ers this morning that you have just
been appointed first deputy commissioner of police and that you have
been ordered to suppress gambling in New York. For the love that you
must still bear toward your own mother, listen to the story of a
mother worn with anxiety for her only son, and if there is any justice
or righteousness in this great city close up a gambling hell that is
sending to ruin scores of our finest young men. No doubt you know or
have heard of my family--the DeLongs are not unknown in Hew York.
Perhaps you have also heard of the losses of my son Percival at the
Vesper Club. They are fast becoming the common talk of our set. I am
not rich, Mr. Commissioner, in spite of our social position, but I am
human, as human as a mother in any station of life, and oh, if there
is any way, close up that gilded society resort that is dissipating
our small fortune, ruining an only son, and slowly bringing to the
grave a gray-haired widow, as worthy of protection as any mother of
the poor whose plea has closed up a little poolroom or low policy
shop.

Sincerely, (Mrs.) JULIA M. DELONG.

P.S.--Please keep this confidential--at least from my son Percival.

J.M. DEL.

* * * * *

"Well," said Kennedy, as he handed back the letter, "O'Connor, if you
do it, I'll take back all the hard things I've ever said about
the police system. Young DeLong was in one of my classes at the
university, until he was expelled for that last mad prank of his.
There's more to that boy than most people think, but he's the wildest
scion of wealth I have ever come in contact with. How are you going to
pull off your raid--is it to be down through the skylight or up from
the cellar?"

"Kennedy," replied O'Connor in the same reproachful tone with which
he had addressed me, "talk sense. I'm in earnest. You know the Vesper
Club is barred and barricaded like the National City Bank. It isn't
one of those common gambling joints which depend for protection on
what we call 'ice-box doors.' It's proof against all the old methods.
Axes and sledge-hammers would make no impression there."

"Your predecessor had some success at opening doors with a hydraulic
jack, I believe, in some very difficult raids," put in Kennedy.

"A hydraulic jack wouldn't do for the Vesper Club, I'm afraid,"
remarked O'Connor wearily. "Why, sir, that place has been proved
bomb-proof--bomb-proof, sir. You remember recently the so-called
'gamblers' w