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I cannot now recall what it was about my treatment of these institutions that aroused so much interest in the office and made me into a kind of Globe hero. I was innocent of all knowledge of the above complications which I have just described when I started, and almost as innocent when I concluded. Nevertheless now daily at ten in the morning and again in the afternoon I went to one or another of these shops, listened to the harangue of the noisy barkers, saw tin-gilt jewelry knocked down to unsuspecting yokels from the South and West who stood open-mouthed watching the hypnotizing movements of the auctioneer’s hands as he waved a glistering gem or watch in front of them and expatiated on the beauties and perfections of the article he was compelled to part from for a song. These places were not only deceptions and frauds in what they pretended to sell but also gathering-places for thieves, pick-pockets, footpads who, finding some deluded bystander to be possessed of a watch, pin or roll of money other than that from which he was parted by the auctioneer or his associates, either then and there by some legerdemain robbed him or followed him into a dark street and knocked him down and did the same. At this time Chicago was notorious for this sort of thing, and it was openly charged in the Globe and elsewhere that the police connived at and thrived by the transactions.