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Riis, Jacob A., 1849-1914

"The Making of an American"

We had been over one
man's beat three times, searching every nook and cranny of it, and
were reluctantly compelled to own that he was not there, when the
"boss" of an all-night restaurant on Third Avenue came out with
a club as we passed and gave the regulation signal raps on the
sidewalk. There was some trouble in his place. Three times he
repeated the signal calling for the patrolman on the beat before
he turned to Roosevelt, who stood by, with the angry exclamation:--

"Where in thunder does that copper sleep? He orter'd tole me when
he giv' up the barber-shop, so's a fellow could find him."
[Illustration: "One was sitting asleep on a butter-tub."]
We didn't find him then, but he found the President of the Board
later on when summoned to Police Headquarters to explain why he had
changed his sleeping quarters. The whole force woke up as a result
of that night's work, and it kept awake those two years, for, as
it learned by experience, Mr. Roosevelt's spectacles might come
gleaming around the corner at any hour. He had not been gone a year
before the Chief found it necessary to transfer half the force in
an up-town precinct to keep it awake.


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