“You know Feinheimer’s Cabaret.”

“The basement joint on Wells Street?” asked Jimmy.  “Sure I know it.”

“Well that’s where I got you a job,” said the Lizard.

“What doing?” asked Jimmy.

“Waiter,” was the reply.

“It isn’t any worse than standing behind a counter, selling stockings to women,” said Jimmy.

“It ain’t such a bad job,” admitted the Lizard “if a guy ain’t too swelled up.  Some of ’em make a pretty good thing out of it, what with their tips and short changing—­Oh, there are lots of little ways to get yours at Feinheimer’s.”

“I see,” said Jimmy; “but don’t he pay any wages?”

“Oh, sure,” replied the Lizard; “you get the union scale.”

“When do I go to work?”

“Go around and see him to-morrow morning.  He will put you right to work.”

And so the following evening the patrons of Feinheimer’s Cabaret saw a new face among the untidy servitors of the establishment—­a new face and a new figure, both of which looked out of place in the atmosphere of the basement resort.

Feinheimer’s Cabaret held a unique place among the restaurants of the city.  Its patrons were from all classes of society.  At noon its many tables were largely filled by staid and respectable business men, but at night a certain element of the underworld claimed it as their own, and there was always a sprinkling of people of the stage, artists, literary men and politicians.  It was, as a certain wit described it, a social goulash, for in addition to its regular habitues there were those few who came occasionally from the upper stratum of society in the belief that they were doing something devilish.  As a matter of fact, slumming parties which began and ended at Feinheimer’s were of no uncommon occurrence, and as the place was more than usually orderly it was with the greatest safety that society made excursions into the underworld of crime and vice through its medium.

CHAPTER X.

At Feinheimer’s.

Feinheimer liked Jimmy’s appearance.  He was big and strong, and the fact that Feinheimer always retained one or two powerful men upon his payroll accounted in a large measure for the orderliness of his place.  Occasionally one might start something at Feinheimer’s, but no one was ever known to finish what he started.

And so Jimmy found himself waiting upon table at a place that was both reputable and disreputable, serving business men at noon and criminals and the women of the underworld at night.  In the weeks that he was there he came to know many of the local celebrities in various walks of life, to know them at least by name.  There was Steve Murray, the labor leader, whom rumor said was one of Feinheimer’s financial backers—­a large man with a loud voice and the table manners of a Duroc-Jersey.  Jimmy took an instinctive dislike to the man the first time that he saw him.