Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 283, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 December 1914 — MULVEY THE MACER [ARTICLE]

MULVEY THE MACER

By CLARENCE L. CULLEN.

Mulvey the Maeer, not being a member of the Panhandlers’ union, works his independent or open-shop panhandling route anywhere in Broadway between Madison square and Longacre square. In one of the intersecting streets he was in the if loquacious enjoyment of an evening of rest and relaxation at his Tenth avenue hangout, a maltorium where the hops flagons are high hats and hard-stuff measures are short-handled dippers. He greeted me cordially and hospitably. "I read that t’ing o’*your’n in the Horseback magazine—-ye-eh, I gotcha,

The Cav-leer—about the macin’ game,” said he, a certain note of deprecation f ln his tone. "All I gotta say about that piece is this: It was and it wasn’t, w’ich is long fr yes and no. ‘T’ don’t wanta lis’n to these panners that blurt that this town is goin’ bad. I ain’t sayin’, un’stand, that the macin’ t’ing is what it useta be here. But it’s still wort’ w’ile if yhu know how to duck the bulls and are hep to character-readin’. Them’s the two main wires: Flaggin’ the rough-necks and knowin’ how to slant up the right marks to brace. “O’ course the first t’ing a manor's got to remember that expects to have the price of all the suds he can lick up when he knocks off woik is to keep from gittin,’ the souse on when he’s operatin’ his beat. This is hard, o’ course; but it’s gotta be done by a panner that wants to make a success

o’ pannin’. “Y’see, the souse can be put off till filter sundown, and it’ll be all the better after you’ve waited for it. Jes’ take a peek at the fun I’m havin’ wit’ meself right now, fr instance,” and Mulvey the Macer staked himself to another dipperful of the "fine old mellow bourbon, only five cents,” as the large placard on the barrel proclaimed It to be, and tossed the heavy shot Into his system without the use of or any other ameliorating fluid as a chaser, with every evidence of extreme relish. “As I’m chatterin’,” het went on, “that’s the first gag f'r the macer that act’ally expects to succeed—to hold off on his package till his wolk’s been done and all the loose duff’s been picked up and pouched. “The idee is, y’ get me, there’s a

lot o’ folkß that objec’ to dlggin’ up to a macer that looks like he wants to lean again’ a lamp-post of a’ awnin’ pole while he chirps f’r the change. I don’t know why they should objec’, but a lot o’ them do, as I’m sayin’. “Different macers has got different ldees about the kind o’ people that’s the best perducers.j>F’r mine, I alius make it a point to brace the big stifts. The little terriers ain’t diggers gen’ally. The sawed-off stift nearly alius wheels on the macer and callß him a bum and gits the clutch on his cane and swells out his 26-inch chest and turns back his head and tries to make hlsself look like the picture o’ the bantam champeen. It don’t make no difference what kind of a ditty the panner slips the little man in the way qL a spiel, it's alius or nearly alius t|e same. He gits the hoof. “The big stifts f’r mine, all the time, as I’m sayin’, and the kind wit’ the swell scenery. I alius pick out a swinger that pounds along as If he’s got a mortgage on the pavement and swaggers like a man-o’-wars-man at the beginnin’ o’ a four-day pickle. Y’ can alius dope it that a heavybreezer like this has got the change right in the little side kick', and that he likes to hear what a warm rag he is.

‘**MaJe,’ says I to one o' that kind, 'youse looks like yonse can chuck a minnlt’s time to lls’n to the chirp o' distress of a poor bloke that’s hit the coral reef,’ and then I sort o’ slant hiß raiment over wit’ envy in me wicks. "If he mooches right on, sayin', ‘on your way, bo, before I swing on youse f’r luck,’ I fall in half step behind him and hurl him that one about my onct bein’ able to flash the same klud o’ swellerino togs that he’s makin’ such a hit wit’. That gen’ally snags the big stifts. They pretend that they’re not listenin’, but they’re lappin’ it in all right, and then all you've gotta do is to keep up that line o’ bunk, slippin’ in one or two about benev’lent count’nances and prosp’rous, charitable looks, and all the like o’ that, and nine times outa ten you’ll see the big stiffs mitt makin’ fr the change-kick in his 'tunic. / \ “W’ile he’s goin’ f’r the ehuh k o’ change you wanta nudge Id that one about Lis lookin’ as if he’d never had a day’s bum luck in his-life, and then he’ll come back: ’“Don’t you ever git that idea in your bean —you don’t know what hard luck means.’

“I don’t know w’y it is that ev’ry guy in the swell push, w’ether he was born wit’ the gilt fork in Us chops or not, and that never was hungry of firsts f’r a mhunif in his life, likes to make hisself and others t’ink that he’s had about half o’ all the hard wallops that ever was dished out since the beginnin’ o’ the world. *’’Don’t youse never fink I ain’t been over the Jumps harder’n youse even dreamed of, bo,’ the bjg easy stiff wit’ the Joy togs on will say, and w’en be bands you that his piece o’ change is Jes’ as good as salted in y’r nankeens. “But p’ course they’s different kinds 1

o’ big stiffs. If, fr instance, w’en you brace the big boob with the money tailorin’ he hands youse the merry twink outa his windows and tells youse he needs all the booze coin he can earn fr his own low appetites, then it’s youse to slip him the candid spieL j, "‘Oh, well, I see youse is nex’, judge,’ says I to that kind, ‘and youse is' the kind of a man that can symp’thize wit’ a bum that ain’t lilted the price o’ a hooter fr two days—not o’ course that youse was ever in that bad a fix y’rself,’ says I. ‘“Oh, I wasn’t, hey?’ the mark nearly alius rebates when I give him that, and he gits to musin’, as he plods along—and me not far behind him—about the times w’en he’s been marooned in a prohibition town somewheres w’ere he couldn't spring a ball, and that nearly alius makes him skate to the center wit’ the price. ‘Tve had boobs like that, in slippin’ me the kale, say: ‘Look a here, youse, if ever I hear o’ youse buyin’ grub wit’ that, or doin’ anythin’ else wit' it ’ceptln’ gettin’ as much nose-paint f r it as it’s good fr, I’ll have yoose sloughed,’ meahin’ pinched. “But at that we can’t alius pick ’em right. ‘A w’ile back I gits it right on topa the bean from one o’ them big breezers. He was swingin’ along the big trail, ’long about time Vj me to knock off —I only wolks till/dark, see —and, as he has one o’ them good-na-tured buns wit’ him, says I to meself, ‘There’s two bits walkfla’ on two legs.’ # "So I eases him the chirp ’bout my needin’ Jes one to make me t’ink life’s wort’ livin’, and he stops and hands me such a beamin’ grin that the two bits looks as good as wheat in the bin.

“‘So youse needs Jes’ one pOoty bad, hey, chum?’ says the big stift, jammin’ his mitt into the side kick of his coat.

.“‘Never badder since I made me big entrance, maje,’ says I, and }t looked so soft that I was hopin’ maybe he wouldn’t have anythin’ on him smaller’n four bits.

“‘T’ink Jes’ one 'ud help yotise a huU lot, hey?’ says the toppy stift with the grinnki’ pickle on, pullin’ out a bull handful o’ the bright two and four bit pieces and runnin’ ’em over wit’ his lamp.

" "Guv’nor,’ says I, ‘it’s %Jmost a matter o’ life and deat’ wit’ me.’ “‘Me poor, unfortnit feller man,’ says he then, suddenly cuttin’ out the grin and puttin’ on the undertaker’s map, ‘yours is Indeed a sad, sad story, and the bowl, I tear me, has been the roon o’ youse. Here’ take this, and read it carefully; it’ll cheer youse up.’ “Wot d’ye t’ink it was he handed me wit’ his left fin as he put the change that he had in his right bad. in the kale kick? I hope to be nibbled to deaf by rabbits if it wasn’t the ‘Annual Report o’ the Methodist, Missions in Africa.’ Jes’ eases it po' me, the big stift, and trudges on, and me watchin’ his shoulders shakin’.

“Macin’ the skirts is a different gag altogether, i. When youse sets out to stick up the calicoes in the shoppln’ dlatric’-youse is got to switch the cut fill aroun’. Youse don’t wanta stack up ag’in’ the big, strappin’, coineylookin’ skirts at all. They won’t do f’r any part o’ the journey, find they’re li'ble to follow youse fr four blocks to put one o’ the biddies wit’ia badge nex’ td'youse. “Nothin’ like that stuff fr mine. In playin’ the calicoes along youse wants pick out the quiet-dressed, unassum-in’-lookin’ little fringtes that' ain’t got no strut about ’em at all, and that walk sort o’ wit’ their han’s in front of ’em, ol’-fashioned like, and their lamps on the ground.” .1