XXII

The young fellow that helped me dispose of the stones was the wayward son of a fine family and it would not be right to them to use his name. I will call him “Spokane,” the monoger he was known by among his associates. He had been in San Francisco for years and was familiar with an underworld that I had seen very little of. Most of my life had been spent on the road or roughing it in out-of-the-way places, broken by a few months now and then in city slums. He introduced me into the elegant hop joints where we smoked daily, into the hangouts of polished bunko men and clever pickpockets, into the gilded cafés and other exclusive and refined places of entertainment.