I'm stuck on Jim--and another little fellow he
don't know about. For God's sake don't tell him or he'd have
me pinched for doing business free. I get full every night and
raise old Nick. Sometimes I hate Jim. I've tried to kill him
twice when I was loaded. But a girl's got to have a backer
with a pull. And Jim lets me keep a bigger share of what I
make than some fellows. Freddie's pretty good too, they
say--except when he's losing on the races or gets stuck on some
actress that's too classy to be shanghaied--like you was--and
that makes him cough up."
Maud went on to disclose that Jim usually let her have all she
made above thirty dollars a week, and in hard weeks had
sometimes let her beg off with fifteen. Said she:
"I can generally count on about fifteen or twenty for myself.
Us girls that has backers make a lot more money than the girls
that hasn't. They're always getting pinched too--though
they're careful never to speak first to a man. _We_ can go
right up and brace men with the cops looking on. A cop that'd
touch us would get broke--unless we got too gay or robbed
somebody with a pull. But none of our class of girls do any
robbing. There's nothing in it. You get caught sooner or
later, and then you're down and out."
While Susan was having two more drinks Maud talked about
Freddie. She seemed to know little about him, though he was
evidently one of the conspicuous figures.
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