He Fools The Confidence Man

1895

How a Guileless Looking Traveling Man Hoodwinks Bunko Steerers.

There is a growing fashion among traveling men to attach to their satchels and valises those well known little straps fastening to the handle of the baggage a small leather tag, into which is slipped a card bearing the owner's name. As a traveler walks along the street carrying his baggage thus tagged it is often easy to read his name by walking a moment at his side and glancing at the tag.

The confidence men and bunko steerers have not been slow to discover that fact, and they not infrequently in this way learn the actual name of their intended victim without the assistance of the usual confederate, whose business it is to learn the victim's name and place of residence.

I have a friend who travels a great deal, but whose appearance of guileless and childlike innocence attracts the bunko man as sugar attracts flies. He has become accustomed to them now. They never dupe him, but their attentions sometimes annoy him.

He drifted into the city again not long ago, and as he laid his satchel upon the hotel desk I was surprised to see that it bore one of the little leather tags containing the card of "Mr. Jabez L. Simonds." Now, Jabez L. Simonds was not my friend's name, and I laughingly said to him: "What's this mean? I'll bet you've swapped baggage on the train and have got some other fellow's satchel."

My friend smiled, winked slyly at the hotel clerk and said mysteriously: "No, I haven't. That's my satchel, but it isn't my name. Come outside with me after awhile, and I'll show you how it works if we have my usual luck."

We went accordingly, and my friend carried the satchel with him. He had his "usual luck," and I saw how "it worked." We had not walked three blocks from the Grand Union hotel when a dapper little fellow came up behind us. I didn't notice that he even glanced at that satchel, but he must have done so, of course. He walked up briskly, as though to pass us; then turning, with a well feigned look of recognition, he held out his hand, effusively greeted my friend as Mr. Simonds, and was starting in on the same old bunko formula when my friend nudged me and interrupted him:

"Glad to see you, Johnnie," he said. "My name isn't Jabez L. Simonds, and I'm not so green as I look. I just keep that tag on my baggage for the sake of chaps of your kind who are so fond of recognizing old friends. Good day, Johnnie. Hope you're not offended."

"I like to to do it," he explained to me as we started back toward the hotel. "It's just a fad of mine." — New York Herald.