LONDON CROOKS

Evening Star, Issue 16628, 10 January 1918, Page 6

LONDON CROOKS

CARDS AND CARPET GOLF. Men and mere lads, who go out to give their lives for us, are in many cases paving a price which has nothing to do with the Hun or the trendies. Here in this London (writes .Max Pemberton in the ‘Weekly Dispatch’) they are being robbed of honor and of good name-- - made the prey of harpies and sent to the front with shame at their elbow. Never in our history has there been such an orgy of fraud and robbery as that which now menaces our dear boys in many of the great cities. The lovely woman upon (he sofa In the corridor has dropped her fan, and the ruddy-faced subaltern has (licked it up. She laughs sweetly, has fine teeth, and he is too young to ask how she got her golden hair. “Staying in the hotel?’’ she asks him—- “ and all alone?” Ho answers in the affirmative, and she, suppressing a strong desire to powder her nose, discovers a sigh and an engaging ankle. Ten minutes afterwards they are lunching together, and she is talking of any place to which she has never been. Her fiat, she says, is by Gurz.on street, and will he conic along and have a whisky and soda ? Of course he goes—l am writing the story of one who went—and there milady IS annoyed enough to discover that, her “dear old friend” Major Alhvits is already waiting for her.’ This is aggravating. hut it really is (last bearing that (ho major should be joined presently by Mr and Mrs Lovegame, who are indiscreet enough to suggest a little bridge. The young officer is quite unaware that culling a (lack is a tricky business, and he does not understand why the red-faced Lovegame is so much put about when lie has .Major Allwits for his partner. Look at the major for a moment ami watch how he, lingers his cards. His very way of holding them is a signal—every word he speaks is out of a code. He can intimate in a phrase that he is nearly strong enough for “ no trumps.” but hasn’t got a heart. He will sign to his partner lo leave the opponents in, or he will make it plain that he, as fourth player, is’ about to double. , And the hoy sits there with tho lovely, woman's eyes upon his own and her foot pressing his beneath the table. Hq may have lost a hundred or he may have lost live when dinner is announced. Tho lad of whom ] spoke was robbed of £4lB exactly, and lo this day he dots not know the nature of the stakes for which ha played. PRETTY GIRL ON NEXT SEAT. I will take yon lo another scene at a later hour of the day—lo be precise, at 1.30 of the clock, that depressing moment at which you return to'your home from the theatre and the Swiss waiter in the big lintel is dreaming of Berlin. Of course, the hoy was going out. Three days of his leave remained. Ho was a rich Canadian, and ho was lonely. By scheming which must have been unusually alert, the gang planted an exceedingly pretty girl in the next stall to him at the theatre. He was talking to her in tho interval, and had gone round the map with her diy the time tho hand (flayed ‘God Save the King.’ Wide-eyed and angelic. she spoke of her little flat oft Baker street, and said that- a few friends would be coining in lo supper. He would come, of course, and of course lie went. There are champagne bottles all over the place, corps pop. the laughter is hysterical, the cards arc dealt, the boy is drunk, hut not so drunk that they do not thrust a. pen into his hand and hid him sign the cheque, hour thousand odd pounds thev declare he has lost. He has not got so much money in the. hank, is his answer. Well, here, by good Providence, is one of the company ; lie will lend the to oblige. The nolp must, be made payable to him for a loan, and not to the keeper of the house, for then tho law would intervene. To-morrow he will he in France. But rage and humiliation go with him, for what will his people out yonder sav? Two cheerful rogues picked up a lad at a bar and took him round to their rooms off Cork .street. There they appear to have suggested a little game of carpet putting. ' The young soldier thought- it must he tho fiue.-t game in tho world. You just (nit. a tumbler endways upon the. carpet, and try to send the golf bail into the month of if.. What he' certainly did not know was that the kind gentleman in question had arranged the carpet to their satisfaction—pul something under it which gave a bins to the hall, and had practised the particular stroke until Harry Varclon himself con.ki not have beaten them. The .voting officer ] o st £3OO in a couple of hours, ami told his tale subsequently with heat. He must- have been a verv simple young fellow ; but eo are most, of them. Our philanthropist with the big cigar meets the subaltern at. tho bar "of tho restaurant, ami suggests that a little loan might, do him no harm. He probably knows for just how much the hoy’s people are pood. They take a cab to an obliging gentleman in Permyn street,, and there the boy is told that he can have the money. But, first he must insure, his life. And ’is it not lucky that round tho corner are a couple of offices which will do this kin I of thing while you wait? As a. matter of fact, there was not the slightest, intention of insuring the box's life at ail ; hut the premiums will be deducted from the loan, and there will bo war risks and lawyers to pay, and as many vultures about the carcass as any dec cut-sized room can hold. In one case I am told of a loan in which £15,000 was arranged and hut £7.000 odd pounds handed'to the soldier. The knaves took the risk of the hoy being killed, for his people were rich, and had he lieen shot they would merely have presented the not© of hand, and the parents would ha.vo paid as an affair of honor. So they handed out over seven thousand in the sure and certain hope of getting fifteen ; and this thing upon different scales is being done in London every day, and every day those who are saving our homes are being robbed by charlatans whom, alas no haw seems able to touch. At- tine restaurants these rogues and vagabonds do chiefly congregate. They are cheek by jowl with us every dav; Pat men and thin, pretty girls with them, and the best they can buy upon the tables before them. Consult any maitre d’hotel and he will tell you. Yonder is a crook from America, here one from Spain. To Hie soldier hoys these accomplished swirifilers often appear the most charming men in the world. A great hive, and the drones loud among us. Men fight and die across yonder that wo may live ;. yet this is our welcome to them. The hag with the lantern and the muck rake, taking the field of battle with her knife unsheathed, did her work swiftly. Tint those night prowlers leave wounds which the years mav not heal.