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WALLINGFORD
IN HIS PRIME
By
:
GEORGE RANDOLPH CHESTER
AUTHOR OF
Young Wallingford, Five Thousand an Hour
The Jingo, Etc., Etc.
INDIANAPOLIS
THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
PUBLISHERS


COPYRIGHT 1913
THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
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PC
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PRESS OF
BRAUNWORTH & Co.
BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS
BROOKLYN, N. Y.


CONTENTS
CHAPTER
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I THERE's Money in IT ....
II The GRAND OPENING . ....
III THE FIRST SUCKER .....
IV A LITTLE BUSINESS TALK.
V THE GLAD HAND ...
VI BLACKIE FALLS . ..
VII A GREAT SCHEME . . .
VIII A THIRTY-Day OPTION ....
IX THE USUAL METHOD .....
X ANYTHING TO OBLIGE. ....
XI QUICK PROFITS . ... ..
XII You Can't Lose ....
XIII STRICTLY TEMPERANCE . . . . . . .
XIV MONEY TALKS ........... 272
. XV BONNETS AND BUSINESS .....
XVI THE LITTLE HOUSE . . . . . ...
XVII GETTING AWAY WITH IT. ...
XVIII A SIDE ISSUE .......
XIX THAT LITTLE DEAL .....
XX COMING ON. . .. . . . lol lol lol !! . .
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WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME





WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
CHAPTER I
THERE'S MONEY IN IT
NUMBER TWENTY-ONE, rounding the curve
at Buzzard Bluff, came to such an abrupt stop
that the heavy gentleman who was the sole occupant
of the parlor-car was jerked to his knees, a position
so novel and so out of the range of his experience
that he chuckled at himself as soon as he realized it.
Being a calloused traveler, he merely rescued his hat
; from the floor, brushed the lint of the carpet from
his carefully creased trousers, rang the bell for the
porter, who he knew would not come, and went
outside to see what was the matter.
In the private car of President Falls, just behind
the parlor-car, there was a trifle more of consterna-
tion, for certain hissing glasses upon the whist-table
were overturned, completely destroying two decks
of cards and one lavender-tinted waistcoat, the
latter belonging to young “ Benssy" Falls, a tall
youth so handsome as to be pretty, who, like the.


2
WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
well-cultivated gentleman that he was, pushed back
his chair, rang for the butler to clear away the mess,
and excused himself for long enough to change his
waistcoat to another of the same hue, this being his
lavender day. Perfect as were his manners, he
nevertheless did allow an expression of impatience
to escape him.
“How very annoying!” he observed, but his dim-
ples showed immediately that he had regained his
usual agreeable spirit.
“Not wishing to criticize your gov'nor's road,
Bense, but it's rotten careless of somebody, I should
say,” drawled Rickey Saunders, a pink young per-
son with a mustache that had been blighted in in-
fancy, with an in curve from his collar-button to his
knees, and with a father who had been considerate
enough to die before he lost his third fortune.
“Father wouldn't be offended if he heard you, I'm
quite sure,” responded Benson. “He knows this
road to be perfectly inexcusable, but he won't spend
any money on improvements just now, because he
expects to sell his stock immediately after the next
dividends are declared."
The three other whist-players were silent for a
moment after this complicated statement, and then
the shrill little falsetto beneath the sparsely bristling
Kaiser Wilhelm mustache of Buelow von Humper-
dinck suddenly announced the solution.


THERE'S MONEY IN IT
3
"I see the reason!” it declared excitedly. “By
that course the dividends will be larger and he can
secure a better price for his stock," and the per-
manent creases that passed for thought deepened
in Von Humperdinck's fragmentary brow.
"I say, that's really clever,” lisped Reginald de
Puyster Haugh, whose still hateful surname was
only one generation removed from Haw, and whose
thick lips and broad shiny face still denied all that
mere godfathers could do for him. “By the way,
Benssy, I wonder what the blooming row's about,
anyhow."
“Some one should have a good ragging for it,”
declared the black-freckled young man with the
nose, who had been a mere onlooker at the whist-
game.“ Absolutely beastly damage has been done.
Look at Benssy's model!”.
On the floor by a table near one of the broad
windows lay a once wonderfully neat, but now piti-
fully bent and broken pasteboard model of a small
house, the work of Benson Falls' own white hands.
There was a general chorus of polite dismay upon
the discovery of this catastrophe, but young Mr.
Falls, whose skill at needlework and crape-paper
creations had made him the hit of every charity
fair, dismissed the matter lightly, although he heaved
the sigh of a distressed artist as he stooped to ex-
amine the damage that had been done to his pretty


4
WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
handiwork. He had just replaced it upon the table
when Shamasuka appeared after the third ring.
“You're an annoying long time in coming,
Sammy,” protested Mr. Falls.
“I beg your pardon, sir," replied the Jap, “but
I thought you might like to know the cause of the
delay, and I hurried out to investigate."
“Very well, you may tell us," Mr. Falls gra-
ciously consented.
" Thank you, sir," responded Shamasuka.
“There is a heavy rock-slide on the track just
ahead of us. The engineer made a very good stop,
but, unfortunately, snapped a driving-rod in doing
so.”
The eyes of all four of Mr. Falls' friends turned
to him expectantly in this emergency. He was
equal to the occasion.
“You will tell the conductor," he directed in the
voice of authority,“ to repair the driving-rod, clear
the track and proceed immediately.”
“Yes, sir,” said the Jap, in a tone almost of sol-
emn gratitude, but when he reached the platform he
grinned.
The heavy gentleman from the parlor-car, who
was already excellent friends with the crew, was
discussing ways and means with the conductor when
Shamasuka came out with the message. The con-
ductor was listening with great respect.


THERE'S MONEY IN IT
“I beg your pardon, sir,” said Shamasuka to the
conductor, “but Mr. Falls directs me to tell you
to repair your driving-rod, clear the track and pro-
ceed immediately."
The conductor, whose name was O'Connell,
turned red in the face. “You tell Mr. Falls that I
directed him to go to the devil!” he roared.
“Yes, sir,” said the Jap with pleasure, and when
he regained the platform he permitted himself an-
other grin.
The heavy gentleman turned to the conductor in
perplexity. “You must be tired of your job," he
suggested.
“Me? I love it,” responded O'Connell, smiling.
“But you don't think I'm sending that answer to
President Falls, do you? It's his saphead son back
there, and he's been giving me fool orders ever since
we picked up his souse-car at the junction. If the
Jap only carries him my little speech, and the cub
only reports it to his old man, I'm in line for pro-
motion.”
"I guess you're right,” laughed the big fellow.
“I know Falls. I wish he were in that car. That's
the only diner on this train, and we're likely to be
stuck here for three hours."
“Maybe longer," admitted O'Connell with a
frown. “ It's eight miles back to the nearest tele-
graph station and ten forward."


6
WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
A savage dissertation on the road in general
was presently interrupted by the arrival of Benssy
Falls, attended by his quartet of friends. The son
of the president wasted no time in parley, but stalked
straight up to the conductor.
“I demand an apology," he said, his dimples in-
terfering sadly with his severity.
“ You get back on your car,” ordered O'Connell.
“ You can do what you please there, but I'm running
the rest of the train.”
" You will either apologize or I shall be compelled
to ask you to fight,” declared young Mr. Falls very
sternly.
“That's what I call sportin'," announced Rickey
Saunders, with such keen delight that his stubble
of mustache thinned visibly with the spread of his
lip. “Aye, fellows?”
"Magnanimous of Benssy, considering the dif-
ference in class,” murmured thick-lipped Haugh,
once Haw, whose father had been a dry-goods clerk
until he married an impressionable rich customer,
and developed a genius for being lucky at other
stock- and bond-gambling.
O'Connell looked over the shoulders and arms of
young Mr. Falls appreciatively, and a twinkle came
into his eye. “Far be it from me to commit assault,
battery or mayhem upon the son of my bread and
butter,” he stated; "but even if you were your own


THERE'S MONEY IN IT
father, Mr. Falls, I'll bet a month's pay I'd defend
myself if struck — if struck!”
“ As the insulted party I have the right to the
first blow, but I waive it,” returned Mr. Falls with
dignity. “Kindly come into the car. Sammy, get
out the gloves. Conductor, you may choose your
second.”
“I'll go you if I lose," said O'Connell with a
grin, “and for my second I'll take Mr.
What is your name, brother?” and he turned to
the heavy passenger with a wink.
“Wallingford,” responded the heavy passenger,
answering the wink with a chuckle, “ J. Rufus Wal-
lingford. I'll accept the office with pleasure.”
Upon this Mr. O'Connell introduced Mr. Wal-
lingford to Mr. Falls, who, in turn, introduced him
to Mr. Saunders, Mr. Humperdinck, Mr. Haugh,
and Mr. Ringgold Cash, the black-freckled young
gentleman with the iron-wire hair, who, dropping be-
hind with Rickey Saunders as they proceeded to the
car, confided to his friend his fears that Benssy was
leading them into a rather questionable set of com-
panions.
“Good sportin' blood, I call it,” insisted Rickey.
"And why not mix in with a few outsiders? Take
this corpulent party, for instance; he may be a
bounder and all that, looks like a man in trade, you
know, but he can't hurt us any."


8
WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
"No," admitted young Cash, whose great-grand-
father had been a junk-dealer; “we don't need to
know him afterward, of course, but still one can't
be too particular. One owes something to one's
family."
Benssy Falls emerged from his compartment with
his torso stripped to his sleeveless lavender silk un-
dervest, surveying his own velvety biceps with com-
placent respect, and sat upon the leather-cushion din-
ing-chair placed for him in the corner by Rickey
Saunders. Rickey patted him encouraging upon the
round shoulders.
“You k'n whip your conductor chap, old top.
Don't become fretted about it,” he said, and plucked
complacently at the pluckless mustache.
Across in the opposite corner, Conductor O'Con-
nell, disdaining to sit in the chair the urbane Wal-
lingford had provided for him, stood without coat
or hat, and his blue shirt-sleeves rolled up to his
elbows revealed his brawny and hairy forearms.
He was grinning sheepishly
Mr. Haugh presented Wallingford with a pair
of gloves. Mr. Cash performed a like service for
Mr. Saunders, and the two seconds carefully as-
sisted their principals to tie on their deadly weap
ons.
" Are you ready, gentlemen?" inquired Buelow;


THERE'S MONEY IN IT
9
von Humperdinck, better known in this coterie as
Humpsey.
"Just a moment,” interrupted Rickey. “ Any-
body bettin'?”
"I'll go a hundred on my man," offered Walling-
ford quietly, and he did not make the mistake of
making any motion to display the money.
“Done,” returned Rickey quickly. “Anybody
else?”
The black-freckled young man with the nose
critically surveyed the contestants as he rolled a
cigarette. “You won't take it as deserting your
colors, Benssy, if I book Rickey for his next hun-
dred, will you?” he inquired.
“Certainly not,” replied Benson courteously.
“Use your own judgment, Ring."
“ Jus' sportin', that's all.” declared Rickey in
further polite consent. “You're on, Ring. Any-
body else?”
Reggie Haugh immediately offered Van Hum-
perdinck a bet upon Benson, but the very thoughtful
gentleman, finding room, somehow, in his brow for a
third crease, immediately declined.
“Referee can't bet,” he explained regretfully.
"A hundred to you, Ring,” offered Reggie, but
Mr. Cash, notoriously cautious with the congenital
avarice of his junk-dealing ancestor, shook his head.


THERE'S MONEY IN IT
II
The principals performed the evolution to which
they had been bidden, young Falls quite gracefully
and O'Connell quite clumsily.
“ Time!" called Von Humperdinck, snapping his
stop-watch.
Of course, after all this elaborate preparation,
Benssy Falls, in his lavender silk undervest, Benssy
with the dimples, sailed in and “licked ” Conductor
O'Connell; “ licked” him thoroughly and completely,
in three fast rounds, in which O'Connell, the vic-
tor of a hundred rough-and-tumble fights, slammed
and banged and delivered tremendous blows upon
thin atmosphere, while Benssy Falls, who once
had donned ladies' clothes, rouge, powder and wig,
presided at a fancy-work booth, and won the ma-
jority of votes in the beauty contest, danced around
him and punched him at will, with good swinging
right and left blows which had real steam behind
them!
“ I'm ashamed of myself,” acknowledged O'Con-
nell, when the victory went to the young man of the
dimples. “I thought boxing was more like fight-
ing. You win, Mr. Falls, and for the rest of this
trip you're running the train. I'll repair the driv-
ing-rod, clear the track and proceed immediately,"
and taking his coat upon his arm and his cap in his
hand, he bowed awkwardly and started for the
door.


12
WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
“You'll have a nip of something before you go,
won't you?” invited Benssy hospitably.
“No, thanks,” replied O'Connell. “I haven't
taken a drink in ten years, and I'm in a hurry,
anyhow. I want to go out and pick a fight with
my brakeman. I can lick him.”
“ You'll have something, won't you?” asked
Benssy of Wallingford, who 'was producing two
crisp hundred-dollar bills from a long red pocket-
book.
“With pleasure," replied Wallingford. “Los-
ing a bet is always dry work for me,” and he handed
a bill each to Rickey Saunders and to Reginald de
Puyster Haugh, with smiles that made them vote
him a good game loser.
Shamasuka, upon order, replaced the table in
the center of the apartment, brought bottles and
glasses and six chairs, and the moment came for
which Wallingford had longed. His acute nos-
trils had detected “sportin' money” in this crowd.
The first thing to do, of course, was to make him-
self agreeable, and he did this to such good effect
that within fifteen minutes his host had asked him to
remain to dinner. He sat among them in smiling
ease, a gentleman of experience, a world-traveler,
an all-round good fellow, one who knew the vintage
of wines by the taste, and told rare stories with rarer
discretion. Also he appreciated the pretty little


THERE'S MONEY IN IT
15
pasteboard house when it was accidentally brought
to his attention.
“Rippin'fine thing, it is,” Rickey Saunders
boasted. “Benssy's the architect and builder be-
cause he's such a clever chap with his fingers — em-
broiders the monograms on his own underwear, and
all that sort of thing, you know — but we're all in
on the inventin'."
"It's a portable house for a fishing trip we con-
template,” young Falls modestly explained. “The
gov'nor's opening up a strip of land through upper
Wisconsin and Michigan which is full of small vir-
gin lakes, and he's given us permission to fish them
out before his construction gangs go through."
Wallingford winced. He knew that strip of land
quite well. He had once owned it, and its loss to
Falls senior was the one big blot upon his own
financial escutcheon. Falls had been a bigger thief
and had stolen Wallingford's swag; that was the
answer. And so E. H. was going to build a road
through there, after all! He would make a mental
note of that.
“And so you're building a wind-proof, dust-
proof, rain-proof and snow-proof portable house?”
he suggested.
“Also heat- and cold-proof,” added Rickey,
“You see, we couldn't find a good portable house,
so we invented one on our way back from inspecting


WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
le crowd! 08, the amo
walls, air
the happy hunting-grounds. Stunning, the amount
of brains we found in the crowd! Benssy invented
the hollow walls, air-space and that sort of thing,
you know. Reggie figured out how to turn the ta-
ble and benches into cots with real spring mattresses
in them. Reggie's long on eating and sleeping.
Humpsey, who is no end of a clever mechanic, de-
vised the simplest sort of a collapsible cook-stove
with a telescoping pipe. Cash discovered the
method of making the roof ridge water-tight, and
I worked out a fancy clamp to bind the corners to-
gether; but, after all, the real rippin' brains of the
thing is Benssy's. The hollow-wall idea was his.
Came to him just in a flash. Never wasted a mo-
ment of thought on it.”
Bensy colored slightly. “Very ordinary idea,
I'm sure,” he said with becoming modesty, the dim-
ples appearing for just an instant, then coyly van-
ishing. “Any one could have thought of it.”
“ Clever scheme," declared Wallingford, admir-
ing the really good model with the practised eye
of a born mechanic, as Benssy deftly took it apart
and demonstrated how it was to be packed and
shipped and reassembled. “Quite clever, indeed."
The opening for which he had been groping came
to him, in a flash as inspired as that which had
brought to Benssy Falls the stunning device of the
hollow walls. “This is more than clever, gentle-


THERE'S MONEY IN IT
15
men," he went on, his tone changing to one of
grave earnestness that commanded instant atten-
tion. “It is worthy of serious commercial con-
sideration. It would be a pity to allow so perfect
an article of manufacture to go to waste.”
“Well, of course, you know, none of us is in
trade, and we wouldn't care for that sort of thing,"
announced Reggie Haugh loftily, with a shrinking
thought of the original thick-lipped Haw.
"I don't know, old chap," mused Benssy. “Why
wouldn't it be a ripping good novelty for us all to
go into trade? We've tried everything else.”
“That's what I call sportin',” stated Rickey Saun-
ders enthusiastically. “ I'm for anything Benssy
starts.”
The ridged ribbon which did Von Humperdinck
service as a brow underwent such a series of con-
tortions that any one who knew him would have
known that he was about to think. “The kaiser
and the king of England are both in trade,” he ad-
vised them, “and my cousin, the Baron von Hum-
perdinck, himself owns a brewery.”
“We don't need precedent,” insisted Benssy
patriotically. “We are democratic American cit-
izens, and, as such, have a right to enter trade as
our fathers did.”
That one speech showed the daring nature of
Benssy, it being considered indelicate in this circle


16
WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
to mention fathers, and positively indecent to men-
tion grandfathers. A shocked silence followed his
anarchism, Reggie Haugh's lips, however, watering
profusely in his agitation. It was Rickey Saunders
who came loyally to the support of his friend.
“Hear! hear!” he cried.
Ringgold Cash, frowning moodily at the black
freckles upon his sallow hands, and regretting for
the millionth time their size and construction, which
had descended from his push-cart forebears, slowly
raised one of them and stroked it down his lean
face, letting it close as it slid off his chin, as if his
jaw had sported the wiry beard of the original junk-
dealing Cash, whose name had been Kashowski.
“Do you think there would be a good return for
the money invested ?” he asked, addressing Wal-
lingford directly, and waiting with quiet eagerness
for the answer.
Wallingford turned to him quickly and studied
him with great care before he replied. “There's
a fortune in it,” he declared, with a deliberately ris-
ing enthusiasm. “Of course you gentlemen are
not commercial. I am. I know a good commercial
opening when I see one.” And he smiled to himself
as he looked into the faces of the eagerly interested
group around the table, and studied the good com-
mercial openings he saw before him. “ Your mar-
velous portable house should be your gift to your


THERE'S MONEY. IN IT
17
fellow sportsmen at about twenty-five per cent. divi-
dends; and I, who am strictly a business man, am
so favorably impressed that I should be delighted
to take twenty-five or fifty thousand dollars' worth
of the stock myself.”
“Thank you,” said Benssy gratefully, his cheeks
dimpling with pleasure. “I consider that a great
compliment, I'm sure.”
"Nothing of the sort,” returned Wallingford se-
dately. “It is only my cold business judgment
that is speaking, Mr. Falls."
Reggie Haugh had been flapping his thick lower
lip with his thick forefinger in jealous thought. A
thing like this, don't you know, should be kept
more exclusive. This Wallingford person was ad-
mittedly a mere tradesman, and probably of no fam-
ily whatsoever, had no money but that which he
made himself, and one must be careful of one's as-
sociates.
“Only trouble is,” he objected, “ that all the rest
of us have had a share in the inventing, which
makes it a sort of family affair, don't you
think?”
Wallingford was instantly ready for that emer-
gency. “So far as that is concerned,” he observed
in smiling confidence, “ I invented inventing, though
I am far too modest a man so to state," and he
laughed jovially, closing his eyes and shaking his big


18
WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
shoulders to show them that this was a joke.
“Even while we have been talking, I have discov-
ered a radical defect in the construction of youn
portable cottage, and have invented a way to over-
come it. You are making your hollow walls in
straight sections which merely abut upon each other.
Warpage and shrinkage will draw them crooked
and leave wide cracks over which you will be com-
pelled to nail permanent cleats, which is entirely
foreign to your idea of portability.”
Benssy Falls looked with dismay upon his ex-
quisitely accurate model. “How very annoying!”
he murmured.
“What we must do," went on Wallingford easily
and confidently, “is to make the hollow sections like
this," and he deftly and ruthlessly cut open, upon
alternate edges, one of Benssy's beautifully perfect
little sections, telescoping the two parts upon each
other slightly so as to show the plan of overlapping,
and then reversing them to show how much space
they saved in nesting for shipment.
There was a general chorus of polite exclamations,
which covered unlimited genuine admiration.
“That surely makes Mr. Wallingford one of the
family, Reggie," declared Rickey. “I vote him in,
fellows. Now! One, two, three —”.
" Aye!” gently and courteously shouted his
friends in perfect unison with him.


THERE'S MONEY IN IT
21
up to me as an ordinary business proposition I
should be compelled to decline it instantly, but I
have taken quite a fancy to you boys. I have, more-
over, become fascinated with the portable house and
intend to make it one of my most successful ventures.
I shall at once draw up partnership papers, which
we shall discuss and sign, right here, while we are
waiting. Then we shall select officers, hold a board
of directors' meeting, take all our papers to an
attorney when we arrive in the city and make our
action legally binding. To-morrow I shall have pat-
ent papers and drawings prepared, and as soon as
they are ready shall call another meeting for us to
sign them. In the meantime, I shall see if we can not
rent a factory already equipped, shall have working
drawings prepared, purchase materials, secure work-
men and start upon some sample houses, including
the mahogany and the bird's-eye maple one which
you are to take upon your fishing trip.”


CHAPTER II
THE GRAND OPENING
STRIKING while the iron was hot being one of
w Wallingford's specialties, he immediately drew
up, on delicately tinted and evasively scented mauve
stationery provided him by the fair Benssy, an
impressively worded partnership agreement, whereby
it was set forth that the six undersigned gentlemen
were to be equal sharers in the profits of the Speckled
Bass Hollow-Walled Portable Bungalow Company,
and that five of the undersigned were to share in
all its losses and provide all the money needed, J.
Rufus Wallingford being exempt from any share
in that end of the business by virtue of his per-
petual managership. It was a neat and nifty docu-
ment, and the boys were justly proud of it, and of
themselves as well, as they appended their scrawling
signatures to it. It was deuced blooming fun, after
all, this thing of going into trade. Quite sportin'!
Their innocent joy over this stage of being in
trade was as nothing, however, compared to their
dignified gratification, when, with Benssy Falls pre-
siding handsomely, and as rippingly at ease as if
22


THE GRAND OPENING
23
he were pouring tea, they selected Benssy as presi-
dent, Reggie Haugh as first vice-president, Von
Humperdinck as second vice-president, Rickey Saun-
ders as secretary, and Ringgold Cash as treasurer.
In their newly acquired and rapidly growing feeling
of fellowship with Wallingford, they were ur-
gently anxious to elect him to a third vice-presi-
dency, but, with becoming modesty, he declined that
honor.
“No, gentlemen,” he said, first rising and respect-
fully addressing the chair, as he invariably did when
he had anything to say in this meeting, “such honors
are not for me. I can not deny that I am heartily
pleased that you should offer to make me an equal
with you, but, nevertheless, I do not deserve it.
The original conception is yours, and to you exclu-
sively should belong the honors and titles of office.
Moreover, I am only a plain business man. If you
insist upon voting for me, however, you may make
my small managership a matter of election and offi-
cial title.”
“That's what I call sportin', eh, fellows!” ex-
claimed Rickey enthusiastically, and shook hands
with him.
So they unanimously elected J. Rufus Wallingford
official manager, which, while it did not, of course,
give him the importance of a real office in the com-
pany, made his mere triling post at least seem a


24
WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
shade less insignificant. He was deeply grateful for
it.
A small boy, so thick with freckles that they
looked painful, sat in Wallingford's runabout at
the station, with both chubby hands firmly upon the
big wheel. He straightened up and his face lighted
as he saw Mr. Wallingford in the midst of the dis-
persing board of directors, and with shrewd and
twinkling eyes he observed that prince of diplomats
bidding adieu to his newly found friends and busi-
ness associates.
“Hello, boss!” hailed the youngster as Walling-
ford joined him, and he shook hands with grown-up
gravity. “Gee, you made a hit with that bunch
of Willies!”
“It's a shame to do it,” confessed Wallingford
with a grin. “Where's the chauffeur, Toad?”
“He stopped for a stew, and he got it,” replied
the boy. “But it wasn't the kind inat has any oys-
ters in it, so I fired him out of the car and sent
him home to sleep it off.”
Wallingford laughed as he climbed into the run-
about and took the wheel, a proceeding that met
with a vigorous protest from the boy.
"Sorry, Toad,” insisted Wallingford, “but I'm
afraid they'd arrest you if I let you run this car by
yourself. How are you getting along with young
Jimmy?”
him hot, so I fired himle kind tnat has


THE GRAND OPENING
'25
“Sometimes I don't know," responded Toad with
a sigh; "he's a smart kid, and he's got more sand
than I thought he had. First I thought I could lick
him with both hands tied behind me, but now I
guess I'd have to have one loose, anyhow. Yester-
day I had to hand him a wallop, and he never cried
a mouthful; he just stood still for about a min-
ute, and then he tried to throw the cat through
me."
“And how does Mrs. Wallingford take all this?”
asked Wallingford, secretly gratified that young Jim
showed promise of developing traits that had been
a trifle lacking in himself.
“Well,” confessed Toad with a slight frown,“ of
course she's a woman an' don't understand. Tell
you what she done; she humped me out to sleep with
the stable-hands, an' makes Jim play with the girls
in the next house. Say, ain't you goana start a
business soon so I k'n have a real job? I don't like
to play with kids."
Wallingford sighed. His own opinion was that
his son needed the companionship of Toad, even at
the expense of an occasional black eye; but, if Fan-
nie was set against it —
“How would you like to wear a brown suit, with
red stripes and brass buttons,” he suddenly asked,
“and serve drinks in a factory?”
“To you an' Blackie? That'd be great!” said


26
WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
Toad with vast enthusiasm. “You know Blackie's
home, don't you?”
“Is that so!” exclaimed Wallingford, and uncon-
sciously threw more speed on the car. “When did
he get in?”
“Yesterday," replied Toad. “I was so glad to
see him that I licked the stable-boy twice in an
hour; an' he's a tough kid.”
Wallingford, remembering well that "tough sta-
ble-kid,” laughed appreciatively, and he chuckled all
the way home. He laughed again when Violet Bon-
nie Daw kissed him fervently for old sake's sake,
and after that operation calmly rerouged her lips.
His friend Daw he found supremely happy, for
Blackie was now permitted a more liberal pocket
allowance than he had enjoyed since his marriage.
“On the level, though, Jim,” he explained in the
quiet confidence of the study, over the siphon and
cigars, "the charming Violet B. Daw is making a
mistake when she hands me too much coin. Being
barred from wine, women, and song - oh, well, of
course, I can have a little wine and all the singing
I like — how can I spend it?”
“ You ought to know what a cinch that is,"
laughed Wallingford, pouring and mixing for both.
“ All you have to do to get rid of it is to buy some
of the mining stock you used to sell, or hunt up a


THE GRAND OPENING
27
brace roulette game, or buy a few thousand bushels
of margin wheat.”
"I wish I could be a sucker,” confessed Blackie
sadly. “Why, Jimmie, many and many a time I've
looked at a gentle come-on being led up to the har-
poon and envied him the happiness in his face."
“Never mind, Blackie,” soothed Wallingford,
"you're not dead yet, and as long as a man's alive
he has a chance to be the biggest sucker in the world.
By the way, I met the prize lollop club to-day. They
threatened to stand off six feet and throw papa's
money at me, and I've arranged, no matter how
painful to me, to let them do it."
“Will you never quit it, Jimmy!” protested
Blackie, really a trifle worried. “You have a good
real-estate business that you've picked up since Fan-
nie came home, and with that money we copped off
from the Live-forever Sanatorium, you ought to
have about a hundred and fifty thousand cash be-
sides this house."
“You've just about guessed it,” agreed Walling-
ford, but with very little enthusiasm. “Everything,
property and bonds, is in Fannie's name; and I did
intend to stick with the straight game. I'm making
money out of it. But do you know who opened his
guard to me to-day? Benssy Falls and his delicately
scented pals.”


28
WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
“How careless of Benssy!” commented Blackie.
“But I like his flossy name. Who is he?”
“Don't you remember?” indignantly demanded
Wallingford.
“Oh, yes, now I know. He must be the son of
Old Man Falls."
“Some time, old pal, your frivolous nature will
drive me to murder," replied Wallingford with little
dents in his nostrils. “This Benssy lollop is the son
of E. H. Falls, the railroad king who led me into
a genuine ground-floor manipulation, and then pulled
the ground from under the floor. He annexed the
only half a million dollars I ever had safely banked
in my life. Honest money, too!”
"It's funny how easy they take that kind away,”
mused Blackie with a slow smile. “You were right
about every man being a sucker some day.”
“I'll get it all back with interest,” declared Wal-
lingford savagely; "every cent!”
Blackie threw away Wallingford's heavy cigar,
lighted a cigarette, and stroked his perky black
mustache in smiling reminiscence. “Poor little
Benssy," he said. “ Still, I should think you'd
rather take it out of the old man direct."
Wallingford squeezed his cigar between his fin-
gers until it broke. “Never mind E. H.," he
snapped. “Your part in this is the long-distance
expert. You are to be Mr. Bezazzum, of Bezunk,


THE GRAND OPENING
29
Michigan, Mr. Cazizus, of Cazak, Ontario, and Mr.
Penawpus, of Penap, Arkansas; to be in all three
places at the same time, and answer my letters.”
“What I want to know," inquired Blackie after
mature reflection, “is whether or not I wear whis-
kers."
“Three pairs at a time if you have a yen for
them,” agreed Wallingford, “ for nobody cares, ex-
cept when you get your cue to show up at the fac-
tory.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” consented Blackie with the proper
salute, and the matter was settled.
With Violet Bonnie, Wallingford had scarcely
more trouble.
“Vi,” he began, as they all sat at dinner, “I got
you to let me have fifteen thousand dollars to invest
for you once in a railroad scheme, and I lost it for
you.”
“Sure you did,” she admitted with a frown;
“also I broke my voice in the midst of my greatest
success, The Little Warbler; but why talk about
bad luck? It brings more.”
Wallingford shoved his oyster-fork deep into the
ice, and braced himself for the shock. “Because I
want you to hand me another fifteen thousand,” he
stated.
Violet Bonnie, with characteristic exaggeration,
climbed upon her chair, drew her skirts about her,


30
WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
and screamed three consecutive times, to the eternal
scandalization of Wallingford's new butler, who
gave notice the following morning. “If you tell
me you don't mean it, Jimmy, I'll come down and
finish my dinner.”
"I don't mean it, Vi,” declared Wallingford sol-
emnly. “I only want to borrow the money."
“I can listen to that,” returned Violet, “because
if I give it to you I quit worrying about it right
then; if I lend it to you I only have to worry for
fear you'll die before you pay it back; but if you
invest it for me I'll be tottering around making
faces at little children inside of a week.”
“ All right, Vi, we'll call it a loan,” replied Wal-
lingford with a chuckle; “just so I get the fifteen
thousand. And, Fannie, I'm going to ask you, one
day this week, to make over to me your bonds, and
to put as heavy a plaster on the house as it will
hold.”
Mrs. Wallingford, more beautiful in her matron-
hood than she had ever been in her girlhood, and
more charming in her reserve than she had ever been
in her vivacity, turned now with a quick appre-
hensive glance toward the guests at her table be-
fore she turned an imploring one toward her
husband.
"Speak right out, Fannie; don't mind us," invited
Violet. “If it was Blackie made such a proposition


THE GRAND OPENING
31
he wouldn't have a whisker left in his face. Why,
Jim Wallingford, I think you must be crazy! The
last time you did that you was worth near half a
million, all in Fannie's name. You got her to let
go of it, then you tied it up in a nice little bundle
and blindfolded old E. H. Falls so he wouldn't know
what you was going to do to him, and slipped the
pretty little package in his pocket along with my
fifteen thousand; then you stepped back and gig-
gled.”
Mrs. Wallingford looked at her husband. His
lower lip had protruded slightly and was squared.
She knew that if he meant to have this thing, no
tears or protestations would turn him, and no earthly
argument move him.
“I'll go down with you to-morrow, and sign
anything you think best, Jim,” she said quietly.
Contrition seized him for a moment, and he longed
to take her in his arms and reassure her; he would
have done so had it not been for the presence of
the Daws. Nevertheless, his contrition in no way
obstructed his purpose, as his wife, knowing his
countenance so well, immediately recognized..
Violet Bonnie, however, insisted upon being the
conscience for the party, and now took Mrs. Walling-
ford severely to task. “Honest, Fannie, you don't
know the first principles of training a husband," she
charged. “You're too easy."


32
WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
“Violet,” protested Blackie sternly, “this is none
of your funeral.”
"Well, I'll be jiggered!” declared that lady, posi-
tively aghast at Blackie's temerity. “What did you
say? ” she demanded, recovering her poise.
"I said that the whole affair was none of your
butt-in," announced Blackie firmly, rising and rest-
ing his knuckles upon the table, and looking squarely
into the blue eyes of his heretofore much better half.
For a solid minute and a quarter the blue eyes re-
sisted, then they dropped. Fifteen minutes after-
ward Violet Bonnie stood contentedly behind the
chair of her husband, stroking his hair.
The grand opening of the factory of the Speckled
Bass Hollow-Walled Portable Bungalow Company
was a function long to be remembered. Fully one-
third of the front of the remodeled factory was given
over to offices befitting such a distinguished set of
officers. Entering a spacious vestibule in Dutch
tiling, one saw surrounding him a number of beau-,
tiful glass doors, leading into the office of the presi-
dent, in white and gold; of the vice-president, in
mahogany and ebony; of the second vice-president,
in rosewood and silver birch; of the secretary, in
walnut and cedar; of the treasurer, in redwood and
bird's-eye maple; and of the manager, in plain oak.
Besides these, there was an arched and groined
directors' room, which was a triumph of ceramic


THE GRAND OPENING
33
art; a buffet stocked with more varieties of liquids
than a dye-shop; and a small boy, proud in so many
gold buttons that in the sunlight he was one solid
blaze. Behind all this there was a simple factory,
with the shafting carefully gilded and the belting
fluttering with kaleidoscopic ribbons; workmen,
grinning foolishly when unobserved, in snow-white
uniforms; and the very cleanest of clean shavings
scattered everywhere. The officers of the company
brought hosts, and flocks, and bevies of women, some
young and some old, and all so beautiful by art that
nature, out of pure spite, had wasted no gifts upon
them. These ladies, taught carefully from infancy
to be charming, were charmed into ecstasies by ev-
erything they saw, without discrimination, unless
they discriminated in favor of Wallingford himself,
whom they voted to be a most charming manager, as
did the board of directors next day at their first reg-
ular meeting in the new quarters.
“You see, fellows,” declared Rickey Saunders,
“it's not only sportin' but rippin' what this chap
Wallingford's done. He's made it possible for each
fellow to entertain in his own offices with all the
resources of a club, and all the privacy of his own
quarters; and yet it doesn't need chaperonage, be-
cause it's a bloomin' factory office. Wonderful
business man, I call him.”
"Remarkable," agreed Benssy. “I never saw a


34
WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
line of liquors and wines selected with so nice dis-
crimination. Boy, tell Ike to make us another of
those absinthe puffs."
“ Yes, sir," said Toad Jessop.
“I should say that we should vote to increase
our manager's salary,” suggested Von Humperdinck,
his little pompadour bristling backward with the
happy thought.
“Impossible!” declared Ringgold Cash, rubbing
his left hand with his right as if he would rub off
the black spots. “He has no salary, if you remem-
ber, but it would be perfectly proper, I think, to
render him a vote of confidence."
This the board of directors did; and Mr. Walling-
ford, called in to receive it, was gratified almost to
death. He was dressed that day with a faultless
precision, and his costume bore in it the combined
traces of a social favorite, a business magnate and
an efficient maître d'hôtel.
“ You can not imagine, gentlemen, how proud and
pleased I am,” he told them, smoothing down his
frock coat over his more than well-developed figure,
so as to increase the impressive breadth of him.
“ It has been my ambition to create for you a model
factory, one of such appointments that gentlemen of
the finer instincts might feel it not only profitable but
pleasant to be connected with it; and I think that if
the sordid aspects of business were kept a trifle


THE GRAND OPENING
35
more in the background, more of our young men of
means might be induced to bring their needed taste
and refinement into trade.”
"Hear! hear!” interpolated the enthusiastic
Rickey, and the others, following his lead, clapped
their hands.
“ Allow me now to turn to stern business, and to
lay before you a synopsis of our progress during the
two months and a half since we organized our com-
pany. Our factory you have seen. You have, I
think, seen the circulars and catalogues mailed you
from time to time as they were received from the
printers. I now have the pleasure of presenting to
you the most promising of the replies I have had
from our advertising. The first one of these, re-
questing us to make a price on three hundred of the
portable bungalows, is from a Michigan cranberry
monopolist, who expects to house his pickers right
where the picking is good. The next one, from Onta-
rio, wishes prices on a hundred and twenty-five, and
this one, from Arkansas, asks for a quotation on a
hundred of the portable bungalows. You will note,
gentlemen, that all these letters speak most enthu-
siastically of the Speckled Bass Portable Bungalow,
and I must confess that if we can book the orders
for these five hundred and twenty-five bungalows at
a gross return of over two hundred thousand dollars,
I shall feel not only encouraged, but flattered.”:


36
WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
"Hear! hear!” shouted Rickey Saunders, and
the others clapped their hands.
Wallingford laid down the letters and took up
two other packages. “I have furthermore to re-
port,” he went on, “that we have received our joint
patent from the government at Washington, grant-
ing us the exclusive right to manufacture our article
in the United States."
He held up the document in question, exhibiting
its gaudy ribbon and seal, then produced five more
copies and passed them around the table, so that
each one of the proud patentees might see his own
name upon the grant and have it for keeps.
“Also I have to report,” he continued, this time
with solemn impressiveness, "the procuring of six
patents in my own name for six more or less trivial
improvements in portable houses or bungalows.
These are, of course, my own invention and my own
property; but it is only my decent duty to offer them
to the Speckled Bass Portable Bungalow Company
at the nominal price of one hundred and twenty-five
thousand dollars, cash! Here are the copies, gen-
tiemen, and I shall retire without recommendation
of any sort while you consider them.”
A stillness of the weight and inflexibility of a
Pullman blanket fell upon the board of directors
immediately after the retirement of Mr. Walling-
ford. Ringgold Cash, being the calmest as well


THE GRAND OPENING
as the most deadly about money matters, was the
first to recover his nerves.
“Seems to me this Wallingford chap's too good
a business man for us. You see, it's like this: to
begin with, the fellow has no right to invent porta-
ble-house improvements after we had perfected the
article."
“That's it! It isn't sportin'!” declared Rickey,
much disappointed in Wallingford.
“ That's because the fellow's of no family at
all,” agreed Reggie Haugh, with sorrow so deep
that his big lips glistened like glass. “Ring said,
the first day we met him, that we owed it to our
families to be quite careful.”
“We must think,” Von Humperdinck reminded
them gravely, and immediately bent his creases into
waves of intellect, at the same time beckoning to
Toad Jessop.
Benssy Falls at this moment proved his general-
ship by tapping upon the table with the pretty silver
inlaid gavel, with which Wallingford had provided
him. “No alcohol, gentlemen, please,” he protested.
“This is too serious a moment. Boy, kindly pro-
vide the gentlemen with vichy, or their choice of
mild drinks. Now, members of the Speckled
Bass Portable Bungalow Company, I beg to remind
you that there is no motion before the house," and
Benssy Falls stood there in a perfect attitude of


38
WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
manly determination, without a single dimple in
his cheeks.
“Hear! hear!” exclaimed Rickey. “I move a
vote of appreciation for our capable and resourceful
president; ” and in spite of Benssy's blushing pro-
test, they carried that motion.
It was during the enthusiasm attendant upon this
official action that Von Humperdinck proved his
right to his kaiser-like mustache and the three creases
in his brow by solving the mighty problem offhand.
“Mr. President, Mr. First Vice-President, Mr. Sec-
retary, and Mr. Treasurer; Gentlemen of the Board :
I move you that we table Official Manager Walling-
ford's proposition!”
“Rippin'!” shouted Rickey, jumping up.
“ Three cheers and a tiger for Humpsy! Now, fel-
lows! One, two —”.
The gavel of President Falls fell almost rudely.
“No indecorum, please, gentlemen,” he begged.
“ There is a motion, and a very important motion,
before the house, and I have heard no second to
it.”
“I beg your pardon, Benssy," apologized Rickey
abjectly. “You've got the sportin' idea of bein' a
president all right."
“Thank you,” returned the president graciously,
but still with a trace of sternness; “nevertheless, I
have heard no second."


THE GRAND OPENING
39
of an idion!” he vinarily Sanifestationeir org
“Right you are, old top,” confessed Rickey still
more contritely; "and just to help you out, I sec-
ond.”
“I also second," announced Reggie Haugh, re-
moving his hand from his pendulous lip to do so.
At this juncture Ringgold Cash was delivered
of an idea equally as bright as Von Humperdinck's.
“Question!” he demanded.
Even the ordinarily self-possessed Benssy was
startled by this new manifestation of how much
capability and brains they had in their organization.
“ Jove!” he exclaimed. “I am proud of you
boys. It has been moved by Mr. Second Vice-Pres-
ident von Humperdinck, seconded by Mr. Secretary
Richard Saunders and Mr. First Vice-President
Reginald de Puyster Haugh, and the question or-
dered by Mr. Treasurer Ringgold Cash, that we
lay upon the table Mr. J. Rufus Wallingford's prop-
osition to buy his patents. All those in favor will
please signify by rising.” They arose to a man.
“Thank you, gentlemen," continued the president;
"the motion is carried unanimously, and I propose
a toast in vichy, to Second Vice-President von
Humperdinck, who was the father of this happy
idea."
Standing, they clanked glasses and drank. It
was a great day for Toad Jessop.
Po Thank yon is carrito Secono father o


CHAPTER III
THE FIRST SUCKER
A N unexpected development was so very grave
11 that the official manager was compelled to call
a special meeting of the board of directors, and he
made the call so urgent that two of the members
of the board were forced to break social engage-
ments of the most imperative nature; one of these
engagements, held by Reginald de Puyster Haugh,
being with no less a person than the sensational
second girl from the end, front row, in the Follies
of Forever company. Nevertheless they all came,
and Wallingford sadly pointed out to them that,
while the gentlemen from Michigan, and Ontario,
and Arkansas were willing to pay the high price
asked for the Speckled Bass Portable Bungalows,
the Speckled Bass Portable Bungalows did not seem
to offer sufficient quality for the money. Oppor-
tunely enough, the gentleman from Bezunk, Michi-
gan, a Mr. Bezazzum, visited the factory while the
meeting was in progress. He wore felt boots, cor-
duroy trousers, a canvas coat, a sweater of gorgeous
hues and wondrous pattern, and a broad-brimmed
40


THE FIRST SUCKER
41
felt hat. As for his countenance, it was lean and
bony, with the most absurdly sprawled black mus-
tache imaginable, and a little tuft of chin-whiskers
which began neatly, as if it had intended to be a
goatee, and ended in all directions, as if it had
suddenly become intoxicated. His eyebrows were
equally black, and beneath them glowed a pair of
black eyes that alternately twinkled with mischief
and flashed with hawk-like intensity.
There was that in his bearing and ease, however,
which forbade levity or ridicule, and which made
the board of directors, to whom Wallingford intro-
duced him, take him as seriously as he took himself;
but Toad Jessop, after one good look at him, went
out into the stock-room, where he leaned over a
barrel of nails and laughed until he had the stomach-
ache.
“Well, yuh see, gents,” said Mr. Bezazzum in
objection to the company's product, “ I'm a-willin'
tuh pay thuh top-notch buhdanged price fur thuh
very best buhgosh port-table houses what can be
coaxed together, and I got thuh buhjing money,”
and here he slapped his pocket meaningly.
“Bu-u-ut I don't notice from your catalogue enough
newfangled doodads, dinguses and hickeys tuh
seem tuh chahm thuh dollahs out'n these corduroys."
“I'm very sorry, Mr. Bezazzum," returned Mr.
Wallingford, “but I am sure that our catalogues


42
WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
do not do full justice to the Speckled Bass Portable
Bungalow. You must come out into our factory
and inspect one that is complete and ready for
shipment."
It was a masterful manner in which to treat such
an emergency, and the board of directors were
strong in their admiration of it. The board fol-
lowed into the factory, much interested, to see the
demonstration. With all his suavity, Wallingford
strove to prove to him the excellence of the Speckled
Bass Hollow-Walled Portable Bungalow.
But Mr. Bezazzum was obdurate. While admit-
ting the superiority of the article before him, ad-
mitting it in such flattering terms that each and
every one of the board of directors was pleased un-
til he writhed, still, the thing would not quite do.
The official manager sighed. The members of
the board of directors looked at him anxiously.
What would this commercial genius do in such an
emergency? He displayed his hand, and in unison
they sighed with relief.
“You have not seen the improvements upon the
Speckled Bass Bungalow,” said Wallingford, hold-
ing up his hand impressively, and the mere manner
in which he said it, his round pink face graven into
solemnity, and his broad chest expanded to its full
capacity, was enough to inspire confidence in any
man. “Allow me to show you the improved port-


THE FIRST SUCKER
43
able-house weather-strip; the improved portable-
house lightning-rod; the improved portable-house
ventilator; the improved portable-house down-spout;
the improved portable-house door-knob; and the im-
proved portable-house burglar-alarm.”
Deftly and quickly the official manager displayed
these wonderful attachments protected by the six
Wallingford patents. Mr. Bezazzum was in ecsta-
sies, nor was his voluble ardor cooled when Mr.
Wallingford announced that these improvements
would add twenty-five dollars to the cost of each
bungalow.
"I wouldn't buhdang miss havin' them improve-
ments if they cost fifty plunks a throw,” he declared
enthusiastically. “Yuh can jes' book mah ohdeh
faw thr-r-ree hundred hollow-walled bungalows with
all them there improvements, and I'll slip you ten
per cent. of thuh entire bill, in cash, right now.
Yo'-all can ship the balance C. O. D., and you can
write or telegraph anybody in Bezunk, Michigan,
about thuh credit of ole Pete Bezazzum.”
He looked so defiant upon this, that Benssy Falls
hastened, with all the courtesy of a gentleman to
a stranger, to assure him that they had no doubt
whatsoever as to his financial standing. Official
Manager Wallingford bent upon the luckless presi-
dent of the company an offended and, at the same
time, reproving glare.


44
WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
“Of course, Mr. Bezazzum, I shall be compelled
to investigate your standing, as a matter of form,
but in the meantime I should like, before booking
your order, which is rather a large one even for.
us, to consult with my board of directors. I am
only the manager here. Boy, take this gentleman
into my office and see if he will not have some re-
freshments. Mr. Bezazzum, I shall not detain you
over two or three minutes. Gentlemen, will you
kindly accompany me to the board room?”
With awestricken faces the directors filed in
with Wallingford, while Toad Jessop, his lips tightly
compressed, his cheeks puffed, and his face so red
that his orange freckles were afloat on a sea of ma-
roon, led Mr. Bezazzum into the manager's room
and being entirely speechless, made signs for the
gentleman to give his order. Mr. Bezazzum, in-
stead of stating his wishes in the liquid line, held
up one lean forefinger.
“ Toad,” said he quietly, “whistle Hot Time."
It was then that the explosion came, and Toad
was useless for the next half-hour. He laughed
until he was faint, and Blackie, throwing him upon
a couch, was compelled to apply serious restoratives.
Meanwhile Wallingford discussed grave matters
with his board. The directors were all for bar-
gaining with him at once for the complete control
of his patents, but, unfortunately, their minds were


THE FIRST SUCKER
45
at work upon a suggestion made by Ringgold Cash,
to acquire the patents upon a royalty basis, and per-
ceiving the impossibility of setting these particular
minds at work upon any two thoughts at one and
the same time, Mr. Wallingford led them gently
but firmly away from the entire subject.
“ We must be cautious,” he said. “I would not
have you hasty in acquiring these patents, nor in
booking the order of Mr. Bezazzum. I shall re-
quire a week or ten days in which to look into the
gentleman's credentials. In that time I shall dis-
cover, with your permission, whether the Walling-
ford improvements will do anything toward se-
curing the Ontario and Arkansas orders. If they
do, of course the company will need, and must have,
the Wallingford patents, and in that case, my price
will be a hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars,
cash!”
On the day Mr. Wallingford received his one
hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars, he
started work upon the three hundred portable houses
for Mr. Bezazzum; he also booked the order of
the gentleman from Arkansas, and gloated for a
moment over the order of the gentleman from On-
tario, booked four days previously. This hour's
work was all he did in the office that morning, for
immediately upon the receipt of his check from the
genial secretary, who seemed more concaved than


46
WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
ever from collar-button to knees by the unearthly
hour of ten A. M., Mr. Wallingford hurried right
out to turn that check into cash, and did not return.
until the next day. From that time on, however,
things moved, in that dress-parade factory, with a
suddenness and decision which surprised the uni-
formed rank of the Knights of the Wooden Ribbon
until they had washed out every giggle in their
systems with honest perspiration; for Wallingford,
when he suddenly dropped the mask of the factory
dilettante, proved to be what the men within a week
declared, a "regular manager”. He seemed to have
but one obsession in life — to make portable houses
as quickly as they could be made, as cheaply as they
could be made, and as good as they could be made;
and he knew precisely how to utilize waste material,
save labor and keep men good-natured while getting
from them the last possible ounce of effective man-
power. So forcefully he worked that all three of
his big shipments were ready within the time-limit,
for a delivery date had been part of the contract with
each of the three orders; and the men were cheer-
ful about sending out so much work at once, since
they knew of at least one more order for a hundred
houses, which Benssy Falls had secured from his
father.
Deuced fine thing, the securing of that order, and
it revived the interest of the board somewhat, though


THE FIRST SUCKER
47
only for a few days. Their interest had flagged
woefully of late, for Wallingford had made them
feel that life was real, life was earnest. He called
a special board meeting on every possible and im-
possible occasion, and more than that, by the sheer
force of his personality he made them attend, until
the mere sound of his inexorable voice over the
telephone, or the sight of an envelope bearing the
neatly embossed factory monogram, was enough to
make them all call feebly for their smelling-salts.
Wallingford, with a grim secret humor, kept the
board of directors' functions as elaborate as ever,
but he allowed, which was entirely foreign to his na-
ture, a sameness to pervade the very elaboration, and
a death-like pall crept upon the meetings. In the
meantime the work never flagged. The three or-
ders were made ready in record speed, and the three
shipments were so timed as to reach their destina-
tions upon the same day, as nearly as possible.
Upon the day of the last shipment Wallingford tele-
phoned to a lawyer friend of his, who immediately
telephoned the information to a lawyer friend of his
own, that the Speckled Bass Portable Bungalow
Company was at last engaged in actual business,
having made shipments. Upon the next day the
lawyer friend of Wallingford's lawyer friend filed
a suit against the company in the name of the Na-
tional Hollow-Walled Portable House Company,


48
WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
for infringement of patent and damages, the bill
also praying an injunction.
The official manager immediately called a meet-
ing of the board by telephone. He almost called in
vain, for only Rickey Saunders, ever loyal, would
admit that he was in town. Upon making known
the intense gravity of the situation, Wallingford,
through Rickey, located the others. They came
most painfully, and the official manager allowed the
attorney for the opposition to talk them into a sap-
phire funk. Wallingford, however, masterful, re-
sourceful man that he was, stood firmly as a rock,
defying the attorney, who threatened to put them
out of business, annex their private fortunes for
damages and disgrace them forever.
Wanly, yet professing deep if almost despairing
faith, they clung to their friend, J. Rufus, even in
the face of the lawyer's departing threat to bring
suit at once; but on the fourth day after, there came
an agonized telegram from Mr. Bezazzum, that an
injunction had been served upon him, forbidding
him to pay for and remove the portable bungalows
consigned to him.
Wallingford called a board of directors' meeting.
On the following day a similar telegram came
from the gentleman in Ontario.
Mr. Wallingford called a board of directors' meet-
ing.


THE FIRST SUCKER
49
On the second day after that a similar telegram
came from the gentleman in Arkansas.
Mr. Wallingford called a board of directors' meet-
ing.
On the second day after that, again, Mr. Bezaz-
zum himself came into the factory, clad in the most
violent silk sweater procurable.
Mr. Wallingford not only called a board of di-
rectors' meeting on this special occasion, but he
spent an entire day in a taxi and brought them to it,
limp and pitiful as they were.
Mr. Bezazzum, more violently inflamed than his
unspeakable sweater, was a tornado of righteous
wrath, whom Mr. Wallingford endeavored, with
no success at all, to placate with soothing words
and fond promises.
“No!” shrieked Mr. Bezazzum. “Oi'll have
the law on yez, begod. You promised me delivery
on a certain date. I have me three hundred min
engaged, and no houses to put them in. I could
have had the houses elsewhere; but, by cheminy,
I blace my confidence een diss skinner concern an'
they turn me down! I'm agin you; see? To-mor-
row, by heck, I'll stack you up in front of a two-
hundred-thousand-dollar damage suit, so help me!
And that goes!”
Wallingford, in a panic at Blackie's audacity,
but appreciating far less than Blackie how much the
ngagedia the houdence een agin you!


50 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
panic of his numbed board of directors could safely
be trodden upon, and jerked to bits and gorily jug-
gled with, just did save himself from an attack of
heart failure and drew himself together for his
cue.
“But, my dear man!” he expostulated. “My
dear Mr. Bezazzum! You must realize that, as far
as intent goes, we are entirely innocent in this af-
fair. We delivered the goods to you on time, and
we can not be held for anything on that score. In
a spirit of fairness, however, we will do this much.
We will pay the freight both ways, take back the
three hundred portable houses, and repay your ten
per cent. advance deposit, in cash. Isn't that fair,
Mr. Bezazzum?”
“ Hear! hear!” cried Rickey Saunders, in a tone
which tried to be exhilarating. “That's a sportin'
offer, Mr. Bezazzum."
Mr. Bezazzum's answer to that sportin' offer was
immediate, picturesque and violent. He had a con-
tract calling for the delivery of the goods to him
within a certain specified time, and delivery to a
carrying agent from which he could not obtain the
goods, upon the proffer of the agreed price for their
release, was no delivery to him, in fact, common
sense, or law. In the meantime, relying upon this
company, he had, in good faith, hired a regiment
of men for whose operations, in his behalf, these


THE FIRST SUCKER
51
portable houses were necessary; and these men, un-
der contract, looked to him for their pay. He had
a good and valid claim for damages, sustainable in
any court, for a sum so large that it staggered even
Wallingford when Mr. Bezazzum had the careless
impudence to mention it. Mr. Bezazzum ended
to press his claim in the highest courts in the land,
so help him Moses; and there was no possible com-
promise! Hold on, though! There might — that
is, it was just barely possible that there might -
be a way out.
Hope, dim, vague, distant, glimmering hope, the
barest flicker and spark of hope blushed faintly
upon the far-distant horizon for five disconsolate
gentlemen in trade. It might be barely possible that,
if the Speckled Bass Company, retaining his ten
per cent. advance payment, were to relinquish the
goods in settlement of Mr. Bezazzum's damage
claim — Well, gentlemen, there you were, and
what were you going to do about it, or were you go-
ing to stand suit, buhgosh!
The dense silence was broken by Von Humper-
dinck, the three creases in whose brow were now so
tightly drawn that they seemed one blurred black
line of foundation for his spikes of hair. “Did I
understand the gentleman to say that he offered a
compromise?” he queried in tones of intense
thought.


52
WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
Mr. Wallingford, apparently hopeless and despair-
ing, put the compromise into intelligible terms.
"At last there's somethin' fairly sportin',” Rickey
plucked up his spirits enough to announce." Is it
correct, gov'nor, that this gentleman will just take
the three hundred portable houses and go back home
to Bezap, or Bezibber, or wherever it is, and never
- er — never molest us again?”
“That's his only term,” vociferated Mr. Bezaz-
zum.
“Then it's perfectly easy,” declared Rickey, so re-
lieved that he could pluck with interest at the mus-
tache which would not come. “We don't want the
bloomin' bungalows, do we, fellows?”
The unanimous assent to this was a closely con-
certed groan; but the groan was emphatic.
“ Then,” went on Rickey, still brightening, “I
vote, fellows, that we accept the bloomin' com-
promise and thank the gentleman from Bezam for
having made his rippin', good, sportin' offer."
“Just a moment, gentlemen,” warned Walling-
ford solemnly. “We are setting a dangerous prece-
dent. We have customers in Ontario, and in Ar-
kansas, who will be claiming the same terms."
“Move we let 'em all have the terms,” returned
Rickey promptly. “Move we let 'em all have 'em.
That's sportin', eh, fellows? Somebody second the
motion.”


THE FIRST SUCKER
53
A savage second came from Reggie Haugh, who
was pouting a pout of record thickness. He had
just lost the second girl from the end, first row, be-
cause a man who would let business interfere with
an engagement with her was a piker.
Even Ringgold Cash, who would just as lief lose
money as part with his eyesight, hearing, speech
and sense of taste, was frightened enough, and dis-
gusted enough, to help make that motion unani-
mous; and striking while the iron was hot, Wal- ·
lingford called in a messenger-boy and immediately
wired the gentlemen in Ontario and Arkansas the
terms of the compromise.
By some remarkable coincidence, the attorney for
the National Company just managed to happen in
upon them at this juncture. The attorney for the
National Company was very severe. He had just
received fresh information regarding an infringe-
ment incorporated into the Speckled Bass product,
but not mentioned in the Speckled Bass patent, and
this infringement gave the National Company an
additional crushing legal weapon. The company he
represented was not disposed to be harsh, however.
It would give the Speckled Bass Company its choice
of two courses. It could continue business under
a prohibitive royalty, or it could quit business en-
tirely and forever.
It took the board of directors just forty-three sec-


54
WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
onds to accept the proposition to go out of business
entirely and forever; and immediately thereafter it
departed in a body, declining even to take a parting
drink in the hideous marts of trade.
“Well, Jimmy,” said Blackie, after even the at-
torney for the opposition had departed, “let's crack
a bumper and count the profits. You made a hun
dred and twenty-five thousand clear on the patents,
which coin belongs to you individually, and we have
five hundred and twenty-five portable houses, free
of all encumbrance, except freightage to points of
good sale, and worth two hundred and twelve thou-
sand dollars, which cost us twenty-one thousand two
hundred. It was a fine and dandy revenge, Jimmy.”
" Revenge!" half shouted Wallingford, leaning
over suddenly and pounding upon the table with his
big fist. “Would you call this piffling little amuse-
ment revenge? You're never serious enough,
Blackie, to understand what that word means, but
I do! Did you see me call young Benssy back?
Well, I sent a message by him that will bring me
a revenge worth while, at eleven o'clock to-morrow.
What are you laughing about, kid ?”.
“Never mind,” said Toad with a wave of his
freckled hand; “I'm on. You two is too slick to
rest well nights; but the booger man'll git you
sure.”
Wallingford looked at him with not at all un-


THE FIRST SUCKER
55
friendly eyes. “You've a lot of nerve, talking to
us like that,” he declared with an assumption of
gruffness.
“Oh, I ain't afeared,” retorted Toad contemptu.
ously. “You fellows like me, an' I like you fel-
lows, even if you ain't on the square an' the level,
as my paw always says. But the booger man'll git
you jis' the same."
“ The booger man, eh?” repeated Blackie, smil-
ing. “I didn't know you stood for such stuff,
Toad.”
“Well," replied Toad soberly, “my maw always
said that your worst booger man was your own
self."
“Holy cripes ! ” ejaculated Blackie. “Get out
of here and bring us that champagne or you'll drive
us to drink.”
At precisely eleven, Toad Jessop ushered into the
office of the official manager a spare, nervous,
leather-faced man, whose beard sprang black an
hour after à shave. He hung slouchily in his good
clothes, and his step had no elasticity, but there was
an unquenchable fire in his eyes; and a vast unnum-
bered army of men, from ditch-diggers to million-
aires, would tremble if E. H. Falls were to do so
inconceivable a thing as to roar. He shuffled into
Wallingford's office and sat quietly in a big chair,


56
WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
shrinking into his clothes, almost as if he were in
dread of his antagonist — and he waited!
Wallingford proved the weaker man in the start,
for he began the struggle.
"Well, I suppose your son has told you of the
iniquitous manner in which he was robbed,” began
Wallingford gloatingly.
“He did nothing of the sort,” said Falls. "If he
had been robbed, he would have crawled under the
porch and licked his own wound until it was
well. I never yet heard Benssy whine. Was he
robbed ?”
“Well, I wouldn't just say robbed,” returned
Wallingford, with the ugly laugh of a man who sees
his moment of revenge on the way and thirsts for
it. “I wouldn't say robbed, because that might be
taken as a confession. He just proved himself a
saphead, that's all.”
The shrunken figure in the chair straightened up
with surprising elasticity. “You'll kindly drop any
mention of Benssy,” he said with a snap of his jaws.
“I can put Benssy in a turning-lathe, trim off a
thousandth of an inch of careless artificiality, split
him up and make of him six better men than most
of his recent associates. I know what's in the boy,
and I am highly pleased to allow him to be utterly
care free, and an outward fool if he likes; but if I
ever need him, I'll skin him, and have a real man


THE FIRST SUCKER
57
standing by the side of me. Now, what did you
want to see me about?”
“ The Lake Michigan and Pacific,” blurted Wal-
lingford surlily, for so far his attack had been a
boomerang
The eyes of Falls lighted with immediate interest.
“So you are the one who has the balance of stock
hidden away?” he commented.
“ You bet I am!” declared Wallingford, leaning
forward in sudden anger, and holding his fist tensely
upon the edge of the table. From that moment
Falls lounged back in his chair, and listened, and
never moved. “You bet I am!” repeated Wal-
lingford. "Benssy, your unskinned man, let out to
me when I first met him that you are actually going
to build the connecting line between the Chicago and
Manhattan and the Lake Michigan and Pacific Rail-
roads, and create the new Pacific trunk line upon
which you made me lose the only real fortune I
ever had.” Wallingford's face had reddened, and
his voice grew husky with emotion as he went on.
“ Yes, you did! I came to you with a proposition
to sell that connecting strip of land for stock in the
two roads, which were bound to advance in value
when they were consolidated; and you led me into
a wild mess of margin speculation, which cost me
half a million dollars, all I had in the world. Now,
I'm going to get it all back, with interest. Do you


58
WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
hear me? With interest! The minute I found that
you were actually going to slip this road through,
which you had denied that you would ever build, I
mortgaged everything I possessed, borrowed every-
thing I could, raked and scraped together until I
had a little over three hundred thousand dollars.
With this I quietly bought outright all the loose
stock I could find of the Lake Michigan and Pacific,
knowing that you were doing the same, that you
would not go into the open market for fear of boost-
ing the price, and that you felt your operations to
be so secret that you had plenty of time to secure
control.” '
Wallingford mopped his brow. He was hoarse
now. Falls sat quietly regarding him, but did noth-
ing so dramatic as even to light a cigar. .
“Well, after I had invested all that I could, I
showed W. D. Fishbacker your order for one hun-
dred portable houses, and called his attention to the
points to which they were to be delivered; and Fish-
backer struggled with you for the rest. I notice
that you ran up the price quite a bit before all the
stock was shaken loose. There isn't a share of it
to be had, Mr. Falls, except from Fishbacker or
myself, and you know how much chance there is
for you ever to do business, on any basis, with Fish-
backer.” His voice was very hoarse now, but even
above the hoarseness it arose to a queer caricature


THE FIRST SUCKER
59
of an angry shriek, and his face was purple with
passion. “I hold control, which you must have; and
you must come to me for it; and you must pay my
price!”
There was a moment of silence, in which Wal-
lingford tremblingly reached for a glass of water,
and finding the glass empty, set it down; then, still
needing a drink, picked it up and held it foolishly.
Falls crossed over the other leg.
“ It seems that you have me,” he pleasantly ad-
mitted. “How much do you want for your three
hundred thousand dollars' worth of stock? ”
“A million and a quarter," snarled Wallingford,
leaning forward and looking closely into the eyes
of the only man he had ever held as an enemy.
Falls produced a check-book from his pocket,
produced a fountain-pen from another, wrote a
check and arose. “There's your million and a
quarter, Mr. Wallingford,” he observed in so quiet
and even a tone that there must either be hatred,
contempt, or, worse than all, complete indifference
behind it. “Deliver your stock to my office before
the banks close, and you will find that check per-
fectly negotiable. When you get your million and
a quarter, go out and buy a cigarette with it, and
smoke it up, and be broke again, and start back
working the county fairs. I know you'll do it, Wal-
lingford, for a piker always finds his level.”


60
WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
Somehow Falls emerged from Wallingford's office
unanswered. The truth seldom meets with an ade-
quate reply, except in its own kind.
Well, Wallingford had the million and a quarter
for which he had played; enough to give Fannie back
her house upon the avenue; enough to furnish him-
self with all the luxuries and indulgences that he
craved; enough to give back to Violet Bonnie her
fifteen thousand dollars, with two or three hundred
per cent. interest; but still he was not quite satisfied.
Why? Because of one simple word. Falls had
called him a piker, and had proved it.
The gleam of a broken pattern of brass buttons,
seen through the door as Toad Jessop returned from
his obsequious attentions to the departing railroad
king, gave Wallingford's thought another tack, and
he hung his head. Toad had been right. The
booger man had got him.


CHAPTER IV.
A LITTLE BUSINESS TALK
TOAD JESSOP, whose freckles were so strong
1 that they made him look like a man, had tried
all the seats on that side of the car except the one
occupied by J. Rufus Wallingford, when the wheez-
ing and panting and rheumatic-jointed old accom-
modation train stopped, with no apparent provo-
cation, and before Toad's very eyes appeared a
lineman, descending a telegraph-pole with alternate
stabs of his splendidly spiked feet. The lineman,
reaching the ground and picking up a few scattered
tools, clomped into the car, leaving the scenery ab-
solutely vacant except for some bare rolling hills
on his side of the train, and, on the other, some
equally bare flat land.
Apparently finding the additional weight of one
bony-faced human being too much for its feeble-
ness, the train presently heaved itself rid of some
heavy machinery; then it puffed and quivered re-
lievedly away, though not so rapidly but that Wal-
lingford, gazing idly out the window, had ample
61


62
WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
time to read upon the largest machinery-crate:
“Dougalbobber Brothers, Dougalville.”
In the meantime, Toad Jessop was acquiring in-
formation as rapidly as the bony-faced lineman could
deliver it to him.
“Say, what was you doin' up on that pole?” de-
manded Toad, planting himself firmly upon his knees
just in front of the seat the pole-climber had taken.
The lineman sorted out Toad's blue eyes from
amidst his freckles, and liked them. “I was up
there straightening a kink in the wire," he an-
swered.
“Why?" demanded Toad.
“ It was gettin' the messages twisted.”
“How?”
“Well, you see, the 'o's' and ' a's' and 'e's,' the
'w's' and 'm's' and 'n's' and such letters as that,
slide right around a kink, but the 'k's' and 'q's'
and 'y's' and 'x's, especially the capital 'X's,' al-
ways stick.”
This being a perfectly logical explanation, and
one which anybody could understand, Toad pursued
that subject no further.
“What's all that machinery for they put off back
there?” he next inquired.
“ That's a calico mill,” the man promptly re-
sponded.
Toad flattened his face against the glass in a vain
.


64
WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
“Ore-crushing machinery, isn't it? ” guessed Wal-
lingford.
"Iron," replied the other with a nod, surveying
with interest and approval the important-looking
big man, whose round pink face spoke so plainly of
cheerfulness and good living.
"Much of a deposit?" inquired Wallingford, with
the instant interest of a man commercially inclined.
“They say it's a wonder. The Dougalbobber
brothers own it, whoever they are. They're hus-
tlers. Next week a spur-track is to be put in back
to the mines.” He paused and smiled over the
magic of things. “Dougalville! There ain't a liv-
in' soul back there now, but in a month it'll be a
good-sized town, out hustlin' for electric lights and
trolley-cars."
“ Also it will have a real-estate boom and six
saloons,” agreed Wallingford, and passed on to the
smoker.
Toad followed him. “Say," observed Toad in
a pained tone, “that man back there," here he
pulled down Wallingford's ear and whispered into
it, “why, he's a liar!”
J. Rufus Wallingford, respectable and prosperous
real-estate dealer, and his messenger-boy, valet, com-
panion and friend, Toad Jessop, finished their busi-
ness in the Northwest in four days. On the return
trip Wallingford had mileage torn off as far as


A LITTLE BUSINESS TALK
65
bleak barren Dougalville only. He had expected to
stop between trains and survey the lonesomeness as
mere raw material, but he found there a tiny tele-
graph station and waiting-room which had been
shoved off a freight-car intact, apparently even to
the operator, for that functionary was inside; he
found a roughly built frame shack labeled “ Kim-
bely Mine - Office”; he found a gang of railroad
laborers putting down a half-graded, wobbly spur-
track, and up the ravine into which it was headed he
saw, against a background of soiled little tents, a
swarm of human ants setting machinery in place, and
another swarm digging an impressive-looking hole in
the ground.
From the same train by which Wallingford had
arrived, there descended a drove of clay-festooned
laborers, and as these, by common impulse, surged
immediately toward the “ office”, Wallingford
watched the accommodation creak upon its jolty
way toward the happy land of taxis and bath tubs
and push-buttons. For relief from the intolerable
landscape, which would not alter nor decay, but lay
in its flat sterility forever and ever, he watched the
sifting of the clay-hung laborers, who were admit-
ted into the office one at a time, and came out again
with little slips of paper in their hands, to trudge up
the ravine toward the Kimbely Mine and more
clay.


66
WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
When the last one had returned to his native ele-
ment, Wallingford walked slowly across to the of-
fice, but to his surprise, he found it locked. Hear-
ing loud voices, however, he stopped and listened in
perplexity. Suddenly, from around the corner of
the building, there dashed two of the clay-decorater
callers, followed by half a dozen well-muscled g.
tlemen who looked highly unnatural without striped
clothing. These, howling a choice collection of epi-
thets, expletives and blasphemies, and stooping to
pick up missiles by the way, were followed by a man
with blood-colored hair and big, flat, outstanding
ears almost as red, who was so bow-legged that a
beer-keg could have been rolled through his wicket.
This man was evidently the general of the pursuing
army, for he directed it not only with energy, but
with rancor.
“Soak 'em!” he cried in a twanging voice.
“Soak 'em, can't you! Soak 'em! Soak 'em!
Soak 'em! Soak 'em!” and he jumped up and
downte a dancing hoop.
The two laborers had struck for the track, and
were now headed due southeast, with an apparently
steadfast determination to overtake the accommoda-
tion, dodging, by mere instinct, the specimens of
rock ballast which were hurled after them.
“What's the excitement ? ” asked Wallingford of
the violent-haired one.


A LITTLE BUSINESS TALK
67
e ele.
e oi
Tear-
ir oil
atat!
riped !
epi-
što
nan
ling
it a
ket
The man turned regretfully from the pleasures of
the chase and surveyed Wallingford carefully, from
silk hat to polished toes, and from shoe-laces to satin
cravat, where, upon the focusing-point of a two-
carat diamond, his fish-belly-blue eyes came to a
ipmanent rest.
***** What excitement? ” he sullenly inquired.
“The mob scene,” returned Wallingford, endeav-
oring to smile in spite of his growing resentment.
The man considered that for a moment in careful
silence. “What do you want?” he finally de-
manded, his eyes, however, still remaining at the
diamond level.
“ Civility,” snapped Wallingford. “Who's run-
ning this mine?”
“ The Dougalbobber brothers,” was the prompt
and rather emphatic response.
“Where will I find one of them?”
This time there was a considerable hesitation be-
fore he replied,
“Well, I'm Alec Dougalbobber."
Wallingford inspected his man anew, and in spite
of his habitual diplomacy, he grinned. “Why, Alec,
I'm ashamed of you,” he bluffed, having estimated
Dougalbobber to be the arrant coward that ise was.
“You never should allow such a peevish impulse
to get the better of you. You should be cheerful
and happy, as I am, and when you are in a pleasanter
*
ce.
---


68
WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
frame of mind, I'd like to talk a little business with
you."
“What do you want?" again demanded Alec, but
this time in a much milder and more conciliatory
tone.
“They tell me you own the land across the track
there," and Wallingford waved his arm in the gen-
eral direction of the flat desolation.
Mr. Dougalbobber, with a nod that tilted his
ears upward and forward like the sweep of an aero-
plane, admitted that such was the case.
“ You expect to have a town over there by and
by?”
The aeroplane tilted once more, its thin wafer of
a fore rudder cleaving the way.
“The sooner it's there the better it is for your
mine?”
Another tilt.
“Well, I own over five hundred brand-new port-
able houses. If you'll sell me that land at a reason-
able figure, I'll cut it up into building-lots, have my
five-hundred-odd houses erected within two weeks,
help you in your advertising, and there's your town,
ready made!” And by way of introduction, he
handed Alec his card.
Mr. Dougalbobber dropped his eyes to the card
and let them rest there in cautious speculation. “ I'll
have to see Frank about this,” he stated after ma-


A LITTLE BUSINESS TALK
69
ture thought. “We'd ought to see Ralph, too, but
he's in the East,” and, turning toward the ravine
with a side glance to see that Wallingford was turn-
ing with him, he started in the direction of the in-
cipient mine.
“Are you selling any stock?” asked Wallingford.
“A little,” admitted Alec. “ The proposition is
too big for individual capital. That's Ralph's de-
partment."
Wallingford glanced at his companion and smiled.
“No trouble to find investors, I suppose?” he ven-
tured.
“Not very much," was the slow reply, as Alec
shifted his gaze from side to side upon the ground.
“You see, the proposition's too good. We got the
government geological survey the minute it came
out, and bought up the best iron-veins it showed.
This is the richest iron-field since the Mesaba Range
was opened. Look at this survey,” and he produced
a pocket-worn, governmental, cross-section map,
showing an iron-ore-bearing stratum thick enough
to take up half of the drawing.
“Some iron there, I guess,” Wallingford admit-
ted, passing back the paper.
"Enough to build all the engines, locomotives,
dynamos, battleships and cannons in the world for
the next fifty years," asserted Alec, pulling his eyes
up to the cravat level again. “Our mining claims


70
WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
cover all the thick part of that deposit, and here's
the assay we've had made of the ore."
He proffered another folded paper, but Walling-
ford waved it back.
“I know a man who makes assays," he com-
mented. “I'll feel so much better convinced if I
just take your word. Doing any advertising?”
“Quite a bit,” replied Alex, with a wince at the
cost of that luxury, and just then, rounding the
rocky corner of a red-streaked hill, they came face
to face with Frank Dougalbobber.
Wall. gford would have known him anywhere.
With the exception of the hair, which in Frank's
case was the color of well-bleached hay, the brothers
were so alike — ears, eyes, noses, and mouths — as
to be libelous caricatures of each other.
Alec found no difficulty in looking into his broth-
er's eyes with earnest inquiry as he propounded Wal-
lingford's plan.
“Well, I don't know," said Frank uneasily, shift-
ing from one foot to the other. “We always like
to get in on all the profits of everything we do."
“ I'll make you more profit than you can obtain
in any other way,” asserted Wallingford confidently.
“ I'll have a good reporter for a press association
come up here the day my portable houses are on the
ground. He'll see a blank landscape with a few
stakes driven into its expressionless countenance;


A LITTLE BUSINESS TALK
71
he'll see an army of men juggling the complete walls,
floors and roofs of houses then he'll see a finished
little city, all ready to cook ham and eggs in five
hundred cheerful homes, and preparing to elect a
tomato-haired mayor.”
Both brothers smiled thinly, and Alec even almost
bowed.
“It sounds like good advertising," he agreed.
“Good advertising!” retorted Wallingford.
“The best kind known; the kind that can't be bought.
Your brother Ralph will have to fight stock-pur-
chasers away from him to get any sleep, and we'll
start a boom here that will poke that pale sky so
full of spires and domes that it'll look like a boy had
cut into it with a Christmas jig-saw.”
Neither of the brothers batted a lash.
"And where do we get in on the real-estate end?”
insinuated Frank.
“ Sell me the center twenty acres over there, solid,
at a hundred dollars an acre, and alternate acres sur-
rounding that at the same price," offered Walling-
ford. “You can figure for yourselves the result of
holding those alternate acres until the city grows up
around them.”
Once more the Dougalbobber brothers then pres-
ent gazed deeply and earnestly into each other's
eyes. .
"I guess we'll consult Ralph about this,” decided


72
WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
Alec. “We never do anything very important with-
out all of us agreeing on it.”
“ You'll take a chance on Ralph or you won't have
any proposition to offer him,” declared Wallingford.
“ There's an express train thunders through here in
about thirty minutes. I'm going to board that train
and slam away from this morgue full of dead
scenery before it gives me the willies.”
The brothers again smiled thinly.
“If we don't stop to consult Ralph," ventured
Frank, after a vacillating hesitation, “ we'll have to
have a better price for that land.”
“You'll find me on the station platform waiting
for that answer," asserted Wallingford stiffly, and
left them alone to think it over. He was disap-
pointed in not finding them more enthusiastic.
At the same moment in which Wallingford strode
down the ravine, with Toad Jessop panting at his
heels and still watching the marvel of that magic
city sprouting its domes and spires against the sky,
Blackie Dlaw, with a cynical smile beneath his inky
mustache, sat across the table from Ralph Dougal-
bobber in a New York hotel bar.
“But you won't even investigate these remarkable
mining stocks," Mr. Dougalbobber was expostu-
lating
“ Quite so, my son,” returned Blackie, grinning.
"I used to sell them.”
1


A LITTLE BUSINESS TALK
73
Mr. Dougalbobber spread his knees very handily
around two legs of the table and arched his feet to-
gether, while he scratched one broad, red, outstand-
ing ear in perplexity; then he ran his fingers through
his muddy brown hair.
“But you won't even look at this marvelous as-
say,” he again expostulated.
“Quite so, my son,” returned Blackie, grinning.
“ I used to buy them."
“You can get in now at forty-five," offered
Dougalbobber enticingly. “Last week it was
forty."
“Quite so, my son," returned Blackie, grinning.
“I used to tilt them, too."
At about the identical moment in which Blackie
lighted a triumphant cigarette, after offering one to
the confused and awkward Mr. Dougalbobber, his
friend, Wallingford, was still awaiting his answer;
but when Number Three actually slowed down, red-
haired Alec came running from the office, the cover
of which he had gained by making a détour of the
hill, and panted up to Wallingford with: .
“ Yes."
“Thanks,” returned Wallingford, and then, as if
in afterthought, “I think I'll give a share of your
stock with every house."
“We'll make it to you at forty-five,” offered Alec
promptly.


74
WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
“ The operating company?” asked Wallingford.
Alec's ears almost perked forward. “How did
you know there were two companies ?” he de-
manded in a panic.
“Saw the state records of incorporation,” ex-
plained Wallingford, and then, in a much smoother
tone: “You see, these few shares are to give the
townspeople a greater interest in the mine, and for
that purpose they should be in the operating com-
pany. Do you object to parting with some of
them?”
Alec considered the matter doubtfully. The
train thundered down to the platform, and stopped
to a mere crawl.
"No," he said hesitatingly, and then again, with
sudden decision: “No! Make you those at eighty-
five.”
“Make it eighty, and I'll go you," offered Wal-
lingford.
“Who's taking this train ? ” asked the conduc-
tor roughly.
“I am," answered Wallingford, mounting the
lower step. Toad was already on the platform
with a bag and suit case. “ Eighty?”
Alec still stood in indecision. The conductor,
muttering curses, waved his hand and jumped upon
the steps of the car ahead. The engine gave an
angry puff, and the train, which had not come to


A LITTLE BUSINESS TALK
75
a complete stop, began to pick up its momentum.
Wallingford leaned far out from the steps.
“Make it eighty!” he shouted.
“All right,” called Alec weakly, and Walling-
ford went into the car, chuckling.
The miracle happened — two miracles in fact:
one when J. Rufus Wallingford erected his mush-
room city in the twinkling of an eye, as it were,
from a job lot of portable houses that he and
Blackie Daw had obtained at ten cents on the dol-
lar; and the other when he induced a big press as-
sociation to “ fall for” his scheme of gratuitous
advertising. Through this publicity, the wonder-
ful Kimbely Mine became a household word over-
night, and the astonished Brother Ralph, who had
been waging a desperately uneven battle for sub-
scribers in the effete East, suddenly wired fran-
tically to his brothers to increase their capitaliza-
tion, as he was running out of stock. Immediately
after sending this telegram, he placed his derby
between his ears and followed the cleavage of his
nose into the haunt most infested by Blackie Daw.
“ The Kimbely Mine is just doubling its capi-
talization,” he proudly twanged.
“Good work,” approved Blackie. “There's no
reason why you shouldn't keep right on printing the
stock as long as they'll buy it."
“They'll buy it as long as they have such proof


76
WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
as we have of a fivefold profit," enthused the East-
ern Dougalbobber. “It's worth fifty-five now.
Have you seen in the papers how Dougalville was
built overnight ? ”
“I invented that trick myself,” stated Blackie
complacently. “It's the greatest mine-selling
scheme on earth, and I lost a fortune by not pat-
enting it.”
Brother Ralph was working no harder than they
were in Dougalville, however. Laborers flocked
there in shoals and were either put into the mines
or chased down the track to the jeers of the rap-
idly growing populace. Wallingford, for the time
being, did nothing but sell houses — for cash when
he could, on instalments when he must. For seven
hundred dollars he could sell a house and lot that
had cost him sixty, and a share of stock that had
cost him eighty. He obtained copies of the charter,
constitution and by-laws of the Kimbely Mine
Company, and every time he read them he frowned
over just one puzzling problem; then he went out
and mingled anew with his tenantry, for every
householder would be a voter in the approaching
stockholders' meeting. He got a grocer, a butcher,
a baker and other enterprising merchants to
buy bungalows and open shops; a lawyer and
four doctors — allopath, homeopath, osteopath, and
horse - cast their lots with him, and carpenters,


A LITTLE BUSINESS TALK 77
bricklayers and stonemasons fairly swarmed to the
place.
Even in the early days, before the inrush began,
Wallingford occupied himself very fully, by spend-
ing as much time as possible in and about the mine,
although nearly always under the watch ful eye of
one of the Dougalbobbers. He noted one very pe-
culiar thing: no chemist was employed, and no-
body interested seemed at all curious regarding the
quality of the ore. When he wanted to take some
of it away to show prospective citizens, however,
they evinced a sudden jealous regard for it, and
positively refused to let him have any. He ob-
tained some, though, through the earnest efforts of
Toad Jessop, who brought it away a lump at a
time. It looked like any other iron-ore, as far as
Wallingford could see, but he was very curious
about it.
When the influx began, Wallingford became the
patriarch of the town, its founder and father, its
chief benefactor and adviser, and in the first two
weeks Dougalville would have elected him unani-
mously to be president of the United States. At
the end of two weeks, however, Big Bill Slammet
came to town, with one wife, six children, three
dogs and seven dollars, and sought opportunities
for investment. Big Bill busying himself on the
investment proposition, Mrs. Slammet, a woman as


78
WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
faded and decrepit as Big Bill was flamboyant and
hearty, came to Wallingford and obtained a house
on sheer defenselessness. Big Bill, having found
the only easily obtainable form of investment in
the town to be whisky, invested his seven dollars
in that commodity for the use, and benefit of him-
self and various and sundry kindred spirits. Shortly
upon the heels of this, he discovered Wallingford
and immediately made a speech.
He was from Cinderburg, Big Bill was, and he
knew this man Wallingford of old. He was a
common grafter, this J. Rufus person, one who
robbed widows and orphans and honest laboring
men like him out of their hard-earned money. In
Cinderburg, Wallingford had organized a concern
known as the Bang Sun Engine Company, which
company was a fraud and a swindle from begin-
ning to end. Big Bill fairly frothed at the mouth
in telling of the iniquities of Wallingford, and as
he had a good corner just between the Miners' Club
Saloon and the Merchants' Café, he had a rapidly
growing and highly gleeful audience.
Wallingford and Toad Jessop, taking an evening
constitutional, in the pleasant silence that comes
to friends of long standing who have no question
of each other, came upon the orator in due time
and were just about to join the group when Wal-
lingford heard his own name, and drew Toad


A LITTLE BUSINESS TALK
79
quickly into the shadow of a high pile of beer-cases
at the side of the Merchants' Café, where he lis-
tened a moment.
“Where's one of the Dougalbobbers? ” inquired
Wallingford, turning to Toad with a sudden flush
of anger.
“Down at the depot playin' penny-ante, ten chips
for a cent, with McCorkle an' young Rickets," im-
mediately responded Toad, who knew the where-
abouts, habits and personal history of every liv-
ing creature in Dougalville.
“Go get one of 'em," directed Wallingford
crisply. “ I'll be right here.”
Toad at once transformed himself into a thin
streak, and was there and back before Wallingford
had ceased to wonder whether he had quite under-
stood instructions or not.
“ They're comin', both of 'em,” panted Toad.
“They didn't know there was any free doin's or
they'd 'a' been here before. Gee, ain't that big
husky lickin' it into you! I didn't know you'd been
so ornery. Why don't you lick ’im?”
Wallingford dreaded to find a trace of contempt
in Toad's tone, but there was none; the boy would
not have found it possible to suspect physical cow-
ardice in a friend of his. He only wondered that
men so often found reasons for neglecting the first
duty and delight of every male human being.


80
WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
“A mere licking wouldn't do," Wallingford ex-
plained, glad to have a valid excuse. “He's too
dangerous for that.”
The Dougalbobbers hurried into view just then
and stopped at the edge of the crowd to listen.
Toad ran out and brought them back to the shadow
of the beer-cases.
“You have a bunch of hired wallopers, haven't
you?” asked Wallingford.
“Well, we don't call 'em that,” returned Frank
hesitantly. “They're our watchmen.”
“Where are they?”
“Wherever the most excitement is,” returned
Frank with a grin. “I reckon that's right here.
I saw two or three of 'em as we circled the herd.”
"I want to borrow them.”
“I should say you would,” responded Alec, and
stepping over to the edge of the crowd, he lifted
up his shrill nasal voice with:
“Soak 'im, boys! Soak ’im! Soak ’im! Soak
'im!”


CHAPTER V
THE GLAD HAND
THE response was instantaneous. A raw po-
1 tato hit Big Bill Slammet in the teeth. He
turned, full of rage, to discover the vandal if he
could, when, from the other edge of the group of
his beloved hearers, a clod of raw dirt caught him
in the ear. Big Bill considered that situation for
only one second before he decided to step down
from his nail-keg and seek some more secluded
spot. As he edged through the crowd somebody
poked him in the back of the neck with several
hard knuckles. Big Bill started to run, and the
nearest open space being the railroad track, he
made for that and headed due southeast, followed
by six well-muscled experts in the art of personal
encounter, who pelted him with rocks at every
jump until the darkness swallowed him up forever;
whereupon his wife took in washing, and raised her
family, and was happy ever after.
Immediately after the exodus of Big Bill, Wal-
lingford's new-found friends, the Dougalbobbers,
81


82
WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
in huge admiration escorted him to his own portable
bungalow.
“We didn't know you was a wise William, too,”
said Alec with a little laugh as Wallingford pro-
duced a bottle and glasses and cigars. “If we'd 'a'
known that, we'd 'a' had our wallopers, as you
call 'em, look out for you, and this never would
have happened.”
"You have to watch for these red-necks,” agreed
Frank, smiling and looking Wallingford squarely in
the eye for the first time in his life. “ Just one of
’em's liable to upset your whole game any minute.
You don't want to give 'em a chance to even cough
inside your town. Come over to our office to-mor-
row at train-time, and we'll show you how we han-
dle 'em.”
A sudden idea hit Wallingford, and the frown-
ing crease that had been steadily in his brow
for two weeks, disappeared, as if by magic. He
chuckled, his broad chest heaving and his big shoul-
ders shaking, his eyes closing and his round pink
face wreathing itself in a smile, which, as an evi-
dence of friendly understanding, the Dougalbobber
brothers saw with delight.
“You must have had a lot of experience," sug-
gested Wallingford, and chuckled again over the
splendid solution he had found for his secret prob-
lem.


THE GLAD HAND
83
The brothers exchanged smiles of comradeship.
“We've got it down to a science,” boasted Frank.
“You see, we've specialized. We do nothing but
iron-mines, and we know how. We figure right
from the beginning that most likely a mine is no
good, but if it isn't, we don't want to know it; so
we never fuss around with the ore except to dig it
out. When we have nearly all the stock sold we
ship some ore to the smelters, and what they tell
us after the actual reduction is worth more than
all the assays in the world.”
“Right you are,” agreed Wallingford heartily.
“That's one reason you don't employ a chemist.”
The brows of both the brothers darkened, and
their ears turned redder.
“They're not safe,” growled Frank. “They're
likely to give you away.”
"I see,” returned Wallingford, nodding his head
and pouring them another drink. “In the begin-
ning you get some good iron-ore from some place
or another and have an assay made, merely for
the benefit of your brother Ralph, who sells the
stock. In the meantime, you incorporate two com-
panies, a largely capitalized mine company and an
operating company of small capitalization. You
make a contract between the two, which will al-
low the operating company to reap most of the
profits. You sell the mining company stock and


84
WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
hold the operating company stock yourselves, so
that if you do happen to strike a winner you still
have the big end of it.”
“ That's the trick,” admitted Alec, delighted to
find some one who appreciated the Dougalbobber
cleverness, and both the brothers grinned thinly.
“Only we never hit a winner."
“What do you think of the prospects of this
mine?” asked Wallingford, bending forward with
apparent anxiety.
The brothers glanced at each other quickly.
“ The ore looks fine to me,” declared Alec.
“I don't think we ever had so good a chance to
strike a real one,” added Frank.
“You know, I'd like to take a gamble myself,”
said Wallingford, smiling, his eyes opened to the
most innocent roundness of which they were ca-
pable. “How much of the operating company
stock would you sell?”
The brothers glanced at each other incredulously.
Could this be possible?
“Well, of course, we'd never let go of control,”
asserted Frank with a sober face, and not looking
toward Alec lest their eyes sparkle and betray them.
“That means that you'll sell four hundred and
ninety-nine shares,” Wallingford quickly calculated.
“You have in the operating company a thousand
shares of a hundred dollars, par value, each. I've


THE GLAD HAND
85
sold the biggest part of the four hundred and nine-
ty-nine shares for you to my home-buyers, but I
think I'll take the balance of it and keep it for my-
self.”
The brothers dared not look anywhere near each
other.
“We'll have to charge you par for it,” ventured
Frank, controlling his voice with an effort, while
Alec tapped nervously upon the floor with his toe.
Wallingford only laughed at them and did the
honors with such refreshment as he had to offer.
“You'll do nothing of the sort,” he assured them.
“You'll be tickled stiff to sell it to me at seventy.
You don't think you have a mine, anyhow."
They wrangled for a half-hour over the price,
but they finally compromised at eighty. The Dou-
galbobber brothers laughed all the way home, while
Wallingford chuckled himself to sleep.
The next day, when the train came, Wallingford,
who made it a practise to extend the glad hand of
fellowship to every possible home-seeker, was called
over to the office by Alec.
“There'll be quite a bunch gettin' off o'this train,"
said the red-topped one, rubbing his hands together
in anticipatory glee. “ You stay here and watch
the fun; it'll be a good tip for you, brother.”
Wallingford winced at this fraternal expression,
but kept his own counsel, of long habit, and in-


86
WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
spected the curious arrangement of the office with
interest. The rough board shanty, small as it was,
had one narrow room across the front, and in the
rear partition of this were two doc s, one leading
into an enclosure, a mere cell, in fact, which had
no other openings, except for one tiny window high
up under the eaves. The other door led into a
compartment that was barely wide enough to
contain a bench at one side of the passage to the
rear entrance. In the narrow front room sat a
stupendously broad-shouldered and short-necked
and wide-jawed man, whom Alec introduced as
Mr. McCorkle.
“Mr. Wallingford is anxious to see how we get
rid of the trouble-makers, Tim," stated Alec with
a grin.
McCorkle's grin in reply was a crevice. “Get
your money down on it quick,” he said to Walling-
ford; “it's all over before it starts.”
Alec glanced out the window, and hastily dragged
Wallingford into the passageway.
“Here they come,” he explained.
Through augur-holes bored in the door, Walling-
ford and Alec watched the proceedings. McCorkle
opened to the hoi polloi.
“One at a time now," he bellowed, and let in a
clay-cluttered digger and delver, after which he
bolted the door. “Where'd yuh work last?” he


THE GLAD HAND
87
demanded, and followed this with a string of usual
employment questions, which the man answered
quite satisfactorily, though he mumbled at it and
twisted his hatT“ All right,” decided McCorkle, fill-
ing out a time-slip. “The boss'll sign this for you,
and then you k'n go right to work.”
This being Alec's cue, he opened the door and
stepped in. Both Dougalbobber and McCorkle
watched the man narrowly. Alec, slowly advan-
cing, took the slip, and after another searching look
at the man, signed it, glancing up furtively at the
fellow as he did so. Alec rejoined Wallingford
and closed the door after himself. McCorkle
opened the front door, let out his man and admitted
another one. Four laborers in succession passed
muster in the same way, and then came one who
went through swimmingly until Alec Dougalbobber
appeared in the doorway, when the applicant's jaw
dropped.
“ Alec Shellbark!” he exclaimed.
McCorkle arose quietly and opened the door of
the room which had no other outlet. “Just wait
in there,” he directed.
“No, I won't wait,” declined the laborer. “I-
I don't believe I want a job, anyhow."
“You'll wait in there,” declared McCorkle, step-
ping on the other side of the fellow.
“Not on your life!” refused the man. “Let me


88
WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
out o this. I wouldn't work for that Shellbark
outfit —”
Mr. McCorkle put one enormous hairy paw
against the man's shoulder, pushed him into the
cell with a shove that sent him spinning against
the rear wall, closed the door and calmly bolted
it. Then he let in the next applicant.
Two more trouble-makers came out of that day's
grist, and when all the lucky applicants had plodded
off up the ravine, Alec stepped inside with Wal-
lingford, and sent in his six paid gladiators, who
had been waiting eagerly in the rear. The “rum-
pus” began immediately, and it lasted for about
five minutes, during which time the little frame
office rocked and shivered and resounded to the
thumps of heads and heels until it finally gained
relief by belching nine superheated men out at the
rear door. Three of them ran down the track,
headed due southeast, while the other six followed,
pelting them with rocks.
McCorkle, who was too blasé and ennui to care
to take part in the outdoor portion of the gym-
nastics, came to the rear door with a slightly bored
expression.
“Kind of a tame bunch this morning," he re-
marked apologetically; " but it's enough to give you
a tip on how we handle 'em.”
“That's Brother Ralph's idea,” said Alec with


THE GLAD HAND
89
proper family pride. “Simple, isn't it? We never
have any trouble around our camp.”
What there was about that simple remark to make
Wallingford laugh so heartily Alec could not un-
derstand.
On that day Ralph Dougalbobber walked in upon
Blackie Daw with this startling information: “ The
price now is sixty per share, Mr. Daw. We have
three hundred men upon our pay-roll.”
“No wonder you have to sell stock," said
Blackie.
In the two trips that he had taken to the city,
Wallingford had noted, upon the banks of a cold-
looking stream about ten miles down the track, the
remains of a mistaken little sawmill, which had
long since gone out of business because there was
nothing to saw. It had possessed a big, weather-
tight tool- and stock-house, however, and in pur-
suance of the happy idea that the Dougalbobbers
had given him, Wallingford bought the place for
two hundred and fifty dollars; then, pleased with
himself, he hurried away to complete his errand of
mercy. About three miles below Dougalville, a for-
lorn country road crossed the railroad track, and
Wallingford made this point shortly after the up-
train had passed. He waited patiently. In about
an hour, two men came down the track, one limping


90
WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
and the other occasionally holding his hand to his
jáw, and both cursing.
“Hello, boys!” hailed Wallingford. “Been up
to the Dougalville mine hunting a job?”
Both men stopped and glowered savagely at Wal-
lingford, then the man who limped made a fervent
speech, while the other one listened in envious ad-
miration. At first the speech consisted of mere dis-
jointed emphasis, but gradually it grew more
intelligible, built upon the combined texts of the
Dougalbobber brothers, the Kimbely Mine, inines
in general, the state, the railroad and the universe,
with a few side digressions upon miscellaneous sub-
jects. Even Wallingford, connoisseur as he was
of anathema, vituperation and plain “cussing”,
listened with the respectful attention due to a
master.
“Admitting all this,” he pleasantly observed,
“and agreeing with such of it as I understand, what
do you intend to do about it?"
The man promptly gave him chapter two, with
scarcely a repetition. It had not quite the vigor
of chapter one, but more polish.
“Thanks,” said Wallingford, much refreshed.
“ I'm glad to find you in this reasonable frame of
mind. Here's ten dollars for you."
“I k'n lay him all out cussin', but my jaw hurts,"
insinuated the other man.


THE GLAD HAND
91
“Here's five for your willing spirit,” offered Wal-
lingford with a chuckle. “That's only grub-stakes,
boys. You're both hired from this minute, at your
usual mine wages. Seven miles farther on there's
an old sawmill, an old strawstack and a bunk-house.
They're mine. Kick the padlock off the door of
the bunk-house and make yourself at home. There's
a real town five miles farther on. When you get
rested, drill down there and bring back all the pro-
visions you can carry, because there's to be more
of you, and I want you all fed on raw meat. What's
your name?” he asked of the limping man, a brawny
giant who showed all his gums.
“Mike Dimple," replied the man defiantly.
“Well, Mike, you're foreman of the works,” an-
nounced Wallingford without a grin, for which Mr.
Dimple voted him a gentleman. “Your job will be
to pick out the best, the bravest and the truest of
the yeomen who have hurried away from Dougal-
ville. Hire these until you have twenty. Give the
sickly ones a hearty meal and pass them on."
“And what'll I have 'em do?” asked Mike Dim-
ple, puzzled as to his duties.
“Rest,” replied Wallingford, his big pink face
wreathing itself in a sudden smile of such cheer
that both of the men smiled in sheer fellowship.
“ Just rest and eat and sleep, and take a little
healthy exercise and keep in good training. I may


92
WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
want you all to come back to Dougalville some day
and have your own way.”
“Bless the day!” exclaimed Mike Dimple, and
forgetting his limp, he jumped up and cracked his
heels together. “Bless the day, and thank you, sir!
I'll get you the finest bunch of rowdies together that
ever tore down a circus tent.”
“Don't thank me,” said Wallingford with his
most benevolent air;" this is purely an errand of
mercy," and he drove away, huckling.
That night Toad Jessop cat e home with a purple
eye.
"I thought I told you not to fight with bigger
boys than yourself,” chided Wallingford, surveying
the wreck with mingled compassion and amusement.
“I wasn't,” confessed the defiantly truthfi? Toad.
“He was one size littler than me, but he was some
fighter! I guess he could nearly lick a man. He's
most licked me.”
“What brought on the battle? ” asked Walling-
ford.
“He said you was a crook,” explained Toad; and
then, with refreshing candor: “Mebbe he was
right, but what I licked him for was for sayin' it."
“Who was the boy, and what else did he say?"
inquired Wallingford, seriously interested.
“Carrots Saghorn. He's got freckles, too, but
they ain't as many as mine, so they have to name


THE GLAD HAND
93
him after his hair. Gee, he's a good fighter! He
won't wash his hands in the winter-time because it
cracks his knuckles.”
Business being business, Wallingford dismissed
with a chuckle the vivid picture of the red streaks
cut into the black hands. “What did he say?” he
insisted.
“Well, his paw come from Cinderburg, an' Car-
rots says that his paw says that what Big Bill Slam-
met said about you was so; an' then Carrots said,
his own self, that you was a crook, an' then I
smashed him an' he smashed back, an' they inade a
ring an' hollered; only say! more of 'em hollered,
'Sick 'em, Freckles '- that's me, you know, Frec-
kles, in this town— than hollered, “Sick 'im, Car-
rots!'"
“What else did he say?” Wallingford was anx-
ious to discover.
“Nothin'!” declared Toad indignantly. “He
didn't have no chance. But gee, that kid's some
fighter! Say! He rubs snake-oil on his muscles
every mornin' to make 'em limber. Ketches the
snakes hisself, an' puts 'em in a bottle, an' sets 'em
in the sun. He stands this way, like the picture of
the regular champions, you know; but I licked him.
I k’n lick any kid that makes faces to scare you
when he fights."
Later on, after he had applied a soothing poultice


94
WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
to the eye of Toad and had put that earnest champion
to bed, Wallingford went up to see Mr. Saghorn,
who was a quiet man with short curly whiskers,
which looked like a rash, all over the lower part of
his face. He sat on the edge of his portable porch
with his stockinged feet dangling near the surface
of the ground. His open undershirt revealed his
highly mattressed breast, and he smoked a short
corn-cob pipe that made the very existence of mos-
quitoes a matter of doubt in the Saghorn family.
“Is this Mr. Steven Saghorn? ” asked Walling-
ford pleasantly.
.“ Un-hunh," replied the man, looking indifferently
at a point about ten feet ahead of his toes.
“I am Mr. Wallingford, Mr. Saghorn. I sold
you your house, you know."
“ Un-hunh.”
Wallingford sighed, but he sat down on the edge
of the porch, removed his hat and again smiled
pleasantly. “Fine evening, isn't it?” he ventured.
“Un-hunh.”
Wallingford handed a good cigar to Mr. Sag-
horn, who thrust it into his shirt-bosom.
“They tell me you came from Cinderburg,” said
J. Rufus, trying to give the stubborn conversation
another yank.
“Un-hunh.”
“I understand there has been some criticism of


THE GLAD HAND
95
me in that town,” he went on desperately, and winced
in advance of Saghorn's answer.
“Un-hunh.”
“Entirely unjust, I assure you, Mr. Saghorn,” ex-
plained Wallingford, as suave as a roll of butter,
even under these discouraging circumstances. “ It
is true that I helped Mr. Bang incorporate his Sun
Engine Company. I believed in that engine. I
thought it the greatest thing in the world. But I
am a mere promoter, not an engineer, and it was
not my fault that the infernal engine wouldn't work.
You see that, don't you, Mr. Saghorn?”.
“Un-hunh.”
“Thank you,” returned Wallingford, delighted
with his unexpected success. “ I'm glad to find you
so reasonable. I was afraid that possibly you
might have believed some of the unkind things that
I have heard were said about me after I left Cin-
derburg; and, of course, I am more than delighted
to find that you do not. If any one in Dougalville
repeats these things in your hearing you will be kind
enough to correct them, won't you, Mr. Saghorn?”
“No,” announced Mr. Saghorn, and knocking the
ashes out of his pipe against a horny palm, he
arose and went into his portable house and shut
his portable door. Mr. Wallingford went home.
That night he pored over his accounts and did
some close figuring. He had disposed of three hun-


96
WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
dred and fifty of his five hundred and twenty-five
portable houses, over one hundred of them for cash,
which cash was safely deposited in his New York
bank; the balance he had sold on payments; he had
issued three hundred and fifty shares of stock in
the Kimbely Mine Operating Company. Once more
he took out the charter, and read anew the peculiar
constitution and by-laws of that corporation.
A stockholders' meeting was set for only a few
days away, and even if everybody in the town voted
with him, he could control the voting of only four
hundred and ninety-nine out of a thousand shares
of stock. This was the dilemma that had con-
fronted Wallingford and put creases in his brow
for many days, but now he only chuckled at it.
The next morning he began looking after his per-
sonal popularity. He sent to the city for a hundred
dollars' worth of books, all in the fifteen-cent, cloth-
bound editions; he gave the butcher an order for a
cow and two hogs; he gave the baker an order for
unlimited bread and cakes; he gave the grocer an
order for butter, crackers, cheese and pickles, ad
libitum; then he invited the entire town to the grand
barbecue and Free Public Library opening, which
library he was about to present to his beloved fel-
low townsmen in the until now vacant portable
house at number 54 South Main Street.
On the day Wallingford decided upon this, the un-


THE GLAD HAND
97
tiring Brother Ralph, in New York, sought out
Blackie Daw with a newspaper in his hand.
“I suppose you've seen the almost daily reports
of the wonderful output of the Kimbely Mine," he
suggested.
“Haven't you cleaned up on that yet? ” inquired
Blackie in surprise.
Mr. Dougalbobber was so shocked and pained that
he was nervous. “Look at this article," he begged,
pointing to a column-and-a-half“ story”, telling of
a wonderful ore shipment. “ The largest shipment
ever made in the world,” he explained.
“I believe it,” replied Blackie courteously, passing
back the paper; “ but why be so mournful about it?
You don't drink enough, Dougalbobber.”
“ And here," went on Mr. Dougalbobber with dig-
nity,“ is the weigher's certificate,” and he presented
a folded paper.
“I believe that, too,” admitted Blackie, passing
it back still folded. “Say, I wish you'd go away
with your Kimbely Mine and let me sigh in peace.
My wife's out of town.”
That grand opening was the apex and climax of
Dougalville's history. It was a grand and gala oc-
casion, wherein Wallingford shone at his brightest,
and Toad Jessop, as master of ceremonies, strutted
to his heart's content. Old Pop Meeking, who ran
the donkey-engine for the small ore-crusher, owned


98
WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
a beautifully mottled yellow and green cornet;
Henry Brooger, who eked out a miserable existence
mending shoes while he waited, owned an accordion;
and Tom Macnish, whose business was to curse a
mule, owned a bass viol. Wallingford hired the
entire band. He placed that band where it belonged,
right out in the middle of the field back of the Free
Public Library and in front of the barbecue, and
when the time was ripe, which was just when the
good smell of well-cooked flesh filled the air, he
made a speech. It was a rousing, patriotic, frater-
nal speech, calculated to warm the cockles of
the heart, awaken enthusiasm and increase happi-
ness on every hand. He pointed with pride to the
fact that he was the sole parent of this thriving
little city, and felt responsible for its welfare and
its prosperity. He loved all of them as brothers,
he did, and if any of them had individual or private
troubles, let them come to him, and their firm and
everlasting friend, J. Rufus Wallingford, would see
what could be done! The free library that he
was presenting them to-day was only the modest
beginning of an institution of which he knew Dou-
galville would one day be justly proud. A school-
house would be his next gift to the city, and he was
already dickering with the ministers of three denom-
inations to come there and establish churches. In
the meantime, the body needed food as much as the


THE GLAD HAND
99
mind or the soul. That food, he could see by the
eye of their expert butcher and chef, was now ready.
Let him not keep them from it. Let them all help
themselves, and enjoy themselves to the full. Would
the boys please strike up Turkey in the Straw?
As that and one church hymn were the only two
tunes upon which the cornet and the accordion and
the bass viol could agree, the boys cheerfully obliged,
and the feast began.
Talk about popularity! Dougalville fairly dripped
with it, and it was all for Wallingford — Walling-
ford, the big, the impressive, the pleasant, the
magnanimous! How they did love Wallingford
that night! Women almost wept about him, chil-
dren danced around him without throwing things,
and strong men, with their mouths full of beef and
pork and cheese and pickles, and their hands full
of more, went about swearing his praises, between
gulps, until they were fairly speechless with admira-
tion and food, and went home to sleep it off. Only
one man failed to show any enthusiasm. He ate
more than anybody else, but his eye remained cold
and clammy, particularly when it rested upon the
founder of the feast. That man was Steven Sag-
horn.


CHAPTER VI
BLACKIE FALLS
N the second day after the barbecue, Brother
Ralph came to town, as Alec and Frank had
foretold, to attend the stockholders' meeting on the
day following. Except for wearing a derby hat and
the more neatly kept clothes of civilization, and
except for having potato-brown hair, Brother Ralph
was a carbon copy of the other Dougalbobbers.
Wallingford walked across, as a matter of course,
to be introduced to him, and found him to be scarcely
a degree more personally engaging than his brothers,
and marveled that the man could have sold stock
at all with his handicap of natural repulsion. He
did not stop to parley long with the “smooth” one
from the East, however, for the brothers seemed
to desire to be alone; moreover, to-morrow was the
day of the stockholders' meeting, and Wallingford
himself was very busy.
He passed a long day in particular anxiety about
the five-twenty-seven train, but he received a
tremendous shock when the first man to step upon
the platform was Blackie Daw. Toad Jessop, who
. : 100


BLACKIE FALLS
ΙΟΙ
was homesick but did not know it, was the first to
spy Blackie, and executed an Indian war-dance upon
the spot, shaking hands with him, and clapping him
upon the shoulder, and calling him “ ole pardner”,
and dashing a real tear out of his eye, and thrashing
a lumbering big boy who saw it, and darting away
to bring Wallingford, all within the space of a min-
ute and a half.
Wallingford greeted his old friend and partner
with surprise. “Well, Blackie,” he exclaimed, while
Toad walked around them both with every mani-
festation of delight, “what brings you to the end
of the world?”
“Business," returned Blackie briskly; “but
I didn't expect to find you here. Fannie told me
you were out West some place, working a big real-
estate deal with those portable houses of ours.”
“ The West was never anything like this,” de-
clared Wallingford sadly; " but this is the place. I
don't like your having business here, though. You
don't mean to tell me you're tangled up with this
Kimbely Mine?”
“I sure am," asserted Blackie valiantly. “I
bought ten thousand dollars' worth of the stock.
Now giggle.”
“ Bought it!” ejaculated Wallingford aghast.
“Why, you blooming fool, how did you come to
fall for it? You used to sell mining stock."


102 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
“They say it takes separate educations to be wised
up to both ends of any game," responded Blackie
dolefully. “I suppose I'm up against it, eh? ”
“No, I wouldn't say that,” replied Wallingford
* kindly. “Outside of making a fool investment, I
guess your bet's all right.”
Blackie took that jolt with scarcely a blink, and
was able to smile in another minute. “It's like
we always said, Jimmy,” he philosophically con-
cluded; “ there's only two kinds of us — trimmers
and lollops; and when you quit being one kind,
you have to be the other. What have you to
drink?”
"Almost-whisky and near-beer; but wait a min-
ute and see the fun. Watch the appeal for em-
ployment of that bunch of laborers headed for the
office."
As he spoke he indicated the rough crowd of men,
twenty or more, who, alighting from the smoking-
compartment end of the day-coach, had headed
straight for the inquisition headquarters of the
Kimbely Mine.
“ You may have my share of their fun," offered
Blackie,“ and I'll give you something to boot. They
flagged the train at a hobo-camp about ten miles
down the track, and I still have my watch hung
to my garter and my money in my shoe. They
showed the price to the conductor, though, and he


BLACKIE FALLS
103
let 'em on; but if you have a police station here, I'm
willing to be locked up until they leave town."
“Oh, hush,” said Wallingford gaily. “This is
my pariy.”.
If this was the case, it was an unusually rough-
looking party, each man walking with a swagger,
and nearly every one having upon his countenance
some disfiguring scar or mark of recent battle. They
were remarkably silent, also, though remarkably
alert as they hurried, two by two, across to the
office, where they found upon the door a brand-new
sign that read, “No more laborers wanted.” The
man at the head of the procession, a brawny giant
who perpetually showed his gums, knocked heavily
upon the door.
“Whatchyou want?” rumbled the deep voice of
Foreman McCorkle.
“Work,” replied the big laborer.
"No chance,” stated McCorkle from behind the
closed door. “All full.”
“I want to see Mr. Dougalbobber,” insisted Mike
Dimple.
“ Which one?” demanded McCorkle.
“He ain't here," supplemented a high-pitched
nasal voice from within.
“ They're both there, boys," announced the giant
with a happy grin; and then ensued a startling vari..
ation upon the usual evening-train program.


104 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
The score or more of earnest seekers after labor,
each of whom had enjoyed the distinction of having
been chased away from Dougalville with contumely
and rocks, picked that frame office to pieces, plank
by plank, and went in to hold an examination of
their own. There was a sound as of loud revelry
by night; a sound like the splintering of wooden
ships; like the dashing and smashing of heavy
breakers upon a cliff-bound shore; like the voices
from the bottomless pit of the damned and double
damned; and then the yawning and jagged black
orifice, which had once been the front of the build-
ing, spewed out Tim McCorkle with a bloody nose
and a piece of plank in each hand! Close behind
him came Alec Dougalbobber with a ragged right
ear, Ralph Dougalbobber with his Eastern-style
derby jammed down over his eyes, and Frank Dou-
galbobber, who was wildly wondering whether he
had his four riissing teeth inside or out. With
these came the six hired wallopers, each one now a
wallopee; and the whole office “ force” struck for
the railroad track and headed due southeast, fol-
lowed by about all that was left of the rock-ballasting
of that poverty-stricken railroad. Pursued and pur-
suers alike, the gathering darkness swallowed them
up, and Dougalville, quickly apprised of the inci-
dent, and all of it lying quite close enough to the
railroad track to gather and see poetic justice so


BLACKIE FALLS
105
fully wrought, laughed itself hoarse. It was long
since it had been so jolly.
Somebody stopped laughing by and by and began
to think, then nudged a neighbor and made him
think; and the laugh died down. Was it possible
that there was anything the matter with the Kimbely
Mine? Had anybody poked a finger into the works
and made it cease to tick? Couldn't it ever be
wound up and started going again?
Wallingford asked and answered the same ques-
tions for the benefit of Blackie, as they walked up
to the portable office.
“They're a set of the coarsest grafters I ever
saw,” Wallingford concluded as he produced a
portable bottle in the shelter of his place of business.
“It's their very coarseness, I guess, that let's 'em
get across. I'm on to their game, though. I'm
ashamed of myself, Blackie, but the very rawness
of their play got me at first, the same as it got you.
They don't care whether there's pay-ore in sight
or not. They're playing on the big odds that ninety-
five per cent. of all mines are flivvers, anyhow. They
incorporate, take up all the stock themselves and
start digging at the same time they start selling
shares. They get out as big a mountain of ore as
possible, so that they can point to an immense
output, never stopping to find out whether there's
enough iron in the ore to pay for the reduction.


106 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
When the stock's all sold, they move on and dig
another hole in the ground and send their saucy
Brother Ralph out East to lift the pocket change
of green-goods and gold-brick men and wise ginks
who used to be in the same business. In the mean-
time, if a man comes into their camp who was ever
in another one of theirs, they 'slug his head off
to keep him from making foolish remarks.' If ever
I get within gunshot of any mine they've started,
and I find it out before they do, I'm going to lose
fifteen pounds of embonpoint in the first fifteen
miles."
“Fancy and effective," approved Blackie, “but
what would they do if they struck a real mine?”
“That's where the brains filter through,” replied
Wallingford soberly. “They organize two compa-
nies, a mine company and an operating company.
The operating company is to furnish all the ex-
pense of mining. The first seven per cent. of
profits, if there are any, goes to the mine company
— that's the one you bought stock in, you gink!
the second seven per cent. goes to the operating
company; profits above that are divided equally be-
tween the two companies, but you can gamble upon
it there never would be above fourteen per cent.,
if they cleaned up a million a minute, because the
balance would be eaten up in fancy salaries. They
sold me some of the stock in the operating company.


BLACKIE FALLS
107
I control four hundred and ninety-nine shares out
of a thousand. I found out something they didn't
know. I had quiet assays made by three different
chemists, and the field is rich. It's worth millions,
I think. I thought I was in good with my own
stock until I saw a clause in the contract between
the two companies that set me to guessing. The
Kimbely Operating Company can sublet its contract
at any price it chooses, to whomsoever it chooses.
To-morrow is a stockholders' meeting. Any time
between now and that meeting they might have re-
ceived a wire from the smelting compary telling
them how good a thing they had. In that case,
their first action in that meeting, with their five
hundred and one shares, would have been to sublet
the contract to themselves at a thousand dollars a
year; so I arranged for them to be out of town.”
“ It was the best arranged exit I ever saw," ad-
mitted Blackie. “ The Hippodrome could do it no
better. But what can you do in that meeting? If
they have over half the stock they'll have over half
the profits, even if they never come back. They can
send a messenger-boy for the money."
“ They'll get five hundred and one dollars every
fourth of July,” stated Wallingford savagely; " for
in the meeting to-morrow I intend to sublet that
contract, at a thousand dollars a year, to J. Rufus
Wallingford and Company, the company consisting


108 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
of all the stockholders who are present. I'm
glad you're here, Blackie; I shall need you for one
of the officers. I'll give you a couple of shares of
stock to-night, and — "
The back door flew open, and Toad Jessop
bounced in with his eyes stretched to the full capacity
of their sockets. “Hike!” he shouted in a tragic
whisper. “Beat it! Hit 'er up quick or they'll git
you!”
“What's all this about?” inquired Wallingford,
but with no levity whatever, for Toad was in such
deadly earnest that even his freckles were pale.
“Come away from there!” Toad almost
screamed as Blackie started curiously toward the
front door. “The whole town's comin' up Main
Street, an' they say they're goana hang both of
youse on top o' the big derrick.”
“But for what? I don't understand," protested
Wallingford, snatching up a small traveling-bag and
opening his desk.
Toad grabbed him by the coat-tails and tried to
drag him toward the back door. “You start run-
nin'!” he urged, beginning to cry, and falling into
a furious anger because he found himself doing so.
“If you stop to git anything you're goana stop a
long time. Come outside, dang it!”
“Excuse me, I'm going," observed Blackie, slam-
ming on his hat and not waiting to burden himself


BLACKIE FALLS
109
with his suit case. He opened the back door, but
closed it immediately. “Too late, Jimmy,” he de-
clared; "they're coming up the back way, too.
We're caught.”
They could hear the mob now. Its advance was
like the sullen roar of a distant steamboat whistle,
and Wallingford marveled that a mere sound could
be so damp and icy.
“Quick, Toad; tell me what it's all about!”
begged Wallingford.
“They've found out that these Dougalbobbers is
fakes an' frauds all the way through. They never
got enough iron out o' all their mines to make a
nail. They found out that you an' Blackie is
grafters, too; an' they think you're in with this
whole Kimbely Mine swindle. I told 'em it wasn't
so, but all that got me was a sprint. Gee, you
ought to see me comin'! Say! Ole Man Saghorn
made a speech, an' it wasn't any drunken speech
like Big Bill Slammet made, neither. It was some
speech. Say! he called you all the thieves, an' rob-
bers, an'—"
There came a stern knock upon the door, accom-
panied by the murmur of many voices. Walling-
ford turned pallid. The knock was repeated, and
there were shouts for him to come out. It was
Blackie who sprang to the door and opened it. Find-
ing a man there who had it in his eye to lead the


110 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
throng immediately inside, Blackie promptly con-
fused the fellow's purpose by knocking him off the
step. He grinned as the man fell, and one member
of the mob was kind enough to laugh.
“Hello, boys!” hailed Blackie cheerfully.
“Who's the party on?”
“It's on you, I guess,” came from the man who
had laughed.
“We're a-goana hang you, that's what,” was the
determined announcement of a man in the very first
row.
“Happy thought,” returned Blackie. “But you
want your money first, don't you? Every man who
wants to sell his share of stock in the Kimbely Op-
erating Company hold up his hand.”
A hundred hands went up.
“Some of you are sensible, anyhow,” commented
Blackie. “I refer to the gentlemen who have not
yet decided that they want to sell. You've made the
biggest mistake of your lives, boys. Mr. Walling-
ford will explain the situation to you."
Wallingford, emboldened by the fact that they
were listening, stepped out upon the porch and con-
fronted an acre of eyeballs.
“I'll buy every share of stock that is offered to
me, and for spot cash,” he announced.
“Will you buy our houses ? " demanded Sag-
horn.


BLACKIE FALLS
III
“I'll be cheating you if I buy even your stock,”
returned Wallingford. “Gentlemen, I have glori-
ous news for you. The Kimbely Iron Mine is one
of the richest in the country.”
“ It's a lie!" called a voice from the crowd.
“It was Beef Higgins called you that lie, Mr.
Wallingford!” shrilled Toad. “I'll point him out
to-morrow so you or Blackie k'n lick ’im!”
There was more than one snicker from the crowd
upon this, and Wallingford, thankful to Toad for
having turned the tide of that crisis, gained full
command of himself and of the crowd. Helming
the prow of his much-strained craft head-on against
the waves and cutting them smoothly, he took the
men, the solid substantial men of Dougalville, right
into his confidence! He explained to them exactly
how matters stood; how he had known all along
that the mine was a good cne; how he had thwarted
the dishonest Dougalbobbers in their evil intentions
and had worked like a Trojan for the benefit of him-
self and his beloved citizens; and how to-morrow he
wanted them to join with him in forming a new
company, in which he would give them share for
share in exchange for the stock they now held; and
they would turn the magnificently rich Kimbely Mine
into the foundation of a fortune for every dweller in
Dougalville !
The magic of him got upon them. His voice


II2
112 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
soothed them like the odor of poppies. His pres-
ence, big, sleek, richly clad and prosperous, held and
satisfied their eyes. His words, rounded, well
chosen, aptly and cleverly strung together, stole
their reason. They answered his smile, they re-
sponded to his enthusiasm, they cheered him when he
finished, and they gave him until to-morrow to prove
what he said!
Flushed and triumphant, Wallingford, having
cheerfully waved upon his way the last hand-shaking
straggler of his friends and fellow citizens, came in
the house, sat down in his chair, and trembled like a
leaf.
“Do you know, for just three pins I'd take the
first train out of here and let those happy stock
holders run their own meeting to-morrow," he de-
clared. “There may be a fortune in that mine
across the track, but it's rather lost its charm for
me. I don't think I'll ever be able to look up at the
big derrick without feeling my spine turning into an
icicle.”
“I don't intend to go over and look at it at all,”
returned Blackie. “I'm glad I didn't see it when
I got off the train. How did you come out with the
houses, Jim?”
“Not so badly,” said Wallingford, brightening.
“I've collected nearly a hundred thousand dollars
on the houses and lots. I imagine I must have


BLACKIE FALLS
113
cleared some forty or fifty thousand dollars on the
houses alone, but my share is invested in the in-
stalment-plan mining stock I'm carrying for the
mob that just wanted to hang me.”
“Let's talk about our families," invited Blackie
wearily. “Seems like I don't want to hear about
mines any more, at all.”
They were in quiet discussion of their respective
domestic affairs when once more Toad Jessop burst
in upon them.
“Now we do git!” he cried, his fists doubled
and his nostrils distended. “There's a freight-
train just pullin' in at the depot, an' if we run like
Texas down the back way, in the shadow of the
houses, we k'n climb her. There ain't a second!
Start runnin', I tell you!”
Both men were upon their feet and had grabbed
their hats.
“Now what's the matter?" demanded Walling-
ford.
" Don't ask me no questions," pleaded Toad.
“Ole Saghorn is just finishin' a speech up on Red-
eye Square, an' he's got 'em all to believin' that
you two jes' gave 'em a slick talk to gain time so's
youse could sneak out o' town. They'll be down
here a-sizzlin' in about three minutes, by the way
they was howlin', an' this time there won't be no
speeches made. Saghorn, he says ——”


114 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
"I don't care what he says,” interrupted Blackie.
“I have an important engagement, and if you two
gentlemen will excuse me, I shall just jog upon my
way.”
Wallingford marveled at how slowly he ran for
so swift a movement of his legs! He noticed that
Blackie was several houses in advance of him, and
he believed that Toad was darting along some-
where in his neighborhood, but he took no accurate
observations; he was paying very strict attention
to the stationary headlight of that freight engine,
and to the rough ground which he was traversing!
It seemed constantly rising up toward him, and if
he ever let it come up near enough to hit him in
the place which most affected his breathing — well,
there was enough money in the bank to make
Fannie and little Jimmy comfortable; but he felt
that they needed him!
Just before he reached the track, the train began
to move. He saw Blackie run down to meet it and
clamber upon the first car, and leap over its edge
with the jerky motion of a jumping-jack. With a
desperate spurt, Wallingford reached the track as
that same car came up to him. He made a wild
clutch at it, and marveled to find his hand gripped
tightly upon the hand-bar and his foot resting firmly
in the iron stirrup. For a couple of minutes, which
seemed as many ages, he hung there trying to re-


BLACKIE FALLS
115
gain his breath, then, summoning all his strength,
he brought up his other foot, stepped to the buffer,
crawled up on the edge of the car and fell in! A
groan told him that he had fallen upon Blackie, but
neither one of them had the energy or the breath
to move for some minutes. Blackie was the first
to recover, and the car being full of slack coal
that pyramided down into the corners, he managed
to wriggle himself out from under the heavy body
that lay partly upon him, although the effort
brought down a rush of the black pebbly powder,
that enveloped them both in the stilling inky dust.
The thought that had made Blackie release him-
self so energetically was with him yet, however, for,
as soon as he could free his tongue from its thick
coating, he gasped :
“Where's Toad?”
Where was Toad? A quick search around the
edges of the car revealed the fact that he was not
with them, nor could they see him hanging to the
train upon either side. In that heartsick moment,
they knew how genuinely fond of the boy they were,
and at that moment, also, the train gave a forward
lurch as it left the top of the upward pull and started
upon the down-grade, and the water-tank that
had just been filled slopped part of its contents back
upon them, wetting them to the skin. It was a
refreshing bath, and it washed off some of the coal-


116 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
dust in streaks, though it made the dust that they
acquired in the balance of the ride stick to them
better.
It was so that Wallingford left Dougalville, and
he gladly saw its lights fading behind him, as they
jolted away, due southeast, toward the blessed land
of taxis and push-buttons and bath-tubs.
“And I tried to save the burg!” wailed Walling-
ford, wiping the inky paste out of his eye. “I
wish I hadn't played on the level with the citizens
of Dougalville; they'd have respected me more."
“Aren't you going back?” demanded Blackie,
surprised.
“Back!” howled Wallingford. “Back? Listen
to me, Blackie. There isn't a leather chair nor a
five-languaged waiter nor a bunch of orchids in the
place, and there won't be for ten years. Back?
When I can have my luggage carried in an elevator
to the eleventh floor of the Dougalville Hotel I
might consent to stop there overnight; but not be-
fore. Back? Why should I go back?”.
“Oh, nothing, only a large fortune and that stock-
holders' meeting," suggested Blackie.
“Am I of a greedy disposition?" demanded Wal-
lingford, digging lumps of wet coal-dust from be-
tween his collar and his neck. “No, Blackie, I
? gave them a tip, in my speech, on how they could
handle their stockholders' meeting without the Dou-


BLACKIE FALLS
117
galbobber brothers, and I guess they can do it with-
out me.”
" It's tough on them, old man,” responded Blackie,
peering anxiously over the edge of the car as the
train rounded a curve. “ Where's Toad, I won-
der?”
They firmly expected to see Toad come clamber-
ing down to them over the tops of the box-cars, but
fifteen miles of miserable and melancholy riding
brought them no Toad. Instead, it brought them to
a real town, where, under the full glare of the electric
lights, Toad found them drenched and black and
cold and hungry, just climbing down from their pri-
vate car.
“ You young devil!” gasped Blackie, angry for
having wasted so much sorrow over him. “Where
have you been?.”
“I rode in the caboose," replied Toad cheerfully.
“ The conductor's a special friend o' mine. I
knowed where you was. I seen you jump'er. Gee,
but you two's a sight!” and Toad was inconsiderate
enough to laugh.
Wallingford surveyed himself ruefully. Never,
even as a boy, had he looked so disreputable.
“ And this,” he complained, “is what I get for
playing a straight game!”
“No, it ain't,” declared Toad, who was at the
exact age to spend much time in moralizing. “They


CHAPTER VII
A GREAT SCHEME
CUT WISH I were broke,” declared Wallingford,
looking gloomily down sunlit Broadway.
“ I've got back that house on the avenue for Fannie,
and laid in a couple of bales of bonds for her and
the boy, and I've bought about everything that
money will buy for a man who doesn't care to be a
senator. The fun's all gone. What can I do with
money, anyhow ? ”
“ You can buy me a drink," promptly responded
Blackie Daw. “ After that, I'll hunt up somebody
with money who feels like you do about it, and sick
you on to each other.”
“I pass!” refused Wallingford emphatically.
“ You could show me a college professor, a sailor
and a crooked bank-cashier, all with money to in-
vest, and my tongue wouldn't even moisten.”
“Mine never will if you don't buy me that drink
pretty soon,” insisted Blackie. “They keep it right
in here,” and taking Wallingford's arm he whirled
him about face and conducted him into the bar of
119


120 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
the hotel in front of which they had been displaying
their premature fall outfits.
They found their favorite corner occupied by a
seedy-looking, withered fat man and a dapperly
dressed pie-dyspeptic. Blackie, with a careless nod
to the ex-fat man, whose clothing hung on him in
festoons, was about to lead Wallingford to another
padded corner, when the withered one hailed him.
“Hello, Blackie,” he called in a voice that
rasped with that huskiness that is bottled in bond.
“I haven't seen you in a coon's age. Where have
you been?”
“Sober, Dan," replied Blackie cheerfully.
“I've made it a business of a lifetime to cure
that," asserted Dan. “Come and have some-
thing."
“I knew I'd get a drink some place," Blackie
observed, stepping over to the table. “Mr. Sickels,
meet my friend Jim Wallingford, better known to
the police as J. Rufus."
“Glad to meet you, Mr. Wallingford,” husked
Mr. Sickels. “Mr. Wallingford, Mr. Dillon. Mr.
Daw, Mr. Dillon. Now, gentlemen, what shall it
be ? ” and he looked from one to the other with the
exaggerated cheerfulness of a willing but necessarily
infrequent spender.
“Vichy," ordered Blackie, who talked about alco-
hol much more than he indulged in it.


A GREAT SCHEME
121
I 21
“Is this the Mr. Dillon of the Dillon Department
Stores Company? ” inquired Wallingford pleasantly,
after echoing Blackie's order for refreshments.
Mr. Dillon, having also ordered vichy, to the
keen regret nf Sickels, who saw that he would be
compelled to drink his whisky alone, moved his
ash-tray to the right of his empty milk-glass, and
his milk-glass to the left of his cigarette-box, then
carefully closed up the gaps among the three articles
before he replied.
“I am that Dillon,” he admitted.
“ I've been greatly interested in your issue of
popular stock in the Dillon Company,” pursued Wal-
lingford. “What success are you having with it?”
Mr. Dillon restored his toys to their original po-
sition. “Excellent,” he replied, passing his long
thin fingers over his brow. “ The public is taking
to it very kindly.”
" It's a great scheme," said Wallingford admir-
ingly. “People who buy five shares, or even one
share, of the stock are bound to remain steady cus-
tomers of your store.”
Mr. Dillon took a cigarette from his box, lighted
a match, laid down the cigarette and blew out the
match. “They're earning a profit on their own ex-
penses,” he asserted, quoting from his latest adver-
tisements. “The shares are guaranteed to yield a
minimum of five per cent. dividends," and he


122 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
thrummed upon the table with the fingers of both
hands. “I'm really very proud of the idea. I
don't think I slept a wink for two weeks while I
was figuring it out. I don't sleep very well any-
how;” and, at last, Wallingford understood the
tensely drawn eyebrows and the compressed droop-
ing lips. “The beauty of it is that it adds so
many safe credit customers to our books, and, of
course, credit purchasers are much more generous
buyers than those who pay cash.” And with a nery-
ous little laugh he again shifted and rearranged his
playthings.
“I see,” returned Wallingford, eying the man's
nervous movements in fascination. “ It is a wonder-
ful scheme. · A customer with one share of stock has
a hundred dollars monthly credit, and if the bills
are not paid, the stock, and I presume the interest,
becomes forfeited. In the meantime you can loan
out their money for the five per cent. you are bound
to pay them."
“Or use it in the extension of the business,"
amended Dillon, now increasing the tempo of his
rearrangements to such a degree that Wallingford
found himself jerking his own right heel upon the
floor in sheer nervous sympathy, while Blackie Daw
was tapping his finger-nail against his teeth. Dan
Sickels alone remained placid. He still had left
some of his glass of whisky. “The Dillon Stores


A GREAT SCHEME
123
are to have a new home in the near future, the larg-
est concern of the sort in the United States. Do you
suppose, Sickels, that I might interest your friends
in some preferred bonds of the increased corpora-
tion?”
Both Wallingford and Blackie promptly shook
their heads.
“Don't let's talk about investments,” protested
Blackie, glancing over his shoulder in mock fear.
“ I'm afraid my wife might guess I was thinking
about it."
“How about you, Mr. Wallingford ?" asked Dil-
lon with a smile.
" I'm all tied up, Mr. Dillon,” replied Walling-
ford suavely. “Even if I were not, I'm tired. I
want a vacation. I don't intend to engage in busi-
ness of any sort for the next six months, at least.”
“I'll het you a pair of pink suspenders that you
do,” offered Blackie suddenly.
" I'll take you,” agreed Wallingford, laughing.
“ I'll even give you the odds of a pink silk undershirt
if you catch me engaged in any money-making oc-
cupation during the next six months.”
Mr. Dillon looked at his watch and hastily arose.
“If you don't mind, I think I'll send you a pro-
spectus of the new Dillon Company,” he remarked,
beating a tattoo upon the head of his canę with
his fingers.


124 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
“Wait just a moment, please," begged Blackie,
producing a little red memorandum book and a
fountain-pen. “I want witnesses to this. I bet
Wallingford a pair of pink suspenders, against the
same and a pink silk undershirt, winner's selection,
that he does engage in some money-making busi-
ness within the next six months. You will re-
member this, gentlemen?”
“I shall," assented Dillon, laughing. “And if
you'll come over to the store when the bet is decided
I'll be your clerk and let the loser have the goods
at cost price."
“ Thank you,” said Blackie. “I'll just add that
to the memorandum of the bet," and he wrote it
down.
They all breathed a sigh of relief when Dillon had
gone.
“I'd have had the St. Vitus two-step in ten
minutes if that man had stayed here,” announced
Blackie. “He reminds me of one of those quiver-
ing-frog toys that you hold in your hands to see
if your nerves are steady.”.
“He'll end in a sanatorium,” observed Walling-
ford. “If he ever succeeds in building his solid-
block retail store, he'll make a quicker failure than
the full-dress café or the New Theater.”
“No! Do you think so?” inquired Sickels
eagerly. “He wants to buy my theater. It's the


A GREAT SCHEME
125
only important building in the block he wants to
tear down for the site of his new store.”
“Mr. Sickels is the owner of the Avon Theater,
where Violet Bonnie made her first big hit,” ex-
plained Blackie.
“The Avon!” returned Wallingford. “I should
think you'd be glad to get a good offer for that,
Mr. Sickels. It hasn't been doing a paying business
for years, has it?”
“I should say not,” confessed Sickels. “It was
dark all last season. But I don't feel like selling
it for two hundred thousand dollars in the stock
of a company that's likely to swell up and burst.
Ten years ago I was offered four hundred thousand
cash, and wouldn't take it. Now it keeps me so
broke that I'm a rich man and take a holiday if
I have seven dollars in my pocket.”
“Why didn't you sell ? ” was Wallingford's nat-
ural inquiry.
"I was making more money and scattering it
the full length of the Rue de Mazuma."
“You were wishing, a while ago, that you were
broke, Jim,” Blackie reminded him. “You ought
to try Dan's stunt. He wouldn't sell his house of
hits to either the syndicate or the independents, so
they made an object-lesson of him with rotten book-
ings. Would Dan's Irish blood stand for that?
No! He leased the house to individual producers,


126 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
and put over eleven straight flivvers. Now it's the
Hoodooed Avon, and it can't even put a moving-
picture show across.”
A boy came through the bar just then, paging
Mr. Daw, and that gentleman, after hurrying to
the telephone, came back, laughing. “You're to
come out to the house for dinner, Jim,” he advised
Wallingford. “Fannie's there, and Violet won't
let her go home.”
“Give my regards to Violet Bonnie, won't you?”
begged Sickels. “The hit she made in The Pink
Canary was what put the Avon on its feet; and
I never had a star in the house that made so little
trouble, or was such an all-round good fellow."
“ After you get past the age for mash notes,
the mail brings you nothing but trouble,” complained
Violet Bonnie, as she returned to the library of the
new Daw residence, where Mrs. Wallingford wan-
dered idly from case to case, inspecting the shining
new backs of standard books which never had been
opened and which probably never would be. “Why,
Fannie, right after I made my first big hit in The
Pink Canary, they had to give me six pigeonholes
in the stage-entrance mail-box, and I had to hire
a secretary to open my mail and send the presents
back; now if I get a letter it's either from a dress-
maker or an old-time chum who wants me to steer


A GREAT SCHEME
127
her daughter on to the stage or warn her away
from it.”
Mrs. Wallingford smiled quietly. “I don't see
why either class of letters should annoy you," she
observed. “You have good dressmakers and you
don't object to paying the bills, and I should think
it would be a pleasant task to encourage budding
genius or to warn weak girls away from the stage.”
“I don't know why, in either case, I should nurse
and bottle-feed and bring up by hand a grouch
against the stage,” retorted Violet, massaging her
trace of an extra chin. “It brought me some per-
fectly good husbands besides Blackie. Say, I hate
my old chums, anyhow.”
“You're making your nose red, Vi,” warned Mrs.
Wallingford with a laugh.
“Honest, am I?” and Violet hurried to the mir-
ror. “I am too fat to get mad," she confessed;“ but
it certainly does get my Angora for girls I used to
know to write me that they have grown-up daugh-
ters. It makes me feel so old, and I won't be old!”
“That's it, is it? Who has been reminding you
of your only enemy?”
“Martha Tripp,” snapped Violet Bonnie.
“Martha was my school teacher up in Squamosett.
She wore corkscrew curls on both sides of her
face, but she ought to have worn 'em in front; for
she was so ugly that she had to get up in the middle


128 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
of the night to rest from it. If I remember her
Melissa, she was a gangle-shanked brat with frec-
kles and a snub nose. Melissa is now in the flower
of youth, this letter says, and all her mother wants
me to do is to show her to a manager. Melissa is
supposed to do the rest. The balance of the good
news is that Melissa is on her way here, right now.
She will be among us probably by the time this
humble missive intrudes itself upon me.' Martha
means by the time I get the letter. Honest, Fannie,
I never did a mean thing to any living creature.”
“I think you must be lacing too tightly, Vi,”
remonstrated Fannie mildly; " or else you've had a
bad day of it."
“I can put my whole arm down inside any place,”.
defiantly asserted Violet. “I have had a rotten day,
though, and it takes just this to finish it off. Your
dropping in was the only lucky thing that has hap
pened to me."
“ I'm glad I did come over," returned Mrs. Wal-
lingford. “Possibly I can help you with Melissa
Tripp. To begin with, why not show her to the
managers ?”
“I haven't any too many friends among them
now,” explained Violet. “Gracious heavens, there
she is!”
The ring at the bell, however, proved to be only
Mr. Daw and Mr. Wallingford.


A GREAT SCHEME
129
“I see you're getting a new maid,” observed
Blackie, as he inspected the contents of a cellarette
that had been ingeniously built in among the book-
cases. "I guess I'll have rye, Jim. How about
you? We have so many servants now, Vi, that we
don't get any service.”
"I don't know anything about a new maid," his
wife returned. “Blackie, your scheme of having
a cellarette in every room in the house was all right,
but you'll have to get combination locks. It's no
fun to find three servants half soused in different
rooms all on the same day. What about this
maid?”.
“We just passed her coming up the drive," re-
plied Blackie. “Say when, Jim. She had a paper
alligator-skin suit case in each hand, and was bring-
ing father along to see that the place is strictly
moral.”
"I'm afraid my machine splashed a little splush-
ing on father, and maybe on daughter,” confessed
Wallingford regretfully. “ Father was a real nice
little man, and I think he apologized, but daughter
has a snub nose, and I could see it work."
“Don't drink that, Blackie!" commanded Violet,
taking the glass of rye from his hand. “I need
it. I know your maid by the snub nose. She's
Melissa.”
“She looked it, every inch,” responded Blackie.


130 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
“If that was Melissa, have another. You'll need
two. By the way, who is Melissa? ”
“Honest, is she that awful?" wailed Violet.
“She's worse, if anything," answered Walling-
ford with a chuckle. “ She has a round flat wafer
of rouge on each cheek-bone, and wears a green hob-
bie-skirt trimmed with yellow beads."
Violet brightened. “I guess I get a laugh any-
how," she decided. “But who's father? Old man
Tripp was awful dead when I knew Martha.”
From the rear hall there came a faint buzz, and
the four of them waited in silence until a glassy-
eyed butler appeared, openly grinning, to announce:
“Miss Tripp and Professor Flopsie.”
In the front parlor, Melissa Tripp, a buxom young
woman who was pinched so much in the middle that
she bulged every place else, cast herself bodily upon
Violet Bonnie with a gurgling gush.
“I'd have known you anywhere," declared Me-
lissa, standing back to survey her mother's friend.
“ I've had your lithographs and photographs in my
bedroom for years and years and years. It's aston-
ishing how slightly you've changed since I was a
little bit of a girl. There is no difference at all
that I can see, except that you've put on a lot of
flesh."
“Of course, child, you don't mean to be catty,"
returned Violet resignedly. “I thank you for the


A GREAT SCHEME
131
compliment, but I may as well tell you in the begin-
ning that I'd as lief have firecrackers set off under
my chair as to have anybody say years and years
and years, or mention fat.” Suddenly her brow
cleared, and she smiled serenely. “How much you
look like your mother," she observed in satisfied
retaliation.
Melissa stiffened immediately. “How funny!”
she said, and forced a laugh. “ You don't remem-
ber what mother looks like, I guess.”
“I'm not so old that I'm losing my memory,
too,” retorted Violet, though very cheerfully, as she
distinctly recalled the awesome features of Martha
Tripp, whose mere appearance in any gathering was
a signal for a snicker. “I remember her so per-
fectly that I can seem to see her standing before
me now."
Melissa stiffened still more. “Really, I'm very
rude," she confessed, taking refuge in her society
manners. “Allow me to introduce my dancing mas-
ter, Professor Flopsie, Mrs. Daw."
Professor Flopsie, a lean little man with lean
little whiskers, mustache and hair, all of them
parted exactly in the center, advanced three paces,
toeing out nicely and blowing gracefully win each
step. Straightening, he threw back his head and
shoulders, and elevated his right hand, as one about
to take his partner for the cotillion. He seemed al-


132 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
most to be waiting for the music. Not knowing
what else to do with the hand, Violet Bonnie wagged
it and let go.
“I'm delighted to meet so famous an exponent
of the Terpsichorean art,” announced the professor
in a lean little voice, and wound up that observation
with a flourish and a bow.
Violet Bonnie inspected him with frankly amused
curiosity. “Thanks,” she acknowledged. “That's
one they never handed me before, anyhow. Sit
down and have something. Oh, John!” and she
called the butler who was passing in the hall. “Call
for anything you want, Professor. I will say that
my husband knows as well how to stock a buffet as
any bartender on Broadway.”
“If it's not too much trouble, I think I should
like a little tea," observed the professor. “We've
had a very fatiguing journey.”
“I shall take tea, also,” declared Miss Tripp,
eager to establish her principles at the first oppor-
tunity. “Nothing stronger shall ever pass my lips.
I have heard about the temptations that assail
young girls on the stage.”
“Oh, hush,” admonished Violet, looking her over
anew. “Somebody's been stringing you. If you
find any temptations you'll have to overtake them,”
a conclusion at which Miss Tripp visibly bridled.
“John, take Miss Tripp's things to the Looey Cons


A GREAT SCHEME
133
room, and bring some tea and wafers. Where's
your luggage, Professor ? ”
“I regret that I can not remain," responded the
professor. “I merely came to see my star pupil
launched upon the successful career that I am sure
she will attain under your patronage. For three
years Miss Tripp has been taking weekly lessons at
my academy in stage and society dancing, fancy
steps, parlor deportment, conversation and personal
charm. 'Lissa!” and he archly held up a warning
finger. 'Lissa promptly uncrossed her feet. “To
be quite frank with you, Mrs. Daw, it would mean
a great deal to me to have a success graduated from
my academy. Many young ladies have come out
of Squamosett, equipped with all the graces and arts
which the Flopsie Academy of Dancing and Deport-
ment could bestow upon them, but none of them,
so far, has seemed to possess the force of personal
character necessary to create a furore in the dramatic
profession, and so render the Flopsie Academy a
recognized preparatory school for Thespian laurels,”
and into the professor's old eyes, which, alas, could
not, like his hair and beard, be brilliantined into
youthful gloss, there came a wistful look, which
Violet Bonnie could interpret much more accurately
than she could his speech.
“I get you,” she said with a quick sympathy for
all the polite little man's weary, plodding, waiting


134 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
years. “If we can make a winner out of Melissa,
all the stage-struck Tessies and Mamies in Squamo-
sett County, and as far over the county lines as
Hookersville and Snag Bay and Fiddler's Mills, will
streak for the Flopsie Academy, and pay fancy
prices to be turned into real actresses.”
The modest little professor blushed to find his
plans stated so crudely, but he did not deny the ac-
curacy of Violet Bonnie's deduction.
“Well, I'm for you,” announced Violet heartily.
“I'll do the best I can," and she studied Miss Tripp
with more sober calculation than she had yet
bestowed upon that young woman. “There's
one thing in Melissa's favor — she ain't cross-
eyed.”
“ I'm not old,” retorted Melissa with a sniff.
“I should like to remain until you have seen
Melissa dance,” hastily said the professor, his heart
sinking against the time when he should leave these
two women together with no diplomat between them.
“Perhaps Violet Bonnie will be good enough, 'Lissa,
to have you shown to your room, and excuse you
long enough to put on a dancing-skirt.”
“Sure," agreed Violet. “She never could dance
in that hobble thing; besides, they've gone out, Me-
lissa."
“I know it takes a certain type of figure to wear
them,” responded Melissa complacently. “You


A GREAT SCHEME
135
an wea
V-
me
probably wouldn't dare. I can wear almost any-
thing. By the way, I suppose I shall have to wear
tights. I am willing."
“ You'll have to put shapers under them,” stated
Violet, not as a retort, but in mere critical judgment.
“ You've got skinny legs, I can tell from your arms;
but don't worry about that, child. If you can get
the dance across, we can fix you all up so that from
the front you'll look like the First Fairy. I'll tell
you what I'll do, Professor. If Melissa can show
me anything at all that looks like the goods, I'll
make life miserable for the managers in this town
till they give her a try-out. Then it's up to her.
If she falls down, I'll go on record that I learned
to dance in the Flopsie Academy myself; though I
really learned to dance by following the hand-or-
gans; and I got the double-shuffle by the throat while
I churned eight pounds of butter a day with an old-
fashioned dasher churn."
“I wish that were true," sighed the professor.
“It would be the making of me to have the im-
pression abroad that Violet Bonnie learned at my
humble school.”
“We'll have it true, then,” declared Violet gra-
ciously. “A lie like that won't hurt my conscience
three minutes. I guess I've told a million to accom-
modate my friends, and I still have a hearty appe-
tite."


136 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
“ You look hearty," admitted Melissa, who stood
waiting in the doorway.
“I got my fingers crossed, kid; let's can the
dressing-room asides,” laughed Violet, laying away.
her rancor as suddenly as she had conceived it.
“A little spunk's a good thing to have, but, lord,
we have to live together a while, so what's the use
of being catty ? Come on, I'll introduce you and
the professor to the jury before you go up to
dress. I hope we got some of your music on the
pianola, but if not, Blackie can pound the piano till
it hollers for mercy. You ought to hear him turn
The Holy City into rag-time.”
Blackie played, Melissa danced, the professor
beamed and the jury repressed its emotions; then
Violet Bonnie, acknowledging the dances to be a
“scream” and burning to shriek, bundled Melissa
and the professor off to get ready for dinner, and
collected the Wallingfords and the Daws into the
comfortable library as quickly as possible.
“Well, you see what I'm up against, don't you? ”
she demanded, a trifle defiantly.
“It's a joke,” declared Wallingford sympathet-
ically. “It seems to me you've over-promised your-
self, Vi.”
“I know it,” she admitted. “I wish these helpless
sad-eyed people would stay away from me. They
get me going, and the first thing I know I've offere!


A GREAT SCHEME
137
to shed sunshine along their pathway forever."
"I don't feel very much of a tug at my heart-
strings on account of this Melissa person,” remarked
Blackie, pulling thoughtfully at his mustache. “Of
course, you saw her first, Vi, and she's all yours;
but if I owned half of her, I'd go out to a nice
circular race-track, and set my half's steering-gear
to the correct curve, and give it a shove, and tell it
that Sweeney was looking on.”
“I'd let my half run for Sweeney, too, if I could,”
responded his wife; “but I can't do it. This poor
little jay-town dancing master has got to my soft
spot, darn him! It's on his account I have to do
something for Melissa Tripp, and I don't know
what it can be unless I give her poison. She can't
dance, she can't sing, she has no face nor figure,
and she hasn't got that something inside her that
wins you. She ain't fit for anything but classic
dances.”
“Why not classical dances ? ” Mrs. Wallingford
soberly inquired. “We might, if we were clever
enough about it, work her into a fad. She's very
ugly, but if we were to accentuate that artistically,
and give her elaborate stage settings, and some
unique advertising —” She paused, finding the
astonished eyes of the other three upon her, colored,
and was silent.
“Why, look who's here!” exclaimed her hus-


138 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
band, and patted her upon the shoulder. “I think
I'll have to take you in with me, Fannie, on my
next business stunt.”
" I've been keeping bad company for ears,” Mrs.
Wallingford retorted. “Really, though, I'm a good
deal like Violet: I seem possessed with a desire to
help our forlorn little Professor Flopsie.”
“He's a cute-enough little man,” agreed Walling-
ford, “but I don't see a chance for a novelty high-
brow dance. They've had freak wrigglers from all
over the globe."
“There's one country they haven't come from
yet," advised Blackie. “I haven't seen any sacred
dancers from Lhasa."
“La who?” demanded Violet Bonnie, slipping
from the arm to the seat of her chair and leaning
forward with eager interest.
“Lhasa, the big-noise town of Tibet, you know.
Mostly religion and dirt, from what I read about
it. Lhaa, the sacred dancer from Lhasa. That
sounds bad, I guess, eh? There's just two places
they'd eat that up: at a Pumpkin Circuit County
Fair, or some place near Forty-second Street and
the Main Stem.”
“Tibet,” mused Wallingford. “Seems to me
I've heard of that place, but I know I never worked
it. Where is it?"
“It's some place on the other map," replied


A GREAT SCHEME
139
Blackie. "Nobody knows anything about it. No
white man ever got away from there alive; so we
can do whatever we please. They have long-haired
goats, I kn: * that much; and the people are so
mud-ugly they have to wear blinders to keep from
seeing each other.”
“What a chance that gives Melissa!” said Violet
with earnest enthusiasm. “I'll work up the turns
for her myself. The Dance of the Sacred Goat!
That ought to be easy for her. She looks the part,
and all she'd have to do would be to hop; and she
does that swell. We could even buy up a lot of
goats and introduce 'em into the scene, with a
mob of supers to be the high priests and such things;
go to some good costumer and have him work up
a lot of correct historical costumes, only fancy,
and get a good electrician to figure out a lot of
light effects; then get us a good press-agent and
we're all to the merry.”
Wallingford shook his head. “I'm afraid of it,"
he objected. “You might fill a few matinées, but
there aren't enough freak-hunters, even in New
York, to keep her hopping very long. They
wouldn't even give her the price in vaudeville, for
while vaudeville is full of bunk, they're particular
about what kind of bunk it is, and the Monday
afternoon try-out would be about all that the Dance
of the Sacred Goat would pull.”


140 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
"I don't see why I was ever born!” wailed
Violet. “I hate trouble; it's such a bother!”
“Then there's only one thing left," asserted
Blackie, who was bound to remain cheerful, though
the heavens fell. “We'll have to make her the
plot of a musical comedy. Lhaa, the sacred dancer
of Lhasa, in The Lama's Goat. I guess you couldn't
burn up the bill-boards with that; and a good nerv-
ous press-agent could have the time of his sweet
young life.”
“Blackie, on the level, you're the only husband
I ever really loved!” avowed Violet fondly. “The
others only had money; but you've got brains.
You've fixed it all up for us. The musical comedy
goes. Jimmy, you say you ain't going to do any-
thing for the next six months, and if you don't,
it's a cinch that Blackie won't; so you can both
just pitch in and impresario Melissa Tripp till
you're black in the face. The only trouble I see
is in getting a theater for her."
“Why, Vi, you have two theaters,” protested
Mrs. Wallingford.
“Help!” shouted Violet. “You don't suppose
I'd put a hoodoo on one of my own places, do you?
They're both doing a good business, and I'm like
all the other theater-owners: the more money I'm
making the more scared I am.”


A GREAT SCHEME
141
“Why not the Hoodooed Avon?” suggested
Wallingford to Blackie with a smile.
“ The Avon!” exclaimed Violet Bonnie. “Well,
here's where good old Dan Sickels gets a fresh
start. I'm stout for Dan and for the Avon, and
I think it will be a mascot for us. Blackie, you
hunt up Dickie Dolger, who wrote the book of
The Pink Canary, and I'll get him right to work
on a libretto for The Lama's Goat Melissa won't
have any soubrette part. We'll get a real one
for that. Melissa will just come on at ten fifteen
and have it over, and go home in her automobile.
Then you hunt up Rickets Johnson, who wrote the
music for the Canary piece, and I'll set him to
work on the score. Poor devils! Neither Dickie
nor Rickets have ever come back since, and maybe
this is their chance!”
“Maybe the picking isn't so good,” observed
Blackie. “It's a cinch that Dicky Dolger stole
The Pink Canary from The Yellow Bird.”
“He didn't,” denied Violet Bonnie instantly.
“ Dicky was a friend of mine. He only adapted it.
If Dicky's anything like he used to be, I can lock
him up in a room with a bunch of old librettos and
a case of red-eye, and have the book in a week. If
we can put detectives after Rickets Johnson to
keep anybody from slipping him dope money till


142 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
he's through with this job, I can have the score in
a month. Any good music publishing house will
hand us a young song-writer to dash off the lyrics.
Allow another month for rehearsals, scenery,
costumes and props, and there we are. We ought
to open at the Avon in two months from to-day!”


144 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
10
right. Why, Melissa, none of us had figured on
anything but to give you the total profits.”
“But suppose there shouldn't be any? ” queried
Melissa calmly.
“ Then we all get the hook," laughed Violet.
“We get it a little worse than you do, to be sure,
but we can stand it."
“I don't know about that," insisted Melissa.
“I've been practising for three years, and I'm sure
of my art. This musical comedy may fail; it may
not be the proper setting for my performance; and
if it fails after all my labor, and all my skill, and
all my personality, I get nothing. Is this fair?”
Violet Bonnie nearly choked. "No," she con-
fessed. “It looks like a scheme to do you; but,
believe me, it shan't be done in this house. I'm
going to have an extra lock put on your door so
that nobody slips in and steals your art. What do
you want, a guarantee?”
“Something like that,” agreed Melissa. “I've
just had a letter from Professor Flopsie. He's sent
me his collection of what he has read in the papers
about musical comedies, and he tells me that nine-
teen in every twenty fail. Now, I'm just begin-
ning my career, and I must watch out for myself.
I think I ought to have a certain guaranteed salary;
and then, of course, if the profits go over that,
so much the better."


A THIRTY-DAY OPTION
145
Wallingford and Blackie exchanged glances of
keen delight, but Violet Bonnie did not pause to
exchange glances with any one,
“When I was a kid,” she calmly explained, “we
had a tramp come to our house and get a square
meal, with hot coffee and hot biscuits and all the
trimmings, and then he tried to burn down the
house because we had no pie; but he was a piker.
About how much salary do you think you want —
Caruso's or just Tetrazzini's?”
“Only what I earn,” stated Melissa modestly.
“Professor Flopsie sent me a clipping showing the
salaries of prominent dancers. They range from
about two hundred and fifty to a thousand dollars
a week; and some, I believe, even larger than that.
But I'd be satisfied in the beginning just to take
the general average.”
Solemnly Blackie opened the door of the cellarette
and handed a bottle and a glass to his wife. She
waved away those trifles, being in no need of
stimulants.
"I get you,” she told Melissa. “If I wasn't
so crazy about my own scenario, I would introduce
you to the managers. But I'll tell you what we'll
do with you, Melissa. We'll fix it so that you
don't have to gamble at all. We'll finance this
thing ourselves; but, win or lose, we'll guarantee
you fifty dollars a week and give you a fourth of


146 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
the profits above that. I don't like to fuss with a
guest, but those are the terms."
“I suppose that, for this first engagement, I am
compelled to take what you offer me,” accepted Me-
lissa with the air of a martyr. “I reserve the privi-
lege, however, of leaving your production at any
moment that I get a better offer. How long an en-
gagement do you guarantee me?”
“One minute," returned Violet, tearing a piece
of insertion out of her gown. “We reserve the
right to fire you and get a real dancer any time you
don't make good.”
“I feel secure in my art," announced Melissa
stiffly. “No one can take that from me." And
she went to bed.
"If her art was catching, they'd quarantine
her!” raged Violet. “Is my nose getting red,
Fannie?”
It was fully five minutes before she was able
to join the rest of them in the enjoyment of the
funny side of it all, and she was through with it
quicker.
“Everybody says I have a sweet disposition,"
she explained, “and I know I have, but, honest
to Christmas, folks, this Flopsie Academy graduate
has me strangling feather pillows in the night and
calling them Melissa! There's one thing sure,
though, she's fixed it so I have to make this goat


A THIRTY-DAY OPTION
147
piece win or die of apoplexy. Now, we'll all four
chip in and become producers in earnest.”.
“You'll have to count me out,” declared Walling-
ford. “I've just made a bet with Blackie that I
won't go into any money-making scheme for six
months.”
“Maybe this isn't,” suggested Mrs. Wallingford
with a smile.
“Oh, Fannie!” protested Violet, really hurt.
“I didn't think you'd go back on me.”
“I haven't,” returned Mrs. Wallingford, still
smiling. “To prove that, Violet, I suggest that
you and I finance this thing ourselves, leaving the
men entirely out of it, except as business agents
and errand-boys."
“That's the idea,” agreed Violet, highly de-
lighted.
That was the idea that remained. Walling-
ford saw to it that the Avon Theater, sadly run
down, was put in proper condition for the play,
and he attended to all the necessary business, while
Blackie put in his time and ingenuity devising
wonderful despatches, from St. Petersburg, con-
cerning the great dancer, Lhaa! She was missing
from the temple at Lhasa; the Lama was offering
fabulous rewards for her, dead or alive; for she
knew all the horrid mysteries of the temple; she
was rumored to have been seen in every capital


148 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
**
managers
jealously
coming pro
of Europe and Asia; she was definitely located in
St. Petersburg; the Russian government, captivated
by her marvelous beauty, would not turn her over
to the Lama to be beheaded, and war was start-
lingly imminent; she was finally on her way to
America! Later; she had been secured by the en-
terprising managers of The Lama's Goat, to
dance Lhasa's most jealously guarded sacred
ceremonial in that stupendous forthcoming produc-
tion. It was great“ stuff," and the papers printed
some of it!
In the meantime, the Daw residence was the
scene of at least equal activity. The Wallingfords
moved over to the Daw residence, bag and baggage,
and took possession of the colonial suite. Dicky
Dolger, being found homeless and forlorn by
Blackie down on the Bowery, was pushed by the
shoulders through a Turkish bath and a barber-
shop into some clean linen and a new suit of clothes,
trundled out to the house and installed in the
“Umpire” room, where the cellarette was most
scantily stocked, but replenished at judicious though
regular interval. Rickets Johnson went home of
nights along in the wee small hours, when he felt
like it, and was given the Tudor room because the
window mullions and other vertical decorations re-
minded him of a pipe-organ. The Renaissance
music-room, in which a mechanical organ, an elec-


A THIRTY-DAY OPTION
149.
trical piano, a bird's-eye maple phonograph, and an
automatic guitar had been installed, was turned into
a rehearsal hall; and here, while Dicky Dolger
culled nosegays of wit from vast sheaves of dead
and bygone librettos to adorn the plot of The
Lama's Goat, and Rickets Johnson "adapted” the
hit numbers of all the successful musical produc-
tions since Pinafore, and Blackie and Walling-
ford, in the Dutch library, concocted weird and
still more weird tales concerning the marvelous
Lhaa of Lhasa, Violet Bonnie, with the unobtrusive
assistance of Mrs. Wallingford, took up Melissa
Tripp as a lump of raw material and molded upon
her the Dance of the Sacred Goat.
Attired in a short skirt made from an early
spring chiffon, which had been ruthlessly cut off
at the knees, Violet danced and postured and ex-
plained and did it all over again, from mid after-
noon to dewy morn, and enjoyed almost killing her
constantly complaining pupil, who held that genius
should not need to work!
“Honest, Fannie,” Violet declared after about
two weeks of it, “ this has banting, dieting and all
the other fat-cures beat to a custard. If Melissa
Tripp only lasts till we get through, I'll be able
to squeeze back into that year-before-last lavender
that I keep to measure myself by.”
Members of the “profession " wandered into


150 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
the rehearsals, which soon began at the Avon, and
said, “ My Gawd, how could they ever cast Tommy
Delancy for that part!” or they said it about Willis
Lawrence, or Elsie Devoe, or whomever they
happened to know best, and went away. Friends
of the “profession” came in and listened a while,
and yawned, and said: “Delightfully reminiscent.
Why in blazes don't somebody spring a new one?”
and went away, forgetting that ninety-nine out of
every hundred who defy Broadway by “springing
a new one” die the recipients of charity. Man-
agers of other houses came in, and yawned and
said: “Why, look who's here! Dicky Dolger and
Rickets Johnson, the pair that never came back!
Well, order the hearse!” and chuckled, and went
away.
After all this criticism upon the part of the ex-
perts in the game, the piece was bound to be a
stupendous success, and Business Manager Walling-
ford was so certain of it that, during the last week
of the rehearsals, he went back into the lonely
corner where Dan Sickels always sat in gloomy
apathy.
“Well, Dan, what do you think of the piece?”
he inquired.
Dan tried to force a smile. “You never can
tell. It's all a gamble. Nobody knows,” he said.
“You're entitled to a guess,” Wallingford in-


A THIRTY-DAY OPTION
151
sisted. “ Come on, Dan, tell me, honestly, what
do you think about it? ”
“Well, I don't like to hurt your feelings," Sickels
hesitated.
“I haven't any," Wallingford promptly in-
formed him.
“Well, if you leave it to me, I don't think it's
any kind of a musical comedy, anyhow. None of
the boys thinks so. You see, Wallingford, you got
in wrong from the start. You got Dicky Dolger's
and Rickets Johnson's names tacked on to the
program, and you're unlucky in your cast. Delancy
and Lawrence and Devoe are all right, but they
haven't had decent parts for three seasons; so
what can you expect? Violet Bonnie hasn't been
in touch with the game for a long time. Then
again, this is the Hoodooed Avon. It looks like
you're up against it, Wallingford.”
“ It isn't my funeral,” returned J. Rufus. “I'm
not engaging in any business this year, anyhow; but
I still have a bet left in me. If The Lama's Goat
makes a hit, it'll break the hoodoo, and this house
will be worth more than it is to-day. At what
price will you sell the property, and how much will
you take for a thirty-day option on it?”.
Dan sank back in his chair like a collapsed puff-
ball. “It's too late," he huskily whispered, then he
cleared his throat. “It's too late," he repeated in
against it oodooed Avalong time.


152 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
a louder huskiness. “I gave Dillon a thirty-day
option day before yesterday.”
“ The devil you say!” exclaimed Wallingford,
deeply disappointed. “Why, the man's as crooked
as Tammany and a sure bankrupt if he goes through
with this thing. I thought you had decided not
to fuss up with him.”
"I couldn't help myself," half whined Sickels,
in the pitiable weakness of a once strong man.
“Wallingford, I've been broke so long that when I
see any of my old friends on the street I hunt an
alley. I used to be one of the best dressers on
Broadway, and now I don't like to go out there in
the sunlight; I feel as if everybody that's walking
behind me have their eyes focused on the fringe of
my pants. I own this property and its eighty-five
thousand dollars' worth of mortgages, but there's
many a time I've felt like trading it for the price of
a new suit of clothes, a dinner with a pretty girl, a
skin full of champagne, and a bottle of prussic acid.
Well, when I'm feeling about like that, this quiver-
ing Dillon comes along and shows me twenty-five
greenbacks, each one of them good for twenty
dollars at any regularly licensed bar; and I fall.
He offers me a hundred thousand dollars cash, and
the same amount in stock of the Dillon Stores Com-
pany for this place, if he chooses, on or before the
day his option expires. But it isn't the figure he


A THIRTY-DAY OPTION
153
offers me that gets me; it's that visible five hundred
dollars in real money. Say, do you know what
I've got on now for the first time in a century or
so? Silk socks!”
“ I'm sorry you closed with him, Dan,” com-
mented Wallingford, too much interested in the
business end of it to pay any attention to Dan's
joy in the sordid necessities of life. “All you'll
get out of this place will be the fifteen thousand
dollars difference between the cash you get and the
amount of your mortgages," and Wallingford
stalked away, steadfastly refusing Sickels's hospita-
ble invitation to go out and take a drink and forget
it.
Instead, Wallingford, as was his habit when he
had been balked in any of his plans, hunted a quiet
corner where nobody could find him. An hour
later he hurried down from the lonely balcony box
just above the jangling rehearsal, and hunted Sick-
els, whom he found huddled up in the old watch-
man's comfortable chair at the stage-entrance, with
a foot across his knee, gently stroking a silk sock.
“ You might as well have some more haber-
dashery, Dan," Wallingford observed, laying a
hundred-dollar bill across the glistening ankle.
Dan promptly clutched the gaudy trifle in his
fingers. “What's it for?” he asked, quite natur-
ally.


154 WALLINCFORD IN HIS PRIME
“A second option on this theater and the ground
it occupies. Thirty days dating from to-day.”
“ Same price?” inquired Dan, folding the bill
lengthwise and then endwise.
“ Better," replied Wallingford. “Two hundred
thousand cash.”
Dan stuffed the money into his pocket. “Let
me get this straight,” he said, rising vigorously from
his chair. “You're paying me this hundred dollars
for what you call a second option. If Dillon don't
buy my property in thirty days from last Tuesday,
at the price he offered me, you have the right to
buy it, at any time in the following two days, for
two hundred thousand dollars, cash?”
“That's it,” acknowledged Wallingford.
“Let's go and see my lawyer," greedily invited
Dan. “I hope Dillon chokes before his thirty days
are up.”
On the morning of the momentous opening date
of The Lama's Goat, Melissa Tripp was stricken
with her first attack of stage fright, which took the
form of nervous chills; Dicky Dolger, his occupation
more or less gone, arose at rosy dawn, emptied his
own cellarette and those in the Sheraton and Art
Nouveau rooms, and fell down-stairs; and Rickets
Johnson lost the conductor's score of the music.
At the final rehearsal that day, two of the most
important chorus girls left a yawning gap in the


A THIRTY-DAY OPTION
155
ranks by their failure to appear; Miss Devoe utterly
refused to go on that night unless they settled, in
her favor, the allotment of the star dressing-room
now in dispute between herself and Melissa Tripp;
the electrician who had rehearsed all the light effects
burned his hand; a new grip-man poked one of the
heroic-sized papier-mâché goats through the rear
wall of the temple; and the stage-manager had a
fight with Willis Lawrence, the big basso.
Through all these trifling incidents Violet Bonnie,
though working like a stone-crusher and meeting
each death-blow as it came up with a fierce energy
that should have belonged only to despair, re-
tained an amazing cheerfulness, which was explained
when, over the hasty sandwich that formed her
dinner, she observed to the only companion who
was unruffled enough of disposition to remain with
her through it all:
“Blackie, it's a pipe! Never in the history of
the Big Lane was there a production that started
off with so many signs of being a winner. If we'd
had a smooth rehearsal this morning, and everything
else had gone off as gay as an election-bet wine-fest,
I'd have been out right now ordering a calla lily
Rock of Ages and being measured for my crape.”
At seven fifteen, however, she sent a hurry-up
call for Blackie, who was already in the lobby with
Wallingford, gloating serenely over the advance


156 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
sale. Hastening back, Blackie found Violet Bonnie
seated in a lonely state upon the temple steps of the
gorgeous first-act set.
“It's all over, Blackie,” she said with stiff lips
which, somehow, stretched and pulled and numbly
hurt as she tried to form the words. “Somebody
has sure put a Dutch hex on this show," and she
twisted a lace kerchief into a rough little string.
“Cheer up,” begged Blackie, responding nobly,
though with a sinking heart, to this new demand
upon his cheerfulness. “The fatalities may not
be so great as at first reported. Who mixed up
the switchboard this time?”
“Delancy,” she gulped.
“Delancy? What's he kicking about?”
“ Cramps !” she wailed. “ Cramps, dog-gone
him! I just got a note that he's had three doctors,
and I guess a plumber, trying to take the kinks out
of his stomach; but he can't be repaired in time."
“How inconsiderate of him," mumbled Blackie
politely, still trying to be brave. “Why, he's the
Grand Lama!” he exclaimed, awaking suddenly to
the enormity of the blow. “This show can't go
on without a Lama. What are you going to do,
girl? ”
“Do!” she half shrieked. “I'm going up to .
Squamosett and strangle Martha Tripp with her own
corkscrew curls!” And suddenly, for the first time


A THIRTY-DAY OPTION
157
in her life, she gave way to complete despair, and
threw her arms around Blackie's neck and sobbed,
actually sobbed!
Blackie was scared to a pale Nile green. “ Cheer
up,” he begged with a feeble imitation of his usual
flippant heartiness, and patted her automatically
upon the shoulder. “ Cheer up, Vi. Say! For
the love of Mike, cheer up, or I'll go dippy myself!”
and he looked about him wildly for some place to
sit down, for Violet was no bantam, and she was
leaning her full weight against him.
The Lama's Goat might have come to a pre-
mature demise, there and then, had not the dis-
tracted stage-manager invigorated Violet by burst-
ing upon them at that moment.
“Now the devil is to pay!” he bawled out.
“Lawrence's boots for the second act have just
come in, and they're an inch too short. What in
Texas are we going to do about it?”.
“Saw his toes off!” ordered Violet, turning
fiercely upon him.
“But –” protested the stage-manager.
“Shut up!” she cried. “I told you what to do;
go and do it! And if you bother me any more,
I'll drop the asbestos curtain drum on you. I say,
get out! Blackie, lick him!”
“Sure,” accepted Blackie, glad for any relief from
his own surcharged feelings; and he made a dash


158 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
for the stage-manager, who beat him up the stairs
by two lengths, and locked imself in Lawrence's
dressing-room. Blackie returned apologetically.
“He got away from me," he explained in some
shame; “but I'll watch at the foot of the stairs till
he comes out, if it takes all night.”
Viviet looked at him and suddenly laughed.
“Honest, Blackie, I wouldn't be a widow again for
a million dollars alimony," she confessed. “You
needn't watch at the foot of the stairs, though, for
I've got a better job for you. You've got to go
on to-night and play the Lama.”
Blackie laughed at her. “ Show me my best
friend's baby and tell me to murder it, and I'll do
it; but I refuse to step into your aeroplane. Where
are you taking me?”
"To Delancy's dressing-room,” she firmly replied,
pushing him ahead of her by one elbow, like a
country sheriff taking his first local malefactor to
the lock-up; and, as inexorable as unrelenting fate,
she pushed him up the stairs and into the star come-
dian's dressing-room, where the Grand Lama's
costumes hung upon their hooks in gaudy array, and
Delancy's own mussy assortment of grease paints
lay spread out upon a Joseph's coat of chamois skin.
“But look here, Vi,” persisted Blackie, genuinely
panic-stricken; "you don't know what you're run-
ning me up against. I can't —”


A THIRTY-DAY OPTION
159
“Take off your coat and vest and collar and tie
and shirt, and rub that cold cream all over your
face," she ordered. “I'll be back as soon as I've
seen whether Melissa Tripp is having fits or only
the ague."
“ Just one moment," commanded Blackie, holding
up a compelling hand. “ Are you on the dead level
about this?”
“Why, certainly I am! You're exactly Delancy's
size. You know all the lines, business and cues,
and you know the words and music of every song.
You play the Grand Lama to-night!”
“But I sing like a pig under a barbed-wire fence,"
still objected Blackie, who, however, had already
removed his coat and vest, and was now tugging at
his collar.
Violet disdained to answer that foolish objection,
and started out the door, but Blackie recalled her.
“ You win," he gave in; “but I want a case of
hundred and ninety proof rye up here in five
minutes."
Violet turned and contemplated him thoughtfully.
“I believe that is a noble little idea,” she agreed.
“I'll send for it right away, but you must let me
feed it to you. There's nobody in this world, not
even you yourself, can tell as good as I can when
you've got just the right edge on.”'
Somebody repeated Blackie's first cue to him three


160 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
times, a little later on, and pushed him on the stage.
He uttered the well-remembered first line in a dazed
air to no one in particular, and out in front every-
body laughed! As one in a dream, Blackie went
through the part of the Grand Lama in precisely the
manner in which, for a month, he had been urging
Delancy to play it. When the curtain rang down
on the first act, Miss Devoe hated him for life, for
the recalls were all for him! Violet Bonnie threw
her arms around him with gurgles of joy.
“This is the proudest minute of my life!” she
exclaimed.
“Give me a goblet of rye,” begged Blackie
huskily.
“Clear!” yelled the stage manager to the pro
tem star comedian and his wife.
“Get out of the road, you!” snapped a grip-man,
as he slammed past them with a set of marble steps:
on his shoulder.
The next Blackie remembered was having his
costume torn off him in the dressing-room and an-
other one thrust upon him.
“ You'd better step out and tell them that De-
lancy's sick and that an understudy was put on at
a moment's notice,” he suggested in his only lucid
interval.
Somebody laughed at that; it sounded like his


A THIRTY-DAY OPTION
161
wife; then he was on the stage again and great peals
of laughter were rolling up to him and over him
from out that vast yawning pit of dim human misti-
ness; it followed him wherever he went; it annoyed
him whenever he spoke, because he was never al-
lowed to finish what he had to say; but there was
something in it that he seemed to like, too; it seemed
to liven him up and make him more active.
It was so all through the play. Before the even-
ing was half over the experienced Violet Bonnie
went around shaking hands with everybody who
would stand still long enough, and with herself when
nobody else was handy; for The Lama's Goat
was “across ”! She was the happiest woman in
the world, and the proudest, for Blackie had done
it all! She told him as much, over and over, until
she almost made him believe it after the last act.
“Well,” he finally conceded, “I never would have
done it if it hadn't been for that souse.”
“Souse!” she repeated, laughing. “Why,
Blackie, you haven't had a drink to-day," and she
pointed to the still uncorked bottle upon his make-
up table.
He looked at it, astounded, until he finally believed
that, too. “Somebody get me a corkscrew," he
directed. “I've got eight drinks coming.".
The stage-manager burst into the dressing-room


162 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
just as Blackie, submitting to cocoa-butter, was tak-
ing the second of his belated drinks, and all but
embraced him.
“ Your reputation's made from this minute!” the
stage-manager exclaimed.
“ That's what I was afraid of before I started,”
retorted Blackie with rather a sheepish grin.
“You've put over the biggest hit on Broadway.
I just got word from Delancy's wife that he can
come back to-morrow; but if he does come back,
it'll be to carry a spear.”
“He'll play the part to-morrow night if he can
walk," asserted Blackie determinedly. “I got a
nice face and I like it. I wouldn't abuse it this
way again for a million dollars!”
“You don't mean you're not going to play any
more, Mr. Daw!” exclaimed the stage-manager,
turning chalky. "Why, it would be a crime for
you to quit!”
“I'm so proud of Blackie that I've got goose-
flesh,” interposed Violet Bonnie. “But just the
same, he quits!”
“Thanks,” said Blackie, both relieved and sur-
prised.
“ You needn't thank me," retorted his proud wife.
“Of course, you don't know it, but you sloshed
around among googoo eyes all night; and there's
four of the little blond squabs in the chorus that


A THIRTY-DAY OPTION
163
go at the end of the week; numbers three, six,
seven and thirteen. Give 'em their notices,
Ben.”
“By the way, how did Melissa go? ” asked Blackie
earnestly, very happy indeed to change the subject.
“In a taxi,” replied the stage-manager. “I think
she went away with a dried-up little lollop that hung
around on the prompt side all night, apologizing to
the scenery."
“That's right; you didn't know about Melissa,
did you?” inquired Violet, with a flush of anger
which ended in a laugh. “You know, she has two
dances; one just before the goat dance. Well, they
giggled her off the stage in the first one, and she
left for Squamosett, I guess, without even stopping
to change her costume.”
"I don't see how you cut out the second dance,"
puzzled Blackie. “I wish I'd have been present at
this show. I'd like to have seen how the plot
turned out."
“ It turned out fine!” Violet assured him with
great enthusiasm. “We pulled Dicky Dolger out
of his souse in the back part of the right proscenium
box, and we fixed up the part in the seven minutes
between the two dances. Elsie Devoe was just
dressing for her third-act change. We explained it
to her, and threw her into Lhaa's second costume,
and she came on and did the Dance of the Sacred


164 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
Goat so swell you could almost hear her bleat;
knew every step of it just from watching that Tripp
joke rehearse. Then she unveiled and Lhaa turned
out to be the daughter, and as the sacred dancer,
had a right to marry anybody in the kingdom. It
made the plot swell. Next to you, Blackie, it was
the hit of the show.”
“It certainly got 'em,” agreed the stage-manager
delightedly. “The music helped a lot. You know,
there were three managers and a tailor hunting for
Dicky Dolger and Rickets Johnson before the last-
act curtain wrung up. They've come back, and so
has Devoe and everybody else.”
“Devoe's a perfect lady, I'll say that for her,"
asserted Violet warmly. “ She's strictly profes-
sional. She kept her eyes to herself, and hated
Blackie and everybody else that got a hand.”
Wallingford and Mrs. Wallingford and Toad
Jessop found their happy way back to the star come-
dian's dressing-room, and added to the general jubi-
lation.
“It's an honor to know you, Blackie,” chuckled
Wallingford, while the two women embraced each
other fervently, and sat on Delancy's battered old
trunk, hand in hand, to tell each other all about
it in agitated alternate snatches.
"Did you see the show, Jim ? ” asked Blackie in
surprise. “Where did you sit?”


A THIRTY-DAY OPTION
165
"In the left stage box," replied Wallingford in-
dignantly. “You looked at us half the time! ”
Blackie pondered that marvel in silence a moment.
“Have a drink,” he finally sighed. “Toad, go scare
us up another glass. Jimmy, it's too bad you're not
in on the personal triumph of this thing, along with
us artists."
“Oh, I'm not dissatisfied,” Wallingford informed
him with easy nonchalance. “It isn't my game,
but still I'll clean up about a hundred and fifty
thousand dollars on the side.”
"I suppose so," grumbled Blackie. “It's got to
be a habit with you. Who suffers this time?”
“Dillon,” explained Wallingford, chuckling. “I
bought one little hundred-dollar share of stock in
his company to-day, and to-morrow I'm going to
bring suit, as a stockholder, for dissolution of his
company, on the grounds of misrepresentation and
misuse of funds. My lawyer demanded to see the
books four minutes after I bought my share of stock,
and he tells me that I'll have no trouble at all in get-
ting an injunction that will prevent the Dillon
Company from taking any steps toward the exten-
sion of the business within the next thirty days.”
" I've heard of pikers, but holding up a five-mil-
lion-dollar company to protect a hundred-dollar cer-
tificate comes close to the edge of being the limit,"
judged Blackie after mature deliberation. “Why


166 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
all this grouch against Dillon? And why tie his
hands for thirty days — so as to quiet his nerves?”
Wallingford smiled seraphically. “Merely so I
can exercise my option on the Avon Theater at two
hundred thousand dollars,” he replied, striking a
match on the big red “No Smoking” sign, and
lighting a long black cigar. “The hoodoo is broken,
and the house is worth double my option at this
very minute. Nasselanger, of the syndicate, was
trying to buy it from Sickels to-night, and Sickels
is at this moment over at the Breeches Hotel, drown-
ing his sorrows with one hand, and drinking to his
luck with the other.”
Blackie gazed upon his friend with thoughtful
admiration for a while, and then he grinned. “I
want you to go over with me and call on Dillon
to-morrow, right after you file your suit,” he sug-
gested. “I want him to wait on us while I pick
out a pink undershirt and a pair of silk suspenders.”


CHAPTER IX
THE USUAL METHOD
THE cab-driver who brought the prosperous big
1 President of the Earth and his prosperous
friend to the Hotel de Renaissance received a ten-
dollar tip. The bell-boys who carried in their elab-
orate luggage received ten dollars each. The
parlor-floor butler, who presently brought them a
drink to the magnificent Venetian suite, received a
like amount as a mere introduction. Similar largess
was, within the next hour, distributed to a maid,
a barber, a bootblack, a porter, a manicurist and
a barroom waiter. Before dinner was over the jovi-
ally smiling big man was spoken of about the hotel
as Spender Wallingford, and the proprietor himself
went up to see what was the matter with the
thermostat.
“ I'll have the head engineer up here in just a
few minutes,” announced Mr. Blount, who was a
bullet-headed man upon whom a dress-suit sat with
some shame. “If you want anything in the town,
let me know, and I'll get it for you, Mr. Walling-
ford.”
167


168 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
“I don't think you're going to give me a chance
to want anything,” returned Wallingford pleasantly.
“ By the way, though, I'll probably need some infor-
mation. Do you imagine that it would be diffi-
cult to promote a big public-amusement park
here?”
Mr. Blount considered that matter gravely, and
then shook his head. “I couldn't tell you about
that,” he admitted. “You see, that's all politics
here. The only two amusement parks we have are
run by a county commissioner and an alderman of
opposite politics, and they're both backed by the
traction company, which is all politics. This is the
only city in the country that has two healthy politi-
cal gangs, and nobody knows who's going to lose
next time."
"I could give you a guess," interpolated Mr.
Wallingford's black-haired and black-mustached and
black-frocked friend. “When you hit a town like
that the voters lose.”
“They lose any place,” agreed Blount with a
laugh. “ They'd ought to lose for standing for
what they do. I've no more sympathy for them
than I have for a deacon that tries to buy counter-
feit money and gets a box of sawdust. It's so
especially fierce because these amateur grafters are
a lot of rabbits. I have no respect for a hold-up
man that will shiver while he's going through your


THE USUAL METHOD
169
pockets. They're planning to steal the court-house
right now, but they're so scared I think they sleep
with all the lights turned on.”
Wallingford chuckled in huge enjoyment. “I've
heard of stealing a grindstone and a hot cook-
stove,” he observed; “ but sealing court-houses is
a new specialty on me.”
“It ought to be easy," asserted Blount, still dis-
dainful of his local ordinance tinkers. “They've
just built a profitable new court-house, and the old
one, which occupies the finest business situation in
town, is to be sold next Saturday. A bunch of these
burglars want to buy it in for about half of its value,
and open a beer-hall café, but they're afraid to grab
it before election for fear it will swamp them at the
polls, and they're afraid to wait till after the election
for fear they won't get a chance at it. If I were a
political yegg, I'd have had that court-house hid
down in my ceilar six months ago; but these lollops
are still wondering if the owners keep a watch-dog.
At about the last minute they'll probably try some-
thing, and it'll be so coarse that you couldn't sift
it through a hoop.”
“That sounds interesting, but it makes my scheme
look like feeling a rattlesnake's fangs to see if they're
sharp. I'd like to meet some people who can tell me
exactly how the land lies.”
“I'll bring you Charley Jackson," offered Blount.


170 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
“He knows so much about politics that he's changed
his party four times, and always landed on the
winning side. Nothing else I can do for you, is
there?”
When the proprietor had gone, Mr. Wallingford's
friend, Daw, came out of his modest retirement, and
he came out grinning.
“ You've always been a quick producer, Jim," he
confessed; “but you dug up that public-amusement
park thought so suddenly that it's dizzy yet. Would
you run one?”
“I wouldn't run anything unless it went some
place in a hurry,” asserted Wallingford, laughing.
“I had to talk to the man, though, didn't I, and I
don't know any more entertaining conversation than
a lie."
“ That's right,” agreed Blackie admiringly. “It's
the only thing there's no limit to. This town don't
look so bad, Jim.”
“It's a pleasant town," approved Wallingford.
“ It can't have much over a hundred thousand pop-
ulation, yet the churches, hotels and banks look like
real money; and we're paupers."
“So you say,” puzzled Blackie. “You've ex-
plained it to me after every drink, but I don't gather
yet why we start out into the cold, cold world with
only cigarette-money, when we could be welcome
guests in every lobster-joint on Broadway for the


THE USUAL METHOD
171
balance of our lives without overtaking another dol-
lar.”
“I told you that Fannie objected to my investing
half a million dollars in a railroad scheme to put
another little crimp in the bank-roll of E. H. Falls,”
patiently explained Wallingford, “so I took the
five thousand I had already drawn out for us to go
on that little hunting trip, turned the balance of the
bank-roll over to Fannie, brought you along to com-
plete your education, and now I'm hunting that half-
million."
“I got that before," retorted Blackie; “ but still
I don't see why.”
“Why what?”
“Why a lot of things: why you want to risk the
old homestead in taking a fall out of Falls, who is
more than likely to sink his teeth into your weasand;
why you wouldn't let me have any money of my own
on this trip, when Violet Bonnie was sobbing to
shove some into my pocket, and why you're so in-
fernal stubborn, anyhow."
"I guess that's the answer," laughed Wallingford.
“Let's go and show ourselves and throw away some
more money. There hasn't a reporter asked about
us yet.”
Charley Jackson was a man who had but two
worries in life: he could not understand why sleep
was ever invented, nor why all the places did not


172 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
stay perpetually open. He had laughed so much for
voters that the stretch of his wide lips had pushed
each cheek into a glistening red roll. Wallingford
clasped Charley Jackson by the hearty hand, and he
twinkled back into Charley Jackson's twinkling eyes,
and he smiled his jovialist in response to Charley
Jackson's jovial smile, and he figured Charley Jack-
son to be about as careless as an old maid eating
shad in the dark.
Proprietor Blount, having spent the entire evening
in locating the widely ranging Jackson, who was ev-
erywhere present, but not all at once, congratulated
himself upon having brought these two kindred spir-
its together, and smiling his gratification, waited
for a vote of thanks. It came in the form of an
invitation to supper, and when Chef Josef saw that
Blount was to be one of those to enjoy his succession
of surprises, he hurried back into the kitchen and
tore jagged splinters out of his disposition; for he
had sworn never to cook again for the proprietor,
who was a beast, and an ox, and a swine, and who
had once complained of the faint trace of garlic in
a fillet which was a marvel of epicurean perfection.
Later on, at the waiters' end of the Renaissance bar,
he confided his woes to his friend Bert Harvey, of
the morning Record, who adroitly pumped Josef
about the gorgeous spendthrift and the table con-
versation, and hurried right back to his office; for
COM


THE USUAL METHOD
173
there was still a city edition of next morning's Sun-
day paper into which good live scandal could be
jammed.
Meanwhile Charley Jackson and Spender Walling-
ford, who had enjoyed each other's society very
much until one A. M., had now repaired to the Vene-
tian suite to begin the evening; and Blackie Daw,
knowing well when his best services consisted of a
prolonged and intense silence, ordered in a selection
of refreshments so varied that it required six kinds
of glasses, excluded from the room an obsequious
butler who had two ears, and took up his favorite
rôle of bartender.
“Whatever you do with this amusement-park idea
has to be done on the quiet,” observed Charley Jack-
son, with a friendly glance at the buffet which the
deft and unobtrusive Blackie was arranging. “You
need gum shoes in this town.”
“Seems like a lively burg at that,” suggested Wal-
lingford. “It has good night action, and that's a
sure test. I counted eight silk hats in the lobby of
the theater."
“That's all they spend money for,” said Jackson
with a laugh. “That silk-hat brigade buys its gro-
ceries on credit, and uses all its cash for taxis; but
it sure does set the pace that keeps the money
moving. There isn't a dollar in this town that
doesn't pant every time it gets to rest a minute in a


174 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
pocket,” and he tested the pale-green contents of a
tall glass that he found at his elbow. He looked
in grateful surprise at the bartender, who was mix-
ing at the buffet with all the grave care of a chemist;
then he took another generous draft.
"That makes a good business town,” approved
Wallingford with a decisive nod of his head; "that
is, until the panic year comes.”
" Then they're all broke at once, so it doesn't make
any difference,” retorted Jackson very hilariously.
“How much money did you propose to invest in an
amusement park?”.
“ About two hundred thousand," announced Wal-
lingford carelessly, and stooped forward to pick up
an invisible pin from the floor. A heavy red wallet
fell from his pocket. He picked that up, too, and
it fell open, disclosing a thick wad of bills, mostly
of the orange and lemon-yellow colors. He caught
the gleam of Mr. Jackson's eye upon those fancy
papers, and was satisfied. “Blackie!” he called
sharply, and tossed the wallet to his friend. The
bartender caught it dexterously, slammed it in a
drawer of the buffet and pounded a clear-toned glass
sharply. The effect was so startling that the an-
noyed Wallingford almost expected to see a number
pop up, but the bartender went right on mixing.
“ The usual rake-off is about twenty per cent.,"
stated Mr. Jackson thoughtfully.


THE USUAL METHOD
175
“Twenty!” protested Wallingford. “I thought
that, with the competition in this town, there ought
to be a cut rate."
“ Competition in politics boosts the price,” insisted
Mr. Jackson firmly. “It's so much harder to put
anything across.”
“Twenty per cent!”mused Wallingford, with the
preoccupied air of a good business man. “That
would amount to forty thousand dollars' worth of
stock in my enterprise. Who gets it?”
“Hush!” laughed Jackson. “Nobody gets it.
You just take the subscriptions of some good safe
friends of certain parties, and they forget to pay
you for the stock. That's all.”
“That's the usual method," assented Wallingford.
“I suppose it's split equally among the members of
the city council.”
“Not!” objected Jackson, mechanically quaffing
of a coral-pink liquid that his hand had found
within range. “ Collop runs Lunar Park, and Tun-
nison is the right-hand party of the county com-
missioner who runs Pleasure Lake. You'd be wast-
ing your stock on them. You see, we have a cam-
paign coming on,” he continued, “and everybody in
the game is as nervous as a burglar in a room full
of loose boards. They're afraid to make another
step, and yet they need the money. The traction
company would be glad to have your new park, but


176 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
their franchise ran out three years ago, and now we
only renew it a year at a time. You can see yourself
how much more revenue that yields in the long run.
Now if the traction company encourages you any,
they'll have Collop and Tunnison, and all their
friends, sore at them, and that may cost them all
their profits. On the other hand, Collop and Tunni-
son are both up for reelection this year, and you can
see what a mess that makes.”
Wallingford gazed at him in silent contemplation,
then he grinned cheerfully.
“I wonder how much the city council would take
to let me pay my hotel bill and leave town?” he
pondered.
“Tut! tut!” warned Jackson, holding up a chubby
forefinger. “It's against the rules to leave town
with any money. It isn't so bad as it seems, Wal-
lingford. I know I can fix both the bosses, and if
I go to all the members of the council but Collop's
and Tunnison's friends, very quietly, I can fix it to
run you through a permit."
“That's quite kind of you,” returned Wallingford
politely. “You're not working for your health,
however.”
“I got too much of that now," remarked the
other with a happy laugh. “Say, Mr. Daw, I'm no
prude about my drinks, but I think I'd better stick
to just one color from now on," and he surveyed


THE USUAL METHOD
177
doubtfully an amber-colored mixture that Blackie
had set before him.
“Leave it to me,” begged the bartender with an
engaging smile. “I am keeping strict tab on the
state of your health, and I guarantee you a safe and
pleasant journey. You reach the apex of this with
the rainbow bender, which I will presently build for
you, but before you begin to babble, I shall commence
to let you down with graded fixers. Safe, sane and
scientific, and I watch the effect of each drink.”
Mr. Jackson laughed long and heartily. “I don't
care what happens to me now," he said. “I never
had a scientific jag in my life, and I'm willing to try
anything once.”
“How will you go about it to get my permit?”
asked Wallingford, watching Blackie in fascination.
“Well, first, you give me a thousand dollars,” an-
nounced Mr. Jackson quite calmly.
“That, I suppose, is the simplest step of all,”
commented Wallingford. “You couldn't spread a
thousand very far, though.".
“I wouldn't attempt to. I'll just lug that thou-
sand around and show it to the boys, and then they'll
think you mean business."
Wallingford chuckled. “What right has a man
to be a stranger, anyhow?” he inquired. “Will you
excuse me a moment while I step down to the of-
fice?"


178 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
“Certainly. You'll have to get Blount if you
want to open the safe.”
Wallingford was still chuckling when he closed
the door after himself, and was still chuckling when,
trotting down the main staircase into the lobby, he
asked for Blount.
“He has just gone to his apartments,” the clerk
informed him, “but I can, I think, get him on the
wire, if you'll just step into the number one booth.”
“This is Mr. Wallingford, Mr. Blount,” said J.
Rufus presently over the telephone. “Can I trust
Charley Jackson with a thousand dollars ? "
“Do you expect it back?” asked Blount.
“Well, no."
“ Then, yes.”
“ Will Mr. Jackson do what he promises?"
“ Have you any more money?”
“Naturally.”
“Then, yes.”
“I'm sorry to have bothered you,” apologized
Wallingford with grinning contrition. “I should
have been able to dope all that out myself. Thank
you.”
“Don't mention it,” returned Blount. “If there's
anything else I can do for you, don't fail to call on
me.”
“I never failed yet,” laughed Wallingford, and
went back up-stairs, where he found Blackie holding


THE USUAL METHOD
179
a watch in his hand while Mr. Jackson drank the
“ rainbow bender".
“I've decided to hand you that thousand,” Wal-
lingford announced with a warning glance at Blackie,
and he strode to the buffet drawer, where he obtained
his wallet. “You understand what I want, don't
you, Mr. Jackson?” and he proffered two five-hun-
dred-dollar bills.
Those bills disappeared so quickly into Mr. Jack-
son's pocket that they must have been startled.
“Certainly, I do,” Mr. Jackson assured him.
“You want to be allowed a chance at the people's
money, and you're willing to pay twenty per cent.
for the privilege. You know, of course, that some
of the boys will want to buy up the land and sell
it to you when you pick out your location?”
“I hadn't thought of it,” answered Wallingford,
smiling cheerfully; " but now I can see how plausible
it is. The more I know of your political system the
more I admire it. It is so careful, so clean and so
thorough.”
“You'll like it better when you get closer to it,”
Jackson told him soberly. “Let me warn you of
one thing. You want to keep quiet about this
scheme. If Collop and Tunnison get wind of what
you're doing before I spring the thing on the city
council for an actual vote, they'll down us sure."
The telephone bell began to ring in the Venetian


i
180 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
suite as early as eight o'clock the next morning,
which was Sunday. Wallingford, groaning with
numb drowsiness, dragged himself out of bed, dug
his knuckles into his eyes, answered the telephone,
wrangled in attempted suavity with a voice, slammed
up the receiver and leaned heavily against the tele-
phone to gather up strength enough to lurch back
to the most delicious spot in all the wide, wide world.
“What time is it? " came a comfortably drowsy
voice from Blackie Daw's pink bedroom.
“Eight o'clock !” barked Wallingford, then he
paused to curse the representative of the Trumpet,
realizing, meanwhile, that he was doing but a feeble
job of it.
“Encore!” drawled Blackie lazily. “Say that
again, Jim. I didn't get the first part of it."
A savage grunt was his only answer.
“I hate him, too, confound him," Blackie mum-
bled. “I honestly hope he swallows a bug. Who
is he?"
“A blasted reporter,” replied Wallingford, stop-
ping for a moment in the doorway of the pink bed-
room. Blackie, with his face turned to the open
windows, and a pink-silk coverlet drawn under his
chin, was snuggled up quite comfortably in the
smooth sheets and soft pillows and gently yielding
mattress; and his eyes were closed. “ Jackson or
somebody has hurried right to the papers with this


THE USUAL METHOD 181
fool amusement-park talk, and saved me the trouble
of queering the game.”
“That's tough,” Blackie stated without opening
his eyes. “Now you can't build that park, and I
wanted the first ride on the roller coaster.”
“Oh, you wouldn't have got it, anyhow," re-
turned Wallingford crossly, too miserable of body
even to smile at Blackie's inconsequentiality. “I
never intended to build an amusement park. That
was only a blind to get me into the edge of the game
so I could sink a fork into something else. I in-
tended to slip the information to Collop and Tun-
nison to-morrow, but I didn't figure on having an
infernal reporter get me out of bed at eight o'clock
on Sunday morning.”
“Sunday!” repeated Blackie, opening his eyes a
little way and shutting them again. “ The calm
and peaceful Sabbath. Say, Jimmy, turn on my
bath water, won't you? I'm going to church.”
“Go to the devil!” growled Wallingford, and
hurried back to his own beautiful bed.
“ All right,” consented Blackie cheerfully, and
burrowed his shoulder more snugly under the edge
of his pillow, and went straight to sleep.
At eight forty-five the telephone rang - once,
twice, thrice! Dismally lamenting, Wallingford,
upon that third long, discordant, insistent call,
dragged his numbly protesting avoirdupois out of


182 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
bed, commenting fiercely upon the curious fact that
civilized man has made himself an accursed slave
to that jangling twin bell.
The hotel reporter of the afternoon Foruin wished
to see Mr. Wallingford upon business of the most
pressing nature. He failed, however.
“What time is it? ” inquired the sleepy voice from
the pink bedroom.
“Nearly nine,” returned Wallingford wearily.
“ Church opens some place around breakfast-time,
don't it?”
“Eleven o'clock. I wish you'd keep still.”
“Call a boy for me, won't you, Jim?'
Wallingford groaned, and turned back to the
telephone and gave the desired order.
“What do you want with a boy in the middle
of the night?” he demanded.
" I'm going to church,” insisted Blackie. “Wake
me up when the boy comes, won't you?”
The reply of J. Rufus to that request was inarticu-
late, as he shuffled painfully back to bed. He had
just cast off his slippers when the telephone bell rang.
The gently flowing Venetian lace curtain of his own
open window brushed his face. He pushed it aside.
The bell rang. The curtain gently brushed his face.
He dashed it aside. The bell rang and rang. The
curtain slapped him. He grabbed that curtain with
both hands and jerked it out by the roots.


THE USUAL METHOD
183
“Oh, Jim, your telephone bell's ringing,” called
Blackie cheerfully.
Wallingford gave the curtain another jerk to
free his hands from its entanglements and knocked
off his reading-lamp. The crash relieved him some-
what, and he went to the telephone.
"Well, what is it?” he demanded.
“This is Charley Jackson,” snapped an equally
aggravated voice in the telephone. “Say, Walling-
ford, you upset the canary seed when you gave out
that interview to the Record. I thought you knew
the first principles, anyhow. I've had my little
morning nap broken up by reporters from every pa-
per in town.”
“The leak had to come through you," insisted
Wallingford sharply. “You had a good start when
you left here."
“I got home as sober as a judge!” indignantly
denied Jackson. “I never get pickled, and if I did,
I wouldn't even talk with my fingers.”
Wallingford's own judgment corroborated that.
“The damage is done, though,” he concluded.
“From what you say about keeping Collop and
Tunnison in the dark, you won't need to show that
thousand to the boys, so you might as well bring
it back."
"I don't know where it is,” Jackson promptly
informed him. “I hid it. Say! It bores me to


184 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
"PIOICO.
sleep, anyhow, and I think I'll take an eye-opener,
and dress, and come right up to see you. We'll
cook up some kind of a mess.”
“You'll have to be a better chef than Josef to
make it worth that thousand,” Wallingford re-
minded him. “How soon will you be up?”.
“Half an hour. I'm a quick mover when I get
into action. I changed my politics twice in fifteen
minutes last fall!”
Wallingford, turning resignedly away from the
telephone, glared suddenly in the direction of the
pink bedroom. “What in the name of heaven do
you call that noise?” he implored.
"I am singing," returned Blackie; “singing one
of those sweet, soothing, old church hymns, which
comes back to me out of my happy childhood days;
only I get the darned thing tangled up, in the second
line, with a slice out of my big song hit in The
Lama's Goat, and I have to start all over again
every time. That's what may make it seem a shade
similar to itself, but even the attempt is uplifting.
You ought to try it, Jim. Suppose you take the
bass, and I'll sing it with you. Now! One, two,
three! Ready, sing!”
Wallingford was able to chuckle at last, as
Blackie's clear voice, in all gravity, began upon the
hoary old church hymn, and he looked into the pink
bedroom. Blackie's eyes were wide open, but he


THE USUAL METHOD
185
had not moved a muscle otherwise. The door-bell
rang.
“That's my boy,” stated Blackie. “Let him in,
Jim, and tell him to fill the tub with cold water, and
stuff the buttons in my stiffest shirt, and lay out my
gray cravat and a straight collar, and shine my
button shoes, and get my shaving-kit ready, and
hang fresh linen in the bathroom, and bring me a
cigarette and a match, and do any other little thing
you may think of. Aw, hum!” and he yawned in
prodigious comfort.
Wallingford jerked open the door. “Now you
start, and I'll tell you what I want while you're
going,” he directed the grinningly expectant boy
who stood there. “I want some strong coffee, two
prairie-oysters, and this morning's Record, and I
don't want you to tell me that you'll send a waiter
to find out what I want.”
“The waiter's almost starting with the coffee
now,” the boy briskly assured him, and was gone.
“I begin to feel better,” observed Wallingford,
heading for the sideboard. “That's the only sat-
isfactory interview I've had this morning. Have
a drink of something, Blackie?”
"Not me," virtuously asserted Mr. Daw. “To-
bacco shall not stain my lips, nor rum defile my
breath. I can't remember the rest of it, but it had
to end in death, for that's the only word that rhymes


186 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
with it. Appropriate, too, Jimmy, for everything
ends in death; or did when I went to church. Those
happy, happy boyhood days. Why, J. Rufus —”.
The rest of his speech was drowned in the rush
of cold water into the bath-tub. Wallingford, mak-
ing swift preparations for his own bath and a shave,
was presently aware of agonized calls from the still
recumbent Blackie, and stepped to the door, brush
in hand, where he could hear above the rush of the
· water.
“Now what do you want?” he asked.
“I want a boy of my own,” complained Blackie.
“You used mine."
For answer to that, Wallingford snatched the
covers from Blackie, pulled that gentleman into the
middle of the floor, and daubed his face with lather.
“My other eye might be jealous, but it isn't,"
remarked Blackie good-naturedly, and with one eye
screwed shut, rushed for the bathroom, where, with-
out taking the trouble to remove his pajamas, he
plunged into Wallingford's half-filled tub; there-
upon, after clearing his eye, he proceeded to remove
his sleeping-garments.
That little affair restored Wallingford's equanim-
ity perfectly, and laughing with all his old-time
heartiness, he bustled ahead with his shaving.
Wallingford and Blackie were both fully dressed
and in their right minds upon the arrival of Charley


THE USUAL METHOD
187
Jackson, who had put on his laugh with his clothes.
Mr. Jackson vociferously insisted that Blackie
change to a white apron and get busy, but Blackie
declined with great haughtiness, and bade both gen-
tlemen good-by.
“Where are you going?” asked Wallingford in
surprise.
“ To church, I told you,” retorted Blackie. “The
deep-toned bells are ringing, I can not stay away;
I spurn the hosts of evil, which pester me to stay.
Brethren, please sing,” and he solemnly departed,
looking anxiously for any possible flecks of dust
upon his silk hat.
“By George, I believe he is going to church!”
exclaimed Wallingford.


CHAPTER X
ANYTHING TO OBLIGE
VELL, the polls are closed,” regretfully an-
nounced Jackson. “Collop and Tunnison
both called me up since I phoned to you, and enough
opposition has developed to put the breaks on a
cyclone. I paid three dry-goods bills at the same
store with that thousand dollars or I'd give it
back.”
“If you succeeded in that on Sunday morning
you're entitled to the reward,” returned Wallingford
with a laugh, refusing the two five-hundreds which
the other reluctantly proffered him. “You acted
in good faith, Jackson.”
“ Thanks!” exclaimed Jackson in astonishment,
stuffing the bills hastily back into his pocket, and
laughing heartily with both cheeks. “I wish you'd
tell me how you get these."
“I have a friend who works in the mint," ex-
plained Wallingford suavely. “I'm rather glad
this deal is off, anyhow. I've been figuring on your
local conditions half the night since you left, and
I don't believe there's enough money here to make
188


ANYTHING TO OBLIGE
189
"ory.
it worth while. I hope you fare better in your
county-court-house scheme than we did in the park
thing."
Mr. Jackson stopped laughing. “ There are all
sorts of rumors about that court-house,” he declared
earnestly.
.“ They're all alike," Wallingford rejoined, feel-
ing sure of his ground. “ The only difference in
the rumors is in the name of the alderman who is
to be the goat, and buy it in his own name, and turn
it into a restaurant, with beer-hall and dance-hall
attachments. The tide of the rumors seems to set
strongest in the direction of Charley Jackson.”
“I wish it would stay there,” confessed Mr. Jack-
son. “ Court-house Square is the swellest loca-
tion in this town for a free and easy joint, under
friendly police suspicion. It's right in the heart of
the city, and every street-car line passes it. All the
theaters are within two blocks, and with the iron
picket fence replaced by a high wooden one, with
fancy entrances, and a lot of wooden tables and
short-change waiters in there, we'd have a summer-
and winter-garden proposition that ought to reduce
the savings departments of the local banks to a
mere gold-lettered suggestion on the plate-glass win-
dows."
“That listens very musically," acknowledged Wal-
lingford, though without a trace of envy, for no


190 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
business ever attracted him that required him to
say "good morning” to it every day. “Why
don't you grab it?”
“Nobody dares," regretted Mr. Jackson. “If
we could put the thing off till after the campaign,
it would be all right; but the church element in this
town is so strong that a mere little thing like turn-
ing the court-house into a human pickle-factory
might swing the campaign."
"I don't see who that would hurt," objected Wal-
lingford. “You all stay in year after year, no
matter which way the election goes.”
“It's a point of honor,” explained Mr. Jackson
promptly. “Everybody's fussy about being on the
winning side, like quitting with the most chips in
a parlor poker game where the white ones are sold
by the pound.”
“I can understand that,” soberly admitted Wal-
lingford. poYou have it all framed up, with the
Republicans and Democrats equally divided in the
profits; but the man whose name stands for the
transaction will plunge himself into ignominious
and everlasting political oblivion."
"I wish I could put a line like that into a speech,"
commended Jackson.
“Why don't you get a stranger to buy it for
you?”
“Where would you find a stranger who would


ANYTHING TO OBLIGE
191
submit to being chained to the floor till after the
campaign is over?" demanded Jackson wearily.
“ Show me that stranger and I'll slip him this thou-
sand.”
“Pass it over," invited Wallingford, and held
out his hand.
"I spoke too quick,” hedged Jackson, pressing his
hand over his pocket. “I'd rather arrange to hand.
over ten thousand out of the purchase price of the
court-house. Besides that, you know, Wallingford,
the stranger oughtn't to be too strange.”
“There's no danger,” Wallingford reassured him.
“I'll do it for you,” and he was very careless about
it. “You furnish me the money to bid in the prop-
erty for you, and I'll give you a secret bill of sale
for it. You can go right ahead with your altera-
tions in my name, if you like. When the campaign
is over, I'll transfer the deed to any name you say.
If I tried to sell the property, the sale would have
to be recorded, and your bill of sale would invalidate
it.”
“That's very kind of you,” asserted Mr. Jackson,
“but you're not working for your health."
"No, I have too niuch health now," retorted Wal-
lingford, adroitly repeating Jackson's answer to a
similar remark. “I ought to charge you the local
twenty per cent., but if you'll make me a present of
that ten thousand dollars you mentioned, and another


192 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
one like it, I'll be satisfied. What's the property
worth?”
"Four hundred thousand; but good handy political
experts ought to be able to bring it home for two."
“ The only difficulty I see,” observed Wallingford
with knitted brows, “is that some private interest
may overbid you. That property is too valuable to
be overlooked as an investment."
“If any private individual has the nerve to put in
a bid for that property, my county commissioners
will throw it out because it wasn't written in green
ink, or because the bidder has a mole on his neck,"
avowed Mr. Jackson indifferently. “They're so
used to that here that nobody will kick.”
Blackie Daw returned from church in a state
of magnificent exaltation.
" Jim, we've been overlooking a bet,” he declared.
“I never felt so calm and peaceful in my life.”
He was very much in earnest about it. The re-
ligion that has withstood the assault of scoffers
for nineteen centuries had impressed him with its
sheer weight, and though his words seemed uncouth,
his tone was seriously respectful.
“I'm glad you enjoyed yourself,” said Walling-
ford. “You should go to church oftener. You
need it.”
“I'm going," asserted Blackie decisively.
“ You'll see Uncle Horace seated in the pew re-


ANYTHING TO CRLIGE
193
served for well-dressed straegers on every Suoday
morning until I get back bome; then you see him
with a season ticket for some piace about row sine."
Wallingford, rather glad to be a way for a mo-
ment from the train of calculation that the visit
of Charley Jackson had set in motion, lent tinseli
to the smiling consideration of Blackie's new devel-
opment.
“What will Violet Bonnie say?” he wanted to
know.
“I don't know if she ever tried it, but she'd fall
for it like a Guinea bootblack to a grand-opera ticket.
In the first place, she buys from twelve to fifteen
hats a year, and she'd be tickled into giggle fits with
a new line of competition. In the second place,
she's as strong for music as I am. It isn't fashion-
able in our set to be dippy over high-brow music,
but every once in a while we slip away to Carnegie
Hall and wonder what it's about, and love some of
it till it gasps. I heard pipe-organ stuff to-day that
made me feel like a balloon, and if I could have
found a friendly shoulder, I'd have sniffled. In the
third place, she'd be plumb pistachio about this right-
hand-of-fellowship surprise that they spring on dis-
tinguished strangers.”
“Call the wagon," interrupted Wallingford.
“You're in Dutch on that last bet. They skip
women. They're willing to take chances on a bur-


194 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME,
glar, but they have to insist upon knowing all about
a lady."
“I don't see why,” indignantly objected Blackie.
“Violet Bonnie has always made good wherever
she was put; and she's as fussy a dresser as any of
them.”
“That doesn't make women love each other,"
laughed Wallingford. “I'm glad they made you
feel like the guest of honor, though. How did it.
happen? Did you make a speech ?”
“I helped sing,” admitted Blackie; “but, outside
of that, I kept my mouth so shut that it aches yet,
except once in a while when I caught up with an
'A-a-a-ahmen.' I lapped over one and said it
alone, but nobody giggled. I never saw such a po-
lite bunch in my life; but, at that, I don't see why
they don't have a better road map for the prayer-
book, so a stranger could chauffeur his way around
without having all the natives offer him assistance.
I watched one real sweet-faced old lady for my
guide, but, darn her, she got up in the wrong place.”
“ You must have picked out a church with as fussy
a service as seven garçons and a head waiter making
a Suzette pancake,” observed Wallingford, chuck-
ling. “You should have chosen an easier one to
begin on. Who sent you there?”.
“The pipe-organ,” answered Blackie earnestly.
“ It was the rattiest-looking church in town from


ANYTHING TO OBLIGE
195
the outside, but the inside, so high and dim and
quivering with stillness, made me afraid. Say, Jim,
I'm against the corrupt political system in this
town.”
“ So am I,” agreed Wallingford heartily. “I'd
like to hand it a jolt.”
“I'm helping,” stated Blackie, with happy self-
approbation. “Do you know what the political
thieves and outcasts are trying to do in this town?
They are trying to steal the court-house and turn
it into a den of infamy. My church is going to
save the city from its shame. We raised a fund
of nearly three hundred thousand dollars to-day to
buy Court-house Square, and another day's hustling
will give us enough. As soon as we get that, we're
going to start another subscription list to build the
finest cathedral in the Middle West on the site that
was to have been turned into a common dive that
would sap the manhood and womanhood of every
young person who passed beneath the shadow of
its walls."
His adoption of the morning's pulpit phrases was
entirely unconscious. An habitual enthusiast, his
partisanship here was absolutely without a question.
Whatever the church did was right; and it was his
church!
“You must have heard some sermon,” remarked
Wallingford, smiling.


196 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
“There wasn't any sermon,” denied Blackie.
“ There was just a plain talk from a good, strong,
white-haired man that I'd be proud to clink glasses
with any day. He had a smile on him that would
make a bulldog purr. He was a regular man, Jim;
and before he got through telling that congregation
what it had to do, women were shedding their dia-
monds, and men were slipping car-fare into their
fob pockets. They sent the contribution lists
around four times, and every time it didn't foot
up enough we heard from that preacher. Why,
Jim, he could make you put a red band on your
cap and pound a Salvation Army drum. By the
way, I put you down for a thousand dollars.”
“ You what?”
“One thousand bones. You'd better put it there
than waste it on a bone-head waiter. You needn't
look so fussed up about it, either. I didn't com-
promise your name. I just signed you up as ‘A
Friend.'”
“I'm glad you feel perfectly at home with
‘Friend's' money. Since you insisted on spending
it, however, you might just as well have used my
name so I could get the benefit of it. Why didn't
you?”
I only,
“Because this is no place for a flash.
put myself down as 'A Lay Member.?”
“ Did you donate, too?”


ANYTHING TO OBLIGE
197
“Well, Jim, you could scarcely call it a donation.
I didn't have but that two hundred you gave me
last night. I felt like a piker. By the way, while
I think of it, you'd better hand me that thousand
now, before we spend it. I am to meet with the
committee this afternoon at three.”
Wallingford, who had apparently been about to
give him into custody, suddenly stopped and con-
sidered him.
“You must have made a grand-stand hit with
that crowd,” he guessed, and he could see where,
under proper circumstances, and with Blackie sin-
cerely enthused, the people with whom he had been
hobnobbing might take him for sterling, without ap-
plying the acid. They were right to do so in this
case, for here Blackie was sterling. Crook as he
was, they could have trusted him with uncounted
millions. The most enduring religion in the world
had won his awe if not his soul.
“Well, they seemed to like me,” confessed Blackie
modestly. “They asked me about myself after
the donation party, and I couldn't bear to lie to
them, so I told them that I had a father and two
brothers engaged in missionary work in Africa.
They wanted to know where, and I told them
Uganda right off the bat. I remembered the name
of the place perfectly because I saw it in the head-
lines of last night's paper, and then I changed the


198 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
subject, quick. Say! I thought deacons all wore
whiskers.”
“There must be a lot of wealthy men in that
congregation," surmised Wallingford thoughtfully.
“The wealthiest in the city,” asserted Blackie
proudly. “Our congregation could buy and sell all
the rest of the churches in this burg, and now that
we're out to set a pace, the only way to time us
will be by a split-second watch. And friendly!
You know, Jim, I thought church-workers were a
lot of old Auffs, but I never saw a more masculine-
looking set of men in the very best barrooms.”
Wallingford, who had reached for his abused
wallet, and had been holding it thought fully in
both hands, now opened it and produced a thousand
dollars, all in hundred-dollar bills.
“It's a noble cause, Blackie, go to it,” he quietly
observed. “Here's 'Friend's? donation, but I don't
want you to use my name.”
“ They'll think I fooled them," objected Blackie.
“It's in a good cause,” Wallingford smilingly
reassured him. "By the way, I suppose your
church understands that whatever bid it makes for
that court-house property will be thrown out on a
technicality."
“That's what we're afraid of,” worried Blackie.
“Make it plain to them this afternoon," directed
Wallingford. “They probably know it already.


ANYTHING TO OBLIGE
199
When they seem the surest of that, you suggest that
if they'll be very quiet about it, you think you
can dig up a plan by which they can buy that
property for less than four hundred thousand
dollars.”
“Come right around to the meeting and tell them
about it yourself," urged Blackie. “If you're go-
ing to take hold of it, the city is saved from its
shame right now.”
“If my name is mentioned, I can't do a thing,"
warned Wallingford.
Mr. Collop, a man with a perpetually upturned
nose, who wore both hands in his coat pockets when
he walked, and in his trousers pockets when he
stood still; Mr. Tunnison, a particularly bony-faced
man with squinty blue eyes; Mr. Peal, whose face
was hidden when he opened his mouth; and Charley
Jackson, all busy city and county lawmakers and
guardians of the public welfare, were guests of
Spender Wallingford that afternoon, in a retired
Turkish alcove just off the Hotel Renaissance bar-
room. For one hour they talked and laughed, and
told funny stories, and admired Wallingford's prod-
igal hospitality, and avoided all mention of the
business that had brought them together, mean-
while studying one another with the intentness of
a starving cat at a doubtful mouse-hole. Suddenly:


200
200 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
in the midst of a laugh, Wallingford leaned for-
ward and said:
“Now, gentlemen, let's talk turkey. If you want
me to stay here and bid in Court-house Square
next Saturday, I'll do it, and do no other business
here. If you don't, say so, and I'll look after my
own affairs. This town has to pay me for stopping
off here, and I'd just as lief you'd do it as any-
body."
The four gentlemen who had the consent of the
county officials and the two opposing city bosses
to buy the court-house for half its value and turn
it into a beer-hall, looked at one another doubt fully.
“We'd have to entrust you with the money, I
suppose?” ventured Mr. Collop with professional
caution.
“Oh, yes," asserted Wallingford carelessly.
There was another silence.
“It would have to be in cash, too,” mused Mr.
Tunnison, with professional caution equal to that
of his rival and proposed colleague.
“Naturally,” admitted Wallingford. “It will
be perfectly safe with me. I know exactly how to
treat money with the respect it deserves.”
Mr. Collup, Mr. Tunnison, Mr. Peal and even
Mr. Jackson frowned thoughtfully, in turns and in
unison. There was nothing especially reassuring in
either Mr. Wallingford's words or his tone, and


ANYTHING TO OBLIGE
201
they could not get it out of their heads that he was
almost insolent toward money.
“Of course it would never do for us to give
you a check that you could indorse over to the
county, in our presence,” suggested Mr. Peal.
“Scarcely," returned Wallingford with a smile,
but looking at the hissing glances of the gentlemen
rather than into their eyes, which was not a com-
fortable sign. “You would have to give me the
two hundred and twenty thousand dollars in cur-
rency, which I would then deposit in any local bank
you might select. Against that deposit I would
draw my certified check, in favor of the county, for
two hundred thousand dollars, and would accompany
my bid with that certified check, as required by
your well-tamed county commission. It's all very
simple, gentlemen.”
If he had tried to be nonchalant and indifferent,
he was failing miserably; for there was a distinct
note of eagerness in his tone. They all noticed it.
“Yes,” admitted Mr. Collop. “I suppose we
could go right with you to the bank, and watch you
deposit our money and get your certified check.",
“I don't think I'd like that," objected Walling-
ford. “I should not care to be guarded as if I
were a thief. If you propose to humiliate me by
this surveillance, I shall withdraw from the project
entirely.”


202 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
They did not like that. No reliable person in
the city would lend his name to a deliberate steal
of such magnitude, and one so certain to reap public
condemnation.
“We don't question your integrity, Wallingford,”
hastily interposed Charley Jackson, who was dis-
tressed between shielding his own interests and pro-
tecting the feelings of the man who had given him
a valuable thousand dollars. “You see, we merely
don't know you. Why couldn't you make it all
right by giving us some good references, or guar-
antors?”
“Gentlemen, this style of humiliation has gone
quite far enough,” asserted Mr. Wallingford with
a sudden flare of indignation. “I have permitted
you to insinuate against my honesty and to insult
every finer feeling that I have, and all for a possible
paltry twenty thousand dollars. Gentlemen, I posi-
tively decline to allow you to trust me with your
money. If I purchase the county court-house for
you, it must be with my own funds, and you must
pay me interest upon the money in addition to the
bonus that I am to receive in case the deal is put
entirely through.”
“Oh, that won't be necessary,” Jackson hurriedly
stated, in the interest of peace. “We'll cook up
some way to make it pleasant for you and safe for
us."


ANYTHING TO OBLIGE
203
“ That is the last straw,” declared Wallingford,
now furious. “I have told you the only way in
which I will purchase Court-house Square. With
my own money!”
Mr. Collop cleared his already clear throat. “It
seems to me that Mr. Wallingford is pursuing the
only course that he could pursue after he has
been so grossly insulted,” he announced with much
apparent relief. “I, for one, apologize, and move
that we allow him to conduct the negotiations in his
own way.”
They all gladly apologized to Mr. Wallingford,
and consented to allow him to furnish the money.
Mr. Collop, however, with professional caution,
found another topic to discuss, though he approached
it with a shade more diffidence.
“Of course, Mr. Wallingford will give us a
written agreement to transfer a clear title and deed
for the court-house to us, upon demand, for two
hundred and twenty thousand dollars," he remarked,
as if this were a trilling detail which he had merely
mentioned for want of something better to say.
Wallingford gave up in despair. “ Does nobody
ever take anybody's word in this town?” he dis-
gustedly wanted to know. “Is there no honor
among you? Yes, I'll give you your agreement;
but it will mention two hundred and twenty-five
thousand dollars and interest at twelve per cent. from


204 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
the time I invest my money until the deed is trans-
ferred to you!”
They beat him down to two hundred and twenty-
two thousand.
Wallingford was more than casually interested
in Blackie's church affiliations.
“Well, Deacon," he pleasantly observed upon
Blackie's return, “are you still enthusiastic about
preferring a sacred edifice to a den of infamy on
Court-house Square?”
“I'm so keen for it that I hate rag-time music,"
responded Blackie. “I think it's the preacher man
that's got my goat. His name is Maikem, and when
that gent grabs me by the hook and calls me Brother
Daw, I want to run out and carry a trunk for him.
Am I in on this half-million dollars that you're out
to make?”
“You're always in for some of it, aren't you?”
demanded Wallingford. “I thought you said you
had enough money?”
“I thought we had,” returned Blackie thought-
fully; “but now I want to build a church of my
own back home, and hire this boy for head preacher.
I'd be a better man.”
“ Still plenty of money in sight down there, is
there?" inquired Wallingford.
“That's the least of our troubles,” Blackie in-
formed him, with an extremely worried air. “The


ANYTHING TO OBLIGE
205
wet-blanket brigade tried to capture the convention
this afternoon. They have been hearing things
since the morning service, and they came back to
the committee meeting with the idea that the best
all their fussing would do would be to make the
corrupt political thieves in this town pay more for
their hive of vice. They were almost in favor of
passing back the contributions, but my old pal
Maikem and your Uncle Horace hurrahed a while,
and got them to come on, boys. We quit, dippy
with enthusiasm.”
Wallingford nodded in approval. “ You made
them a speech, then," he guessed.
“Well, it didn't start to be a speech," Blackie
modestly stated; "but maybe it was before I got
through. I know. I was Brother Daw to the bunch
when I quit, and I like my family. All I set out
to do in the first place was to say never say die,'
and 'don't give up the ship,' and 'they'll take the
flag over my body,' and 'the right must conquer,'
and a few ordinary cheer-ups like that, but I got
to swinging pretty good after a while and found
lots of handy language in my system. I'm afraid
that maybe I used a little slang once or twice; but,
anyhow, I put across what I wanted to say; and
they ate it up."
“Congratulations,” said Wallingford with a
chuckle. “Blackie, do you suppose this bunch of


206 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
good men would stoop to a little — er — well, say,
not trickery, but diplomacy, to save Court-house
Square from the hands of the wicked ?”
“Well,” stated Blackie slowly, and weighing his
words carefully, “if there's to be any dirty work,
you'd better fool them. Let me do it.”
Spender Wallingford hired a touring car and a
chauffeur for a week, and put in his time enter-
taining Charley Jackson and his friends of the
county commission and the aldermanic board, ap-
pearing as a jovial, smiling, chuckling, pink-faced
host of impressive appearance, attractive personality
and faultless garb. There was not a man in that
crowd who had not been bred in suspicion and fos-
tered in distrust, yet, by the end of the week, they
grew to like Wallingford as much as he disliked
them. He had himself been selfish in his time, he
had been conscienceless, and faithless, and unmoral,
but these men were utterly void of generosity, or
conscience, or faith, or morality, or of largeness in
any dimension; and it annoyed him, now and then,
to find himself more or less ashamed of trafficking
with them. At last he hit upon the reason for
this attitude — Blackie Daw! Wallingford had
smiled at Blackie's new-found enthusiasm for the
paths of peace, but there is something in the earnest
espousal of genuine morality that impresses even
the most thoughtless, and Blackie was so calmly


ANYTHING TO OBLIGE
207
happy that Wallingford envied him — for his qual-
ity of eternal childhood, if for nothing else.
"You ought to try it, Jim," urged Blackie, as
they dressed on Saturday morning. “Of course, I
know myself too well to think I'll stick, but it does
me a lot of good while it lasts. I'm as contented
as a deaf and dumb actor playing leads in a moving-
picture company."
“Go to it," encouraged Wallingford, a trifle cov-
etously. “It's the one thing I never tried, but,
from its effect on you, I think I might like it.”
“You'd begin the week with Sunday in place of
ending it there,” Blackie insisted. “The only thing
that bothers me is staying away from my brethren
so long. I've hardly been near them all week.”
“Never mind, you'll fuss up enough with them
to-day,” Wallingford consoled him, tying his cravat
most carefully. “I'm rather enjoying the cause of
morality myself; it's profitable, too.”
The telephone bell rang, and that ended conver-
sation; for a strenuous day had begun. The gen-
tlemen who were to turn the court-house into a
fashionable café for willing workers had an early
and an earnest conference with the gentleman who
was to own the court-house until after the election,
and Wallingford gave them a written agreement to
sell the court-house to them, on demand, at a stip-
ulated figure. Thereupon Wallingford gave them


208 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
two more drinks and a cigar, and excused himself,
immediately afterward holding another important
conference, and making a visit to the bank. From
there he rushed to the county auditor's office, where
he displayed his certified check to Charley Jackson
and his quiveringly interested colleagues, deposited
his check with his sealed bid, and smoked a quiet
cigar while he waited the few minutes between then
and eleven o'clock, at which time the bids were to
be opened.
Strangely enough, Wallingford encountered no
opposition from Doctor Maikem's church, which
did not put in a bid at all, but there were three
other offers higher than his own, it transpired at
eleven five. However, there was some question as
to the certification of one of the checks, and one
of the offers was not made in the exact form pre-
scribed, and the third one was not addressed to the
proper authority; so Wallingford, not at all to his
surprise, but somewhat to his relief, for he had
suspected a trick of some sort, even at the last,
was announced as the lucky contestant, and was
the recipient of many hearty congratulations from
the gentlemen of the newspaper fraternity, who
saw reams and reams of good usable copy in this
unexpected dénouement.
Breaking away from these well-wishers as quickly
as possible, Wallingford, attended by the happy


ANYTHING TO OBLIGE
209
gentlemen who intended to cater to the city's élite
and recherché mill-hands, clerks and ward-workers,
walked across the hall to the county recorder's
office, where Court-house Square was duly and
formally and firmly deeded and transferred to J.
Rufus Wallingford, his heirs, administrators and
assigns, forever.
“ The buyer buys a drink," proclaimed Charley
Jackson jovially, slapping the lucky purchaser with
affectionate proprietorship upon the broad back.
“Wallingford, I bet that's the first time you ever
owned a court-house."
“It is,” admitted Wallingford, chuckling. “Get
off of my property," and he bundled them into
his automobile and rushed them to a barroom that
they were not in the habit of patronizing. He
ordered and paid for a generous array of bottles,
then, excusing himself for a few minutes, he rushed
back to the court-house, where, while frantic sub-
officials telephoned wildly, but vainly, to all Charley
Jackson's usual haunts, the court-house fancier
duly, formally and firmly deeded and transferred
Court-house Square to the Reverend Maikem's
church, its heirs, administrators and assigns, for-
ever.
The ecstatic Blackie Daw was the most interested
witness to this commendable transaction, and to
him Wallingford delivered the good deed.


210 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
“Hustle right down with this, and get the balance
of the money,” he crisply directed. “Meanwhile,
I'll go up to the hotel and settle our bill. Then I'll
meet you in the back room of that delirium-tremens
factory across from the depot. It won't be safe
to stay in this town when our uplift work is
known."
"What's the matter with this town that you
want to leave it so quick?” demanded Blackie.
“ You're not afraid of that bunch of pikers, I hope !
They're afraid to kill you for fear that they might
lose the election. I'm going to stay and go to
church to-morrow. Why, Jim, they're arranging
a special service on account of this, and you'll never
hear such music in a thousand years on Broadway.
I look for them to bust the pipe-organ."
"Excuse me,” laughed Wallingford with a shake
of his head. “I don't like Josef's cooking any
more. Hurry on with that document. We want
that hundred and seventy-five thousand. We may
need it to get out of jail.”
Blackie, already started, stopped abruptly.
“There isn't anything they could pinch us for, is
there, Jim? I wouldn't like to be arrested in this
town.”
“Rest easy,” chuckled Wallingford. “The only
thing they could turn the key on us for would be
general principles, and we haven't many of them.”


ANYTHING TO OBLIGE
211
“ There's no way they could invalidate this deed,
is there, or make it look shady? I wouldn't like
that in this town.”
“It's as clean as a trousseau,” Wallingford re-
assured him. “ The agreement I gave Jackson's
crowd this morning was antedated by the one I gave
your committee, and besides, I wrote it myself.
It mentions no consideration whatever."
Wallingford was strapping the last piece of lug-
gage when Blackie returned, his face beaming with
beatific happiness.
“ Jimmy, we've turned the best trick of our
lives!” he exulted, shaking Wallingford's hand in
the vigor of emotional joy. “I didn't have time
to consult you, but the idea was so big that I knew
you'd be in with it. We don't have a chance like
this every day, Jim; so I grabbed it while it was
hot. I donated the whole kitty to the building
fund!”
Wallingford sat down. “Will you say that
louder ? ” he demanded. “I'm a little feeble."
“I just told them to keep the change,” said
Blackie, with a wave of his hand. “Of course
I made the donation in your name and mine, both.
There was no need of keeping under cover any
more, now that it's all over. You should have
seen Colonel Maikem. He nearly did a head spin.
You know what he did, Jim ? He just blinked his


212 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
eyes a minute and then, all at once, he slipped down,
real quiet, by a chair,” and Blackie hastily wiped
his eyes, and looked at his handkerchief in surprise.
Wallingford, who had borne many an avalanche
with equanimity, sighed and smiled as soon as he
recovered from the shock. After all, he had won
his game.
“We are certainly in for good works,” he
philosophically commented. “I am, of course,
glad, Blackie, to be enrolled in so gaudy a cause,
but I insist on making it quite plain that a hundred
and seventy-five thousand dollars is some donation
for a couple of careless strangers.”
“You don't want to look at it that way, Jim,”
corrected Blackie, still exalted. “You merely
donated a week's work. That makes it a piker
bet.”
“True, quite true," admitted Wallingford, study-
ing Blackie with a curious grin. “Would it hurt
your feelings if I suggested that our five thousand
dollars is nearly gone?”
“Oh, I forgot,” said Blackie, reaching in his
pocket. “ They compelled me to take back fifteen
thousand dollars, to cover expenses. I donated my
half to the building fund in the name of "olet
Bonnie; but here's yours.”
Wallingford looked at him in stupefaction as
he mechanically took the check, then he started


ANYTHING TO OBLIGE
213
laughing. He was laughing so hard that his face
had turned purple, and he seemed almost in danger
of choking, when the telephone bell rang. Blackie
was compelled to answer it. His conversation was
very animated and gleeful, and he came away from
the telephone radiant.
" It was Bert Harvey, of the Record,” he told
Wallingford. “I told him he might come up.
Where are my handkerchiefs? Why, you're all
packed up!”
“ They're in your little Oxford,” returned Wal-
lingford. “You may unpack it, if you like.” He
paused, half smilingly. “ I've a big notion to go
to church with you to-morrow.”


CHAPTER XI
QUICK PROFITS
COLORSE poker might cheer you up some,
11 Jim," advised Blackie Daw compassion-
ately. “Horses, cows and dogs that we see out
of this side of the car in the next ten minutes, each
counts one; white horses, five; cats, ten; goats,
fifteen; cat on a roof, fifty; elephants and crocodiles,
a hundred; and a man drinking whisky out of a
red jug, a hundred and fifty. We each put down
a number in advance, and the one coming nearest
to the actual count wins two bits.”
Wallingford turned from the scenery good-
naturedly enough. “We can't afford to be reck-
less with our quarters,” he returned with a laugh.
“I'd even be afraid to pass one backward and
forward at the ends of four bets, for fear we might
drop it.”
“You're so fussy about money," complained
Blackie, and sang quite cheerfully:
“A stingy man once had a cent,
He couldn't die till it was spent;
: 214


QUICK PROFITS
215
He never drank, nor ate, nor bet,
And so the grouch is living yet.”
Wallingford, who has been almost morose, now
chuckled comfortably, and Blackie, glad to see the
big round face of J. Rufus turn its usual jovial
pinkness, grinned in gratification.
"I am glad I took vocal lessons in my youth,”
he confided. “A cultivated voice is such a great
comfort."
“To the possessor, possibly,” admitted Walling-
ford. “Blackie, I've never been able to figure out
whether you're cheerful or just foolish. We're so
near broke that I dread to have the porter brush
our hats, and we don't know where we're going
to get our next dollar; yet you chirrup away as
if you hadn't a care in the world.”
“I haven't,” serenely asserted Blackie; “ that's
up to you. I have faith in you, Jimmy.
“ The miser man was full of sin,
Saint Peter would not let him in;
His soul was lost beyond recall,
So he refused to die at all.”
“Don't look," warned Wallingford, touching
Blackie on the knee and laughing again to conceal
his serious interest. “Three chairs behind you,
on the other side of the car, is a persimmon-faced
man with a reckless necktie. When you get a


216 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
chance, look and see if we owe him anything.”
Blackie presently looked around as if to take an
idle survey of the car, and the man whom Walling-
ford had described immediately nodded energetic-
ally.
“He looks worse when he smiles," decided
Blackie. “Rest easy about him though, Jim. I
never knew anybody who looked like that. I sleep
too well.”
"He knows us all right," decided Wallingford
with a frown. “Let's go back to the smoker. I
don't feel strong enough to wrestle with anybody
who ever invested money with us.”
They found the smoking-compartment deserted,
and Wallingford, lighting a strong cigar, resumed
his gloomy occupation of looking out the window.
There were meadows and trees and hills, water
and sunlight and clouds; but in all the fertile land-
scape there was no hint or suggestion of an idea,
and there was nothing that Wallingford so much
desired, at this moment, as a profitable thought.
He had been earnestly desiring it for days, but
his skull had gone suddenly barren, and his pockets
were rapidly becoming so.
“I believe this is Mr. Wallingford and Mr.
Daw," piped a shrill voice, and Wallingford knew,
without turning, that the persimmon-faced man had


QUICK PROFITS
217
followed them. He looked around with his
happiest smile.
“They tell me I look a lot like him,” he con-
fessed. “You have the advantage of me, how-
ever.”
“I never met you personally,” acknowledged the
stranger; “but I've seen you often. I'm E. P.
Steele, of Cinderburg."
Blackie, looking past the man's back at Walling-
ford, reached as if for the bell-cord, but grinned.
A man from Cinderburg might or might not be
a serious menace, but in any event he was discom-
forting
“Oh, yes; Cinderburg,” observed Wallingford,
with every indication of pleasure. “Live little
city, that."
“Yes, it is,” agreed the man; “ in spite of the
jolt you gave it. You certainly did teach them a
quick lesson in high finance. That was the smooth-
est bit of work ever pulled off in our town.”
His tone and his expression were most admiring,
for which reason Wallingford disliked him in-
tensely.
“I conducted an entirely legitimate business
enterprise,” he insisted with great dignity. “The
Bang Sun Engine was a wonderful idea, and it was
not my fault that Mr. Bang was unable to perfect


218 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
his invention. If he had done his share, I would
haře made him a millionaire.”
"Ed Bang's working in the washing-machine
faetóry, now, at eighteen a week, and trying to
pay off his debts. Your company may have been a
legitimate one, Mr. Wallingford, but everybody in
Cinderburg votes the other way. You should have
seen what the papers said about you after you
left
“I hope they were just,” ventured Wallingford
soberly, returning Blackie's hilarious wink as the
visitor reached over for a match.
“They were, I guess," retorted Mr. Steele with
a laugh. “They said you were the cleverest grafter
and the most enjoyable thief now at large. They
said that to be robbed by you was a pleasure, and
that to know you was a liberal education in
burglary."
“ The nasty things," objected Mr. Daw. “Why,
Mr. Steele, I have known Mr. Wallingford for
years; and look at me.”
The man did look at him, and a little enviously.
“I wish I'd had your opportunities," he stated.
“I've dressed like our friend, Wallingford, and
I've tried to follow his methods, but I seem to have
missed a number on the combination somewhere,”
and he passed his hand over his momentarily wor-
ried brow.


QUICK PROFITS
219
“Didn't they pinch you for either attempt ? ”
demanded Blackie.
“They don't pinch a sucker,” declared Mr.
Steele ruefully. “I lost money every time I tried
to turn a trick. Once I got beat up, and twice I
was robbed by strictly legal methods. I started
out of Cinderburg three months ago with fifty
thousand dollars, and now I have only five thousand.
I'm a failure even as a crook.”
"I knew you were mistaken in my methods,"
reproved Wallingford; “ for I make it a rule to
play so straight that I stay absolutely within the
law."
The man looked unconvinced. “I wish you'd
take my remaining five thousand and show me how
it's done,” he suggested.
Blackie took the precaution to saunter over and
block the doorway. Wallingford looked at his
friend with a smile.
“ I'll take the bet,” said he calmly. “Give me
your five thousand, and I'll turn a business deal
with it, and I'll give you an equal share with me
in the proceeds.”
“Do you mean it? ” inquired Steele eagerly.
“Give me your five thousand,” repeated Wal-
lingford, holding out his hand.
“Well, I haven't over a couple of hundred in
cash with me,” regretted Mr. Steele; “ but I'll give


220
220 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
you a check on the Cinderburg Commercial Bank,"
and he whipped out his check-book in a hurry, lest
Wallingford might change his mind. “Where are
we going to operate?”
"In Cinderburg," announced Wallingford, with
a sudden daring impulse that elicited a delighted
glance from Blackie.
“Cinderburg!” repeated Steele in astonishment.
“Why, you couldn't sell twenty-dollar gold pieces
for ten cents in that town; and the first crooked
move you'd make, they'd hang you."
“I don't intend to make a crooked move," de-
clared Wallingford. “Cinderburg and you have an
entirely erroneous impression of me, and I shall
make it a point of honor to remove that impres,
sion.”
He expanded his broad chest, and held his head
proudly. If ever there was a man whose finer feel-
ings were hurt and whose pride was outraged, that
man was J. Rufus Wallingford. Mr. Steele, about
whose face there was a puckered meanness that
quite accounted for his failure in any transaction
requiring the confidence of his fellow man, looked
at him doubtfully.
“ You mean that you intend to start a straight
business, with no trick about it?” he wanted to
know, retaining the check that he had been about.
to pass to Wallingford.


QUICK PROFITS
“Exactly that,” replied J. Rufus firmly.
“Not with my 'five thousand," objected Mr.
Steele, shaking his head. “ I'm looking for quick
profits.”
“With your five thousand!” insisted Mr. Wal-
lingford, removing the check gracefully from Mr.
Steele's fingers, and putting it in his pocket.
Mr. Morley, of the Commercial Bank, was
presiding at the wicket during the luncheon hour of
his paying teller, and smoothing his ashen-gray jaw
with considerable complacency, when the broad
shoulders and cheery features of J. Rufus Walling-
ford, with Steele just behind him, loomed suddenly
before him. Mr. Morley's mouth popped open,
and his long white fingers trembled. Why, here,
in the very flesh, was the man who had sold him
worthless stock to the amount of thousands of dol-
lars, and had gone away with the money; and yet
it was Mr. Morley and not Mr. Wallingford who
was now nervous.
“Why, hello, Morley,” said the latter gentleman,
his round face beaming with pleasure. “It's been
a long time since I saw you, but you're looking as
spry as ever. How's business?”.
“Very fair, indeed,” hesitated Mr. Morley. “I
– I never expected to see you again."
“Why not?” demanded Wallingford, laughing.
“We both have money."


220
-22 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
Mr. Morley winced painfully. “I have no more
for investment in untried schemes," he hastened to
state.
“Nothing venture, nothing gain," quoted Wal-
lingford cheerfully, shoving his check under the
window.
Mr. Morley looked at that check and blinked.
He turned it over. It was properly endorsed. He
held that Wallingford owed him something like
twenty thousand dollars; that J. Rufus had robbed
him outright of that much; and here was five thou-
sand of the money in his own aching fingers!
“Is this by way of restitution ?” he asked, as-
suming his severest Bible-class expression.
“ No, cash,” Wallingford gaily informed him,
chuckling. “Large bills, please.”
Mr. Morley, peering out at Steele, developed an-
other virtuous idea.
“I suppose you know that this closes your ac-
count, Mr. Steele,” he advised, with the paternal
interest that every good banker takes in a spend-
thrift depositor.
“To the penny,” agreed Mr. Steele, quite happily
indeed.
“Have you had value received for this?” he
inquired, now glaring at Wallingford.
“ Almost,” confidently asserted Mr. Steele.


QUICK PROFITS
223
“I've had at least five thousand dollars' worth of
promises."
“Then I must warn you against this man Wal-
lingford,” went on Mr. Morley, shaking with in-
dignation. “I can not definitely state that he is a
robber and a thief, but I am quite positive, from
my own experience, that his commercial transac-
tions are likely to be highly unprofitable to any one
but himself.”
“ That's what I'm banking on,” replied Mr.
Steele with an anxious laugh.
“I'll take one thousand in hundreds, and the bal-
ance in five hundreds,” gently insinuated Mr. Wal-
lingford.
Mr. Morley hesitated. After all, it was Mr.
Wallingford's check, unless Mr. Steele should pro-
test it, which he did not seem inclined to do; and
the great shadowy hand of the law, very effective
with men who scarcely need its restraint, hovered
over the banker's shoulders and prevented him from
retaining the check to apply to his own deficit.
He could not collect it without due process!
Mechanically, his well-trained hand reached into the
money-drawer, and having carefully annotated the
check and put it upon a hook, he counted out ten
one-hundred-dollar bills, and eight five-hundreds,
all his faculties now alert upon count and counter-


224 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
feit. Mechanically, he pushed the money under
the wicket, and Mr. Wallingford thanked him.
A “By George! it's like coming back home to see
you,” commented Wallingford heartily. “Come
over to the New Auditorium to-night, Morley, and
have dinner with us. I'm going to call a meeting
of the Bang Sun Engine Company, and we'll have
a talk over old times.”
Mr. Morley once more trembled with indignation.
“I do not care to have anything more to do with
you,” he proclaimed; "that is, unless you come to
me, with the cash in your hand, to purchase my
Bang Sun Engine stock.”
“ Tut! tut!” laughed Wallingford. “Why, Mr.
Morley, I have nearly a hundred times as much of
that stock as you, and I'm not complaining."
Mr. Morley looked at Mr. Wallingford with a
return of his stupefaction. There actually stood
the man, still in the flesh, with five thousand dollars
of a fellow citizen's money, unearned, in his pocket,
his face beaming with cordial good-will and good
cheer! Somewhere, down in the depths of his
ashen anatomy, Mr Morley found an unexpected
drop of humor, and he actually smiled.
“By golly, I'll come!” he said.
Mr. Steele was lost in profound hero worship
as they rejoined Blackie in the cab.
“That's one of the tricks I couldn't get,” he con-


QUICK PROFITS
225
fessed to Blackie. “I often succeeded in making
men smile, but they wouldn't come to my parties."
“Every little giggle has a meaning all its own,”
sang Blackie softly.
At the New Auditorium, Steele tried lesson
number one. “Why, hello, Candie!” he ex-
claimed, rushing up to the dapper clerk. He smiled
broadly and pushed out his chest, and beaming and
beaming upon Mr. Candie, thrust forward his
hand. “It's like being a boy again to come back
home."
"Have you been out of town?” asked Candie
carelessly, touching the proffered hand, and reach-
ing past him to shake hands with the new guest.
“You're looking fine, Mr. Wallingford. Glad to
have you with us again. The governor's suite was
just vacated yesterday,” and he smiled upon Wal-
lingford with genuine joy. He knew all about
Wallingford's scarcely doubtful commercial trans-
actions, but a hotel desk is not a jury-room. Wal-
lingford's bill for two would come close to five hun-
dred dollars a week, and he was a pleasant person
to have around the house.
“Glad to be back," returned Wallingford, radiat-
ing equal joy; "that is, if you have left any of
that ninety-eight Château Yquem. Candie, I wish
you'd look after a little dinner of, say, twelve covers
to-night. Have you the same chef?”


QUICK PROFITS
227
ought to have a share in the spending of my money,
but I have to run over to my boarding-house a
while, and look after sending out my laundry and
get straightened around. Can't you wait?”
Wallingford shook his head promptly. “The
only way I can avoid being lynched in this town is
to keep busy,” he affirmed.
"I guess you're right about that,” admitted Mr.
Steele. “What are you going to start?”
“I won't make up my mind until just before
dinner-time," announced Wallingford. “I shall
have to study the needs of the town.”
"I don't believe it needs anything," returned
Steele doubt fully. “My sister wrote me all the
news while I was away, and it seems to me that
the business is growing faster than the town.
There are three new factories, a big new bakery, an
immense fancy grocery, and they're just getting
ready for the opening of the largest department
store in the Middle West; Kreiger's. That's the
big new building we passed on our way up from
the depot. They say he's from Philadelphia, and
is a natural-born fighter. The other merchants
have already tried to freeze him out of the news-
papers."
Wallingford sat down to wait for the automobile.
“How could they do that?” he asked with the keen
interest of a good business man.


228 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
“It was a smart trick,” laughed Steele, every
feature of his countenance puckering with the en-
joyment of it. “The minute they knew that
Kreiger was coming here to monopolize the retail
business of the town, Horndyke and Ramsdale,
who run the biggest department store here, and
have money to burn, bought out the Courier, which
was on its last legs, and purchased a controlling
interest in the Blade, which only had a toe left. As
each of these papers runs an afternoon edition under
different names — the Courier owns the News, and
the Blade the Trumpet — that leaves Horndyke and
Ramsdale in absolute possession of the town's adver-
tising facilities, both Republican and Democratic, ex-
cept for the little Evening Item, which has been
trying to sell out to Kreiger.”
“He couldn't buy the Item until they start coin-
ing half pennies,” declared Wallingford, whose
memory for newspapers was most careful.
“I saw a copy of it down-stairs," interpolated
Blackie; "they ought to call it the Foot-note."
“That looks like a wholesome time for the town,"
mused Wallingford. “Of course Horndyke and
Ramsdale will raise the price of advertising to a
prohibitive point, and rebate to themselves for
whole pages. I suppose Kreiger has plenty of
money, too?”
“He should have. He owns the new building,


QUICK PROFITS
229
and he's doing everything regardless. I wonder
why he doesn't buy the Item?”
“He won't need to," decided Wallingford.
“ They'll be glad to get his business at any price.
Steele, did you ever do anything crooked in Cinder-
burg?”
“I never did anything crooked any place!” re-
torted Steele in deep self-abasement. “I couldn't.
I guess we can't all be Wallingfords."
“That'll be about all of that," objected Walling-
ford. “I am not a crook; I am a business man."
“What's the difference?” laughed Steele.
"A crook is so careless,” announced Blackie air-
ily. “There's the telephone, Jim; our car is ready."
Pete Scallop was standing in the doorway of the
Cinderburg Eureka Auto-Motor Washing-Machine
Company when Wallingford's car drove up, and his
upper teeth immediately dropped. Deftly restor-
ing them to their place with a click of his jaws, he
waited for no greetings, but hurried into his private
office and called up the chief of police.
“This is P. H. Scallop," he briskly stated. “I
want you to send a policeman down here right
away to arrest J. Rufus Wallingford.”
"Is he back in town?” asked Jack Tawney.
“ Where's he stopping ? New Auditorium?”
“I suppose so, but I don't know; I just saw
ay
him.”


230 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
“ What do you want him arrested for?”
“Obtaining money under false pretenses.”
“When?”
“When he was here the time before. Hurry an
officer right down here, and I'll hold him till your
man comes."
“Excuse me,” begged Chief Tawney; “ I'll not
arrest that man without a warrant, and I'd advise
you to see a lawyer before you swear one out.
He's too smooth to come back here if there was any
legal danger; and I'll not burn my fingers with
him."
Mr. Scallop almost choked on his teeth. “You
talk as if you were a friend of Wallingford!” he
indignantly charged.
“I am," frankly admitted the chief of police.
“If I had to lock him up, I'd give him the south-
east cell, put a canary bird, a geranium and a side-
board in it, and spend most of my time there. I'm
glad he's back. He's a live member.”
"He beat me out of ten thousand dollars !" com-
plained Scallop. “You're a fine administrator of
the law! Your duties mean nothing to you!”
"I guess I have been slack," agreed Tawney;
“ or I'd have pinched you for having the ten thou-
sand in the first place. You never had a cent till
you stole your partner's patent."


QUICK PROFITS
231
“ I'll lay in a complaint against you to the
mayor!” flared Scallop.
"I wish you would,” invited the chief. “ It
hasn't happened for two days, and I'm lonesome.
The mayor's here now. You want to speak to
him?”
“Hello, Mr. Scallop!” cheerily called Walling-
ford, entering the door. “Beg your pardon for
interrupting. Finish your conversation.”
“Do you know what I was telephoning about?”
was the return greeting of Mr. Scallop as he slammed
the receiver on the hook. “I was just talking
with the police department about your arrest.”
" Is that so?" inquired Wallingford interestedly.
“Is Jack Tawney still chief of police?”.
The hopeless injustice of things dawned upon
Pete Scallop. “Where's my ten thousand dol-
lars?" he demanded.
Wallingford frowned in perplexity. “ By
George, I can't remember what I did with it,” he
acknowledged. “What did we spend it for,
Blackie?”
“Why, don't you remember?” returned Blackie
reproachfully. “We paid our bar bill.”
“It's really not a thing to be joked about, Mr.
Scallop,” stated Wallingford, changing from his
jovial air to his gravest business impressiveness.
SS
Ssiveness.


QUICK PROFITS
233
make these d xidends possible I have paid this visit
to your city, and I wish the hearty cooperation of
all the stockhc ders.”
“ That's a rood joke," returned Mr. Scallop,
laughing bitter. 1: “You don't expect me to be-
lieve that the strk in the Bang Sun Engine Com-
pany will ever b, worth the paper it's printed on.
Why, Ed Bang weight back in my shop now,
making my patteri.. t eighteen dollars a week, and
if you say sun engir : 12 him, you want to dodge.”
“I've no doubt that Qu've deviled the life out
of him," acknowledged Wallingford. “It is Mr.
Bang whom I came to see, however; and to-night,
as the majority stockholder of the Bang Sun En-
gine Company, I intend to call a meeting of all
the stockholders at the New Auditorium. We'll
discuss the affairs of the companies over a nice
little dinner.”
“I'd rather have you vote my stock," sneered Mr.
Scallop. “What'll you give me for it?”
"A thousand dollars," replied Wallingford
promptly.
“Get your money ready," directed Mr. Scallop,
and grabbed the knob of his safe, which he began
to turn with feverish activity. He overran two
of the numbers on the first attempt; slowed down
a little, overran one on the second; was deliberate
upon the third, and opened the safe. He glanced


234 WALLINGFORD IN HIS I RIME
over his shoulder as he did so. Willingford, big,
impressive, solid and prosperous-looking, had the
money in his hand and was waiting quietly but
eagerly. Mr. Scallop scratched his head and delved
into the papers in a little steel d.lwer. He drew
out the Bang Sun Engine ctutificates slowly.
“What do you intend to do? he asked.
“ Buy your stock," returnert Wallingford crisply,
laying down the money upun Mr. Scallop’s dingy
old desk.
"I mean about the engine?” corrected Mr. Scal-
lop, now holding his reftificates against his stom-
ach.
“It won't cost you anything to come up to the
meeting to-night at seven and find out,” Walling-
ford suggested. “I'd be glad to have you, even if
you are not a stockholder. I suppose you have all
the certificates there," and he quietly reached out
for them.
Pete Scallop mashed those certificates against his
vest. “I don't think I'll sell till after the meeting,”
he avariciously decided, and put his certificates back
in the safe. “ You want to see Bang, don't you?”
and going to the door, he called: “Hey you, Runt;
send Ed Bang here!”


CHAPTER XII
YOU CAN'T LOSE
TD BANG, an aged-looking young man with a
e constant trace of bewildered appeal in his pale
blue eyes, but with sturdy muscles under his grimy
blouse and jumpers, strode into the office presently
with an habitual deep-creased frown, which disap-
peared when he saw Wallingford.
“ I'm delighted to see you again,” he said, shaking
hands heartily with the promoter, while his face
lighted with pleasure.
“Delighted!” snarled Scallop. “You must be a
fool, Ed! Don't you know this is the man that
made a monkey of you, and dragged you so deep
in debt you won't pull out for years? ”.
“I was in debt, anyhow, and a little more doesn't
matter," Ed replied, still holding Wallingford's
hand. “Mr. Wallingford made a millionaire of me
for three months, and I'll never forget it.”
“You've been working on your invention ever
since I left here," guessed Wallingford shrewdly.
Scallop laughed his scorn. “He's been working
on washing-machine patterns,” he stated with con-
235


236 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
viction. “He had enough of sun engines to last
him a lifetime.”
“How do you know?” retorted Wallingford.
“How's the machine coming on, Ed? ”
“ Rather slowly,” confessed Mr. Bang, with a
guilty glance at his employer. “I haven't much
money to spend in experiments, and besides that,
I'm going more carefully."
“I had a right to know this,” indignantly de-
clared Mr. Scallop. “Why didn't you tell me?”.
“Because you'd have kidded him to death,” Wal-
lingford answered for him. “I suppose your new
models are up at the house, Mr. Bang. If Mr.
Scallop will let you off, I'll go up there with you
and look at them.”
“Of course he can go,” said Mr. Scallop hastily.
.“I'll go along."
In Ed Bang's wood-shed, they inspected the crude
coils and bars which formed Mr. Bang's latest
model of his sun engine, and Pete Scallop looked
coldly upon the dynamometer which presently regis-
tered its coefficient of power in the early winter
sunlight.
"I don't see where you've made any improve-
ment,” he criticized with much dissatisfaction. “It
was a neater-looking machine the last time I saw it,
and it run a bicycle wheel.”


YOU CAN'T LOSE
237
Wallingford chuckled, closing his eyes and heav-
ing his big shoulders. “That was one of my stock-
selling tricks,” he confessed. “That wheel was so
delicately balanced that we had to keep gnats off the
rim for fear they might start it spinning backward;
moreover, I flattened the steel spokes of that bicycle
wheel, and set them diagonally, so that the wind
would help it.”
“You hear him, gentlemen!” cried Mr. Scallop,
clutching at his teeth. “He admits that he tricked
us.”
“Was clever, wasn't it?” agreed Wallingford,
pausing to admire himself. “Look at this dyna-
mometer, though, Mr. Scallop. The machine is the
same size, and that little needle is more than four
times as far around the dial as it was the last time
I saw a test. Mr. Bang has been making steady
progress with pitifully inadequate means, and I, for
one, believe that he will solve his problem.”
“Do you think so?" asked Mr. Bang with pa-
thetic eagerness. “Sometimes I believe I'm a mere
drunkard over this thing, and ought to quit it.”
“Don't you do it,” Wallingford heartily and sin-
cerely encouraged him. “Plugging away like that
at anything is bound to win, and when you hit it,
ou'll make us all millionaires. Bring your model
own to the holders' meeting at the hotel to-


238 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
night. Dinner will be served at seven, but I'd like
to have you there a little earlier. I must hustle
now; I've a lot to do.”
They found Mr. Steele, in a red cravat and a
gray waistcoat, waiting anxiously for them at the
hotel. Wallingford saw him first, and thanked his
lucky stars for that. He jerked Blackie into the
first entrance to the bar, and handed him a hun-
dred dollars.
“ Your part in this opera buffet will be to keep
this Steele person conspicuously hidden," he di-
rected. “I have to work fast, and he'd make me
stutter.”
Blackie took the money listlessly. “Do you mind
if I give him knock-out drops ?” he inquired.
“Poison him if you want to," consented Walling-
ford, and going out upon the side street from the
bar, slipped into the ladies' entrance and up the
rear stairway to the governor's suite, where he tele-
phoned to the stockholders of the long-torpid Bang
Sun Engine Company, inviting them to the banquet
that night and to the special meeting. This exciting
and sometimes almost riotous duty performed, and
an appointment made by telephone with a certain
Mr. Gettitt, he once more slipped down the rear
stairway.
Mr. Gettitt was superintendent of the electric-
light plant and was a thick-necked party with an
.


YOU CAN'T LOSE
239
acute alcoholic aura. “It's a treat to see you, Wal-
lingford,” he declared with fervor. “I heard you
was in town before you telephoned, and I figured
right away there'd be something in it for me. You
stung me the last time with nothing but stock, and
there's no market for waste paper any more. I'll
take cash this time, thank you."
“You'll take a share in a nice business,” Walling-
ford corrected him. “The city owns the electric-
light plant, I believe?”.
“ It thinks it does.”
“That makes your position a political one. Does
the board of aldermen make any restrictions on your
contracts ? ”
“We are all brothers," Mr. Gettitt complacently
affirmed.
Wallingford drew a paper pad toward him and
produced a lead-pencil.
The dear friends and fellow stockholders of Mr.
Wallingford came to the meeting with a snickering
determination to skin him alive, and hang his hide
upon the outer wall to dry, if he so much as hinted
at involving them in a penny of expenditure; but
they came, which was the main object, and they en-
joyed the exquisite dinner that Henri had con-
cocted in honor of his friend Wallingford's return;
also they enjoyed Wallingford himself, big, genial,
thoroughly at ease, and comporting himself as one


YOU CAN'T LOSE
241
Manufacturers' Bank, to his neighbor, Pete Scallop.
“He led us like a drove of sheep, and made us beg
to be sheared. The man's a wonder!”.
“He's a crook," snapped Scallop. “Wait till he
gets through. You'll see he has some big graft to
work on us." :
As for his resigning the presidency and leaving
the city, Mr. Wallingford had other business inter-
ests, and as Mr. Bang's engine was not at that time
ready for the market, as they all knew when they
invested, he could not afford to remain; so in order
not to clog the operations of the company, he had
resigned his office. He was sorry now that he had
done so. As much as he liked these gentlemen per-
sonally, he was compelled to charge them with
having been remiss in their duties, not only to them-
selves but to him!
The eleven stockholders and the five newspaper
men then present looked at one another in incredu-
lous amazement. Pete Scallop recovered his teeth
with difficulty. President Morley, of the Commer-
cial Bank, observed to Mr. Paulson:
“I knew it. The man will be figuring, in some
way or other, that we owe him money."
Mr. Paulson's hard eye rolled coldly in the direc-
tion of Mr. Wallingford, and his cheek-bones grew
turkey-wattle red. “He's given us over a year to
make some more money for ourselves, and now he's


242 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
come for it,” he dourly opined. “You just wait.
He'll ask for it in a little while."
Wallingford, meantime, was demanding, with
some heat, to know what they had done in his ab
sence, and since no one arose to inform him, he
told them what they had done. They had become
panic-stricken the minute his back was turned, had
let the company die for lack of support, and had
allowed Mr. Edward Bang to quit his experiments
upon a device which, when completed, was bound to
become the most marvelous invention of the twenti-
eth century! They had allowed Mr. Bang, the
brains and backbone of their company, to go back
to work for a paltry eighteen dollars a week. Bur-
dened with debt and saddled with a family, faithful
Edward Bang had, nevertheless, put in his time
doggedly for their benefit, and had brought their
motor to a point where it was four times more pow-
erful than it was when the companies were formed.
It was not yet ready for the market, but now was
not the time to desert it. If the people of his own
town, who were most interested, would not support
Mr. Bang in his experiments, by the Eternal, Mr.
Wallingford would! Here was a thousand dollars,
and he threw the money upon the table in crisp
crackling bills!
He asked no one to share his faith in the Bang


YOU CAN'T LOSE
243
Sun Engine. He asked no stockholder to put up a
dollar for further experiments. He did not want a
penny out of Cinderburg, but he would ask them to
disburse his money. They need not hesitate to ac-
cept it; he would get it back! He would appoint
Mr. Morley and Mr. Shellbarker, of the Cornercial
and the Manufacturers' Bank, respectively, to take
charge of this thousand dollars. Out of it Mr. Bang
was to be paid twenty-five dollars a week to devote
his time entirely to experiments upon his sun engine;
and out of it, also, was to be purchased such ma-
terials as Mr. Bang might need for those experi-
ments. When that fund was exhausted, let them
communicate with him.
Gentlemen, his mission in Cinderburg was ended!
The stockholders of the Bang Sun Engine Com-
pany looked upon one another with amazement as he
sat down. They were keenly disappointed. The
genial Wallingford had not asked them for money,
nor left himself a loophole to ask for it!
“He'll get it back, eh!” ejaculated Pete Scallop
to his neighbor, Shellbarker. “ I'm going to stop
that! He ain't going to get a hook on us with his
thousand dollars," and Peter arose to save his fel-
low members.
It was mighty kind of Mr. Wallingford to pro-
pose to foot the bills for further experiments. How-


YOU CAN'T LOSE
245
nature, in her most reckless moment, ever perpe-
trated.
When the two gentlemen of fortune had retired
to the governor's suite, in the wee small hours,
Blackie groaned dismally, and slid his coat from
his shoulders to the floor, where he let it lie. Wal-
lingford picked it up for him.
“What's the matter with you?” he asked, sud-
denly remembering that Blackie had scarcely spoken
except under compulsion.
Blackie struggled with his collar. It was stub-
born, and he tore it off, then he plumped himself
down in a chair and surveyed the wreck. “Your
backer's got on my nerves till I'm homesick,” he
suddenly confessed. “I want to see my wife. Jim,
Violet Bonnie Daw is about the best fellow that
ever waved a plume.”
Wallingford sat down opposite him and was
very quiet for a while. “I wonder how. Fannie
and the boy are doing,” he mused.
The papers were very kind to Mr. Wallingford.
True, remembering how they had shredded his char-
acter after his former departure, they could not
consistently be too enthusiastic about him now, but
they gave him vast credit for good intentions, and
hailed his broad geniality as a distinct accession to
the town's male social life. They were glad, in-


246 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
deed, that he and his clever companion, Mr. Daw,
had decided to remain among them a few days for
a rest, and to renew old associations. In more seri-
ous vein they spoke of the once-derided sun engine,
and chronicled the fact that the energetic Mr.
Wallingford was backing a new series of experi-
ments, which were to be continued, quoting Mr.
Wallingford, until the invention was perfected, or
as long as Mr. Bang lived.
In the meantime, Mr. Wallingford was very busy
in Mr. Bang's little home workshop with some
devices of his own, in the making of which he used
small metal angle bars and window-glass and paint;
and being an excellent workman in almost any line,
he enjoyed himself hugely, in company with Mr.
Bang, for three or four days, while Mr. Daw, suf-
fering intensely, kept Mr. Steele occupied and quiet.
On Tuesday, the city council received and ac-
cepted an extremely modest bid from the heretofore
unknown People's Advertising Company for the use
of certain transparencies in connection with the
city's street-lamps, and for the exclusive right to
use illuminated advertising trolley-cars, the traction
company also being a municipally owned institution.
Upon the same day, on Pinkus Hill, opposite the
foot of Main Street, workmen were observed erect-
ing an enormous, square, white bill-board. Upon
Wednesday, Mr. Wallingford, followed by a big


248 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRII IE
in luck to have such an active and energetic part-
ner.”
“By George, you're a smart man, Wallingford!”
exclaimed Steele in delight. “Just we three in it,
eh?”
“Well, the fact of the matter is that Mr. Kreiger
owns two-thirds,” Wallingford cheerfully told him.
“I sold him my share.”
“ The dickens you say!” expostulated Mr. Steele.
“Why, Kreiger will run the business! He'll de-
vote all these franchises to advertising the Kreiger
store, and he'll do the work at cost. “I'll be lucky
to get my salary."
“Don't you worry about that,” Wallingford
soothed him; “ Mr. Kreiger is the best business man
in this town; moreover, conditions are going to
change to your advantage. Take my word for that.
Will you?”
“ There's nothing else in sight.”
“Here's your five thousand back," and Walling-
ford handed him the money.
Mr. Steele took the five thousand without a pro-
test, but was silent for a while. “How much did
you get for your share?” he wanted to know.
“ Seveny-five hundred dollars.”
“Why, that only leaves you twenty-five hundred!
I'm a little bit surprised, Wallingford, that you
would fuss around with such a small game."


YOU CAN'T LOSE
249
“Don't you worry about me,” replied Walling-
ford. “Good-by, Steele."
On the day of the Kreiger opening, the residents
of Cinderburg enjoyed an entirely new street-orna-
ment. Over the electric light at every corner had
been placed, by an army of workmen through the
night, a huge transparency advising that this corner
was seventeen blocks from Kreiger's, or twelve, or
five, or whatever the distance might be, and in
each case, a hand pointed the way. The roof above
the ventilator windows of every street-car was boxed
in another transparency, framed of interchangeable
letters, which told of the bargains at Kreiger's. At
the foot of Main Street, big, electrically interchange-
able letters also told, in white upon a black back-
ground, that thread was two cents, that pianos were
ninety-five dollars, that silk petticoats were ninety-
eight cents, that bread was three loaves for a nickel,
for this day only, and at Kreiger's alone in all the
world! At night, the whole Pinkus Hill, and all
the town, glowed and blazed with the name of
Kreiger. It was impossible to escape from it any-
where, and if Tom or Dick or Harry, or, rather,
Mrs. Tom or Mrs. Dick or Mrs. Harry, planned to
spend money for anything under the sun, it was
impossible to dissociate that spending with the name
of Kreiger!
It was then that the storm broke loose, and that


250 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
palladium of the people, the free and independent
American press, inspired by Horndyke and Rams-
dale, came rushing to the defense of an outraged
citizenry. The public utilities, light and transporta-
tion, had been subverted to private gain, and woe
betide any misguided person who had taken part
in trafficking with the people's rights in this high-
handed manner! Corrupt politics was at the bot-
tom of it all, and the papers in town, all except the
sturdy little Item, which carried no Horndyke and
Ramsdale advertising, were singularly unanimous in
deploring the sordid commercialism of municipal
affairs. The matter was to be looked into! Pol-
itics must be purified! The city must be cleaned;
and in the meantime, certain recent ordinances,
which had disposed of valuable city franchises
and concessions for a mere song, must be re-
pealed!
The Blade, the Courier, the News and the Trum-
pet, all carried slashing editorials denouncing the out-
rages; and that there might be no lukewarmness
about these editorials, Mr. Horndyke, who was a
Democrat, wrote half of them, and Mr. Ramsdale,
who was a Republican, wrote the other half. They
were awakened, at last, to their duties as citizens,
were these gentlemen, and they lambasted any per-
son who had to do with the iniquity; Mr. Gettitt,
the board of aldermen, the merchant who would


YOU CAN'T LOSE
251
make use of such knavishly acquired facilities, the
People's Advertising Company, Mr. Steele, and last
but not least, that arch-scoundrel, J. Rufus Walling-
ford!
There was a fine specimen, this man Wallingford!
And certain leading citizens of Cinderburg should
be ashamed to have been so gullible. He had tricked
them again! Buying apparent immunity from the
just consequences of his former swindling rascality
for a paltry thousand dollars, he had in reality
purchased, also, the invaluable advertising rights to
Pinkus Hill, for a quarter of a century, with the
same money!
There was much more reflecting upon the asinine
idiocy of Cinderburg's financiers and politicians in
allowing that smooth grafter and all-round crook,
Wallingford, to strip them, first of their money and
then of their coinable possessions! Horndyke and
Ramsdale, being patriotic citizens and earnest mer-
chants, were very much wrought up; moreover,
editorials were a brand-new toy, and fully as attract-
ive to these grown men as a shiny razor to a
baby!
Shortly after the publication of these vigorous
and righteously angry articles, Mr. Puckett, a shad-
owy, leathery little lawyer, dropped in upon Horn-
dyke and Ramsdale.
“I have come to see you in the interests of my


252 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
client, who desires me to collect the hundred and
fifty thousand dollars you owe him.”
“All our bills payable put together don't amount
to that much at this season,” protested Mr. Horn-
dyke. “There's a mistake somewhere, Puckett.”
“Doesn't seem to be any, Mr. Horndyke," per-
sisted Mr. Puckett quietly. “My client instructs
me to obtain a settlement to-day or to file a suit at
once."
“ Your client? Who is he?"
“Mr. J. Rufus Wallingford,” Mr. Puckett in-
formed him, with an aggravating expression as of
one concealing a smile.
“ What! That thief!” exclaimed Horndyke,
grabbing his beard. “Where did he imagine that
he had been able to drag this firm into - one of his
nefarious schemes ?”
“He claims that amount for alleged libelous arti-
cles published in the four newspapers under your
control."
Mr. Horndyke's cheeks puffed with indignation.
“Why, you can't libel a burglar!” he declared.
“Wallingford is a known crook, and he'll only get
himself into trouble if he attempts to bring suit
against us. We'll look up his record for him, and
I don't imagine we'll have far to go."
" It is quite evident that you do not understand
the libel laws of this state," Mr. Puckett informed


254 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
When Mr. Steele heard of that settlement, he was
at first highly indignant. “Why, confound him!
This libel suit was his game from the start!” he
exclaimed. “I must study over how he worked
that. I saw him do it with my own eyes, and yet
I can't seem to get the hang of it.”
“ Your friend, Wallingford, is a great business
man!” said Mr. Kreiger admiringly. “I think I
shall begin advertising in the papers now that they
have a healthy ownership. That will let the Peo-
ple's Advertising Company have a chance for a big-
ger profit, Steele."
Pete Scallop dropped in at Ed Bang's workshop
upon his weekly visit of inspection.
"I hear that your friend Wallingford got a hun-
dred thousand dollars out of Horndyke and Rams-
dale for libel,” he observed, trying to believe that
the figures on the dynamometer meant something.
“I wish he'd have got a million,” returned Mr.
Bang. “I'd be for him if they had him in jail!”
“He's a smart man,” admitted Pete Scallop en-
viously.
Mr. Wallingford was planning a campaign in a
neighboring county seat when Horndyke and Rams-
dale's check, less Mr. Puckett's commission, was
delivered to him.
“This will make quite a little clean-up when Puck-
ett gets through with all the other papers in the state


YOU CAN'T 255
LOSE
LOSE
that poked fun at Cinderburg for letting us earn
a living there,” he commented, as he displayed the
check to Blackie Daw.
“ Thank heaven, we have laws in this country!”
remarked Blackie virtuously.


CHAPTER XIII
STRICTLY TEMPERANCE
DEFORE J. Rufus Wallingford arrived in Prize
D City, he spent a solid hour in searching through
his valuable collection of carelessly exchanged busi-
ness cards. His search was rewarded by the paste-
board of Thomas J. Hammond, Books and
Stationery, 346 Broadway, Prize City, Fine Print-
ing and Engraving a Specialty. Mr. Wallingford
studied the reverse of the card more earnestly than
he did the obverse. Here was microscopically writ-
ten in ink:
May, 1910. New York Central. Little peacock,
with a hooked nose and deep creases. Business
fusser. Rated $100,000.00. Commercial Club.
Wife paints miniatures. Three boys. Oldest,
Harry, in college.
Mr. Wallingford spent some fifteen minutes in
recalling the brow-creased countenance of Mr. Ham-
mond, then he strolled over to 346 Broadway, and
called upon the gentleman. Mr. Hammond, who
sat at a desk railed off in the middle of a very neatly
256


STRICTLY TEMPERANCE
257
kept shop, looked up with frowning abstraction as
Mr. Wallingford cheerily greeted him, and the dim
light of cold recognition shone in his eyes.
" I'm sorry I can't quite place you,” he confessed,
and looked back, with a frown, at a clerk who was
allowing a lady to go out without having purchased
anything
Mr. Wallingford's expression of cheerful confi-
dence faded as if he were very much disappointed in
not being remembered. “I recall you perfectly,”
he said. “We had a delightful conversation in
the buffet-car of a New York Central flier, one
morning last May, from Albany to Forty-second
Street."
“Oh, yes,” grudgingly admitted Mr. Hammond,
with a slight twitching of his creases. Passing the
time pleasantly with an affable stranger in a train,
and having the affable stranger bob up later in one's
place of business, were entirely different matters.
“Excuse me a moment, please,” and he intercepted
the purchaseless lady with an acutely pleasant in-
quiry as to whether she had found what she wanted.
Fifteen minutes later, the lady left with a book un-
der her arm, and Mr. Hammond, much cheered, re-
turned to his visitor. “Yes, I recollect our
meeting," he granted. “You gave me a list of
theaters and dinner-places, and I found it good
advice. Are you in the city on business? ”


258 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
“I'm not sure yet,” returned Wallingford, chuck-
ling; and hearing the chuckle, Mr. Hammond re-
membered that Wallingford had been the most
delightful traveling companion he had ever met.
“It depends on what business opportunities the city
has to offer me. First of all, however, I'd like to
know something about your local banks.”
Mr. Hammond almost turned pale. If it was
not etiquette of the road for affable strangers to
renew chance acquaintances, how much less was it
etiquette for affable strangers to mention banks!
“All our banks are very good,” he stated coolly,
with his eager eye roving from customer to cus-
tomer.
“Oh, well, if there's no choice, I may as well
take the nearest one to the Walsingham,” accepted
Wallingford, naming his hotel. “I feel a little
cautious about it, because I wish to open an account
with rather a good-sized check — seventy-five thou-
sand, to be more exact.”
“Indeed!” exclaimed Mr. Hammond, with an
instant change of manner. “I wouldn't go to the
Farmers' & Traders' in your case, Mr. Wallingford;
I think I should go to the Broadway National.”
He paused a moment to consider. Depositing a
seventy-five-thousand-dollar check for collection,
with a view to opening an account, sounded very
good. He owned stock in the Broadway National.


STRICTLY TEMPERANCE
259
Still, one never could tell. “Don't say I sent you,"
he warned. “I can't afford to show favoritism.”
“Thanks," said Wallingford gratefully. “I
quite understand. By the way, how is your son
Harry coming on at college?”
“Fine!” declared Mr. Hammond, with instant
responsiveness, and for the first time he really
smiled. “I didn't imagine you'd remember about
him.”
"I could scarcely forget him," replied Walling-
ford convincingly. “You showed me his photo-
graph, you know. It was the best portrait of a
fine, handsome, manly lad I had ever seen. He
seemed a trifle delicate, though. How is his health
now?”
“ Couldn't be better," returned Mr. Hammond.
“I must show you a picture of him taken last fall,”
and he opened a drawer of his desk. “Sit down,
Mr. Wallingford,” and he pushed forward a big
leather chair. “Have a cigar. Here is that new
photograph.”
Wallingford accepted the cigar and the picture
with equal apparent pleasure, and he surveyed the
latter long and earnestly.
“You've a right to be very proud of that!” he
observed with appropriate enthusiasm. “I have a
boy growing up, and if he only looks like this, at
the same age, I shall be highly satisfied. I suppose


260 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
he gets his splendid eyes from his mother. They
indicate a keen artistic temperament. Is this one
of Mrs. Hammond's miniatures ? ” and he bent for-
ward eagerly to inspect a pasty portrait of a baby,
framed in gold filigree.
“That's my youngest,” said Mr. Hammond
proudly. “I had it displayed at the National Minia-
turists' Exhibit, but if I had only known that per-
sonal influence was the leading factor in awarding
the prizes, I would have saved Mrs. Hammond the
humiliation. You must have a very good memory,
Mr. Wallingford, to recollect about my wife being
an artist.”
“On the contrary, I have a very poor memory,”
repudiated Mr. Wallingford, with a sad shake of
his head. “I meet a great many pleasant people,
and it rather distresses me to find that I only remem-
ber the most interesting ones.”
Mr. Hammond flushed with pleasure. The store
was quite busy now, and four customers were
awaiting clerks, but he did not offer to serve any
of them.
" It's very nice of you to say so,” he observed.
“How long shall you be in the city?”
" It depends upon local financial conditions.
How are they?"
“Not the best in the world,” replied Mr. Ham-
mond, with an instant lugubrious expression. “The


STRICTLY TEMPERANCE
261
new traction line, which was to have brought the
farmers in to trade, only takes our own people away
to spend their money, especially in the summer.
They have amusement parks in Riverton and Capi-
talia. Every time our mechanics have a half-holi-
day, or take one, they go out of town to ride on
the roller coasters, and come home with their arms
full of goods that should have been bought at home.”
“That's bad,” declared Wallingford, genuinely
interested. “What you apparently need is an
amusement park bigger and better than those at
Riverton and Capitalia.”
“We've often discussed it, over at the Com-
mercial Club," stated Hammond, with a worried
air;“ but no one seems to take an active hold of the
problem. We've even urged it as a club measure,
and might have done something in that way if the
Business Men's Club had joined us in the move-
ment."
“Is that club still retarding progress in Prize
City ?” inquired Wallingford, remembering Ham-
mond's bitter partisanship.
“ Still blocking the way," and a frown of anger,
this time, condensed Hammond's creases.
“ Such a condition is fatal to advancement,” an-
nounced Wallingford sympathetically, and he arose.
“ Well, I must trot on over to the Broadway Na-
tional.” He picked up the photograph on the desk,


262 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
and examined it anew, with admiration fairly ra-
diating from his big pink face. “ By George! that's
a handsome boy!” he exclaimed
Mr. Hammond reached for his hat. “I think I
have time to go over to the bank with you and intro-
duce you to the president,” he said.
The sight of a real seventy-five-thousand-dollar
check at the bank was very good indeed for Mr.
Hammond's imagination. That might be a bogus
draft, but such a possibility was extremely remote,
and, moreover, Mr. Wallingford displayed no dis-
position whatever to trade upon the fact that he was
known to have deposited so much money. He
merely settled down in his hotel and waited for
his check to take its due process through the banks.
If he had tried to buy anything on credit, or induce
any one to go in with him on any business deal,
or sell stock in anything, Mr. Hammond would have
been down on him like a flash; for Mr. Hammond
was a pretty wise man, and knew a thing or two,
you'd better believe! He had heard about all the
swindling games in the world, and had read about
still more of them, and had been fleeced on two or
three, or four, of them, in his earlier career. He
had cut his eye-teeth, all right, and though he al-
lowed himself to be highly pleased with Mr. Wal-
lingford as an agreeable companion who had a
proper appreciation for the worth-while things of


STRICTLY TEMPERANCE
263
life, including bright boys at college and wives who
painted miniatures and a man's position and influ-
ence in the commerce of his own city, still Mr.
Hammond was not one to be carried away entirely
with enthusiasm. He met Mr. Wallingford several
times in the course of the next few days, took
luncheon with him twice, and spent one very pleasant
evening at the Walsingham, where he drank more
champagne than was really good for him, and en-
joyed it, even in retrospection.
On Friday Mr. Hammond, by his right as a stock-
holder, learned that Mr. Wallingford's check had
proved thoroughly good, and that the stranger now
had seventy-five thousand regular dollars in the
Broadway National; so that night, which was the
club's official social evening, he made Mr. Walling-
ford his guest at the Commercial Club, and gave
him a two-weeks' card, which privileged him to
come up to the rooms whenever he chose, and buy
whatever he liked, and pay cash for it.
On the way up to the club, Mr. Hammond stopped
in at a grocery store and bought a pound of sugar
and a jovial wink for a dollar and a half. He ex-
plained this purchase up in the club, in a little room
full of lockers.
“You see, we don't have a bar in the Commercial
Club, on account of the strong temperance element
in this town,” he stated, as he took a self-pulling


264 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
corkscrew from its nail by the door; “and we have
a strict by-law which says that no liquors shall be
brought into the rooms; so we all bring in sugar, or
tea, or coffee, or whatever we like,” and with a
juvenile grin that struggled oddly with his per-
petually creased forehead, he opened his package
of sugar and drew the cork, whereupon he offered
Wallingford a water-glass to drink from.
Two other gentlemen, hatless and coatless, and
with billiard-sticks in their hands, walked into the
grocery-room, one of them laughing and the other
one trying to laugh. The one who was trying to
laugh took a key from his pocket, opened his locker
and produced a bottle, holding it sadly up to the
light.
“Third straight chocolate-drop Lybarger's lost to-
night, Hammond,” explained the laughing one.
“Anybody can beat Lybarger," retorted Ham-
mond, giving way to the boyish spirit of the hour.
“Mr. Wallingford, allow me to introduce Mr.
Woods, our leading druggist. Mr. Lybarger, Mr.
Wallingford. Mr. Lybarger sells the worst shoes,
at the highest price, of any man in the state. Mr.
Wallingford, gentlemen, is an Eastern capitalist
whom we hope to have join the march of prosperity
in Prize City.”
Mr. Woods and Mr. Lybarger, the former a fat
young man with an intricately veined face, and the


STRICTLY TEMPERANCE
265
latter a phenomenally lean man with painfully dark
hair and complexion, were pleased to welcome the
Eastern capitalist into their midst, and Mr. Ham-
11. und, under cover of the noise of the running
water at the sink, where goblets were rinsed, in-
formed fat Mr. Woods:
“Has seventy-five thousand in the Broadway Na-
tional, real money!”
“Mr. Wallingford,” invited Mr. Woods hastily,
“ won't you try some of my chewing-gum?” And
he produced a bottle from his own locker. “This
is some very special chewing-gum. Friend of mine
in Kentucky sent it to me. Twenty-five years old.”
“Stingy!” charged Lybarger. “You told me
that was all gone, a month ago."
"If I hadn't told you that, I wouldn't have had
any of it for Mr. Wallingford, by this time. Great
Scott, here comes Walt Hubbard !” And swiftly
pouring Wallingford's drink into a clean glass he
jerked his bottle back into the locker and turned
the key upon it.
Others came in, and Wallingford was introduced
to them, and they conducted him hospitably to the
reading-room. By the time he had sat in his chair,
every man in the Commercial Club knew that he
had seventy-five thousand dollars on deposit at the
Broadway National! He could hear them telling
it to one another, and he enjoyed himself very much.


266 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
Mr. Hammond was proud of his friend Walling-
ford, as the evening wore on. He was a good
story-teller, and he looked so jovial that, by the
time he had told three or four good ones, his audi-
tors laughed every time he said anything at all.
Funny stories were not the whole of this impres-
sive big Eastern capitalist's repertoire, however.
He knew business, from the retailing of prunes to
the financing of a subway, and when he turned
to the discussion of local conditions, and of general
business conditions in cities the size of their own,
the members of the Commercial Club, one and all,
dropped their respective rôles of boys on a holiday,
and with deep satisfaction resumed their own nor-
mal characters of eager business men, first, last and
all the time! They quit slipping away to the pro-
vision-room when he turned seriously to these vital
topics, and finding him cheerfully ready to answer
questions, they plied him with a brisk cross-fire of
them. Finally, hoary-headed Dan Blessus, who ran
a furniture factory on the profit-sharing plan, with
a daily chapel attachment, and obtained the manu-
facture of his output cheaper than any of his com-
petitors, asked Wallingford the question that had
been sprouting at the root of every man's tongue
for the last half-hour.
“If it were not presuming too far," he suggested,


STRICTLY TEMPERANCE
267
“ I'd like to ask you what your own line might
be; but I'm afraid to do so.”.
“ I'll save you the embarrassment of asking," re-
turned Wallingford cheerfully. “I am an indus-
trial physician.”
“And surgeon?” inquired fat little Woods,
whose sense of the ridiculous was far keener than
his sense of propriety.
There was a laugh upon this, and Wallingford
laughed the loudest, although, within him, he was
afraid of that laugh, lest theirs might turn sinister;
and there is nothing more dangerous. To lead
that laughter gently by the hand and turn it into
harmless channels, he told a funny story about a
doctor who amputated the wrong leg, and then he
slipped quite naturally back into the serious con-
versation upon which he had started.
" Aside from the fancy language," he stated, “I
have made it my work to find the commercial needs
of one city after another. I study each case as
carefully as if I were a physician, or an engineer.
Sometimes I find that a city has undeveloped nat-
ural resources, such as a bed of suitable clay for
making pottery. In that case, I would promote a
pottery, finance it, even invest my own money if
necessary, put it upon a paying basis, sell out my
interest, including the modest amount of stock given


268 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
me for my services in promotion, and go elsewhere.
Every city is more or less commercially incom-
plete, and has one crying need.”
The next question was so natural that six people
asked it at once. “What does Prize City need ?”
they chorused.
“An amusement park,” replied Wallingford
promptly. “My friend, Mr. Hammond, was keen
enough to see that local defect, and called my at-
tention to it in our first interview. I have studied
your city the entire week; I have made trips to
Riverton and to Capitalia, and have driven over all
your surrounding country, and my final conclusion
is that you not only need an amusement park, but
that you must have it. Tell me, what good does
the traction line do you?"
A sorrowful chorus assured him that it was a
delusion and a snare.
“It's your own fault,” Wallingford charged
them. “You do not furnish your people what they
want, and they go away to get it, as you would do.
You should not only provide them with, what they
want, but with what the people of other cities want.
You will then have outsiders coming here to spend
their money, instead of your own people going away
to spend theirs."
He was told that the Commercial Club had often
talked this over.


STRICTLY TEMPERANCE
269
“That's where you need me,” Wallingford laugh-
ingly informed them. “You do nothing but talk,
largely because you're absorbed in your own busi-
ness affairs. People need amusement more than
they need anything else. What amusement do you
give them in the summer ? I'll tell you. On Sat-
urday nights, you let them come down and walk
around and around Monument Square, and when
their legs get tired they can carry the children home.
It's no wonder they go to Riverton and Capitalia
to ride on the roller coasters, as our friend Ham-
mond puts it. Incidentally, while they're there,
they buy dry-goods, clothing, groceries, shoes and
millinery. You must reverse those conditions.
Build an amusement park bigger than those of
Riverton and Capitalia put together. If this project
is well carried out, you will get the trade, not only
of your own people, but from all the surrounding
farms and villages. Every avenue of business will
be livened, and money will circulate here as it never
did before. You merchants could well afford to
dig down in your own pockets, not only to build
but to support such a park, if that were necessary.
It will not be, however, for such places support
themselves, and make a tremendous profit besides. I
said, a while ago, that Prize City not only ought to
have, but must have this institution. Now, I go even
further. I say that, by George, it shall have it!”


STRICTLY TEMPERANCE
271
with Wallingford and inspect Dad Thompson's
farm, with its brook-fed lake, its wooded terraces,
its natural amphitheater and its providentially ar-
ranged campus; and the entire hundred and fifty
thousand dollars' worth of stock had been subscribed,
including Mr. Wallingford's modest, but adequate,
twenty per cent. for promotion. If they could
have found Dad Thompson that night, they would
have bought his farm; but Dad, they discovered,
had gone to Pringleville.
The Commercial Club went home quite proud of
itself; and wouldn't the Business Men's Club, con-
sisting of the direct and personal business rivals
of every member of the Commercial Club, feel
cheap, and sleepy, and fossilized!


CHAPTER XIV
MONEY TALKS
RLACKIE DAW arrived on Saturday morning,
took a gorgeous suite of rooms in the Hotel
Blessus, spent a soulful half-hour with a saxophone
that he had taken a sudden notion to master, read
the papers, ordered a bigger table into his sitting-
room, covered it with lunch, drinks and cigars, and
invited each of the local papers to send him a re-
porter.
" I'm a professional amusement-park promoter,"
he explained when they were all together. “I came
here to fill this town's summer full of shrieks of
laughter and whoops of joy. I see, by your clean
and wholesome family journals, that I'm a few
days late for the party, so I'm going to give a
party of my own. Who is this man Wallingford?”
Nobody knew.
“He's a grand little entertainer, though," opined
chunky Jinks Woods, of the Clarion, with a reminis-
cent smile. “The Commercial Club is going to
make him an honorary member for life.”
“So I see,” acknowledged Blackie Daw with fine
272


MONEY TALKS
273
contempt.“ This Wallingford person comes in
here, and tells the first six funny stories in the
Orator's Guide, tickles fifty business men under the
chin and makes them give him thirty thousand
dollars' worth of stock for coaxing them to spend
a hundred and twenty thousand.”
“Smooth work,” admitted Jinks, who acted as
spokesman for the party because he could eat, drink,
smoke and talk at the same time, whereas the rest
of them could not add the talking to their other
duties. “My fat brother Ben says Wallingford's
so smooth he doesn't see how he keeps his clothes
from slipping off.”
Blackie, with difficulty, suppressed the suspicion
of a twinkle in his eye. “There you are!” he
triumphantly exclaimed. “Your brother Ben has
him right. He's a smooth citizen. He has to have
his shoes sandpapered; and yet he cons the business
men of the Commercial Club into investment with
him, and he a perfect stranger! Your brother Ben
is a smart man!”
“Don't get me wrong," hastily interposed Jinks
Woods, dispensing with the top slice of bread on
another chicken sandwich and substituting a slice
of Swiss cheese. “Ben admires smoothness. He's
figuring up his bank-account to-day to find how
much money he can spare. He wants to give it to
Wallingford,” and he laughed so infectiously that


274 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
Blackie wanted to stop and shake hands with
him.
“The point of it is," persisted Blackie, “ that he
doesn't understand the amusement-park business.
He admits it himself. According to all the papers,
he has promoted factories, potteries, mines, real-
estate deals, and one scheme after another; but
never an amusement park. Now, I know more
about amusement parks than the man who invented
Coney Island. I've ridden on more roller coasters
and merry-go-rounds than any living human being.
I not only want to promote this amusement park
for business but for fun. I want to make the first
parachute drop. You couldn't coax this man Wal-
lingford into a balloon with a six-pound beefsteak.
I don't believe he's on the level about this park,
anyhow.”
The peach-faced youngster for the Tribune
speared another olive and hastened to Wallingford's
defense. “He has seventy-five thousand dollars in
the Broadway National,” he stated, with cold dis-
like for any man who would question that final
argument. “Jinks Woods, there, asked about it at
the bank.”
“Gentlemen, draw nigh,” said Blackie Daw with
a sudden and entire change of manner. “Observe
that I have no cuffs to deceive you," and he pushed
up his sleeves as far as they would go, holding


MONEY TALKS
275
:
fters stopittle black i passed wit
forth both long slender hands and turning them
about in the fashion of a prestidigitator. He picked
up a little black bag from the floor and set it upon
the corner of the table. He moved a platter of
sardines from before it. He waved those flexible
hands in front of him. Many years ago, Blackie
had dealt three-card monte and had manipulated
the walnut shells and the elusive little pea, and
no whit of his dexterity had passed with the years.
He opened the little black bag. Four of the five
reporters stopped eating.
“Now, watch me closely," ballyhooed Blackie.
“ Be sure that your eyes do not deceive you, for
the hand is quicker than the eye,” and suddenly
he whipped forth a thousand-dollar bill, spread it
upon the table, and held it down with a lean fore-
finger, cocking his head, thrusting forth his chest,
bowing his back, and placing a fist upon his hip.
Even the reporter for the German paper stopped
eating
“Will you hold tight to that, and let me feel
the other end of it?" inquired Jinks Woods, dis-
guising his real awe with a thin veil of mockery.
“Not yet,” declaimed Blackie, waving him
grandly away, and suddenly pausing, for a fleeting
instant, to grin gleefully into the eyes of each one
of them in turn. They caught that spirit of eternal
childhood, and from that moment, they understood


276 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
him, and were with him heart and soul. If he
had an ulterior motive that they did not under-
stand, they were with that, too. “Now, count,"
and with a motion as regular as that of an earnest
and sturdy washerwoman, he dived into the bag
with both hands, brought out another thousand-
dollar bill by its two ends and laid it upon the first
one. “Two," he counted aloud; and then, repeat-
ing the motion, “three; four; five; six; the deeper
we go, gentlemen, the more the wonder grows;
seven; eight; nine; ten; each and every one an
exact duplicate of its handsome little brother;
eleven; twelve; watch my hands closely, gentlemen,
to see that they do not deceive your eyes; thirteen;
fourteen; fifteen —”.
“We're astonished,” admitted Jinks Woods.
“How many are there?”
“Sixteen; seventeen,” resumed Blackie, with a
friendly grin at Jinks, and he did not stop until
he had counted each of the hundred one-thousand-
dollar bills in his possession. “How's that for
legerdemain?” he demanded.
“It's the finest parlor trick I ever saw," gulped
Jinks Woods. “If you don't clamp one of those
down and let me feel it, I'll never go away from
here happy."
“I'll give you a piece of one as a souvenir,"
offered Blackie promptly, and he solemnly tore off


MONEY TALKS
277
as generous a corner as banking caution would
allow.
Jinks accepted it gratefully, and with his eyes
cast upward to the ceiling, slipped it through and
through his fingers. “It doesn't feel much more
silky than a dollar bill," he stated with gravely as-
sumed disappointment; then he opened his watch-
charm, in which reposed a wisp of red hair, a wisp
of black hair, a wisp of yellow hair, a wisp of
brown hair and the silken end of his first and only
mustache. With these trophies, and the miniature
photo of a dog with one lop-ear, he deposited his
newest treasure. “Now put the rest of it away,”
he pleaded. “I have a penknife with me, and
I'm afraid of myself. Why did the government let
you move the mint here, anyhow?”
“ Just this,” said Blackie briskly, dropping his
banter immediately; “ I heard of this man Walling-
ford's seventy-five-thousand-dollar bank-deposit,
and I came prepared to call his bluff. He hasn't
invested a cent of his seventy-five thousand. He's
letting the members of the Commercial Club put
up the money, and he's taking twenty per cent.
I'll invest every dollar of this in a bona-fide amuse-
ment-park project, if the real business men of this
town will put up an equal amount. There's only
room here for one enterprise of the sort, and only
one possible location, as I understand it. I'm after


278 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
that enterprise and that location. Lead me to some
live members, let them appoint a treasurer, and I'll
pass him this pile of documents tied up in a pink
corsage-bouquet ribbon. Money talks. Do you
hear it?”
Jinks Woods put his fingers to his ears. “Put it
away so I can think,” he directed. “It seems to
me, Mr. Daw, that you and that pile of noise —
say! won't you please. put it away! — should be
very interesting to the Business Men's Club. I've
talked with half a dozen of our members this morn-
ing, and they think it's an outrage the way the
Commercial Club is always trying to make any
public movement a club issue. First of all, we
boys shall get a story of what you propose to do,
and then, if you'd like me to, I'll see some of these
fellows for you and arrange a meeting.”
"Jinks Woods,” declared Blackie with deep emo-
tion, “I shall have you as my sole companion on
the first roller coaster ride."
“That's a gospel promise," claimed Jinks, and
shook hands most cordially on it. He was glad
he had lived long enough to meet Blackie Daw.
They were tickled with each other.
The boys prepared to go. Blackie forced an-
other drink upon each of them, stuffed cigars in
their pockets and insisted upon clasping a fool
sandwich in the hand of each one as he filed out


280 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
“It's up-stairs, over the fourth and largest saloon,
on the right-hand side as you come up Blessus
Street. We have a dumb-waiter running up from
there."
“No, thanks; I'll walk up,” replied Blackie, and
bent a moment of earnest care over his luggage.
He took with him the little black bag and a huge
portfolio. He studied for a moment over the saxo-
phone-case, but, with a sigh, he left it.
Jinks Woods met him at the top of the stairs
with loud acclaim, and made him free immediately
of the dumb-waiter, into the yawning mouth of
which, after tinkling a bell, he ordered “two num-
ber fours," and placing a quarter upon the shelf,
shot it downward and waited. The number fours
having been duly swallowed, he led Blackie into
the flag-festooned front room, threw open the dusty
blinds and the windows, and told Blackie that he
owned the place.
“ Just make yourself at home,” he invited. “I'll
have half a dozen local patriots up here in ten
minutes," and he bustled out.
Blackie took instant advantage of his opportuni-
ties. He opened his portfolio, and took from it
an amazing collection of water-color sketches, col-
ored lithographs, photographs, half-tones and zinc
etchings of amusement parks and amusement de-
vices from everywhere. Bird's-eye views of Luna


MONEY TALKS
281
and lost Dreamland vied for attention with crude
newspaper sketches of the latest “switch-back”
erected at Thank's Grove. These pictures he placed
upon mantel-shelves, window-ledges, chairs and
tables until roller coasters ambled all over the room.
Every neck-breaking, nerve-racking, heart-stopping
device known to the world of pleasure was repre-
sented and in place, and Blackie was playing wheezy
rag-time on the antique melodion, when his firm
friend, Jinks, ushered in near-sighted Mr. Crom-
pers, who was the city's leading stationer and book-
seller. He said so himself.
“Mr. Crompers is the first man to seize upon any
important public project in Prize City,” Jinks stated.
“He is president of the Business Men's Club, which
he founded, and was president of the Commercial
Club before this organization split off from that
body."
“ You are very lucky you did not fall into their
clutches,” avowed Mr. Crompers, who was given
habitually to intemperance of the tongue. “They'll
start anything over there, and in two weeks, you
never hear of the scheme again. There's no ques-
tion that we do need a big amusement park here,
but it's a pity that the project should have been
taken up by men of the caliber it has. I under-
stand that Mr. Wallingford is a very solid man,
too, which makes it all the greater shame.”


282 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
“He's no more solid than my friend, Daw," de-
clared Jinks Woods. “Mr. Wallingford is not in-
vesting a penny in his amusement-park scheme,
whereas Mr. Daw has a hundred thousand dollars
in cold cash, right in that little black grip. I've
got a piece of it. This large fortune he will turn
over to any treasurer you fellows appoint, until the
members of the Business Men's Club raise an equal
amount. That sounds like on-the-level talk to me."
Blackie Daw flourished his hand in the direction
of Mr. Woods. “I have nothing more to say,” he
observed. “Here are some of the amusement fea-
tures I propose to build, to keep Prize City's money
at home. Here is my cash share in the proposed
investment, and I don't ask to handle either my
money or yours. I guess you don't need any argu-
ments as to the need of such an institution. The
arguments are all in this morning's papers; and
they're good. It's only a question of financing it
now, and of who shall build your park.”
“It's a question of the sort of men we get to
represent such an enterprise,” corrected Mr. Crom-
pers.
Blackie Daw adroitly shoved before Mr. Crom-
pers's eyes a small clipping from the Clarion.
“Here are the gentlemen who are financing the
other company," he advised.
Mr. Crompers read that list with snorts of in-


MONEY TALKS
283
dignation surpassing any which he had yet emitted.
“ Hammond, twenty thousand!” He paused for
an extra snort over the name of the other leading
stationer and bookseller. “ Daniel Blessus, fifteen
thousand; Walt Hubbard, fifteen; Lybarger, ten;
and here follows a whole shoal of little fellows,
running down to sums as small as a hundred dol-
lars! Why, it took nearly thirty members of the
Commercial Club to raise a hundred and twenty
thousand cash! I notice your brother's name down
here for a thousand, Jinks."
“I didn't know he had that much!” complained
Jinks. “He's been holding out on the family.
Anyhow, I'll bet he hasn't paid it in yet.”
“That'll be the trouble with the whole Com-
mercial Club,” eagerly seconded Crompers. “Well,
I'll guarantee to raise our hundred thousand among
not over ten subscribers. I'll take twenty-five thou-
sand myself,” and he looked again to make sure that
Hammond had subscribed only twenty.
" You will find the subscription list on the little
desk to the right, as you enter the door,” stated
Blackie politely, and waved his hand in that direc-
tion.
Mr. Goodall, a brisk man with a wall-eye, came
in just then, full of indignation that Prize City's
big amusement park was to be built by incompe-
tents from the Commercial Club, and he subscribed


284 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
one thousand dollars more stock than Dan Blessus,
who also ran a furniture factory.
Sam Harvey, a lumpy shoe dealer, who looked
about as well from one angle as another, was pained
that such a man as Lybarger should give any por-
tion of amusement to the public, and he set down
his name for twelve thousand dollars' worth of
stock.
“I'm only digging up the live ones,” Jinks con-
fided to Blackie in a convenient moment. “I won't
let a man up here who hasn't so much money his
relatives hate him.”
Blackie opened the little black grip and tore off
the corner of another bill for his aid and ally.
“ Thanks,” accepted Jinks, with no trace of a
grin. “I'll keep these till I get enough to make
a whole one,” and he hurried out to drag in those
other members of the Business Men's Club whom
he knew to be the most profoundly bitter toward
the Commercial Club.
It was nearing three o'clock when Blackie ap-
pointed an arbitrary committee of three to de-
posit his funds in the Farmers' & Traders' Bank;
it was nearing four when he had his full additional
hundred thousand subscribed; and it was nearing
nine before he got all his tentative stockholders to-
gether for an after-dinner meeting of organization.
“ The first thing of all to do,” Blackie told them,


MONEY TALKS
285
“is to secure the ground. Suppose you appoint
a committee to go out with me and inspect Thomp-
son's Lake, which I understand to be the only choice
location you have.”
They appointed that committee, and they did
any other little thing that Mr. Daw suggested;
and then they settled down to the real business of
the evening — that of entertaining and being enter-
tained. Mr. Daw obliged them with card tricks,
with sleight of hand and many other little feats
of remarkable dexterity, but his grand “stunt” of
the evening was when he obtained some English wal-
nuts, selected three nice clean shells, whittled some
little peas out of erasers from the ends of lead-
pencils, and ran a shell-game for them, accepting
no bets larger or smaller than one penny, but in-
sisting sternly upon collections. They were, one
and all, delighted with that novelty and admiringly
voted him as good as a professional.
They were pleased with Mr. Daw for many rea-
sons. If only they could secure the Thompson
property, they would show the Commercial Club
how to finance a real amusement proposition! A
hundred and fifty thousand was too small an amount,
anyhow, to build the extensive plant that the mem-
bers of the Commercial Club proposed to erect, and
thirty thousanı' of that was bonus stock. In their
own project there was no bonus, except the trifling


286 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
little two thousand which Mr. Daw had insisted
upon voting to Jinks Woods for his services in
promotion. Theirs was a solid company, and eighty
thousand dollars better than the other nne; nearly
double, in fact!
The news flashed from club to club of all that was
being done, and the sessions at both headquarters
lasted until quite a late hour, with the excitement
growing more and more intense. Jinks Woods
stuck with his friend through thick and thin, and
at three o'clock in the morning, the night clerk of
the Hotel Blessus, failing to receive any response
to his frantic telephone calls, ran up to Blackie's
suite, in pursuance of his stern duty, to find Jinks
listening raptly to the deep-toned saxophonic har-
mony of Home, Sweet Home.
Dad Thompson's farm was a diversified tract of
land, quite picturesque enough to look at, but of
no delight at all to a farmer whose artistic imagery
ran to fields of waving grain. There were hills and
trees and rocks, a tinkling brook and a leaping cas-
cade and a smiling lake, but there was no place to
grow corn!
Jinks Woods, who had hunted over Dad's farm
until there wasn't a rabbit or a squirrel left, was
the guide for Blackie's party of exploration, and
he landed them on the creek-road side of the farm,
in two automobiles and a gasoline-buggy.
as


288 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
enough such corners as this in the place, we'll run
an electric belt line through the park, with stations
at all the drinking-places; round-trip tickets, five
cents, with stop-over privileges. I can see where
the elevated belt line, with thirst-stations in the
sides of rocks and in tree-tops, is going to be a huge
hit, especially if we add a hospital car."
Chattering thus upon the possibilities of the place,
and giving his whimsical fancy free rein, Blackie
happily followed the leadership of Jinks Woods,
down through the beautifully picturesque ravine to
the open glade where the Midway feature of the
park would probably be established. A wooded
spur of the hill jutting into this glade concealed
a full view of it, and as they rounded this spur,
Blackie gave an exclamation of genuine delight
over the beauty of the crystal-clear lakelet that
suddenly lay revealed.
“It's a wonder!” he acknowledged, as the others
crowded up beside him. “ It's large enough for
boating, bathing and water games, and the shoot
the chutes can be put off in that little side bay.
Our roller coaster and the other attractions that
require plenty of space, can go over here, and even
spread up the hillsides. Over there will be the
main station of our elevated belt line. Right across
the lake – Well, look who's here!”
A group of gentlemen, headed by the command-


MONEY TALKS
289
ing figure of J. Rufus Wallingford, had just turned
out of the woods, at the other end of the lake,
having come in by the traction entrance, and had
paused abruptly to cast looks of black rancor across
the prettily rippling water.
“ Jiminy Jinks !” exploded Woods. “Look who
else is here! Foxy Dad Thompson."
“Hold my hat and saxophone,” hurriedly directed
Blackie, passing over the former article, and merely
imagining the latter; whereupon, in his bare head,
and with the tails of his black frock coat flopping
behind him, he sprinted at top speed toward the
gray-haired farmer who had just emerged from the
woods above the side of the lake.
Wallingford, with his weight and dignity, could
not afford to sprint, but he hastened. Dad Thomp-
son was a sturdy, bow-backed old chap, with a face
the color of a russet apple and two extremely blue
eyes far overhung by bushy gray brows. He wore
his Sunday clothes, relieved from stiffness by a
blue hickory shirt and a flop-brimmed straw hat,
and he eyed the approach of the thin-legged Blackie
with keen enjoyment.
“ Ho-ho-ho!” he laughed, with the hearty vocal-
ization that had kept him youthful at sixty. “I
got a skinny old mare that runs just like that, young
man, but she wins me a race at every fair.”
“I'd like to shake hands with her," laughed


290 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
Blackie, without panting a mouthful. “What will
you take for your farm?”
“I never do business on Sunday," asserted Dad
Thompson sanctimoniously. “How much will you
give ? "
“Ten thousand dollars, spot cash, on Monday,"
Blackie hastily offered.
"Well, I couldn't give you any answer to-day,”
avowed Mr. Thompson, with twinkling eyes; " but
that don't seem like much of a price.”
“ It's twice the value of your farm,” urged
Blackie.
“I didn't know how valuable it was till I see
all this stuff in the papers," retorted Dad, casting
his pleased gaze at the procession that was now
nearing them, headed by Jinks Woods, who bore
Blackie's silk hat aloft on the end of his cane, like
a banner.
“Is this Mr. Thompson?” asked the suave voice
of Wallingford.
Blackie Daw was instantly indignant at the in-
trusion. “I beg your pardon, sir,” he objected,
eying Mr. Wallingford fiercely. “I am at present
engaged with Mr. Thompson in a perfectly private
conversation."
Mr. Wallingford, coldly dignified, paid no atten-
tion to Mr. Daw's objection.
“I wish to buy this farm, Mr. Thompson,” he


MONEY TALKS
291
persisted, “if I can obtain it for a reasonable price.
What will you take for it?”
“I couldn't give you a figure, this being Sunday,”
announced Mr. Thompson; “but I've just been
offered ten thousand.”
“I'll give you twenty," quickly returned Walling-
ford.
“I might offer you twenty-five if I was handling
nothing but other people's money,” snapped Mr.
Daw; " but since half of the funds of my company
is my own, I must consult with my partners.”
“Give him twenty-five," directed Crompers, at
Blackie's elbow, and nodded with thin affability to
Mr. Hammond, who was just behind Walling-
ford.
“ I'll make it twenty-five,” bid Blackie eagerly.
Wallingford turned to his committee with pursed
lips. He consulted, for a moment, with his Com-
mercial Club friends in low mumbles, then he came
to Mr. Thompson and Mr. Daw with a new propo-
sition.
“We may as well make short work of this absurd
contest,” he suggested. “If it is agreeable to all
of you, we shall take five minutes for consultation,
and then offer Mr. Thompson written bids for his
farm; the highest bidder to get it.”.
“I couldn't promise to consider such bids to-day,”
Dad advised them; “ but I've no objections to look-


292 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
ing at what you'll be willing to pay me to-morrow,"
and he produced a silver watch, weighing about
half a pound. With the point of a jack-knife, he
pried open the lid. “It's just twenty-eight minutes
to eleven, gentlemen,” he said.
Mr. Daw and Mr. Wallingford retired with their
parties.
“ There's no use fooling with this proposition,”
said Blackie. “This man Wallingford is a reckless
cuss; I could see that from his eye. I had a good
look at him while we stood there talking. He
figures that mere ground is cheap at any price,
and he's going to bid high to settle it. I propose
that we offer Mr. Dad a cool clean fifty thousand
dollars, and have it over with.”
Crompers groaned. “Why, there ain't a hun-
dred-acre farm in the state worth that much! More
than that, I hate to think of Dad Thompson walking
off with all that money. He'll take every cent of
it and go away from the town, and buy a big
wheat-farm in Dakota, like he's threatened all these
years."
“Very well,” agreed Blackie. “If you don't
want Thompson to have the only good crop he ever
raised on this farm, we'll let the Commercial Club
and its leading citizens present this amusement park
to Prize City."
Lumpy Sam Harvey glanced over at lean Ly-


MONEY TALKS
293
barger in the other party. That eminent shoe
dealer was gesticulating vigorously.
“ I'm in favor of bidding higher than that crowd
can possibly think of, and settling it right here,”
he announced. “They won't dare bid fifty thou-
sand. They'd only have seventy thousand left to
build with. We'll have more than twice that
amount left."
A laugh broke out in Wallingford's crowd.
“ Ha-ha-ha!” scorned Jinks Woods. “Let's go
right to it, boys. Make this sporty offer that my
friend Daw suggests, and I'll give you back all my
stock except a hundred dollars' worth. I want to
save one share, partly for luck and partly so I can
kick against the management."
“ Gentlemen, Mr. Wallingford has his envelope
ready," observed Blackie. “We'd better take a
vote on this."
They looked. Mr. Wallingford held a white
envelope in his hand, and he was smiling confidently.
Mr. Hammond was smiling confidently. Mr. Ly-
barger and Mr. Blessus were smiling confidently,
and so were all the others of the Commercial Club
crowd.
“Damn!” remarked Mr. Crompers. “I vote
fifty thousand.”
That vote was unanimous.
Dad Thompson received a bid in each hand, and
--
-
-
-----


294 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
smiled so broadly that his mouth was entirely sur-
rounded by leathery curves. When he opened the
bids, however, he stretched those horizontal curves
into vertical ones.
“ Ho-ho-ho!” he pealed. “It's a dead heat,
boys."
“Who gets it?” demanded Jinks Woods, stand-
ing on tiptoe in his eagerness.
“Nobody, this being Sunday," responded Dad
happily. “Anyhow, it's a tie vote; fifty thousand
apiece. Guess you'll have to bid again, boys.”
Both parties wore most mournful faces. The
price of land was reaching an uncomfortably dizzy
height. Wallingford looked particularly gloomy,
and Blackie called attention to that fact.
“They won't go much higher," he confidently as-
serted.
“ They'd better not, or I'll let them have it, as
far as I'm concerned,” growled Crompers. “It'd
serve old Dad Thompson right if we'd refuse to
bid any more. Anyhow, if this crowd decides to
offer above five thousand dollars more, you may
count me out.”
Since Crompers hung to that resolution, and since
Blackie did not seem anxious to shake his resolve,
five thousand more was all they bid, and Walling-
ford's crowd won the contest, at sixty thousand
dollars.
i


MONEY TALKS
297
benefit of all her merchants, of both the Commercial
and Business Men's Clubs. Get together, gentle-
men; get together.”
“Three cheers!” screamed Jinks Woods, jump-
ing up in the air and waving his hat. “Now!
One, two, three; whoee!”.
Lybarger, feebly, and Blackie Daw, with a will,
joined him in that first cheer.
"One, two, three!” yelled Jinks, whose fervor
nothing could abash.
Blackie, Wallingford, Lybarger, lumpy Sam Har-
vey and a few scattering voices in each crowd joined
in that one heartily. Old man Blessus was seen
to open his mouth.
“Great!” shouted the encouraged Jinks. “Let's
make it unanimous. All together, now! One, two,
three; whoee!”
“Whoee !" came the strong chorus, with no silent
voice, and Jinks used his last remaining breath to
dance a hoe-down.
There was a moment of silence.
“How about it, boys?” suggested Lybarger,
glancing particularly at Sam Harvey.
“It seems sensible,” granted Harvey.
Mr. Hammond quietly asked a brief question
from each of his committee.
“I suppose the invitation should come from us,"
he acknowledged, addressing Mr. Crompers and his


298 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
party. “Mr. Wallingford admits that, with the
opportunities here, we shall more than likely need
your help. We should be very glad to have you
join us. It is a big work, and we all should have
a share in it.”
“We are glad of the opportunity,” graciously
admitted Mr. Crompers.
“Three cheers for everybody!” demanded Jinks
Woods, having replenished his breath.
In the proceedings that followed, the two fac-
tions mixed with a cordiality they had not known
for years, and Mr. Hammond found himself stand-
ing beside Mr. Crompers in perfect amity.
“You'll retain your stock in the new amusement-
park organization, won't you, Mr. Daw?” Ham-
mond inquired, as Jinks enthusiastically introduced
that gentleman. .
“No," refused Blackie sadly; "this has become
purely a local organization, and, moreover, I would
not invest where I held less than fifty per cent. of
the stock.”
“We're very much indebted to you for bringing
us together," returned Hammond.
“ That's so,” acknowledged Blackie. “I demand,
for my services, the first ride on the roller coaster,
for myself and Jinks Woods, and that you give
Jinks his stock in the new company, and make him
press-agent.”


MONEY TALKS
299
“We'll promise that,” laughed Hammond. “Eh,
Crompers ? ” And Crompers also promised.
“ Three cheers!” announced Jinks, but he was
so hoarse that nobody heard him.
As they rolled out of Prize City, on the same
train, on Tuesday night, Blackie inquired, “Well,
Jim, did Dad sting you on the settlement to-day?”
"No," chuckled Wallingford, “except to keep
that thousand he worked out of me at the auction.
I knew he meant to do that when I gave it to
him.”
“He's a queer old cuss,” laughed Blackie. “He
had more fun out of it than any of us. He's some
actor, too. It's a wonder to me he didn't feel
grouchy, giving up all that money to you."
“Why should he?" demanded Wallingford.
“He's been trying for years to sell that farm for
five thousand dollars. I paid him ten for it, the
day after I landed here, and sent him away till I
wired for him. He was glad enough to come back
and conduct the sale for us, at a six-thousand-
dollars' profit, and besides that, every farmer loves
to sting the smart Aleck folks in his nearest town.”
“ They're not stung!” indignantly denied Blackie.
“We've done them more good than your dinky
little thirty thousand dollars' worth of stock; and
my bringing them together was worth the fifty thou-
sand we cleaned up on the land deal."


CHAPTER XV.
BONNETS AND BUSINESS
VIOLET BONNIE DAW fixed her guilty hus-
band with a look of scorn, as she led him up
to a gorgeous array of stock-certificates that she
had spread out on the table in the Dutch library.
“ If you could only fall for a good cheap extrav-
agance like poker, or the ponies, I'd feel more as
if you could be trusted to bring back the change
from the grocery store," she chided him.
“I tried to lose that junk,” he sheepishly re-
turned, looking ruefully upon the collection of
shattered hopes. “Where did you dig it up?”.
“Behind that fussy red set of Mark Twain books,”
she replied, more annoyed with his attempt at con-
cealment than with his financial childishness.
“I never thought you'd bother that high-brow
stuff,” he confessed, running his finger slowly up
and down the seam of his trousers in embarrassed
discomfort.
"I have to see that they're kept dusted, don't
I?” she unrelentingly persisted. “Here's a wad
301


302 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
of stock in the Kimbely Mine, and some in a ginseng
plantation, and some in the Arid Irrigation Com-
pany, and some beautiful lavender certificates in
the Spanish-American Treasure Search Corporation.
There's a lot more of these souvenirs, but I'm
strongest for this Spanish-American memento. I
think I'd have bought some of that myself. Laven-
der is my favorite color. Well, what shall I do
with it?”
“Keep 'em,” Blackie indignantly directed. “ I'm
making a collection. I'm hunting some green ones
now.”
She laughed and swept them into a bundle and
snapped their original wide rubber band around
them, and as she passed him to put them back in
the bookcase, she tapped him affectionately on the
cheek with them. “ All right, Blackie,” she said.
“Go as far as you like, but, for the life of me, I
can't understand why a supposedly wise boy like
you, who used to invent these games, should be
such a mark for them.”
“I don't know myself,” Blackie puzzled. “I've
seen faro-dealers, night after night, blow in their
wages against a brace game across the street. I
guess we're all simps.”
“I'm glad you are such an innocent kid,” con-
cluded Violet.
An insistent automobile-horn sounded outside,


L: BONNETS AND BUSINESS
303
and Blackie grabbed his hat, cane and gloves.
“ There's Jimmy!” he exclaimed. “I have him
coaxed into playing billiards again, but in the first
game he invented a spring cue-tip. I don't believe
I'll ever make a sport of him."
"I wish you'd do something to keep him in town
a while,” Violet Bonnie protested, as she went with
him to the door.
“He won't do it till he has that half-million of
his own, aside from the pile he gave Fannie,”
Blackie stated with a shake of his head. “We're
here on this vacation because we're homesick.”
And she kissed him for that.
In the auto with Wallingford was a queer-looking
man, with no trace of a hair upon his head or
countenance, and Blackie smiled in delight when he
saw him.
“Hello, Onion Jones!” he hailed the stranger,
as he climbed into the machine. “I thought you
were in London with your hair-restorer."
"I was,” responded Mr. Jones, tipping his hat
to Violet Bonnie, and revealing the glistening
cranium that had given him his nickname, “but
I couldn't sell out over there, in spite of all the
business I showed them the company was doing on
this side. They wouldn't bite because I hadn't re-
stored my own hair."
“ They are a prejudiced lot,” agreed Blackie.


304WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIN
“ They'd think it was a fake, on this side, if you
had long hair. When did you come back?”.
“ About six months ago," answered Mr. Jones,
as they sped down the avenue. “I'm going to
Egypt with a new Turkish cigarette as soon as I
close up my business here.”
“Onion's in a funny jam," laughed Wallingford.
“He took a tip from his name, and organized a
four-hundred-thousand-dollar company to grow
Bermuda onions, and sold them a five-thousand-acre
plantation, and now he can't find the land.”
"Fellow I relied on to sell it to me wouldn't wait
till I collected the money, and sold it to a grafter
with a scheme for washing gold out of desert sand,"
complained Mr. Jones. “He never told me about
it till I wired him, last week, I was coming down
to close up.”
“ Turn it into a coffee plantation,” suggested
Blackie. "I know a worker that has a swell con-
cession about that size in Brazil. All your stock-
holders would have to do would be to drain the
water off.”
“Can't risk it," regretted Mr. Jones. “They're
so fussy nowadays that it's harder, every year, to
make a living, and with fast steamers and wireless
telegraph and the international police system, a
man can't go any place in the world that a red-faced
Irishman with a badge won't tap him on the shoulder


306 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
thousand for the land,” grumbled Jones. “I have
to leave a hundred thousand there to plant onions.
I feel like a piker!”
As the duly bonded treasurer of the P. M. Club,
Violet Bonnie hurried into the house-committee
meeting, a trifle late, and discovered her fellow
members eating such strawberries as she had never
seen. “Welcome, pretty strangers !” she ex-
claimed as she found, at the side of her own chair,
a tabouret upon which was a generous portion of
the beautiful berries, a receptable for the stems,
a dish of powdered sugar, and a finger-bowl in
which floated a pansy. “I don't know who started
this stunt, but if it's to be regular, I want a com-
mittee meeting every day.” And the assembled la-
dies echoed her wish with chattering delight.
“Mrs. Tarkins is responsible for this delicious
treat,” stated the secretary, with a smiling glance
in the direction of their honored president.
" I'm glad I voted for her," replied Violet, jerking
off her gloves and feasting her eyes on the
tempting fruit. The berries, each one with a crisp
gi'een stem, were huge and luscious-looking, perfect
in form, and uniform in color, and the first taste
caused a gurgle of joy. “It's almost wicked for
anything to be so good!” she declared. “I want
to go right where these grow, and live there.”


BONNETS AND BUSINESS
307
“ They are from the Onomo Strawberry Colony,”
explained the president, who was a small-faced lady,
with a small voice and still clung to a small waist
because her husband liked it. She arose and rapped
for silence. “Now that we are all together, I may
explain how we came to enjoy this delight":{l sur-
prise. About a week ago, I answered an attractive
advertisement of the Onomo Strawberry Colony,
which promised to deliver a sample of their fruit
to all who gave a telephone address; and this neat
maid brought me an exquisite little sweet-grass
basket of just such berries as these. The next day,
the president of the company himself called to see
me, and told me all about the Onomo Strawberry
Colony. It is five thousand acres in extent!”
“Is it all under cultivation ? " asked Violet Bonnie
practically.
“Not all of it, but it is to be,” Mrs. Tarkins re-
plied. “The president, Mr. Guile, is a very nice
gentleman, of splendid manners, and he was oblig-
ing enough to give me all the information at his
command. The Onomo Colony, in spite of its large
plantation, is unable, financially, to grow these
wonderful berries on all its land. What it wishes
to do now, is to take in enough capital to do so.
It has been incorporated for ”_ here she consulted
a memorandum —"for two hundred thousand dol-
lars. One hundred thousand is treasury stock for


308 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
!
development, and the other hundred thousand is to
pay for the land. There is only fifty-three thousand
dollars, worth of this stock left to be subscribed,
and immediately I was struck by a perfectly
STUNNING idea! Our building fund!”
A little ripple of applause, followed by a wave-
let of it and then a breaker, greeted this charming
thought. The very thing!
“The bequest of out late founder," went on
Mrs. Tarkins,“ precludes our spending the money
for anything but permanent headquarters, but it rec-
ommends our investing it at the highest rate con-
sistent with safety. Mr. Guile, whom I consulted
about this matter, states that the Onomo Strawberry
Colony stock ought to pay us not less than ten to
twelve per cent. a year, which he very earnestly as-
sured me was the highest possible rate consistent
with safety. Anything which promised more than
that, he told me, would not be considered conserva-
tive, and we must, by all means, be conservative."
There was no disputing those strawberries. It
would be strange, indeed, if five thousand acres of
berries like these should not yield ten to twelve per
cent. dividends. They ought to yield a hundred.
Instinctively everybody looked at Mrs. Cushing,
whose husband was a state senator, and who, in
consequence, usually made all the motions.
“Madam President,” declaimed Mrs. Cushing,


BONNETS AND BUSINESS
309
who was a stern business lady of most uncompro-
mising solidity, “I move that we invest the fifty-
thousand-dollar building fund, left us by our
revered founder, Mrs. Priscilla Murray, in stock of
the Onomo Strawberry Colony at twelve per cent.,
and that the secretary be instructed to notify the
treasurer to mail a check for that amount to - to
the company or to the president, Madam Presi-
dent?”
“To Mr. Guile, I believe — Mr. B. Guile, six-
thirteen Cloud Building,” Mrs. Tarkins eagerly in-
formed her.
“To Mr. B. Guile, president of the Onomo Straw-
berry Colony, six-thirteen Cloud Building,”
completed Mrs. Cushing.
Ten enthusiastic ladies, with luscious big straw-
berries held daintily in their finger-tips, seconded
that motion.
“Wait a minute," objected Violet Bonnie, who
had transacted more actual business than all of
them put together. “I move to amend that we
first appoint a committee to investigate the Onomo
Strawberry Colony."
"I have already investigated it,” the lady presi-
dent reminded her. “I think I mentioned that Mr.
Guile gave me all the information in his power. I
have held two interviews with him, and both of them
were eminently satisfactory.”


310 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
“Besides,” urged pretty little Mrs. Callory, who
never could wait for anything, “somebody else
might buy the stock. Only yesterday I saw the
dearest little bonnet, and I didn't decide on it right
away, and this morning when I went to get it, it
was gone, and I just know that somebody, to whom
· it will not be at all becoming, is wearing it right
now.”
" It doesn't pay to wait," agreed majestic Mrs.
Crane, who never would learn that she could not,
by any means, wear the same bonnets that looked
so charming on Mrs. Callory. “I saw the darling-
est little —”
Madam, the president, rapped for order. “If
we talk of bonnets, we shall never be through,” she
firmly announced. “I know the fascination of bon-
nets. The most exquisite pink and gray creation
I ever saw —”
The secretary began it, and all the other ladies
helped her rap, laughingly, for order.
“Question!” demanded the parliamentary Mrs.
Cushing. They very justifiably voted down Violet
Bonnie's amendment, which nobody noticed had
not been seconded, and carried the original
motion.
“Oh, very well,” said Violet resignedly. “Are
there any more strawberries? ”
.
Wallingford, Blackie Daw and Onion Jones were


BONNETS AND BUSINESS
311
deep in the excitement of Kelly pool when one more
member of the almost forgotten old guard walked
in upon thiem in the person of an elderly gentleman
with a bland blue eye and benevolent whiskers,
whom the trio hailed with vast enthusiasm as Rosy,
partly because his proper name was the impossible
one of Rosley Saint, and partly because he was such
an outrageously whited sepulcher.
“ There's a dollar and a quarter in the jack-pot,
Rosy,” announced the Onion. “We'll let you in
for forty cents. Take a ball and grab a stick.
Where have you been all these years?”
“ Almost everywhere,” replied Rosy, shaking the
leather bottle with one hand, and with the other
producing forty cents, which he slipped into the
chalk cup under the end of the table: “ Third
Avenue, University Place, Thirty-ninth Street, Cen-
tral Park West, the Bronx. Just now I have an
office in the Cloud Building."
“What's your line - mines?” asked Blackie,
chalking his cue.
“No; the public's a little sore on mines,” regretted
Mr. Saint. “They'll come back to them when
somebody makes a strike in oil, or gold, or lead, or
copper; but, just now, fruit's the thing. I'm closing
up a strawberry colony that will furnish me a nice
little vacation, if I can rope in some sucker to go
down there and plant something. What are you
after — the six ball?" And taking careful aim at


312 . WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
the green one, he scratched, and dropped ten cents
in the pool.
“You have to play it on the level, too,” sym-
pathized Mr. Jones. “Since preachers and cranks
have got to tinkering with the law, there's no chance
for a legitimate clean-up anywhere.”
“That's where you fellows have it wrong," re-
monstrated Wallingford. “A man is a boob when
he tries to buck the law. Every law made is a
friend to any man smart enough to give it some
study.”
“You'll misread one of 'em some day, and they'll
hand you a ten stretch, and you'll be a crook,"
warned Onion, with a laugh.
“ Tut! tut!” protested Blackie, straightening up
and chalking his cue with great nicety, while, with
his keen eye, he calculated a difficult angle. (“Let
dogs delight to bark and bite, and lollops gnaw the
rag, while wise ones smile, and plan the while, to
let them hold the bag.) Gentlemen, cast your eye
upon that ball with the pretty red belt on it. That's
papa's. Now; one, two, three, plunk. Pay the
professor!” And he swooped the jack-pot from
the chalk cup into his pocket with a flourish.
They paid the professor, enviously; and while the
rack-boy was setting the balls for the next game,
and the waiter was bringing them a drink, Wal-
lingford, whose commercial instincts were always


314 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
I did with this one, though. I built it too big. I
got hold of a five-thousand-acre tract of sand and
scrubby cactus, for two dollars an acre, and I wasted
it all on this one play. I could have cut it up into
a dozen strawberry colonies just as handy.”
Onion Jones almost shrieked with the pain of that
statement. “Five thousand acres !” he groaned.
“Lord, I wish I had it!”
“No chance," laughed Saint. “I have to turn
it over; but wish I didn't.”
“ There ought to be some way to bring you fel-
lows together,” said Wallingford thoughtfully.
“Rosy has five thousand acres of sand that's no
good to anybody, and Onion wants five thousand
acres of sand that's no good to anybody."
“He can't have it," insisted Saint. “I'm in a
jam over it, too. I wrote a new prospectus for this
new company and promised to put the entire tract
under cultivation. I thought I was cute when I
provided to lay aside fifty per cent. of the stock for
development, but I can't find anybody that's fool
enough to take that hundred-thousand-dollar interest
in the company to go down there and start digging.
Hand me a gook that will do it, can't you?”
“ They're all locked up,” chuckled Wallingford.
“ Blackie's the only man I know now at large
who might tackle such a stunt, and he doesn't know
company to set will do it, Canged Wallin


BONNETS AND BUSINESS
315
anything about strawberry culture, anyhow.”
“I invented it,” protested Blackie indignantly, as
he placed the white ball carefully for the break.
“You plant the little end of the seeds down, in the
rise of the moon, and water them for three nights
with a pink sprinkling can.” And he slammed into
the motley triangle of pool balls, calling magnificent
attention to the prompt disappearance of the one and
the nine.
Half-way through the game, Wallingford, after
a futile shot, lounged over against the adjoining
table beside Saint
“What's your office address ? ” he inquired. “I
may look you up. I think I see a way to please
everybody, and save your suckers half their money."
“They'd only lose it again,” declared Saint.
“But come over and see me, anyhow. I'm at six-
thirteen Cloud-Building."
The secretary of the P. M. Club being out of the
city, the president, Mrs. Tarkins, looked after her
mail with cheerful fidelity, and her face blanched
as she sat one morning in the lonely club office
and picked up an envelope bearing the embossed
red strawberry that Rosy Saint B. Guile used on
the stationery of all his fruit colonies. There were
unpleasant associations connected with strawberries


316 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
ever since she had mentioned to Mr. Tarkins the
lovely twelve per cent. investment which the P. M.
Club had made. Mr. Tarkins was a big crude man,
with a malicious instinct that he called a sense of
humor, and the investment of fifty thousand dollars
in real tangible money, in such an institution as
the Onomo Strawberry Colony, appealed to that
malicious instinct of his so strongly that he nearly
strangled with laughter every time he saw a straw-
berry. There had been none of his favorite fruit
in the house for a week.
The present communication, however, was not one
designed to increase the doubt and discomfort that
Mr. Tarkins had fostered, being merely a reminder
to attend the stockholders' meeting of the Onomo
Strawberry Colony that afternoon, a formal noti-
fication for which had been sent out ten days pre-
viously, as required by law.
Mrs. Tarkins, with a sigh, gave up an important
engagement with Mrs. Crane to look for the third
time at a still unpurchased fichu, and attended the
stockholders' meeting of the Onomo Strawberry
Colony.
There were no strawberries served at this meet-
ing, for Mr. B. Guile already had the money of
these people; but there was a slender, dark-haired
and dark-mustached gentleman who knew all about
strawberries, from the root to the table. He was


BONNETS AND BUSINESS
317
introduced as an expert strawberry culturist, and
though no one could understand the queer lecture
he gave, one was sure that he knew exactly what
he was talking about.
With the strawberry expert, who was startlingly
unlike the popular conception of a farmer or a
gardener, was a large impressive gentleman, with
a broad chest, and a round pink face, and a jovial
smile, and a diamond cravat-pin and ring that must
have cost fabulous amounts. This gentleman was
the business man of the combination, and both of
them were graduates of the International College of
Strawberry Culture! He proposed to form a sep-
arate company, to be known as the Onomo Straw-
berry Colony Cultivating and Marketing Company.
If the Onomo Strawberry Colony would give to this
branch company its hundred thousand dollars' worth
of treasury stock, the cultivating and marketing
concern would guarantee to place, in any bank the
parent corporation might designate, the sum of
one hundred thousand dollars in cash, to be held in
trust for the growing and marketing of strawberries,
on the five thousand acres owned by the colony;
and for no other purpose.
The stockholders, a miscellaneous collection of
city bumpkins, were delighted, not only with the
business partner and the culture expert, but with
the entire scheme. They could figure for themselves


318 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
how advantageous it would be to have thoroughly
competent persons like these go down to the plan-
tation, the soil of which produced such marvelous
berries, and providing their own money for the
venture, raise tons upon tons of the beautiful red
queen of fruits, for their mutual profit!
Mrs. Tarkins went away from that meeting await-
ing the happy time when she could triumphantly
serve strawberries at the breakfast-table, and listen
to her husband's embarrassed apology. She dropped
up to the shop where she had seen the tantalizing
fichu, and at the novelty counter she met Mrs.
Crane and Mrs. Callory and Mrs. Cushing, all of
whom had just succeeded in unsettling Mrs. Callory's
mind about a pink sun-shade she had been sure she
liked.
“I have the best news about our Onomo Straw-
berry Colony investment!” she enthusiastically told
them, and understood instantly why they looked
so glum at the bare mention of it. No doubt they
had all discussed it at home. “After the way in
which Mr. Tarkins made fun of it, I was frightened
about it,” she hurriedly went on; " but I attended
the stockholders' meeting of the company this after-
noon, and some gentlemen who have made it their
business to raise strawberries have put up a hundred
thousand dollars to put all our land under cultiva-


BONNETS AND BUSINESS
319
tion at once. I saw the check with my own eyes."
“How perfectly dear!” gurgled Mrs. Callory,
who, nevertheless, looked troubled.
“That's delightful news, indeed,” supplemented
the majestic Mrs. Crane, trying to base her intona-
tions and gestures and entire manner upon the
sprightly and vivacious little Mrs. Callory, whom
she adored.
" It is quite comforting," acknowledged Mrs.
Cushing, speaking, however, with much apparent
reservation. “We are ready to make our report
on quarters at the meeting to-morrow, Mrs. Tar-
kins.”
“That's so," returned the lady president.
“ There was a committee on quarters appointed.
Did you find anything suitable?”
All three ladies started to tell her at once, but
they gave way before the inflexible Mrs. Cushing,
who had the most incisive voice.
“Superb!” Mrs. Cushing assured her. “Mrs.
Kittson told us about it before she went away. An
entire little house, all to ourselves. Two immense
parlors and a dining-room on the first floor, a splen-
didly appointed kitchen in the basement, reading-,
chat-, and committee-rooms on the second floor, and
an assembly hall, used as a billiard- and pool-room
by the men's club which had it before, on the top


CHAPTER XVI
THE LITTLE HOUSE
M RS. TARKINS was overjoyed with the little
W house, which, though tiny, was ample for their
less than a hundred membership. It was conven-
iently located, it was ideally arranged, it was taste-
fully decorated, it was everything that a ladies' club-
house should be; and the men's billiard-table, which,
really, only needed a new cover to make it as good
as new, went with the place!
“And just to think,” said Mrs. Cushing, “ we
can buy it outright for —” here the three ladies
of the committee on quarters looked at each other
significantly -“ for fifty thousand dollars!”
Mrs. Tarkins had planned to have strawberries
for breakfast, but she changed her mind.
Violet Bonnie Daw attended the last formal
meeting of the P. M. Club-house Committee before
the summer adjournment, with much relief; for
house-committee work, in any club, is a thankless
task, and grows two enemies where only one grew
before. Being a busy woman, she was, naturally,
late, and she noticed when she entered the com-
321


322 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
mittee-room that there was a strange tension in the
air. The report of the committee on quarters was
being read in a hopeless tone as she entered, and
Mrs. Cushing, as chairman of the committee, closed
her report with these despondent words:
“Were the financial circumstances of our once
conservative club such as to warrant it, this com-
mittee would recommend that the property described
be purchased at once, but since the building fund
is committed to a speculation, entirely at variance
with the wishes of our revered founder, your com-
mittee can only point to the result of its labors as
one of those dreams of beautiful things that might
have been!”
Since the ladies had all discussed the situation
thoroughly before the convening of the meeting,
this report was received with profound dejection.
Mrs. Davidson, whose husband was so adroit a
promoter that he had never been jailed, had a sud-
den vivid series of ideas. “Why couldn't we get
out of taking that stock?” she demanded.
“ It has already been delivered,” returned Mrs.
Tarkins regretfully.
“Why can't we make them take it back?” Mrs.
Davidson wanted to know. “It's just as good as
it ever was."
“I asked Mr. Tarkins about that this morning,
and he only laughed,” confessed Mrs. Tarkins, with


THE LITTLE HOUSE
323
a snap of resentment in her eyes. Eight other
ladies, who had asked that same question at break-
fast, answered that snap with snaps of their own.
“Why can't we sell it?" persisted Mrs. Davidson.
“I received the same answer to that question
which Mrs. Tarkins did to hers,” laughed Mrs. Cal-
lory, who was not at all cast down about it. “I
gave Billy as good as he sent, but I guess we can't
sell the stock.”
“We'll have to get out of it in some way,” in-
sisted Mrs. Davidson. “We simply mustn't spend
that money!”
“It's already spent,” Violet Bonnie calmly in-
formed her. “I sent the check the next day after
the last meeting.”
“Oh, why did you do that!” implored Mrs. Tar-
kins.
“Because the committee ordered me to do so,"
responded Violet Bonnie.
“The committee ? ” inquired Mrs. Cushing.
“You mean the secretary.” She made this cor-
rection as a matter of form, feeling it her duty, as
the wife of a state senator, to instruct and to lead
in parliamentary affairs.
"I didn't wait for that," Violet explained.
“Mrs. Kittson left the city the night of the meet-
ing, and I presume that she forgot it.”
“ You didn't wait !” exclaimed Mrs. Cushing,


326 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
“Why don't you tell me to bring back a hundred
thousand!” scorned Violet Bonnie. “We could
use the money.”
The president rapped for order. “There is a
motion before the house,” she announced.
“Question!” cried Mrs. Cushing, and every-
body echoed it but Violet Bonnie, who said
something indistinguishable, and powdered her
nose.
The president put the question; there was but
one dissenting vote. The secretary pro tem, in-
structed by the chair, proceeded to write the notifi-
cation to the treasurer.
"I won't do it!” declared Violet Bonnie, omit-
ting, the second time, to wait for a written order.
"I won't be the goat! You want to send me up
there to be giggled at; and I've never let it happen.
You're taking advantage of a technical point that
you can't make stick. You were all crazy about this
strawbei ry stock. I was the only one who opposed
it. You made me buy it, and it has to stay bought!
I'll do one of two things: I'll wipe out that motion,
and us keep the stock, or I'll buy it myself.”
“Will you?” screamed Mrs. Callory in delight.
“Oh, you dear!”
The joy seemed so universal that Violet Bonnie
looked around her in amazement. She had ex-
pected that offer to sting them into a sense of


THE LITTLE HOUSE
327
gameness; but she had not seen the neat little club-
house, as nearly all the others had.
“I will,” she said calmly. “This kind of invest-
ment is one that I don't believe in, even if it's true;
but I'll take back what I said, and be the goat, just
this once, to see how I like it. Here's your check.”
She wrote them that check, and instructed the
president and secretary how to transfer the stock
to her name, and just before she went out, left, on
the president's table, a slip of paper with two lines
of hasty penmanship on it. It was her resignation.
Mrs. Kittson returned from her visit out of the
city, and her first call, the following morning, was
at the rooms of the P. M. Club, where she found
the notification of a called meeting of the Onomo
Strawberry Colony. Mrs. Kittson, who was a very
prompt and self-reliant secretary, and who was
authorized, by the constitution of the P. M. Club,
to represent that organization in all business mat-
ters, went immediately to the meeting, resolved to
protect those strawberries, at all hazards!
She found, in the office of Mr. B. Guile, a much-
concerned group of stockholders, all of them nec-
essarily amateurs in this line of business, since ex-
perienced commercial men would never have pur-
chased such stock as that of the Onorno Straw-
berry Colony without a thorough investigation,
which means that they would not have purchased


330 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
thusiastic strawberry-colony supporter, who was a
poet in private life and wrote advertisements for
a living, started the applause and planned a series
of Onomo jingles on the spot.
“These samples, too, three, four, and five," went
on the doctor of strawberry culture, “are from
various other portions of the Onomo tract; and
number six is a heterogeneous but not unfruger-
minous composite of the preceding four, which
range, as you see, from black to red. I might recite
to you the exact proportions of nitrogenates, phos-
phates, sulfates, carbonates, and other ates in each
specimen, if you would care to have me do so.”
He waited for a request, but none came. Walling-
ford toyed nervously with an unlighted cigar. On-
ion Jones polished his cranium violently. B. Guile
pulled out his tenderest whisker. “It would prob-
ably, however, prove slightly tiresome, and with
the permission of the subscribers present, I shall
omit the analyses, intensely interesting though they
are.” Relief sat enthroned on every countenance.
“ These five last specimens, ladies and gentlemen,"
continued Blackie, “are from the four thousand,
nine hundred and eighty-seven acres of your five
thousand not under cultivation, and taken in the
aggregate, they are astoundingly rich in the chem-
ical constituents without which strawberries can not
be grown.” A pause for happiness. “Individ-


THE LITTLE HOUSE
331
ually these constituents are not blended, and con-
sequently the entire four thousand, nine hundred
and eighty-seven acres are no good! Ladies and
gentlemen, I thank you," and he sat down!
A ghastly silence like that of a defeated can-
didate reading the returns fell upon the assemblage.
Mr. B. Guile arose and shed bland regretfulness.
“ The gentleman who sold us the Onomo Straw-
berry land is gone, and I do not know his present
address," he stated. “I am sure, however, that
he was honest, for he showed me an analysis of a
composite specimen, like that in the number six
jar, and it was perfectly satisfactory. His mistake
was in mixing the soil. Mr. Fragaria has been
more thorough, and he proves to us that, if the
soil of our five thousand acres were to be mixed, it
would be just what we want. As this is impos-
sible the land is useless to us. Immediately upon
finding this out, I hunted a purchaser, and I am
happy to say that I found one who will secure us
against loss." Relieved applause. “ Ladies and
gentlemen, Mr. O. Jones.”
Mr. O. Jones, who conducted his operations
without meetings wherever possible, conquered his
natural diffidence against public speaking, and
bobbed his sphere to the stockholders. “ I'm an
onion-grower,” he announced, looking vaguely at
nobody. “This land is good for onions, nothing


332 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
else. I'll give you a hundred thousand dollars
cash, this minute, for it. That's exactly what you
paid.” Once more he nodded his polished knob
and sat down.
The stockholders were all smiling. How joyous
it was that they would come so well out of so un-
fortunate an investment. They would all get their
money back. Mrs. Kittson gave a gurgle of de-
light. Why, the P. M. Club will be able to buy
that exquisite little club-house! She waited im-
patiently for some one to make a motion. They
were all too happy in their good fortune to say
anything, or to appreciate the need of speech. Mrs.
Kittson, a charming and modest woman who
dreaded the limelight, was, nevertheless, a woman
of courage, and reliable in emergencies. She arose,
and blushed prettily.
“I move we accept the offer,” she proposed with
quick incisiveness, so as to get through with it in
a hurry, and sat down again, covered with con-
fusion, but glowing with self-approbation.
"I thecond the mothion,” squeaked the corre-
spondence professor of elocution, without rising.
“You all heard the motion. Are there any re-
marks?” asked Mr. Guile, stroking his benevolent
whiskers.
Big and impressive, Mr. Wallingford arose, and
beamed upon all the company. “Before proceed-


THE LITTLE HOUSE
333
ing to a vote, I desire to ask Mr. O. Jones if he
is aware of the contract the Onomo Strawberry
Colony holds with the Onomo Strawberry Colony
Cultivating and Marketing Company?” he suavely
inquired.
“I've read it," admitted 0. Jones wearily. He
was not a good farceur.
“I would like further to ask Mr. Jones if he is
willing to assume that contract as a part of his pur-
chase condition?”
“Certainly,” rumbled O. Jones.
“ This, then, clears any obstacle there might be
to the sale," announced Mr. Wallingford, well
pleased. “I thank you.”
A murmur of approbation arose from the assem-
bled stockholders. Wasn't it satisfactory to find
Mr. O. Jones so generous, and so willing to oblige!
Everything was proceeding so smoothly! They
had not thought of that contract until the onion-
grower had relieved them of the obligation.
“Any other remarks?” asked Mr. B. Guile,
formally but hastily. “There being none, we will
proceed to a vote.” He had already reduced the
proposition to writing under Wallingford's direc-
tion, and now he read it: “ Resolved; that the
Onomo Strawberry Colony accepts the offer of
Mr. O. Jones to pay one hundred thousand dollars
for all the said Onomo Strawberry Colony's real


334 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
estate, effects, contracts, and good-will; and the
president of the said Onomo Strawberry Colony
is hereby authorized to close this transaction, accept
and receipt for the money, and divide the same pro
rata among the stockholders, each according to the
amount of his stock; and, furthermore, the presi-
dent is instructed, hereby, to take such steps as
are necessary to dissolve the corporation known
as the Onomo Strawberry Colony.”
The meeting broke up in an excess of affectionate
good-will, and Mrs. Kittson hurried back to the
club filled with delight.
“Happy day!” congratulated Onion Jones, rub-
bing his head. “Wallingford, you've let us all
out.”
“You're a wonder, Wallingford!” acknowl-
edged Saint. “This one stroke lets me close up
my deal with a clean conscience; lets Onion get
away, too, without a fuss with the authorities, and
lets you and Blackie split fifty thousand."
“I don't see where the money comes from," puz-
zled Blackie. “Nobody loses.”
A nervous skinny man, with deep creases run-
ning straight down from his pompadour to his nose,
bounced in entirely surrounded by his own excite-
ment. “I've just been figuring,” he breathlessly
announced. “We stockholders put in a hundred
thousand dollars. We paid a hundred thousand


THE LITTLE HOUSE
335
for our land. Mr. Jones buys it for the same
amount. How much do I get back out of my thou-
sand ? ”
“Five hundred," said Mr. Guile, and blew smoke
at the chandelier.
“That's what my partner told me," jerked the
skinny man; “ but I don't see it."
“It's very simple,” Mr. Wallingford volunteered.
“ This was a two-hundred-thousand-dollar stock
company, and the Onomo Strawberry Colony Cul-
tivating and Marketing Company owned half of
the stock, and receives half of the money paid in."
į “My partner said it was a swindle; and it is!”
exclaimed the nervous one. “I want another meet-
ing called to reconsider that resolution to sell."
" It won't do you any good," soothed Mr. Guile.
“ The Cultivating and Marketing Company would
vote half of the stock against you, and Mr. Walling-
ford, who owns a thousand dollars' worth, individ-
ually, would probably vote with them.”
“His company's a swindle, too!” affirmed the
discontented stockholder. “My partner says so.”.
“ Tell your partner that my company could sue
your company for breach of contract,” suggested
Wallingford.
“Give him his check, Guile; and take up his
stock," directed Jones, who had small patience with
an investor.


THE LITTLE HOUSE
337
table, to find a plate of strawberries before her,
and she nearly broke the bell.
“Take 'em away!” she ordered the frightened
servant, who came running back. Out in the
kitchen, they knew the inflections of that bell as
well as they did Violet Bonnie's voice, and when
it rang in that impulsive manner they felt a strong
desire to hurry.
“Why, I thought you liked strawberries,” pro-
tested the mild voice of Mrs. Vallingford.
“No, I'm cured!” she declared. “I don't like
to fuss up with the comfort of my guests, but the
doctor ordered me to be careful of my temper; and
the mere sight of a strawberry makes me want to
slap an orphan.”
“I'm glad you don't like them,” agreed the tact-
ful Mrs. Wallingford; “we've had so many, and.
I'm very tired of them.”
“Let's send them all away,” suggested Walling-
ford, willing to oblige. “ They're nice ones, too,”
he added, as they disappeared from the room," but
Blackie and I have been so deep in the scientific
culture of them that they're a beastly bore.”
“I doubt if those were grown with the proper
admixture of carbonates, promulgates, fulminates
and fumigates," proceeded Blackie gravely. “They
don't look at all like the peerless Onomo Straw-
berry Colony's —"


338 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
Violet Bonnie dropped the cake. “Onomo!”
she gasped. “Say; look me in the eye, you two!
Was that Onomo thing your fake?”
Wallingford and Blackie looked at each other in
shocked silence, and then a slow grin of heavenly
joy dawned upon their faces.
“ You don't mean to say you were stung?” in-
quired Blackie softly. “Vi, if you have a game
drop of blood in you, you'll order back those straw-
berries.”
“Ouch!” shrieked Violet. “Whatever you do,
don't say strawberry!”.
“But how did you get in?” puzzled Blackie.
“I didn't see you up at the stockholders' meeting
yesterday.”
That remark relieved the pressure, and she told
him, in lumps, just what she thought of the P. M.
Club, and the Onomo Colony, and the gentlemen
then at her table.
“You seem to have been the innocent bystander,"
commiserated Wallingford.
“Yes, I know," she agreed. “They always get
shot. Which one of you has the twenty-five thou-
sand I'm shy?”
Again Wallingford and Blackie looked at each
other, and grinned.
“We don't know," asserted Blackie. “Each


THE LITTLE HOUSE
339
one of us has that amount, but we don't know which
is which.”
“I don't care which!” retorted Violet. “I
want twenty-five thousand.”
“ You have that much,” chuckled Blackie.
“Out of fifty!” she indignantly replied.
“You'd have lost it all, and so would the other
stockholders, if we hadn't come to the rescue,” ar-
gued Blackie. “The thing was a fake from the
beginning; for that Onomo desert wouldn't grow
sand-fleas. Jim and I are philanthropists. We
stepped into the game in time to save you fifty per
cent.”
“But you kept the other fifty per cent!” she hotly
charged.
“For our services,” explained Wallingford
suavely. “Of course, if Blackie wants to give you
his twenty-five thousand, it's all right. It's all in
the family, anyway."
“Not me!” avowed Blackie. “I only have one
chance in a century to hand the wife of my bosom
a grand giggle; and this one has to stick. I'm go-
ing to keep that money to buy fool stocks with,
and I'm going to keep my collection in a glass case
on the library mantel. I wish you'd kept one of
the Onomo certificates, Vi. I needed a green one.”
Violet, struggling between her forbidden temper


340 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
and her habitual cheerful philosophy, looked across
at Mrs. Wallingford. Fannie, her always stanch
friend and supporter, was laughing.
“Where is Onomo, Vi?” asked Mrs. Walling-
ford, with an innocent intention to lead gradually,
away from this embarrassing topic.
Violet looked guiltily at Blackie. "I don't
know," she confessed. “Where is it, boys?”.
“We don't know," answered Blackie soberly.
“We didn't invest.”
Violet reached under the table, and put her foot
on the bell. It was answered, this time, by a calm
and smiling servant.
“ Bring back the strawberries,” said Mrs. Daw
meekly.


342 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
“That means there isn't a live dollar in the burg;
and our train's pulling out,” regretted Walling-
ford, and with some disfavor he viewed the ap-
proach of the official bus-driver, who wore a blue
band on his cap, and carried a grin full of holes.
“Good evening, gents,” hailed the tooth-shy offi-
cer. “I got two good seats left in the grand stand,"
and he produced a pair of faded blue pasteboards
from which the printing had long since worn away.
“I reckon most of the councilmen have sold their
regular seats by this time, but these is good; front
row, right next to the official box.”
“We're in luck, Jim,” declared Blackie, inspecting
the penciled numbers on the tickets and slipping
them into his pocket. “I was afraid we wouldn't
get seats at all. By the way, Sergeant, what are
they for?”
“Why, don't you know?” inquired the driver
in surprise. “It's the regular Saturday night fes-
tival. Why, people come from miles around, from
all these summer-resorts and health-cures, to see
the fireworks. The city council makes a heap of
money off of 'em. The whole court-house steps is
covered with a grand stand that's left there winter
and summer.”
“Don't people ever have business in the court-
house?” asked Wallingford.
The driver paused to help the luggage-carrier


GETTING AWAY WITH IT
345
.
has a pink face, wears fancy eye-glasses with a
little dingus like a spring tape-measure to wind up
the string, has blue eyes, the shiny black hair
and beard and mustache. He keeps the general
store.”
“Not the party,” declared Blackie dejectedly and
with an honest impulse to clear the unknown Closby
from unjust suspicion. Then his whimsical nature
came uppermost again, and in spite of himself, he
added, “ Unless he disguises."
“By jinks! I never thought of that!” ex-
claimed the driver, struck by the startling suppo-
sition. “Whiskers is the easiest disguise there is,
I reckon.”
“It isn't the man,” hastily insisted Blackie, angry
with himself for having persisted in harming a total
stranger; "is it, Jim?”.
“No," snapped Wallingford, struggling between
amusement and annoyance. “The man we're after
is small and skinny.”
The driver was silently thoughtful for three full
blocks. “Well, Henry Closby might be padded up,”
he sagely concluded.
“I'll bet a thousand dollars to a sticky pink
caramel that I can pick out a summer visitor from
a native with my eyes shut," offered Blackie Daw,
as they smoked their after-dinner cigars in the gath-
ering twilight, on the porch of the official hotel.


GETTING AWAY WITH IT 347
“There's doings out there, and your Uncle Horace
isn't in the middle.”
Wallingford was about to enter a further protest
when a voice at his ear observed in a half whisper:
“I've got a little information for you.” Wal-
lingford turned and found, stooping to sit beside
him, a fat-faced, thin old man, with a big silk bow
at his collar. He put his hairy forefinger on
Wallingford's knee for impressiveness. “Henry
Closby goes to Chicago, but he gets his letters from
New York. I reckon that's queer.”
“I don't know Mr. Closby," returned Walling-
ford uncomfortably, and with a vicious glance at
Blackie.
“Certainly not,” agreed the native, with a sly
smile and a tap of his finger. Wallingford moved
his knee, but the finger followed. “That's the
trouble with Henry Closby. Nobody knows him.
Now, I'm the postmaster and a member of the city
council, and I reckon I know more about folks than
any man in this town.”
Wallingford suddenly gripped the postmaster by
the hand, and his big pink face radiated with
pleasure.
“The very man I wished to meet," he heartily
asserted. “Won't you have a cigar with me?”
“Much obliged,” accepted the postmaster, putting
the cigar in his pocket. - "I don't smoke, but my


348 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
brother Enoch does. He's a member of the city
council, too, and runs the livery-, feed-, and sale-
stable and undertaking establishment."
“Present my compliments to your brother
Enoch,” offered Wallingford. “Does your son or
your son-in-law smoke, Mr. Mr.—”.
“ Boyler; Postmaster William Boyler," admitted
that gentleman, accepting another cigar quite
promptly. “I handle all the mail, and I can get
facts that nobody else can. If there's any re-
ward -"
“You'll get yours," interrupted Wallingford.
“ Just now I don't think it would be wise for us
to be seen talking together too much.”
“I understand," assented William Boyler, rising
hastily. “Any time you want to see me, you just
walk into the post-office as if you'd come for your
mail, and if nobody's there, slip into the back
room."
"I didn't get all that conversation, Jim,” com-
plained Blackie. “Now, as one detective to an-
other, what did he say?”.
“He gave me some damaging testimony against
Henry Closby," grinned Wallingford. “Henry, it
seems, goes to Chicago!”.
“Can you blame him?” inquired Blackie.
“Henry must be a live member. Come on; let's
join the mad merry throng."


GETTING AWAY WITH IT
349
C
“Wait till I get some cigars,” pleaded Walling-
ford, rising heavily and going up to his room.
When he returned, he found Blackie in earnest
converse with a lean and sallow gentleman who
cracked the joints of his knuckles ceaselessly when
he talked.
“Listen!” said Blackie to Wallingford in a hoarse
whisper, and clutching him by the arm, drew
both men into the darkest corner of the porch.
“This is Mr. Walter Kerr, a member of the city
council and proprietor of the drug store; and he
probably knows more about folks than any man in
this town.”
Mr. Wallingford shook hands with the gentle-
man whose elbow creaked, and listened.
“Now, see what you make of this,” whispered
Blackie impressively. “Mr. Kerr says that Henry
Closby frequently buys powdered orris root!”
“More than all the rest of my customers put to-
gether," supplemented Mr. Kerr in a whisper that
cracked into a shrill falsetto at all the emphatic
words. “Buys more than a pound a week, and al-
ways a fresh pound when he goes to Chicago!”
" See!” eagerly triumphed Blackie. “Isn't that
about in line with what we suspected, Yard ?”
Wallingford, suddenly aware that Blackie was
addressing him, grunted.
“I beg your pardon, Mr. Wallingford,” corrected
agais
DIF,
Blactos


GETTING AWAY WITH IT 351
“I know," agreed Mr. Kerr, with a lean and
sallow smile; “ Bill Boyler's. I saw him talking
to you.”
“No, these are just plain summer-resorter seats,"
denied Blackie, displaying his pasteboards.
“Then Bill sold 'em to those other New-Yorkers,"
concluded Kerr enviously, cracking all his joints at
once. “I'll sell you mine for a dollar apiece."
“I think we'll view the fireworks from here,”
decided Wallingford, inspecting the mob with dis-
favor.
" It ain't allowed,” responded Mr. Kerr, as a
boy, with a gray band around his cap, started to
take in the chairs. “It's against the city ordinances
for anybody to stay on the portico or balcony of
the city hotel during the fireworks; and the window-
shutters has to be shut. I'll give you both my tick-
ets for a dollar."
"Certainly I'll take them,” returned Wallingford
quickly, sorry that he had not spoken even more
· promptly.
The city councilman, however, seemed as pleased
with his dollar as he would have been with two,
and creaked away to get Blackie's secret message
on the wire.
As they walked across Court-house Square to
the official box, Wallingford turned to Blackie with
a half-vexed laugh.


GETTING AWAY WITH IT
353
“ Not till I've seen Henry Closby,” declared
Blackie firmly.
A councilman with a three-haired mole on his
chin, who sat next Blackie, nudged his arm.
“There goes your man,” he whispered, pointing to
where Henry Closby, a neatly dressed and pros-
perous-looking merchant, with a jet-black beard of
which he apparently took justifiable care, energed
from his store, behind the rag-baby booth and the
ice-cream-taffy stand, crossed the Square with the
entire indifference of one traversing a vacant field,
and disappeared down a side street for his evening
stroll.
“Looks like a real sport to me,” Blackie com-
mented approvingly.
“He's a point shy or he wouldn't stay here,”
growled Wallingford, whose distaste for the town
was growing deeper every minute.
Blackie's neighbor nudged him again. “My
name is Scorpine. I'm the proprietor of the
Spanglerville Adviser," he confided. “I probably
know more about our citizens than any man in
town. Henry Closby goes to Chicago on the first
and third Sunday of every month, and he stays till
Tuesday morning every time. He carries a hand-
bag and a big suit case.”
“Yellow?” asked Blackie excitedly.
“The suit case is."


356 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
“We don't want a thing in the world,” said
Blackie, genuinely regretful. “I owe you an
apology for starting some gossip about you here.”
“Nobody ever starts any gossip in this town,”
observed Mr. Closby dryly; “it's always under
way."
“I think we gave it an injection of hurry-up
hop,” insisted Blackie, and he explained exactly how
the thing had come about.
Mr. Closby only laughed. “It can't hurt me,”
he said, very much to both Blackie's and Walling-
ford's relief. “ The town wasn't so bad, though,
till a long-haired socialist converted the place to
public ownership.”
“A little soft music and I'll tell you the story,"
offered Wallingford with a chuckle. “First they
confiscated the electric light plant, the gooseberry
industry, and the ax-handle factory, then they
bought the mortgage on your father's hotel and
foreclosed.”
“You must be detectives, after all,” wondered
Closby. “Oh, I see; you got the name from the
old advertising register.”
"How did you get by with the store?” inquired
Wallingford, looking with interest at the well-
stocked shelves.
“They tried that, but they were glad to let go.
They gobbled everything else, though. I started


GETTING AWAY WITH IT
361
humor, but of love and tenderness, and he gave
them an invitation to have some of Mammy Honey-
suckle's Sunday fried chicken, an invitation which
they accepted with the keen joy of the temporarily
homeless.


CHAPTER XVIII
A SIDE ISSUE
EFORE they went out to dinner, Wallingford
picked up a gorgeously inlaid checkerboard,
and“ hefted ” it in surprise. “I thought that was
glass mosaic, but it's as light as wood," he ex-
claimed.
“ Another little side issue of mine," said Closby
carelessly. “It's a transparent mixture, something
like celluloid, but is water-proof, fire-proof and al-
most scratch-proof. It's not inlay, though; the de-
sign is an ordinary printed affair underneath, but
the material has a curious quality of refraction,
which apparently brings the lines to the surface. I
have a patent on the process.”
“Have you done much with it?” inquired Wal-
lingford, always awake to money-making possibili-
ties, and he examined the checkerboard again with
keen interest.
“Not a thing," returned Closby, with the care-
free nonchalance of a man whose success in one
line has made him kind to all his failures. “I
· shipped an assortment of the stuff to my New York
362


A SIDE ISSUE
365
troduced himself. “Henry Closby's bound to
know who he is and what he's hanging around for."
Wallingford, who was annoyed into an itching
rash by this most absurd of all Blackie's many rôles,
was, however, prepared for this emergency.
“He is doing that to throw Mr. Closby off the
track,” he asserted. “He intends Closby to know
who he is, and to keep so much in his eyes that he
will not think of me.”
“So-ho!” intoned the mayor, and regarding
Wallingford with fishy eyes, sat passing his fingers
through and through his tan beard. He dug too
deep once, and Wallingford was satisfied. The
mayor did have on a red flannel undershirt and
nothing over it but whiskers!
"Exactly," declared Wallingford. “My assist-
ant's actions may seem strange to you and to
Spanglerville, no doubt.”
“Well, to tell you the truth," admitted the mayor,
whose long hair was too pasty for pleasant con-
templation, “they do. Why, not above twenty
minutes ago, he stopped out in the middle of the
Square, and give something wrapped up in red tissue
paper to all the children in town, and whispered to
them to run home and hide it! I suppose you know
what it was.”
Concealing his concern and chagrin as much as
possible, Wallingford said pompously: “I do not,


A SIDE ISSUE
369
be. “I reckon the city council'll fix him! They're
in session now. I'll take these things right over
to them. By the way, you're not going to charge
anything for the loan of them, are you?”
“Certainly not,” Wallingford assured him. “I
have brotherhood principles myself. I regard
everybody's money as common property,” and he
smiled blandly.
“Well, of course, with certain restrictions,” cor-
rected the mayor doubt fully. “Say, how does
Closby make this stuff? Do you know ?”
Wallingford, writing an elaborate receipt for the
mayor to sign, shook his head regretfully. “It
would do us no good to know that,” he stated.
“Mr. Closby has a patent on the process, and he
has money to prosecute any infringement. Selfish
of him to patent it, when the only infringement
possible must come from Spanglerville, no other
town having water like yours.”
“That's the very point!” said the mayor ex-
citedly. “The city water! I figured it all out
while we were sitting here. The council will pass
an ordinance, this very morning, placing a tax of
one dollar a quart on all city water used for art
manufacture.”
The door opened, and a tall thin man, with gray
sideburns and jet-black hair and mustache, entered
on tiptoe. That man was Blackie Daw!


A SIDE ISSUE
371
ford, entirely unmindful of his feelings. “They
say you're crazy.”
“Oh!” remarked Blackie cheerfully. “I thought
maybe it was something bad. I don't like these
people very well, though. They were nice and
friendly yesterday, but this morning they're rather
offish. They won't come within a block of me, and
even the guileless, trusting little children stay
away.”
“It was the cheese did that,” commented Wal-
lingford, chuckling in spite of his annoyance.
“And still you say I'm crazy!” reproached
Blackie.
Wallingford studied him contemplatively, and
crystallized a new idea. “Sometimes there is a
grain of sense at the bottom of your foolishness,"
he admitted. “You're handy with it, too. Noth-
ing could have been more lucky than your passing
in that information about the expressed water, at
the exact minute you did.”
“ Lucky!” snorted Blackie, tearing off his side-
burns and pasting them on a framed chromo of a
buxom German girl, who was drinking a glass of
somebody's superior beer. “Do you know how I
stumbled on that lucky minute? I listened at the
keyhole, with two chambermaids, a porter, the pro-
prietor and the two New York guests from


374 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
to prevent his head from turning, “ that you have
made over forty thousand dollars from this patent
in less than three years, and that you're taking in,
from it, over twenty-five thousand dollars a year.
Is this allegation true?”
“I refuse to answer."
“You don't need to!” retorted the mayor warmly.
“The city council has absolute proof.” It was
almost impossible not to look again at that show-
window, but Mayor Sawberry accomplished it and
gazed stonily out through the back door at the high
board fence. “Now, the city council, which only
wants its rights, Mr. Closby, has decided on this:
It will take over the manufacture of your Glazed
Inlay, make it a municipal enterprise, charge you
nothing for the use of our valuable natural resource
and pay you a fair and reasonable royalty on the
output. The question before us, for dispassionate
and friendly argument, is, What is the least royalty
that will satisfy you?”
A fond light kindled in Henry Closby's eyes. “I
have been waiting for this happy moment,” he gaily
informed them, and thereupon he emptied himself
of all the bitterness that had been clogging his
system since he was a boy. He discussed the town,
the ethics of municipal ownership and the city
council, en masse and in detail, devoting particular
attention to the latter. With great pleasure he dwelt


376 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
just at the corner of the alley, the tireless detective,
now wearing a flawless Vandyke, met them with
three separate hists.
“We are on hiş trail!” he declared. “He has
sold his store and collected the money! He leaves
town to-night, on the seven-thirty train, never to
return! He will take the Glazed Inlay patent with
him! Look!” And before their very eyes, he
plucked off his Vandyke, put it under his arm,
handed them a telegram, and replaced the beard,
though upside down.
The mayor opened the telegram and read it with
keen interest, then passed it silently to the other
members of the committee. It was from Mr. Tut-
tle, in New York, addressed to Henry Closby, and
said:
“Entertaining proposition apply
table and dresser tops how much."
glazed
inlay
Saluting them, Blackie wheeled and entered the
alley mouth. They watched him while he stopped
at a dry-goods store and emptied whiskers from all
his pockets. When he began pointing at them, suc-
cessively, with his forefinger and saying, “Eny,
meeny, miney, moe,” to determine which set he
should wear next, the committee hastily left.
They had intended to “ dicker" with Mr. Closby
for as many weeks as might be necessary, but


A SIDE ISSUE
379
puffed the mayor breathlessly. “The city council'll
pay for it.”
Since the telegram proved to be nothing more
than an order forbidding Mr. Tuttle to have the
city water of Spanglerville analyzed, Wallingford
promised that they should have it, and hurrying
in, obtained Closby's signature. He returned to the
committee with a sadly grieved countenance.
“Gentlemen, you have made a hideous mistake,"
he told them, as he handed the mayor the telegram.
“Mr. Closby has never made a penny from the
Glazed Inlay, and he just refused to sell the patent
to a furniture-factory, because the best offer he
could get was five hundred dollars.”
“It's a lie!” gulped the mayor. “ You can't
fool us. We seen his bank statement.”
“Those receipts consisted entirely of royalties
from the sale of plaster dogs,” Wallingford suavely
explained.
“From what!” gasped the mayor.
“ Plaster dogs," repeated Wallingford calmly,
and from his pocket he produced a copy of the
canine whose forlornness had started Henry Closby
on the road to a comfortable fortune.
The consternation upon the faces of the four
members of the committee was as the balm of
Gilead to the soul of Henry Closby; and Blackie,


380 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
sitting opposite him, and studying in friendly ad-
miration the whiskered face of the artist, made
a sudden discovery.
“You're about a week late in your trip to Chicago,
aren't you?” he inquired.
“How do you know?” sharply asked Closby,
iurning upon him a scared countenance.
“By the streaks of rust in your chinchillas,"
laughed Blackie, tickled immeasurably with his dis-
covery. “Am I some detective? I am!” And he
jumped up from the table.
“Where are you going?” demanded Closby,
jumping up also, his usually ruddy face now turning
a deep scarlet.
“To explain the fatal mystery!” replied Blackie.
“It'll sting them worse than anything."
“No, you don't!” cried Closby, starting after
him; but Blackie had already passed Wallingford
at the door, and was leaning out over the platform,
while the conductor was swinging his lantern.
“ Antonio Scerlatti!” he called in clarion tones.
“Robber ! ” yelled the committee, as Henry Closby
laid hold of Blackie's coat-tails.
“Hist!” shouted Blackie. “I know Henry
Closby's secret!”
Closby reached farther and grabbed him by the
shoulders.


CHAPTER XIX
THAT LITTLE DEAL
THE woman in the next room screamed again!
1 Blackie Daw winced in sympathy; Walling-
ford grinned; the gray-mustached man in the cor-
ner sat in patient misery, as he had from the first,
and held his swollen jaw.
"I don't think it hurts so much as it did, Jim,"
decided Blackie, looking up with a hopeful smile.
“ Stop me; I think I want to go home.”
“Stay right where you are and have it out,”
chuckled Wallingford. “You brought me along to
keep you here, and I'll do it if I have to sit on
you."
“ You won't if I say not!” indignantly swore
Blackie, as his riotous tooth gave his nerves an-
other thrust.
The woman in the operating-room emitted a final
yelp, which made Blackie grip the arms of his chair
and groan because he had thoughtlessly gritted his
teeth.
“For that you get another dose," relented Wal-
lingford, aggravatingly cheerful, and producing a
382


THAT LITTLE DEAL
383
"5 Pocess.
beautifully mounted pocket-flask, he poured Blackie
a generous drink.
The quiet man in the corner exhibited his first
sign of human intelligence, as his pain-dulled eyes
followed that interesting process.
“Have a little relief?” offered Wallingford, who
was an habitual good Samaritan with liquor.
“I don't drink, thank you," replied the man,
talking cornerwise and smiling with one side of his
mouth.
“Lucky man!” envied Blackie. “Now it'll do
you good.”
“But I'll take one this time,” finished the stranger,
eying the bottle determinedly.
The dentist, who had tried to conceal his neces-
sarily cruel countenance with a pink mustache, hur-
ried out to the water-cooler with a glass upon which
was a bright red spot, and everybody grew solemn.
“Hello, Bessmer; how's Oak Center?” the
dentist greeted the stranger. “Which of you is
next?” And brutal speculation kindled his eye as
he looked them over.
Both the patients, anxious to put off the mo-
ment of agony, indicated each other with surpris-
ingly ready courtesy; but Mr. Bessmer had truth
and the right on his side.
“These gentlemen were waiting when I came,”
he insisted.
the wall ot and
Oas


THAT LITTLE DEAL
387
sand dollars that haven't done a useful thing, ex-
cept come to me, since they were printed.”
Blackie Daw returned from the operating-room
with the dentist in a high state of elation.
“Go in and have your teeth tinkered, Jim," he
urged. “ This gentleman is a friend of mine, and
is kind and gentle.”
“Mr. Daw had a blackberry seed instead of
neuralgia,” explained the dentist, smiling. “I'm
ready for you now, Mr. Bessmer.”
“I suppose I shall see you again, Mr. Walling-
ford,” ventured Bessmer.
“I think so," replied Wallingford, shaking his
head at him, and giving a sidelong glance toward
Blackie. Mr. Bessmer nodded in comprehension of
the warning to be secretive. Wallingford took him
by the arm and walked into the operating-room
with him, coolly closing the dentist out with Blackie.
“I'd rather not have Mr. Daw know anything of
our affairs,” he explained.
"I guessed as much,” smiled Bessmer ; “but, at
first, I thought he was an intimate friend of yours.”
“He's an intimate business rival,” denied
Wallingford, chuckling. “We have some great
fights.”
“What is your business, if I may ask? ” Bessmer
naturally inquired.
“The purchase and sale of stock in unprosperous


THAT LITTLE DEAL
389
he found Blackie Daw, laden with a suit case, a hat-
box, an Oxford and a saxophone-case.
“ Haven't any, so far as the feeling is concerned,”
responded Bessmer, his heart jumping with the
sudden memory that Blackie Daw was in the same
line of business as the man who had failed him. “I
didn't notice you getting on the train.”
“ You were looking for Jim Wallingford; that's
the reason,” laughed Blackie, stowing grips in every
available corner, and sitting down, like a real sport,
with no regard whatever for the tails of his Prince
Albert. “I side-tracked him.”
Mr. Bessmer contracted his brows, and turned on
Blackie a glance of disapproval. “That was not
fair to either Mr. Wallingford or myself,” he
charged.
“It's all in the game," declared Blackie lightly.
“I saw he had a business opportunity with you, so
I had a phony telegram delivered to him and sent
him on a wild-goose chase; then I made your dentist
tell me all about the Bessmer Malleable Process
Company, and here I am!”
Mr. Bessmer could not see the joke. "Mr. Wal-
lingford might have purchased my stock,” he pro-
tested.
“So might I,” Blackie consoled him. “On the
other hand, Mr. Wallingford might not have pur-
chased it, and I may not. Tell me the news.”


390 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
Mr. Bessmer, with much earnestness, told him the
news concerning his foundry. He was a sincere
little man, anyhow, with a bronzed face, in the
brassy wrinkles of which there seemed to cling al-
most invisible little specks of iron-filings. His gray
mustache, as stiff as crinkled wire, stuck straight
out past both cheeks, and his intensely blue eyes
looked as if they had been tempered in the very
bluest flames of his foundry.
Blackie, studying him interestedly while he
talked, admired the shrewdness of Wallingford, who
had insisted that Bessmer was entirely too honest to
be entrusted with the details of even a “square”
scheme for his own benefit.
“ The figures sound good to me,” commented
Blackie, after having permitted himself to be bored
unto illness by financial statements and computations
that meant worse than nothing to him. “I love
the mere sound of figures, as long as I can stay
awake. The next thing is to see your plant.
Would you like to hear me play the saxophone?”
He drew his shining silver-filigreed saxophone from
its velvet case and caressed it. “This is the button
with which you begin Home, Sweet Home, and
when I play My Old Kentucky Home I push this
one for a starter. I think the latter of those is the
sadder.” And he began it, to the slowest possible
time, but with splendid volume !


394 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
little narrow-gage tracks that ran everywhere,
came a black casting-car, rattling and bumping at
top speed, and standing on the buffers was a tall
lank figure, in new vivid blue overalls and blouse,
and wearing a workman's cap tilted rakishly up over
one corner of his forehead.
“Can't stop, Jim!” he yelled as he flew past.
“ They're waiting for this car.”
Wallingford, finding no place clean enough to sit
down, stood where he was for ten mortal minutes,
until Blackie came back with a face which, though
well grimed, was perfectly happy.
“I thought you were supposed to stick around
the town, in a silk hat, and inspire confidence,” com-
plained Wallingford by way of greeting.
“You know, Jim, sometimes I think you're a dub,
after all,” reproached Blackie. “ You never will get
the finer points of stage-craft. I had myself made
assistant manager, and I'm inspiring so much confi-
dence that, this morning, I had Bessmer lock my own
money up in his safe for fear I'd trust myself too
far."
" Assistant manager," chuckled Wallingford, who
had the born instinct for mechanics of which
Blackie had no trace. “What do you manage, prin-
cipally?”
“The oil-can, till the engineer hid it,” Blackie in-
formed him with regret. “He admitted that I was


THAT LITTLE DEAL
395
some sure-enough oiler, but objected that the cost of
the stuff came off his fuel appropriation. On the
level, I'm crazy about this business! Say, do you
know, the fireman went home sick last night, and I
got here in time to have the safety-valve popping
off at seven o'clock. I have to teach that fellow how
to build a fire when he gets back. You do it like
this: first you scrape all the ashes and clinkers out
of the grate bars, then you put in an even layer of
shavings, and build a lattice-work of kindling all
over it; then you spread a thin layer of coal on top
of that, and light a cigarette, and toss the match
under the boiler. Why, two minutes after I blew
the whistle, I had the engineer in there — he gets
pale when he's excited — fussing with the pump.
He says I'm a corker of a fireman; but he has a
cheaper man on the job now.”
“I don't suppose you've thought of that list," ob-
served Wallingford, in a half hopeless tone.
“I'm so discouraged!” asserted Blackie. “I
never get credit for anything. Here's your list.'
Stay and have lunch with us, Jim?”.
“ Lunch!” puzzled Wallingford. “Why, you're
not over four blocks from your hotel.”
“True,” assented Blackie; "but am I one to as-
sume airs of superiority over my own intelligent
workmen? I treat them as fellow human beings.
You see, I intend to run for mayor of my suburb


400 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
“Thanks for the information,” replied. Walling-
ford, and left the store.
He had scarcely passed through the door when
a quite natural idea assailed Petey. “I must put
Binky wise,” he observed, as he hurried to the
telephone. “He's too pinched, just now, to hold
out for a good price.”
By the time Petey got his number, however,
the faculty which lay behind his miserly eyes had
evolved another course of action. “You said, last
night, you wanted some money, didn't you, Binky?”
he began.
The others in the Wilks shoe store could hear the
sound of Binky's voice, like the blast of a trumpet,
throughout the room.
“Why don't you sell your Bessmer stock?” sug-
gested Petey. “Oh, yes, somebody ought to buy
it. Bessmer's stirring around down there, and it
ought to be worth pretty near what you paid for
it before long. Ah, shucks! Why, I'll buy it my-
self, on speculation. Of course, I won't give you
quite what it cost you, but I'm willing to gamble
four hundred and fifty dollars on your ten shares.
Don't mention it, old horse. Bring it right down,
and get your money; and say, Binky, come the
back way, will you?”
Petey Wilks loved that little deal. He could buy
his friend Binky's stock, to replace his own, out


THAT LITTLE DEAL
401 :
of Wallingford's money, and have three hundred
dollars left!
He need not have hurried, for Wallingford in-
tended to give him at least twenty-four hours to
think up the brilliant scheme of buying Binky's
stock. Instead, Wallingford went straight to the
stockholder whom Blackie had described as follows:
“ Thaddeus Putnam; blind in one eye, but can see
a dollar at double the distance with the other.
Friend of the village mint, who is old Eli Spooger.
Fifty shares; but watch Eli, and notice the Hen-
nesey marks in front of his name.”
Old Thaddeus looked with stern disapproval on
Wallingford's offensively clean shirt, and he stead-
fastly refused to sell his Bessmer stock at any price.
Wallingford, delighted to find him so obdurate,
offered him seventy-five, a hundred, and finally, a
hundred and ten. At that figure he paused, for
fear Thaddeus might sell; but Thaddeus did not
invite more urging.
“No, sir!” he hoarsely wheezed; “I never go
back on my judgment. I bought my stock from
young William Bessmer because I thought he was
a coming man; and he is coming. I'll never sell
my stock till he proves that I was right; and he's
proving it."
“Very well," relinquished Wallingford with a
sigh, and now beginning his campaign on Eli


CHAPTER XX
COMING ON
IN the morning Wallingford went to see the next
ten-share man on the report. “ Spraddles
Martin,” Blackie had listed him. “Keeps books in
the plow factory, and walks like a one-legged turtle.
Human Billiken, and I like him.”
Spraddles's face was as awkward as his body,
and nothing on it seemed to be quite in the right
place. His mind was well located and gracefully
active, however.
“My Bessmer stock?” he remarked, poking a
pen behind his left ear, which was better suited for
the purpose than his right one. “I guess you must
be the man Petey Wilks wants to sell it to. He
tried to buy it from me, last night, at all the way
from forty up to eighty-two dollars and fifty cents
a share; but I knew that if Petey was willing to
pay eighty-two-fifty, it was worth a hundred. I'd
'a' sold it to him for that, but since you're a
stranger, I'll let you have it for a hundred and ten.”
He chuckled cheerfully as he announced this; but
403


404 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
he sobered as Wallingford promptly dealt him out
eleven hundred dollars.
"I'm afraid I didn't charge you enough," he
worried.
“ This stock is worth almost any price to my
firm,” admitted Wallingford recklessly.
"Anyhow, I've got it all over Petey Wilks,"
Spraddles philosophically consoled himself as he
produced the stock. “Are you willing to pay a
hundred and ten for all of this you can get?”
"I'll give you a hundred and ten dollars for every
share you can bring me to the Eagle Hotel. Just
inquire for Mr. Wallingford."
“I wouldn't need your name at the Eagle," de-
clared Spraddles. “I could describe you so well that
Curly Washburn would turn around to see if you
wasn't standing right there. Will you pay a hun-
dred and fifteen?”
“I might, if you dickered with me hard enough,”
laughed Wallingford.
“You'll get some of the hardest dickering that
was ever done to you,” promised Spraddles, reach-
ing an awkward arm for his coat. “ I'm going out
and buy stock. I can get to where it is quicker
than you can."
"I guess so," sighed Wallingford with the air
of an abused person. “But promise me one thing:


COMING ON
405
whether you obtain any stock or not, report to me
at the hotel this evening, won't you?”
“All right,” agreed Spraddles, and flip-flopped
out of the room in earnest haste, without waiting
for Wallingford to accompany him.
Perfectly contented, Wallingford returned to his
hotel and waited. Spraddles, as he had expected,
hunted him up at three o'clock, instead of half past
five.
“You owe me wages, anyhow," he announced,
with his oddly shaped grin. “ Petey Wilks beat me
to it, and even he didn't get any. You'd think
Bessmer stock was diamonds, and old Eli Spooger
wanted to have me ostracuted because I only offered
him a hundred and five.”
Wallingford felt sweet peace surging through him.
Eli Spooger was planted, and ripe! He hurried
away from that topic.
“Did you try buying any at the factory?” he
asked, eager for news of Blackie.
Spraddles exhibited such alarming manifestations
of amusement that Wallingford was on the point of
calling a doctor.
“ Bessmer's got a new partner," the Billiken said
when the worst of the symptoms had passed.
“He's a long skinny fellow, and was playing the
sailor's hoe-down on a horn like a big gourd pipe


COMING ON
407
Eli Spooger looked over his glasses at Walling-
ford with a benevolent smile, and rubbed his bony
old knees very, very gently. “Yes, I am Mr.
Spooger,” he acknowledged to Wallingford's query,
and his voice was full of human kindness; "and
you are Mr. Wallingford, I am sure.”
Wallingford smiled with fully as much benevo-
lence as Mr. Spooger had exhibited. “I seem to
have been described accurately," he returned, and
ceased to study Mr. Spooger with any degree of
curiosity. On the door of Mr. Spooger's plain but
clean little office, in neat script, was the golden
text: “Eli Spooger, first mortgages.” On the walls
were bright-colored pictures of little children play-
ing with lambs, and happy fathers returning from
honest toil to vine-clad cottages, and sweet-faced
grandparents playing horsy for the babies; and
Wallingford knew, without looking twice, that a
benevolent old man who could smile as sweetly as
Eli Spooger would foreclose a widow's mortgage
on a snowy night and prove it to be an act of
mercy.
“ Certainly,” agreed Mr. Spooger. " Any gentle-
man endeavoring to buy control in a local concern
for the benefit of a trust is sure to be much dis-
cussed."
“It's the sad truth,” admitted Wallingford, very
visibly annoyed by the fact. “The public works


408 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
a double-swivel spotlight on any one connected with
a big concern such as I am supposed to represent.
Personally, I shrink from publicity, but since I can't,
what do you want for the Bessmer stock?”.
“We are coming on," approved Mr. Spooger,
much gratified. He had been so eager as to be al-
most impatient. “I have ten shares of my own,
and twenty-five shares that I yesterday accepted,
from clients of mine, to apply on mortgage pay-
ments that were in arrears."
“Thirty-five shares,” figured Wallingford in a
disappointed tone. “Is that all?"
“ That is all for the present," regretfully ad-
mitted Mr. Spooger. “The price will be a hundred
and twenty-five."
“Murder !” exclaimed Wallingford, pleased,
and yet shocked, that his plans had worked so ex-
tremely well. “Why, you are trying to take
advantage of what you consider to be my ne-
cessity!”
Mr. Spooger was not indignant, merely hurt in
his tenderest feelings. “You are most unjust,” he
complained. “I am only correctly gaging the
market value of the stock to your monopoly. I
have labored to obtain them for you, and the la-
borer is worthy of his hire."
"A hundred and twenty-five isn't laborer's profit;
it's robbery,” protested Wallingford.


COMING ON
409
“ Tut, tut!” chided Mr. Spooger, with angelic
forgiveness of that harsh charge. “ You offered
my friend, Putnam, as high as a hundred and ten;
and young Mr. Martin, who was anxious to buy
my stock to sell to you at a profit, offered me a
hundred and five. The price, Mr. Wallingford, is
a hundred and twenty-five. At that quotation I
am really conferring a benefit upon you."
“I appreciate it,” conceded Wallingford dryly.
“How much is thirty-five times a hundred and
twenty-five ? "
“Four thousand, three hundred and seventy-five
dollars,” replied Mr. Spooger promptly, glancing at
some figures on his desk. “Here is the stock," and
he drew forward the neat little pile that had re-
posed just before his eyes.
Wallingford opened his obese pocketbook, and
the mild eyes of Mr. Spooger took on the passing
expression of twin needles.
“Of course they will not sell stock to you at
the factory,” he conjectured, watching hungrily as
Wallingford counted out the money and noticing
thirstingly that the subtraction of this amount made
almost no impression upon the sum total.
“ Not a share," laughed Wallingford. “They
know who I am, and what I want; moreover, I
don't imagine the new assistant manager would sell
to any one who would sell to me.”


412 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
hard-working business man. He has the respect,
and even affection, of the entire community, in-
cluding myself. If you chose to sell any of the
stock, how much would you want for it?"
“ Par," announced Blackie affably.
“My dear young man!” expostulated Mr.
Spooger in stern but kindly tones. “The stock has
never been worth more than fifty per cent., and I'll
guarantee that you paid even less than that for
it.”
“Par is the price," Blackie patiently explained.
“I have always said that if I ever owned stock in
anything I wouldn't sell it for anything but par.
I like the sound of the word.”
" It doesn't sound half so well as, say, seventy-
five dollars, cash,” insinuated Mr. Spooger, laughing
like one giving away groceries.
“Par," repeated Blackie gently but firmly, and
lighted a cigarette. “At that, I'll only sell you fifty
shares. I understand that Jim Wallingford's buy-
ing up this stock, and I wouldn't run the risk of
much of it falling into his hands. He'd put my
friend, Bessmer, right out of his own shop, and turn
it over to the trust."
“I am not an agent nor emissary for any one,"
stated Mr. Spooger, much outraged. “I am in-
vesting, or speculating, if you wish to call it so,
for my own benefit entirely."
Hoone giving
Blackie Servi only sell


COMING ON
413
Blackie had particular reasons of his own for
doubting that, but he did not think it wise to say
SO.
“Fifty shares or nothing, and at par,” he asserted
stoutly. “If I sell more than that, I'll sell all. If
I have to weaken my majority of stock, I want out
entirely."
Mr. Spooger stilled the pea-like thumping of his
heart. “Would you seriously contemplate selling
all?” he asked quietly.
“Well, you see,” hesitated Blackie, looking
mournfully about the shop, and over at Bessmer's
office; “I like this business, and Bessmer, and the
men, but I'm a poor person, and to sell out at par
would mean a big profit on my investment. I
wouldn't sell to Jim Wallingford, though. I don't
think he'd even come to me to buy it."
This being the strict truth, Blackie had a perfectly
clean conscience when he said it.
“I'll take those fifty shares, at par,” Mr. Spooger
slowly observed, after thinking a long, long time.
“If I were you, I would not say anything to Mr.
Bessmer about it just now. Suppose I come over
to-night and see you at your hotel.”
“Make it to-morrow morning at ten o'clock,”
amended Blackie. “I am not coming to the shop
to-morrow forenoon."
Mr. Spooger was busy writing him out a check.


COMING ON
417
'fusing the handsome fortune that lay at his door.
On his part, Mr. Daw had conscientious scruples
about allowing the controlling stock to pass into
any ownership that might be inimical to the in-
terests of Mr. Bessmer; but in the end he fell! He
stifled his conscience and sold to Mr. Spooger, at
one hundred dollars a share, his entire interest in
the Bessmer Malleable Process Company.
“But I didn't know you had so much stock,”
protested Mr. Spooger. “ Bessmer only had twelve
hundred and fifty shares to dispose of in the first
place. I bought fifty of those from you, and here
you are offering me thirteen hundred and fifteen.”
“I acquired a few more," explained Blackie.
“ The certificates are all here, new issues made out
to me last night and duly signed by the president
and secretary.”
“The more the better," granted Spooger after a
little thought, and added twice more, to make sure,
the total shares represented by the certificates. He
produced his check-book.
“You'll have to come across with genuine
money,” observed Blackie before the purchaser
started to write. “I had to be identified to cash
that other check of yours, and I don't like to have
bankers look at me as if they think me a suspicious
character."
“ You don't want cash for this amount!” pro-


COMING ON
419
“ Is Mr Daw all right?” he wanted to know.
“I'll vote for him," stated Bessmer; "and I
know all the men in the shop will back him."
“He wants to sell me thirteen hundred and fif-
teen shares of stock in your corporation."
“I am sorry,” replied Bessmer with genuine
regret; “but they're his shares. He paid cash for
them; and he may do with them as he likes.”
“But how did he get so many ?”
“ Bought them.”
Mr. Spooger considered. “Then I can't get
stung if I do business with him?” he ventured.
"I didn't, and I don't see how you can,” Bessmer
emphatically assured him. “ Those shares are
worth a hundred dollars apiece.”
" I'll carry those certificates now, Mr. Daw," Mr.
Spooger kindly offered.
Blackie took them out of a little wooden box, and
Mr. Spooger leafed through them to see that they
were all there. They bulged his inside coat pocket
frightfully, but he did not mind.
He went with Blackie to the three banks and
persuaded the much-pained gentlemen in charge to
relinquish, collectively, one hundred and thirty-one
thousand, five hundred dollars, in genuine United
States currency; then he and Mr. Daw parted.
The latter gentleman dashed into the express
office, next to his hotel, and inquired how soon they


COMING ON
421
sy nie
“Is he – is he coming back?” begged Spooger,
breathing with renewed hope.
“Of course, he is,” stated Curly indignantly.
“He has a trunkful of clothes here that I wish he'd
leave behind, and there's so much of his money in
that safe I dodge every time I pass it. He only
took a hand-bag with him. Did he swindle you out
of anything?”
“Well, no,” admitted Mr. Spooger reluctantly.
“Then don't go around saying it,” ordered Curly,
and walked away in silent contempt.
The merriment in the festively lighted yard of
the Bessmer Malleable Process Company was at its
height when Eli Spooger, learning that Wallingford
had gone straight there from the nine-o'clock train,
repaired to the scene of the festivities.
A big table, built in the form of a hollow square,
spread with a snowy cloth, and decorated with car-
nations, champagne-pails, and whole roast pigs, to
say nothing of chickens and such minor articles of
inner comfort, filled the yard; and at the center
of the head table, flanked by Wallingford on one
side and Bessmer on the other, stood Blackie Daw,
in his blackest Prince Albert, making a farewell
speech to his many friends, in and out of the
factory, and inviting them, one and all, to move to
Tarryville, so that they could vote for him for
ne bor
home
Juatics
en far
shbur


422 WALLINGFORD IN HIS PRIME
mayor, on the reform ticket, in the coming fall.
Laughter interrupted his every sentence, cheers
followed his every pause, and in the very air there
was a thrill which told that he could march the
entire concourse, at that very moment, right out
into the jaws of anything and come back with the
teeth!
It was all very reassuring to the only man in
Oak Center who could command over a hundred
thousand, cash, and when the final applause had sub-
sided, the three-starred one bent with an ingratiat-
ing smile over the back of Wallingford's chair.
“I have that stock for you," he happily confided,
“right here," and he tapped his bulging breast
pocket.
“Oh, yes, the stock," returned Wallingford
pleasantly. “Why, Mr. Spooger, my firm has de-
cided not to bother with the Bessmer company."
He paused placidly to watch Mr. Spooger clutching
at his Adam's apple; “so, last night, before I went
away, I sold what I had purchased, from you and
from others, to Mr. Daw.”
Mr. Spooger gripped his cuffs wildly in both
hands and pulled them out arm's length. “And
you sold it to me!” he hotly charged Blackie.
“You never said a word about buying the extra
shares from Wallingford!”
“Tut, tut!” remonstrated Blackie kindly. “You


COMING ON
423
ming
ce, chet
air the
didn't tell me you intended to sell to Wallingford.”
“: You fooled me!” frothed Eli, turning to the
representative of the trust. “I don't want this
narch
stock."
right es
- with
y man i
e hunder
e had su
ingrata
Chair.
confia
ang brezi
'allingir
“Throw it away, then," advised Wallingford.
“I'd suggest that you keep it, though. By a
resolution adopted almost unanimously last night,
Mr. Bessmer has the right, at any time within the
next ten years, to purchase it at par, and I think
he's going to make some money."
“That stock's worth all it cost you,” sternly
declared Bessmer, who did not yet understand how
it had all happened, and never would. “It may
not pay dividends for five years to come, but I'll
bring it to par value before then.”
"Did you help get me into this, Will Bessmer? ”
half shrieked Spooger. “I'll make it hot for you!
Remember, I hold a majority of stock!”
“ You can help vote to repaper the office, or to
adopt pink stationery; but that's about all,” Blackie
informed him. “The constitution of Mr. Bess-
mer's company, amended at our regular stock-
holders' meeting last night, when you owned no
stock, gives him the final say in the management
and direction of the concern for the next ten years."
“That's one of the reasons my monopoly did
not care for the stock,” suavely explained Walling-
ford, chuckling about something or other.
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