Traffic in Souls: A Novel of Crime and Its Cure

"All right, Jimmie. Beat it yourself."

Baxter turned around as Jimmie quietly slipped away. Baxter leaned over the table to smirk into the face of the young girl.

"Say, Miss Lorna, some of my friends are over in another corner of the room, and I'm going to speak to them. Now, save the next tango for me. Mr. Shepard will fix it for you, and if you jolly him right you can get into his new show, 'The Girl and the Dragon,' can't she, Sam?"

"Where are you going?" exclaimed Shepard in a gruff tone. "You've got to attend to something for me to-night."

There was a brutal dominance which vibrated in his voice. Here was a desperate character, thought Burke, who was accustomed to command others; he was not the flabby weakling type, like Baxter and Craig.

"It's better for you to do it, Sam. I'll tell you later. Jimmie just tipped me off that there's a bull on the trail that's lamped me."

Burke understood the shifting of their business arrangement, but to Lorna the crook's slang was so much gibberish.

"What did you say? I can't understand such funny talk, Mr. Baxter. I guess I had too strong a cocktail, he! he!" she exclaimed. "What about a lamp?"

"That's all right, girlie," said Shepard, as Baxter walked quickly away. "Some of his friends want him to go down to the Lamb's Club, but he doesn't want to leave you. We'll have a little chat together while he is gone. I'm not very good at dancing or I'd get you to turkey trot with me."

Lorna's voice was whiny now as she responded.

"Oh, I'm feeling funny. That cocktail was too much for me… I guess I'd better go home."

"There, there, my dear," Shepard reassured her. "You get that way for a little while, but it's all right. You'd better have a little beer – that will straighten you up."

Only by the strongest will power could Burke resist his desire to interpose now, yet the words of the men prepared him for something which it would be more important to wait for – to interfere at the dramatic moment.

"Here, waiter, a bottle of beer!" ordered Shepard.

Burke turned half way around, and, by a side-long glance, he saw Shepard pulling a small vial from his hip pocket as he sat with his back to the policeman.

"Oh, ho! So here it comes!" thought Bobbie. "I'll be ready to stand by now."

He rose and pushed back his chair. The waiter had brought the bottle with surprising alacrity, and Shepard poured out a glass for the young girl. Bobbie stood fumbling with his change as an excuse to watch. Lorna was engrossed in the bubbling foam of the beer and did not notice him.

"I guess he's afraid to do it now," thought Bobbie, as he failed to observe any suspicious move.

True, Shepard's hand passed swiftly over the glass as he handed it to the girl.

She drank it at his urging, and then suddenly her head sank forward on her breast.

Bobbie stifled his indignation with difficulty as Shepard gave an exclamation of surprise.

"My wife! She is sick! She has fainted!" cried Shepard to Burke's amazement. The man acted his part cunningly.

He had sprung to his feet as he rushed around the table to catch the toppling girl. With a quick jump to her side Bobbie had caught her by an arm, but Shepard indignantly pushed him aside.

"How dare you, sir?" he exclaimed. "Take your hands off my wife."

The man's bravado was splendid, and even the diners were impressed. Most of them laughed, for to them it was only another drunken woman, a familiar and excruciatingly funny object to most of them.

"Aw, let the goil alone," cried one red-faced man who sat with a small, heavily rouged girl of about sixteen. "Don't come between man and wife!" And he laughed with coarse appreciation of his own humor.

Shepard had lifted Lorna with his strong arms and was starting toward the door. Burke saw the entrance to the men's café on the right. He quietly walked into it, and then hurried toward the front, out through the big glass door to the street.

There, about twenty feet to his right, he saw the purring taxicab which he had ordered waiting for a quick run.

In front of the restaurant entrance, now to his left, was another car, with a chauffeur standing by its open door, expectantly.

Burke ran up just as Shepard emerged from the restaurant entrance. The officer sprang at the big fellow and dealt him a terrible blow on the side of the head. The man staggered and his hold weakened. As he did so Burke caught the inanimate form of the young girl in his own arms. He turned before Shepard or the waiting chauffeur could recover from their surprise and ran toward the car at the right. The two men were after him, but Burke lifted the girl into the machine and cried to the chauffeur:

"Go it!"

"Who are you?"

"I'm Mr. Green," said Burke. The chauffeur sprang into his seat, but as he did so Shepard was upon the young officer and trying to climb into the door.

Biff!

Here was a chance for every ounce of accumulated ire to assert itself, and it did so, through the hardened muscles of Officer 4434's right arm. Shepard sank backward with a groan, as the taxi-cab shot forward obedient to its throttle.

Burke was bounced backward upon the unconscious girl, but the machine sped swiftly with a wise chauffeur at its wheel. He did not know where his passenger wished to go, but his judgment told him it was away from pursuit.

He turned swiftly down the first street to the right.

Back on the sidewalk before the restaurant there was intense excitement. Baxter, Craig and Jimmie the Monk had followed the artful Shepard to the street by the side door. They assisted the chauffeur in picking up the bepummeled man from the sidewalk.

"Say, Jimmie! There's somebody shadowing us. Get into that cab of Mike's and we'll chase him!" cried Baxter.

They rushed for the other cab, leaving Craig to mop Shepard's wan face with a perfumed handkerchief.

After the slight delay of cranking it the second car whizzed along the street. But that delay was fatal to the purpose of the pursuers, for ere they had reached the corner down which the first machine had turned the entire block was empty. Burke's driver had made another right turn.

Bobbie opened the door and yelled to the chauffeur as he hung to the jamb with difficulty.

"Drive past the restaurant again very slowly, but don't stop. Then keep on going straight up the avenue."

The chauffeur knew the advantage of doubling on a trail, and by the time he had passed the restaurant after a third and fourth right turn – making a trip completely around the block – the excitement had died down. The pursuers had gone on a wild-goose chase in the opposite direction, little suspecting such a simple trick.

The taxicab rumbled nonchalantly up the avenue for five or six blocks, while Burke worked in a vain effort to restore his fair prisoner to consciousness.

The car stopped in a dark stretch between blocks.

"Where shall I go, governor?" asked the chauffeur as he jumped down and opened the door. "Is your lady friend any better, governor?"

Burke looked at the man's face as well as he could in the dim light, wondering if he could be trusted. He decided that it was too big a chance, for there is a secret fraternity among chauffeurs and the denizens of the Tenderloin which is more powerful than any benevolent order ever founded. This man would undoubtedly tell of his destination to some other driver, surely to the starter at the restaurant. Then it would be a comparatively simple matter for Baxter and Jimmie the Monk to learn the details in enough fullness to track his own identity. For certain reasons, already formulated, Bobbie Burke wished to keep Jimmie and his gangsters in blissful ignorance of his own knowledge of their activities.

"This is my girl, and one of those fellows tried to steal her," said Burke in a gruff voice. "I was onto the game, and that's why I had the starter get you ready. She lives on West Seventy-first Street, near West End Avenue. Now, you run along on the right side of the street, and I'll point out the house."

He was planning a second "double" on his trail. The chauffeur grunted and started the machine again. The girl was moaning with pain in an incoherent way.

As they rolled slowly down West Seventy-first Street Bobbie saw a house which showed a light in the third floor. Presumably the storm door would not be locked, as it would have been in case the tenants were away. He knocked on the window.

The taxi came to a stop.

The chauffeur opened the door and Burke sprang out.

"Here's a ten-dollar bill, my boy," said Burke. "I'll have to square her with her mother, so you come back here in twenty minutes and take me down to that restaurant. I'm going to clean out that joint, and I'll pay you another ten to help me. Are you game?"

The chauffeur laughed wisely.

"Am I game? Just watch me."

Burke lifted Lorna out and turned toward the steps.

"Now, don't leave me in the lurch. Be back in exactly twenty minutes, and I'll be on the job – and we'll make it some job. But, don't let the folks see you standing around, or they'll think I've been up to some game. Her old man will start some shooting. Come back for me."

The chauffeur chuckled as he climbed into his car and drove away, planning a little himself.

"Any guy that has a girl as swell as that one to live on this street will be good for a hundred dollars before I get through with him," he muttered as he took a chew of tobacco. "And I've got the number of that house, too. Her old man will give a good deal to keep this out of the papers. I know my business, even if I didn't go to college!"

As the chauffeur disappeared around the corner, after taking a look toward the steps up which Burke had carried his unconscious burden, the policeman put Lorna down inside the vestibule.

"Now, this is a dangerous game. It means disgrace if I get caught; but it means a pair of broken hearts if this poor girl gets caught," he thought. "I'll risk nobody coming, and run for another taxi."

He hastened down the steps and walked around the corner, hurrying toward a big hotel which stood not far from Broadway. Here he found another taxicab.

"There's a young lady sick at the house of one of my friends, and I'm taking her home," said Burke to the driver. "Hurry up, please."

The second automobile sped over the street to the house where Burke had left the girl, and the officer hurried up the steps. He soon reappeared with Lorna in his arms, walked calmly down the steps, and put her into the car.

This time he gave the correct home address, and the taxicab rumbled along on the last stretch of the race.

They passed the first car, whose driver was already planning the ways to spend the money which he was to make by a little scientific blackmail.

He was destined to a long wait in front of the brownstone mansion.

After nearly an hour he decided to take things into his own hands.

"I'll get a little now," he muttered with an accompaniment of profanity. "That guy can't stall me."

After ringing the bell for several minutes a very angry caretaker came to the door.

"What do you want, my man?" cried this individual in unmistakable British accents. "Dash your blooming impudence in waking me up at this time in the morning."

"I want to get my taxicab fare from the gent that brought the lady here drunk!" declared the chauffeur. "Are you her father?"

The caretaker shook a fist in his face as he snapped back:

"I'm nobody's father. There ain't no gent nor drunk lady here. I'm alone in this house, and my master and missus is at Palm Beach. If you don't get away from here I'm going to call the police."

With that he slammed the door in the face of the astounded chauffeur and turned out the light in the hall.

The taxi driver walked down the steps slowly.

"Well, that's a new game on me!" he grunted. "There's a new gang working this town as sure as I'm alive. I'm going down and put the starter wise."

Down he went, to face a cross-examination from the starter, and an accounting for his time. He had to pay over seven dollars of his ten to cover the period for which he had the car out. Jimmie the Monk and Baxter had returned from their unsuccessful chase. As they made their inquiries from the starter and learned the care with which the coup d'êtat had been arranged they lapsed into angry, if admiring, profanity.

"Some guy, eh, Jimmie!" exclaimed Baxter. "But we'll find out who it was, all right. Leave it to me!"

"Say, dat bloke was crazy – crazy like a fox, wasn't he?" answered Jimmie. "He let Shepard do de deal, and den he steals de kitty! Dis is what I calls cut-throat competition!"

CHAPTER VII
THE CLOSER BOND

Once in the second taxicab Burke's difficulties were not at an end.

"I want to get this poor young girl home without humiliating her or her family, if I can," was his mental resolve. "But I can't quite plan it. I wish I could take her to Dr. MacFarland, but his office is 'way downtown from here."

When the car drew up before the door of Lorna's home, from which she had departed in such blithe spirits, Bob's heart was thumping almost guiltily. He felt in some ridiculous way as though he were almost responsible for her plight himself. Perhaps he had done wrong to wait so long. Yet, even his quick eyesight had failed to discover the knockout drops or powder which the wily Shepard had slipped into that disastrous glass of beer. Maybe his interference would have saved her from this unconscious stupor, indeed, he felt morally certain that it would; but Bob knew in his heart that the clever tricksters would have turned the tables on him effectively, and undoubtedly in the end would have won their point by eluding him and escaping with the girl. It was better that their operations should be thwarted in a manner which would prevent them from knowing how sharply they were watched. Bob knew that these men were to be looked after in the future.

He cast aside his thoughts to substitute action.

"Here's your number, mister," said the chauffeur, who opened the door. "Can I help you with the lady?"

"Thank you, no. What's the charge?"

The driver twisted the lamp around to show the meter, and Burke paid him a good tip over the price of the ride.

"Shall I wait for you?" asked the driver.

"No; that's all. I'll walk to the subway as soon as my friend gets in. Good night."

The chauffeur lingered a bit as Bob took the girl in his arms. The officer understood the suggestion of his hesitation.

"I said good night!" he spoke curtly.

The taxi man understood this time; there was no mistaking the firmness of the hint, and he started his machine away.

The Bartons lived in one of the apartments of the building. The front door was locked, and so Bob was forced reluctantly to ring the bell beneath the name which indicated their particular letter box.

He waited, holding the young girl in his arms.

"Oh, I'm so sick!" he heard her say faintly, and he realized that she was regaining consciousness.

"If only I can get her upstairs quietly," he thought.

He was about to swing her body around in his arms so that he could ring once more when there was a turning of the knob.

"Who is it?" came a frightened voice.

It was Mary Barton at the doorway.

"S-s-s-h!" cautioned Bob. "It's Burke. I'm bringing Miss Lorna home? Don't make any noise."

"Oh!" gasped the unhappy sister. "What's wrong? Is she hurt?"

"No!" said Bob. "Fortunately not."

"Is she – Oh – Is she – drunk?"

Burke calmed her with the reassurance of his low, steady voice.

"No, Miss Mary. She was drugged by those rascals, and I saved her in time. Please don't cry, or make a noise. Let me take her upstairs and help you. It's better if she does not know that I was the one to bring her home."

Mary tried to help him; but Bob carried the girl on into the hall.

"Is your father awake?"

"No; I told him two hours ago, when he asked me from his room, that Lorna had returned and was asleep. He believed me. I had to fib to save him from breaking his dear old daddy heart. Is she injured at all?"

It was plainly evident that the poor girl was holding her nerves in leash with a tremendous effort.

Bob kept on toward the stairs.

"She'll be all right when you get her into her room. Give her some smelling salts, and don't tell your father. Didn't he hear the bell?"

"No; I've been waiting for her. I put some paper in the bell so that it would only buzz when it rang. Let me help you, Mr. Burke. How on earth did you – " She was eager in spite of her anxiety.

To see the young officer returning with her sister this way was more of a mystery than she could fathom. But, at Bob's sibilant command for silence, she trustingly obeyed, and went up before him to guide the way along the darkened stairway.

At last they reached the door of their apartment.

Mary opened it, and Bob entered, walking softly. She led the way to her humble little bedroom, the one which she and Lorna shared. Bob laid the sister upon the bed, and beckoned Mary to follow him. Lorna was moving now, her hands tremulous, and she was half-moaning.

"I want my Mary. I want my Mary."

Her sister followed Burke out into the hall, which led down the steps to the street.

"Now, remember, don't tell her about being drugged. A man at one of the tables put some knockout drops into a glass of water" – Bob was softening the blow with a little honest lying – "and I rescued her just in time. She knows nothing about it – only warn her about the company that she was in. I have learned that they are worse than worthless. I will attend to them in my own way, and in the line of my work, Miss Mary. But, as you love your sister, don't ever let her go with those men again."

Mary's hand was outstretched toward the young man's, and he took it gently.

"You've done much for Lorna," she breathed softly, "and more for me!"

There was a sweet pressure from those soft, clasping fingers which thrilled Bob as though somehow he was burying his face in a bunch of roses – like that first one which had tapped its soft message for admission to his heart, back in the hospital.

"Good night. Don't worry. It's all ended well, after all."

Mary drew away her fingers reluctantly as he backed down one step.

"Good night – Bob!"

That was all. She slipped quietly inside the apartment and closed the door noiselessly behind her.

Bob slowly descended the steps; oddly enough, he felt as though it were an ascension of some sort. His life seemed to be going into higher planes, and his hopes and ambitions came fluttering into his brain like the shower of petals from some blossom-laden tree. He felt anew the spring of old dreams, and the surge of new ones.

He stumbled, unsteady in his steps, his hands trembling on the railing of the stairs, until he reached the street level. He hurried out through the hallway and closed the door behind him.

How he longed to retrace his steps for just one more word! That first tender use of his name had a wealth of meaning which stirred him more than a torrent of endearing terms.

The keen bracing air of the early spring morning thrilled him.

He hurried down the street toward the subway station, elated, exalted.

"It's worth fighting every gangster in New York for a girl like her!" he told himself. "I never realized how bitter all this was until it struck home to me – by striking home to some one who is loved by the girl – I love."

The trip downtown was more tiring than he had expected. The stimulus of his exciting evening was now wearing off, and Bob went direct to the station house to be handy for the duty which began early in the day. It was not yet dawn, but the rattling milk carts, the stirring of trucks and the early stragglers of morning workers gave evidence that the sun would soon be out upon his daily travels.

The day passed without more excitement than usual. Bob took his turn after a short nap in the dormitory room of the station house. During his relief he rested up again. When he was preparing to start out again upon patrol a letter was handed him by the captain.

"Here, Burke, a little message from your best girl, I suppose," smiled his superior.

Bob took it, and as he opened it again he felt that curious thrill which had been aroused in him by the winsome charm of Mary Barton. It was a brief note which she had mailed that morning on her way to work.

"DEAR MR. BURKE – Everything was all right after all our worry. Lorna is heartily repentant, and thinks that she had to be brought home by one of her 'friends' (?). She has promised never to go with them again, and, aside from a bad headache to-day, she is no worse for her folly. Father knows nothing, and, dear soul, I feel that it is better so. I can never thank you enough. I hope to see you soon.

"Cordially,

"MARY."

Bob folded the note and tucked it into his breast pocket. The captain had been watching him with shrewd interest, and presently he intercepted: "Ah, now, I guessed right. Why, Bobbie Burke, you're even blushing like a schoolgirl over her first beau."

Burke was just a trifle resentful under the sharp look of the captain's gray eyes; but the unmistakable friendliness of the officer's face drove away all feeling.

"I envy you, my boy. I am not making fun of you," said the captain, with keen understanding.

"Thank you, Cap," said Bob quietly. "You guessed right both times. It's my first sweetheart."

He buttoned his coat and started for the door.

"You'd better step around to Doc MacFarland's on your rounds this evening and let him look you over. It won't take but a minute, and I don't expect him around the station. You're not on peg-post to-night, so you can do it."

"All right, Cap."

Burke saluted and left the station, falling into line with the other men who were marching out on relief.

A half hour later he dropped into the office of the police surgeon, and was greeted warmly by the old gentleman.

MacFarland was smoking his pipe in comfort after the cares and worries of a busy day.

"Any more trouble with the gangsters, Burke?" he asked.

Bob, after a little hesitation decided to tell him about the adventure of the night before.

"I want your advice, Doc, for you understand these things. Do you suppose there's any danger of Lorna's going out with those fellows again? You don't suppose that they were actually going to entice her into some house, do you?"

MacFarland stroked his gray whiskers.

"Well, my boy, that is not what we Scotchmen would call a vera canny thought! You speak foolishly. Why, don't you know that is organized teamwork just as fine as they make it? Those two fellows, Baxter, I think you said, and Craig, are typical 'cadets.' They are the pretty boys who make the acquaintance of the girls, and open the way for temptation, which is generally attended to by other men of stronger caliber. This fellow Shepard is undoubtedly one of the head men of their gang. If Jimmie the Monk is mixed up in it that is the connecting link between these fellows and the East Side. And it's back to the East Side that the trail nearly always leads, for over in the East Side of New York is the feudal fastness of the politician who tells the public to be damned, and is rewarded with a fortune for his pains. The politician protects the gangster; the gangster protects the procurer, and both of them vote early and often for the politician."

Bob sighed.

"Isn't there some way that this young girl can be warned about the dangers she is running into? It's terrible to think of a thing like this threatening any girl of good family, or any other family for that matter."

"You must simply warn her sister and have her watch the younger girl like a hawk."

MacFarland cleaned out his pipe with a scalpel knife, and put in another charge of tobacco.

He puffed a blue cloud before Bob had replied.

"I wish there were some way I could get co-operation on this. I'm going to hunt these fellows down, Doc. But it seems to me that the authorities in this city should help along."

"They are helping along. The District Attorney has sent up gangster after gangster; but it's like a quicksand, Burke – new rascals seem to slide in as fast as you shovel out the old ones."

"I have the advantage now that they don't know who is looking after Lorna," said Bobbie. "But it was a hard job getting them off my track."

"That was good detective work – as good as I've heard of," said the doctor. "You just keep shy now. Don't get into more gun fights and fist scraps for a few days, and you'll get something on them again. You know your catching them last night was just part of a general law about crime. The criminal always gives himself away in some little, careless manner that hardly looks worth while worrying about. Those two fellows never dreamed of your following them – they let the name of the restaurant slip out, and probably forgot about it the next minute. And Jimmie the Monk has given you a clue to work on, to find out the connection. Keep up your work – but keep a bullet-proof skin for a while."

Bob started toward the door. A new idea came to him.

"Doctor, I've just thought of something. I saw a picture in the paper to-night of a big philanthropist named Trubus, or something like that, who is fighting Raines Law Hotels, improper novels, bad moving pictures and improving morals in general. How do you think it would do to give him a tip about these fellows? He asks for more money from the public to carry on their work. They had a big banquet in his honor last night."

MacFarland laughed, and took from his desk a letter, which he handed to Bob with a wink. The young officer was surprised, but took the paper, and glanced at it.

"There, Burke, read this letter. If I get one of these a day, I get five, all in the same tune. Isn't that enough to make a man die a miser?"

Officer 4434 took the letter over to the doctor's student lamp and read with amusement:

"DEAR SIR – The Purity League is waging the great battle against sin.

"You are doubtless aware that in this glorious work it is necessary for us to defray office and other expenses. Whatever tithe of your blessings can be donated to our Rescue Fund will be bread cast upon the waters to return tenfold.

"A poor widow, whose only child is a beautiful girl of seventeen, has been taken under the care of our gentle nurses. This unfortunate woman, a devout church attendant, has been prostrated by the wanton conduct of her daughter, who has left the influence of home to enter upon a life of wickedness.

"If you will contribute one hundred dollars to the support of this miserable old creature, we will have collected enough to pay her a pension from the interest of the fund of ten dollars monthly. Upon receipt of your check for this amount we will send you, express prepaid, a framed membership certificate, richly embossed in gold, and signed by the President, Treasurer and Chaplain-Secretary of the Purity League. Your name will be entered upon our roster as a patron of the organization.

"Make all checks payable to William Trubus, President, and on out-of-town checks kindly add clearing-house fee.

"'Charity shall cover the multitude of sins.'" – I Peter, iv. 8.

"Yours for the glory of the Cause,

"WILLIAM TRUBUS,

"President, The Purity League of N. Y."

As Officer Burke finished the letter he looked quizzically at Dr. MacFarland.

"How large was your check, doctor?"

"My boy, I came from Scotland. I will give you three guesses."

"But, doctor, I see the top of the letter-head festooned with about twenty-five names, all of them millionaires. Why don't these men contribute the money direct? Then they could save the postage. This letter is printed, not typewritten. They must have sent out thousands about this poor old woman. Surely some millionaire could give up one monkey dinner and endow the old lady?"

"Burke, you're young in the ways of charity. That old woman is an endowment herself. She ought to bring enough royalties for the Purity League to buy three new mahogany desks, hire five new investigators and four extra stenographers."

The old doctor's kindly face lost its geniality as he pounded on the table with rising ire.

"Burke, I have looked into this organized charity game. It is a disgrace. Out of every hundred dollars given to a really worthy cause, in answer to hundreds of thousands of letters, ninety dollars go to office and executive expenses. When a poor man or a starving woman finally yields to circumstances and applies to one of these richly-endowed institutions, do you know what happens?"

Burke shook his head.

"The object of divine assistance enters a room, which has nice oak benches down either side. She, and most of them are women (for men have a chance to panhandle, and consider it more self-respecting to beg on the streets than from a religious corporation), waits her turn, until a dizzy blonde clerk beckons condescendingly. She advances to the rail, and gives her name, race, color, previous condition of servitude, her mother's great grandmother's maiden name, and a lot of other important charitable things. She is then referred to room six hundred and ninety. There she gives more of her autobiography. From this room she is sent to the inspection department, and she is investigated further. If the poor woman doesn't faint from hunger and exhaustion she keeps up this schedule until she has walked a Marathon around the fine white marble building devoted to charity. At last she gets a ticket for a meal, or a sort of trading stamp by which she can get a room for the night in a vermin-infested lodging house, upon the additional payment of thirty cents. Now, this may seem exaggerated, but honestly, my boy, I have given you just about the course of action of these scientific philanthropic enterprises. They are spic and span as the quarterdeck of a millionaire's yacht."

MacFarland was so disgusted with the objects of his tirade that he tried three times before he could fill his old briar pipe.

"Doctor, why don't you air these opinions where they will count?" asked Bobbie. "It's time to stop the graft."

"When some newspaper is brave enough to risk the enmity of church people, who don't know real conditions, and thus lose a few subscribers, or when some really charitable people investigate for themselves, it will all come out. The real truth of that quotation at the bottom of the Purity League letter should be expressed this way: 'Charity covers a multitude of hypocrites and grafters.' And to my mind the dirtiest, foulest, lowest grafter in the world is the man who does it under the cloak of charity or religion. But a man who proclaims such a belief as mine is called an atheist and a destroyer of ideals."