Soapy Smith gambling house. Legend has it that above the entrance of the stairway leading upstairs to the gambling games was a sign that read "caveat emptor", Latin for "let the buyer beware". Smith's younger brother, Bascomb Smith, joined the gang and operated a cigar store that was a front for dishonest poker games and other swindles, operating in one of the back rooms. Other operations included fraudulent lottery shops, a "sure-thing" stock exchange, fake watch and bogus diamond auctions, and the sale of stocks in nonexistent businesses. Because of bribes, some of the police officers patrolling the streets would not arrest
Beware the Cat lost. Another edition appeared in 1570 now only known via a Victorian era transcript, apart from four pages which still exist and another in 1584. The work was dedicated to the actor John Young. The 1570 quarto edition is entitled: "A MARVELOVS hystory intitulede, Beware the Cat. Conteynyng diuerse wounderfull and incredible matters. Uery pleasant and mery to read." On publication in its 1570 edition it was subject to an anonymous poetic riposte of 56 lines, "A shorte Answere to the boke called: "Beware the Cat"", which rebukes the author for making fun of the narrator Master Gregory Streamer (who