How Three Book Monte Is Played.

"I take out three small, thin spelling books, cloth bound, all alike as the bindery and the presses can make them. Then, careless like, I take a $10 bill out of my pocket, fold it across in a sort of V-shape and slip it into the middle of one of the spelling books, so that just one corner will stick out, probably a quarter of an inch. Of course, I haven't seen it! Sometimes the man on the cars will try to say something about it, but I cut in and drown him out with easy talk till he gets the idea that he might as well have that ten and the books for five, and let it go at that.

"But one corner all the time is torn off that bill, and about a quarter of an inch of that bill is sticking out of the center of one of the other books. Of course the jay hasn't seen that!

Shows Corner of Bill.

"Well, I begin and shuffle the books on the payment of the $5. As they are shuffled the corner of the bill that is still attached gets turned around next to me, while the corner that is torn off gets around next to the passenger, whom I have cornered in the seat in a way that he can't see everything that he really ought to see in order to save his money. When I hold out the three books for the drawing I am in a position where I couldn't possibly see the corner that sticks out, while he is where he can't see anything else.

"And he draws the book with the corner sticking out!

"I take it from him instantly, and hold it up with the bill corner at the bottom, flipping the leaves through from front to back and forward again. In the act the corner of the bill drops out on the floor, where he doesn't see. 'Not here,' I says. 'You made a bad draw. Here's the bill,' I says, taking up the book that holds it and turning to the $10 bill, just where it lies. He doesn't know how it all happened, but I console him that he has the three wild west books for his library when he gets home.

All Suckers Not in Day Coaches.

"I don't find all these suckers in the day coaches—not on your life. I found two pretty boys in the smoking room of a sleeping car a week ago, and I had $7.50 from one of them and $5 from the other, and they didn't know a line about it till they got together after I had gone.

"Friends of mine have kicked because I get $2, or $3, or $4 apiece for gold-rimmed spectacles that cost me $1.80 a dozen. But where is the kick. I know men who have paid $10 or $15 for glasses from an oculist when the glass was cut out of a broken window pane. I save such people money, don't I?

"I am not out after the old farmer with hayseed in his hair and leaf tobacco in his mouth, chewing. There are a lot of gay chaps traveling these days who think they've got the bulge on the train butcher by a sort of birthright or something. They are after me, sometimes, till I can't go to sleep after I come in from a run. For instance, the other day a chap got into the train out of a little country town, intending to go to another little town twenty miles away without change of cars. He had $2 cash and a guitar when he got on the train, but I had both when he got off. He wasn't mad at all; he just didn't understand it. For that reason I'll see him again one of these days, and he will buck the game harder than he did the first time. The trouble is he wants to vindicate himself; he's one of these smart alecs that you couldn't down with a crowbar—he don't think!

Country Town "Sport" Easiest Mark.

"Just give me the dead-game sport as he comes from the country and the country town. He's as good as I want. It's a sort of charity to take his money away from him before he gets into real trouble with it. One of them thought he had me the other day when I tried to sell him a pair of my famous $4 glasses with the gold rims. His had silver, only, but he told me mine wouldn't show a full moon after dark.

"I asked him to let me see his specs and he handed them over. I had a bit of wax out of my ear on the tip of my little finger. I touched each of the glasses with the wax, smearing them a little with it. That fixed his glasses for good, and don't forget it. You can't get ear wax off a pair of spectacles with anything yet invented; it's got a sort of acid that eats into the glass and won't ever clear up again. The fellow got hot about it, but I didn't know anything, of course, and finally sold him a pair of my $1.80 a dozen glasses for $1.50 cash, net.

"O, some people are almost too easy—I get ashamed of my calling!"

Women Victims of Old Coupon Scheme.

There is another moss-grown swindle, which, like hope, seems to "spring perennial" in the greater cities.

This is the old-time coupon swindle. A suave young man appears at the door, inserts his foot in the crack, if you try to slam it in his face, and rapidly begins to explain that he has something to offer you for nothing. The housewife sighs with resignation, and admits the suave young man, thinking that she might as well get it over. But let the housewife herself talk. Here is the story of a good woman who was caught by one of these pettifogging grafters:

"Since my husband died I have partly earned my living by renting furnished rooms. This seems to be the first thing a woman thinks of doing when she is left unprovided for, but it isn't a business of large profits, and few of us ever cut 'melons.' My furniture, of course, represented my 'plant,' and it was growing shabby.

"That is, perhaps, why the glib agent got a hearing from me. He had a lovely proposition. Opening a catalogue he showed me pictures of beautiful pieces of furniture, made from expensive materials, just the kind that would make my rooms attractive and easy to rent.

"'Now,' said he, 'I am soliciting subscriptions for a weekly paper. This paper will cost you 10 cents a number, and with each number you get a coupon. When you have accumulated sixty-eight coupons you can bring them to our wareroom and select any one of these elegant pieces of furniture.'

"'Why,' said I, 'if these articles are as represented, I couldn't buy them at any store in town for three times what sixty-eight coupons would cost me—$6.80.'

The Old "Wareroom" Tale.

"'Call at our wareroom, lady, before you sign the contract, and you will see they are just as described.'

"Well, I saw the articles, and they were all they were said to be. They explained that they were practically giving them away in order to build up the circulation of the paper. Everything appeared to be all right, and I signed a contract. So did my widowed sister; so did some of my neighbors.

"The paper was worthless, but I didn't care. Sometimes I would buy several copies of one issue so as to make haste toward getting my sixty-eight coupons. The time came when I went around to select my furniture. I selected it, all right—a handsome chiffonier.

"'This chiffonier calls for 360 coupons,' said the man.

"'Why, your agent told me I could have any of these pieces when I had accumulated sixty-eight coupons,' said I, dismayed.

"'He couldn't have told you that,' said the man. 'Read your contract. You will see it says that when you have sixty-eight coupons you may select any one of these articles, but that means we will then hold the article for you until you have paid the rest. Why, we have goods here that call for 600 and 700 coupons.'

"I saw how I had been swindled, and was furious. I told him what I thought of him and his business, and he offered to tear up my contract (which, it turned out, bound me to more than I had dreamed of), if I would pay him an additional $2.50. I refused. He said he would sue me if I didn't. I told him to go ahead.

"Shortly afterward a constable served a summons on me to appear at a justice court at the other end of creation. I didn't go; and I don't know whether the concern got a judgment against me or not.

"But I do know I haven't anything to show for the money I paid for those coupons."