I sat on his trunk while Ferguson Pogue talked. No one could be franker
or more candid in his conversation. Beside his expression the cry of
Henry James for lacteal nourishment at the age of one month would have
seemed like a Chaldean cryptogram. He told me stories of his profession
with pride, for he considered it an art. And I was curious enough to ask
him whether he had known any women who followed it.
"Ladies?" said Pogue, with Western chivalry. "Well, not to any great
extent. They don't amount to much in special lines of graft, because
they're all so busy in general lines. What? Why, they have to. Who's got
the money in the world? The men. Did you ever know a man to give a woman
a dollar without any consideration? A man will shell out his dust to
another man free and easy and gratis. But if he drops a penny in one of
the machines run by the Madam Eve's Daughters' Amalgamated Association
and the pineapple chewing gum don't fall out when he pulls the lever you
can hear him kick to the superintendent four blocks away. Man is the
hardest proposition a woman has to go up against. He's the low-grade
one, and she has to work overtime to make him pay. Two times out of
five she's salted.
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