I got into Chicago safely and immediately put my fortune in a safety box. Then I bought plenty of good clothes and got myself a nice room near the corner of Clark and Madison Streets. That seemed to be the center of the night life, and I instinctively anchored there. I put in the winter investigating the cheap dives, hurdy-gurdies, and dance halls. The tough Tenderloin district attracted me also. The beer bums and barrelhouse five-cent whisky bums came under my notice. Not very different from the winos of San Francisco. I visited the five-cent barber shops of lower Clark Street and the ten-cent flops and dime ham-and-bean joints. Nothing escaped me. I nibbled at the faro games, but was careful and never got hurt. Every night I looked into Hinky Dink’s and Bathhouse John’s bars and heard the same old alarm, “here comes the wagon.” But those two kings of the First Ward were “Johnnie on the spot” and never allowed any of their people to languish in the can overnight.

I discovered the saloon of “Mush Mouth” Johnson, a negro politician of power, and, fascinated, watched his patrons, each in turn trying to make the bone dice roll his way.