business."

"Go on," said Susan eagerly. "You are so sensible. You must
teach me."

"Common sense is a thing you don't often hear--especially about
getting on in the world. But, as I was saying--one of my
gentlemen friends is a lawyer--such a nice fellow--so liberal.
Gives me a present of twenty or twenty-five extra, you
understand--every time he makes a killing downtown. He asked
me once how I felt when I started in; and when I told him, he
said, 'That's exactly the way I felt the first time I won a
case for a client I knew was a dirty rascal and in the wrong.
But now--I take that sort of thing as easy as you do.' He says
the thing is to get on, no matter how, and that one way's as
good as another. And he's mighty right. You soon learn that
in little old New York, where you've got to have the money or
you get the laugh and the foot--the swift, hard kick. Clean up
after you've arrived, he says--and don't try to keep clean
while you're working--and don't stop for baths and things while
you're at the job."

Susan was listening with every faculty she possessed.

"He says he talks the other sort of thing--the dope--the fake
stuff--just as the rest of the hustlers do. He says it's
necessary in order to keep the people fooled--that if they got
wise to the real way to succeed, then there'd be nobody to rob
and get rich off of. Oh, he's got it right. He's a smart one."

The sad, bitter expression was strong in Susan's face.

After a pause, Ida went on: "If a girl's an ignorant fool or
squeamish, she don't get up in this business any more than in
any other. But if she keeps a cool head, and don't take lovers
unless they pay their way, and don't drink, why she can keep
her self-respect and not have to take to the streets."

Susan lifted her head eagerly. "Don't have to take to the
streets?" she echoed.

"Certainly not," declared Ida. "I very seldom let a man pick
me up after dark--unless he looks mighty good. I go out in the
daytime. I pretend I'm an actress out of a job for the time
being, or a forelady in a big shop who's taking a day or so
off, or a respectable girl living with her parents. I put a
lot of money into clothes--quiet, ladylike clothes. Mighty
good investment. If you ain't got clothes in New York you
can't do any kind of business. I go where a nice class of men
hangs out, and I never act bold, but just flirt timidly, as so
many respectable girls or semi-respectables do. But when