or their services. He did not notice that the boys in the
wash-rooms and coat-rooms could not speak a word of English; he could
not know that they were searched every night, and had everything taken
from them, and that the Greek who hired them had paid fifteen thousand
dollars a year to the hotel for the privilege.

So far had the specialization in evil proceeded that there were places
of prostitution which did a telephone-business exclusively, and would
send a woman in a cab to any address; and there were high-class
assignation-houses, which furnished exquisite apartments and the
services of maids and valets. And in this world of vice the modern
doctrine of the equality of the sexes was fully recognized; there were
gambling-houses and pool-rooms and opium-joints for women, and
drinking-places which catered especially for them. In the "orange room"
of one of the big hotels, you might see rich women of every rank and
type, fingering the dainty leather-bound and gold-embossed wine cards.
In this room alone were sold over ten thousand drinks every day; and
the hotel paid a rental of a million a year to the Devon estate. Not
far away the Devons also owned negro-dives, where, in the early hours
of the morning, you might see richly-gowned white women drinking.

In this seething caldron of graft there were many strange ways of
making money, and many strange and incredible types of human beings to
be met. Once, in "Society," Montague had pointed out to him a woman who
had been a "tattooed lady" in a circus; there was another who had been
a confederate of gamblers upon the ocean steamships, and another who
had washed dishes in a mining-camp. There was one of these great hotels
whose proprietor had been a successful burglar; and a department-store
whose owner had begun life as a "fence." In any crowd of these
revellers you might have such strange creatures pointed out to you; a
multimillionaire who sold rotten jam to the people; another who had
invented opium soothing-syrup for babies; a convivial old gentleman who
disbursed the "yellow dog fund" of several railroads; a handsome
chauffeur who had run away with an heiress. 'Once a great scientist had
invented a new kind of underwear, and had endeavoured to make it a gift
to humanity; and here was a man who had seized upon it and made
millions out of it! Here was a "trance medium," who had got a fortune
out of an imbecile old manufacturer; here was a great newspaper
proprietor, wh