Conscience in Art

“I never could hold my partner, Andy Tucker, down to legitimate ethics of pure swindling,” said Jeff Peters to me one day.

“Andy had too much imagination to be honest. He used to devise schemes of money-getting so fraudulent and high-financial that they wouldn’t have been allowed in the by-laws of a railroad rebate system.

“Myself, I never believed in taking any man’s dollars unless I gave him something for it—something in the way of rolled gold jewellery, garden seeds, lumbago lotion, stock certificates, stove polish or a crack on the head to show for his money. I guess I must have had New England ancestors away back and inherited some of their staunch and rugged fear of the police.

“But Andy’s family tree was in different kind. I don’t think he could have traced his descent any further back than a corporation.

“One summer while he was in the Middle West, working down the Ohio valley with a line of family albums, headache powders and roach destroyer, Andy takes one of his notions of high and actionable financiering.

“ ‘Jeff,’ says he, ‘I’ve been thinking that we ought to drop these rutabaga fanciers and give our attention to something more nourishing and prolific. If we keep on snapshooting these hinds for their egg money we’ll be classed as nature fakers. How about plunging into the fastnesses of the sky-scraper country and biting some big bull caribous in the chest?’

“ ‘Well,’ says I, ‘you know my idiosyncrasies. I prefer a square, non-illegal style of business such as we are carrying on now. When I take money I want to leave some tangible object in the other fellow’s hands for him to gaze at and to distract his attention from my spoor, even if it’s only a Komical Kuss Trick Finger Ring for Squirting Perfume in a Friend’s Eye. But if you’ve got a fresh idea, Andy,’ says I, ‘let’s have a look at it. I’m not so wedded to petty graft that I would refuse something better in the way of a subsidy.’

“ ‘I was thinking,’ says Andy, ‘of a little hunt without horn, hound or camera among the great herd of the Midas Americanus, commonly known as the Pittsburg millionaires.’

“ ‘In New York?’ I asks.

“ ‘No, sir,’ says Andy, ‘in Pittsburg. That’s their habitat. They don’t like New York. They go there now and then just because it’s expected of ’em.’

“ ‘A Pittsburg millionaire in New York is like a fly in a cup of hot coffee—he attracts attention and comment, but he don’t enjoy it. New York ridicules him for “blowing” so much money in that town of sneaks and snobs, and sneers. The truth is, he don’t spend anything while he is there. I saw a memorandum of expenses for a ten-days’ trip to Bunkum Town made by a Pittsburg man worth $15,000,000 once. Here’s the way he set it down:

“ ‘That’s the voice of New York,’ goes on Andy. ‘The town’s nothing but a head waiter. If you tip it too much it’ll go and stand by the door and make fun of you to the hat check boy. When a Pittsburger wants to spend money and have a good time he stays at home. That’s where we’ll go to catch him.’

“Well, to make a dense story more condensed, me and Andy cached our Paris green and antipyrine powders and albums in a friend’s cellar, and took the trail to Pittsburg. Andy didn’t have any especial prospectus of chicanery and violence drawn up, but he always had plenty of confidence that his immoral nature would rise to any occasion that presented itself.

“As a concession to my ideas of self-preservation and rectitude he promised that if I should take an active and incriminating part in any little business venture that we might work up there should be something