Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (Aus., also gee-er, gee man) one who ‘gees up’ the potential customers into a sideshow, strip-club, confidence trick etc.

1900–10		Stephens & O’Brien Materials for a Dict. of Aus. Sl. [unpub. ms.] 78: GEES: slang sharpers confederates: the men who pretend to buy from or bet with cheap-jacks or swindling gamesters.
1901		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 2 Jan. 4/1: Passing through the cordon ‘gees’ that surrounded the three-card men.
1905		Little Falls Herald (MN) 31 Mar. 3/3: How to Operate the Shell Game with Profit [...] If the ‘gee’ springs a fat roll, tip the ollie a finif to vamp until the blow off.
1907		Lone Hand (Sydney) Nov. 57/2: When a ‘mug’ is caught, the —’G’s’ (who are got up to represent farmers, clerics, or any citizens commonly supposed to know little of cards) commence their manoeuvres.
1912		Bulletin (Sydney) 14 Nov. 2/4: In one business block in Melbourne there are four ‘dummy’ auctioneers. They all sell the same class of shoddy and have the same ‘gee-ers’. [...] The runners-up or ‘gee-ers’ are all well-known confidence and three-card men. [...] In the bogus auction rooms they act the parts of jewellers and dealers, and keep a look out for mugs who are fleeced for the auctioneer, and later on skinned for the crook’s own benefit, if their hides are worth the trouble.
1928		Aberdeen Jrnl 19 Dec. 8/4: ‘Ricks’ and ‘gees’ were members of the gang who mixed with the crowd, and ‘enticed the fly to walk into a web.’ To ‘sting the gee’ meant to take part in the swindle.
1933		‘George Orwell’ Down and Out in Complete Works I (1986) 176: These (omitting the ones that everyone knows) are some of the cant words now used in London: [...] A gee (or jee – it is pronounced jee) – the accomplice of a cheapjack, who stimulates trade by pretending to buy something.
1941		K. Tennant Battlers 141: In the show world a ‘gee-man’ or ‘micky finn’ was socially on the level of a duck’s feet. He is the man who goes out in the crowd and touts for custom.
1951		D.P. Mannix Sword-Swallower 62: That gee’s a grind man who thinks he’s a talker.

2. idle chatter, empty talk, ‘blarney’.

1900		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 17 Oct. 1/3: Another Tommy, by way of a gee, said it was a dead head ticket for a tea fight.
1936		J. Curtis Gilt Kid 18: It’s only gee. They just talk that way to make you turn milky.
1950		P. Hoskins No Hiding Place! 190/2: Gee. Bluff.