ARTHUR.T Stories ------The Last of the Wire-Tappers --IV---Page 20

"Sir," replied the knave unabashed, "I am one of those who do make a living by their wits."

John Felix, a dealer in automatic musical instruments in New York City, was swindled out of $50,000 on February 2d, 1905, by what is commonly known as the "wire-tapping" game. During the previous August a man calling himself by the name of Nelson had hired Room 46, in a building at 27 East Twenty-second Street, as a school for "wireless telegraphy." Later on he had installed over a dozen deal tables, each fitted with a complete set of ordinary telegraph instruments and connected with wires which, while apparently passing out of the windows, in reality plunged
behind a desk into a small "dry" battery. Each table was fitted with a
shaded electric drop-light, and the room was furnished with the ordinary
paraphernalia of a telegraph office. The janitor never observed any
activity in the "school." There seemed to be no pupils, and no one
haunted the place except a short, ill-favored person who appeared
monthly and paid the rent.

On the afternoon of February 1st, 1905, Mr. Felix was called to the

telephone of his store and asked to make an appointment later in the

afternoon, with a gentleman named Nelson who desired to submit to him a
business proposition. Fifteen minutes afterward Mr. Nelson arrived in
person and introduced himself as having met Felix at "Lou" Ludlam's
gambling house. He then produced a copy of the _Evening Telegram_ which contained an article to the effect that the Western Union Telegraph Company was about to resume its "pool-room service,"--that is to say, to supply the pool rooms with the telegraphic returns of the various horse-races being run in different parts of the United States. The paper also contained, in connection with this item of news, a photograph which might, by a stretch of the imagination, have been taken to resemble Nelson himself.

Mr. Felix, who was a German gentleman of French sympathies, married to
an American lady, had recently returned to America after a ten years'
sojourn in Europe. He had had an extensive commercial career, was
possessed of a considerable fortune, and had at length determined to
settle in New York, where he could invest his money to advantage and at
the same time conduct a conservative and harmonious business in musical
instruments. Like the Teutons of old, dwelling among the forests of the
Elbe, Mr. Felix knew the fascination of games of chance and he had heard
the merry song of the wheel at both Hambourg and Monte Carlo. In Europe
the pleasures of the gaming table had been comparatively inexpensive,
but in New York for some unknown reason the fickle goddess had not
favored him and he had lost upward of $51,000. "Zu viel!" as he himself

expressed it. Being of a philosophic disposition, however, he had

pocketed his losses and contented himself with the consoling thought

that, whereas he might have lost all, he had in fact lost only a part.

It might well have been that had not The Tempter appeared in the person
of his afternoon visitor, he would have remained _in status quo_ for the
rest of his natural life. In the sunny window of his musical store,
surrounded by zitherns, auto-harps, dulcimers, psalteries, sackbuts, and
other instrument's of melody, the advent of Nelson produced the effect
of a sudden and unexpected discord. Felix distrusted him from the very
first.

The "proposition" was simplicity itself. It appeared that Mr. Nelson was
in the employ of the Western Union Telegraph Company, which had just
opened a branch office for racing news at 27 East Twenty-second Street.
This branch was under the superintendence of an old associate and
intimate friend of Nelson's by the name of McPherson. Assuming that they
could find some one with the requisite amount of cash, they could all
make their everlasting fortunes by simply having McPherson withhold the
news of some race from the pool rooms long enough to allow one of the
others to place a large bet upon some horse which had in fact already
won and was resting comfortably in the stable. Felix grasped the idea
instantly. At the same time he had his suspicions of his visitor. It
seemed peculiar that he, an inconspicuous citizen who had already lost
$50,000 in gambling houses, should be selected as the recipient of such
a momentous opportunity. Moreover, he knew very well that gentlemen in
gambling houses were never introduced at all. He thought he detected the
odor of a rodent. He naively inquired why, if all these things were so,
Nelson and his friend were not already yet millionaires two or three
times? The answer was at once forthcoming that they _had_ been, but also
had been robbed--unmercifully robbed, by one in whom they had had
confidence and to whom they had entrusted their money.

"And now we are poor, penniless clerks!" sighed Nelson, "and if we should offer to make a big bet ourselves, the gamblers would be suspicious and probably refuse to place it."

"I think this looks like a schvindling game," said Felix shrewdly. So it did; so it was.

By and by Felix put on his hat and, escorted by Nelson, paid a visit to

the "branch office" at 27 East Twenty-second Street. Where once solitude had reigned supreme and the spider had spun his web amid the
fast-gathering dust, all was now tumultuous activity. Fifteen busy
operators in eye shades and shirt sleeves took the news hot from the
humming wires and clicked it off to the waiting pool rooms.

"Scarecrow wins by a neck!" cried one, "Blackbird second!"