bit of banana peel in her muff and, dropping
in upon a station platform, would put her heel upon it and fall
prostrate, uttering a groan of pain. The guard would come hastily
to her assistance and find, to his horror, a woman with every mark
of respectability suffering terrible agony from a condition obviously
the result of a fall caused by a bit of banana skin carelessly left
lying upon the premises. An ambulance would be summoned, but she
would insist upon being taken to her own home--an imposing mansion
--and calling her own physician. In due course the railroad would
send its doctor, who would report that her condition was serious;
and, as the leaving of a banana peel upon a public platform is in
its very nature "negligent," the company's lawyer would recommend
settlement. Thus "Banana Anna" was able to live in comfort if not
in luxury; and an infirmity that might under other circumstances
have been a curse became, in fact, a blessing. Of course she took
a new name and hired--te