his visible partner would set up his weighing device, and then
stationing himself near it he would beseech you to let him guess your
correct weight. If he guessed within three pounds of it, as recorded by
the machine, you owed him a nickel; if he failed to guess within three
pounds of it you owed him nothing. "Take a chance, brother!" he would
entreat you with friendly jovial banter. "Be a sport--take a chance!"
Let us say you accepted his proposition. Swiftly he would flip with his
hands along your sides, would slap your flanks, would pinch you gently
as though testing your flesh for solidity, then would call out loudly
so that all within earshot might hear: "I figure that the gentleman
weighs--let me see--exactly one hundred and forty-seven pounds." Or
perhaps he would predict: "This big fellow will pull her down at two
hundred and eight pounds, no more and no less." Then you placed yourself
in the swinging seat of the machine with your feet clear of the earth,
and his partner duly weighed you. Sometimes Marr guessed your weight;
quite as often, though, he failed to come within three pounds of it and
you paid him nothing for his pains. It was difficult to figure how so
precarious a means of income could be made to yield a proper return
unless the scales were dishonest.

The scales were honest enough. The real profits were derived from quite
a different source. Three master dips--pickpockets--were waiting for you
as you moved off; they attended to your case with neatness and dispatch.
Their work was expedited for them by reason that already they knew where
you carried your valuables. Once Marr ran his swift and practiced
fingers over your body he knew where your watch was, your wallet, your
purse for small change, your roll of bills.

A code word in his patter advertised to his confederates exactly
whereabouts upon your person the treasure was carried. Really the
business gave splendid returns. It was Marr, though, who had seized upon
it when it merely was a catchpenny carnival device and made of it a
real money earner. Moreover, the pickpockets took the real peril. Even
in the infrequent event of the detection of them there was no evidence
to justify the suspicion that the proprietors of the weighing machine
were accessories to the pocket looting. Vince Marr was like that--always
playing safe for himself, always thinking a jump ahead of his crowd and
a jump and a half ahead of the police.

He was never the one to ge