Chapter VI
"If the bowl had been stronger My tale had been longer."
Steve entered Mitchell's office with the painful uprightness and precise carriage of one who has lunched not wisely but rather too well. His speech, too, was of ponderous brevity. The man of affairs chided him with fatherly kindness.
"This won't do, my boy—this won't do. I like you, Thompson. I'm sorry—I'm pained to see this. Don't go in for this sort of thing, or your good fortune will prove a curse in disguise."
Steve hung his head, muttering something incoherent about not being used to wine and that he'd soon get over it.
"Oh, young men will be young men, I suppose," sighed Mitchell tolerantly. "Tell you what. Archibald's going for a spin over to East New York. I'll just 'phone him to drop by on his way and take us along. Fresh air'll do you good."
Steve assented, and fell to poring over the immense wall map of New
York with preternatural gravity.
But Mitchell's benevolent plan was doomed to be frustrated. Hardly had Archibald arrived and the employees been dismissed, when the sordid, busy, money-making city intruded in the person of Loring.
There were merry greetings all around. The artist was much pleased to renew his acquaintance with Thompson, to whom he had taken a fancy. Loring, it seemed, was an old friend of Archibald's and was promptly invited to make one of the party.
"Oh, I can't," demurred Loring. "And I hate to spoil sport, but I've got a good thing which must be put through to-night or not at all. I ran in to get Mitchell to handle it for me. I've got the opportunity, but not the wherewithal." He made the candid admission with a delightful smile.
"I fear that you are leaning on a mighty nearly broken reed," said Mitchell. "I'm all tied up in money matters this week. But spit it out, anyhow. I've got six or seven thousand loose. If it's more than that perhaps Archie can swing it—if it's a safe proposition."
"Safe as United States bonds, and good for thirty per cent, profit. Come back, Thompson!" Steve was making for the door, with apologies. "You're not in the way a bit. Sit down, man! Your six thousand won't be a starter, Joe. I've got some four thousand myself, in red, red gold. All I have in the world—wish it was more." His blithe insouciance was irresistibly charming.
"Get down to business, old fellow," said Archibald. "What's the lay?"
"This is all confidential, between gentlemen, you understand?" All nodded. "You know young Post is in hiding? Well, I've been in touch with him all along. He's tired of skulking and wants me to sell that house his mother left him, strictly on the Q.T. He's got a chance to slip away on a private yacht to-night. Said I could have all I could get over thirty thousand. It's worth fifty, at least. I know where I could get forty-five, but I dare not approach those people now, because they are unfriendly to Post and would make him trouble. Once he is safely away——" He waved his hand.
"That ought to be a good thing," said Archibald thoughtfully. "It rents for six thousand a year, and values going up. I've a good mind to go into it for a permanent investment. Let's see—he'd want spot cash, wouldn't he?"
"Naturally. Cash on the nail. He could hardly afford to be identified, you know."
"Can't raise that much to-day," said the shipowner. "Maybe, by borrowing from my partner, I could get enough to pool with you and Mitchell. What's your proposition? About cutting profits, I mean."
"I think I should have ten per cent. net, besides the proportionate earning of my four thousand—for giving you fellows the first chance. There's plenty would jump at it."
"That's fair enough," said Archibald. "Mr. Thompson, you will excuse us? Our trip will only be postponed. I'll have to fly around to rustle ready money. I'll see Bowring first."
"Hold on," said Mitchell. "Why don't you let my friend in on this?
He's got the scads, and he's a good fellow."
"Oh, he would have to go and see the place," objected Archibald, his eye evidently on the main chance.
"No, he won't. We looked it over yesterday. I showed it to him because I used to live there. Don't be selfish, Archie. There's plenty of chances for you to make money. Get your pail, Thompson!"
"We-ll," said Archibald grudgingly. "So long as it's not sure that Bowring can spare me the money, let him take over a third if he wants to."
"Sure I do," grinned the prospective buyer, highly elated, "and much obliged to you, too, Mr. Archibald.
"That's all right," said that person gruffly. "Now then, Loring, come out of it! Time's flying. Where? When? How? Never saw an artist yet that could think on straight lines," he grumbled.
"All of you get your money, meet at Mitchell's rooms. I'll let Post know and join you there later. We'll wait till dark, get a tried and acquitted notary of my acquaintance, slip around to Post's lair after dark and do the deed. I'll stand a ripping dinner for the bunch out of my ten per cent. Put deed on record to-morrow morning. That'll give him start enough. Is that all clear?"
"Clear as a bell. I'm off!" said Archibald.
"Archie's a good sort, but he does hate to let a dollar get by him." The artist laughed indulgently. "I say, Thompson, did you see how he stuck on letting you have a whack at it?"
"Where do you bank?" inquired Mitchell. Steve told him where his money was deposited. Mitchell shook his head. "I was hoping we would go the same way, but I go uptown."
Ten minutes after they left the industrious bookkeeper returned with navvies and draymen, and removed the office furniture to parts unknown.
* * * * *
When the four financiers got together in Mitchell's room Steve proposed to continue his lessons in the fascinating game of bridge.
He drank freely and his game was the apotheosis of bumble-puppy.
Archibald, his partner, was much irritated by his stupidity.
A bellboy came to the door. A gentleman in the parlor would like to see Mr. Thompson.
Mr. Thompson looked at the card. "Mr. A.W. Wyatt," he announced sneeringly. "You can tell Mr. A.W. Wyatt, if he wants to see me, he can just naturally mosey himself up here."
"Not the A.W. Wyatt—Anson Walworth Wyatt?" asked Loring. "I know him—I mean, I know him by sight."
"I believe it is," said Steve with surly indifference. "If you know him, you know an overbearing jabberwock. He's head devil of the push that bought the Copperbottom and I don't like his style even a little bit. He seems to think I'm the dirt under his feet. I'll show him. I know what he wants, and that's the other fourth of my mine." He thumped the table viciously. "He'll pay for all he gets from me, I'll tell you that."
Mr. Wyatt was ushered in; irreproachable, flawless, exquisite. ("It's him!" breathed Loring.) He remained standing, hat in hand, fitted his glass with vacuous care and surveyed the room with deliberately insolent scrutiny. Thompson kept his seat, fairly prickling with antagonism. The others rose with exemplary good breeding.
"Aw!" said the newcomer, after an eloquent pause.
"Mistah—er—Townsend, cawn I have a few moments of quite pwivate convehsation with you?"
"No, you cawnt!" retorted Thompson truculently. "Sit down, boys. Sit down, I say! These gentlemen are my friends. Anything you got to say? If there is, say it. And my name's Thompson, if you please."
"Aw!—what an extwemely wemahkable ahttitude!" Wyatt fixed his monocle on the offending miner with bland and exasperating condescension. "Weally, you quite intewest me, y' know! I appwoach you, quite civilly, y' know, with an offah decidedly to youah ahdvahntage, Mistah—ah—Tomlinson, and you tweat it——"
"Thompson!! By Heavens, you say Tomlinson again and I'll pound your face into shape!" roared the misnamed one, jumping up. Mitchell and Loring vainly tried to quiet him.
"Weally, I shall be obwiged to wefeh you to my lawyehs——" Wyatt began.
"Refer me—you animated outrage—you libel! Turn me loose, you fellows! I don't want to see you or your durn lawyers! I know what you want, well enough. You want to bamboozle me into selling my interest in the Copper-bottom for less than it's worth. Here's my last word to you—Mr.—ah—White! If you want my fourth at forty thousand, to-day, all right. It's worth more—it's paid from the grass-roots down. But that'll make me the round six figures, and that's enough. I can make money—I know my little way about," he boasted, with insufferable complacency.
"Nobody left me my pile! Put up or shut up!"
"Mr. Wyatt," said Mitchell, "pardon me, but may I suggest that you call at a more favorable time?" He made, behind Thompson's back, the motion significant of an emptied glass.
"Aw! I see—I see! Thawnks awfully for the hint. Good-evening, gentlemen—and—ah—Mistah Tomkins!"
Thompson broke away, shaking his fist in Wyatt's face. "Say that again and I'll brain you—pawdon me, I should say, I'll smash your head in. Thompson's my name—T-h-o-m-p-s-o-n, T h o m p s o n! And you trade with me, now or never!"
"You see, gentlemen?" Wyatt appealed. "Mistah—ah—Tawmson, I offahed you twenty-five thousand on my own wesponsibility, as a—ah—business pwoposition. My—ah—associawates in this undehtaking aw all fwiends, quite congenwial, y' know, and I felt suah they would sanction that. I do not cyah to go futheh lengths without—ah—a confewence with them, as I believe that pwice quite ahmple, y' know. But if I could awwange fo' an option——"
"You pay me twenty thousand, cash, in this room, at eight o'clock to-night, and I'll give you an option for one week at forty thousand," persisted the morose miner. "After that, the price goes up."
"Fifty pehcentum down on an option! This is uttehly unpwecedented, y' know. I must wemonstwate, weally!"
"It's all the option you'll get from me, you jackanapes." He snapped contemptuous fingers under Wyatt's nose.
Wyatt buttoned his coat with dignity. "Weally, this pahsses all bounds!" he ejaculated. "Gentlemen, I accept this—ah—puhson's offeh. I cannot enduah such an associwate. You ah all witnesses. May I ahsk you-ah names, and may I wequest youah pwesence to-night, both to ensuah the—ar—fulfillment of the vehbal contwact which you have heahd, and to pwevent the wepetition of this scandalous scene?" He opened the door. "Aw wevoah, gentlemen!" By this time he was in the elevator. From this coign of vantage he sent a Parthian shaft.
"Till eight o'clock, Mistah—ah—Tomkinson!"
The three held the raging Thompson with some mutual dishevelment. They soothed him with flattery, stayed him with flagons, for he yearned for blood with a great yearning.
"Listen to your friends, boy," urged Mitchell. "Take his money, and don't do anything you'll be sorry for. Make out your papers and pay no attention to what he says. Come, brace up! It'll be time for dinner in a jiffy. Promise us not to drink any more, and not to make any trouble, or we'll 'phone him not to come."
Steve allowed himself to be pacified at last, but he regarded his mitigators with a malignant eye.
"Here's what I owe you on bridge, Mitchell—twenty-three dollars," he said sullenly. "Archibald can settle with Loring. I don't want no dinner—I'm going to sleep."
"Oh, come on now, that's a good fellow," purred Mitchell, picking up the two bills and the coins. "Say, old man—you haven't turned counterfeiter, have you?" he said good-naturedly. "This one's N.G."
Steve took it clumsily. "It's no such thing," he blurted. "Good as gold. Take it or leave it. I don't care."
"Oh, very well," said Mitchell, humoring him. Then he reflected. The indications were that their projected coup might fail if Steve's surly humor kept up. Why not improve the shining hour? The coin was obviously bad.
"I'll take it before it gets you into trouble," he insinuated.
Steve lurched to his feet, thrusting an undecorative face over the table. "You think' it's bad?" he queried darkly. "You think I'm a fool?" He flung a packet of bills on the table. "Cover that, if you dare," he said. "There's the money for the Post place—ten thousand dollars. It says that's a good dollar. Put up or shut up!"
"You'll lose your money!" warned Mitchell. "Then you'll say I took advantage of you."
"I know what you think," said Steve shrewdly. "You think I'm drunk, but I'm not. I know a good thing when I see it. Don't you—don't you lose no sleep about me. I'm—I'm all right, you bet! Now what'll you do or take water?" he fleered.
Surreptitiously Loring had tried the coin with his penknife during this controversy. The metal was quite soft—the knife left a great scar, which he flashed at Mitchell.
"Well—if you insist," said Mitchell reluctantly. He counted out ten one-thousand-dollar bills. "Who'll be the judge?"
"Anybody. Archie. I've got you skinned a mile anyway."
"I am sorry, Mr. Thompson," said Archibald, "but this dollar seems to be pewter, or something of that general description. Aw, give him back his money, Mitchell—he's drinking.
"I won't!" said Mitchell stubbornly. "He forced me into it. He wouldn't have given it back to me if I'd lost."
"Sure I wouldn't," assented Steve. "I'm no boy. I play for keeps, me. Don't be so fast, if you please. This money ain't won yet. Cut into that dollar! I was from Missouri before ever I saw Montana."
"Cut it, Loring," said Mitchell. "Show him!"
Loring scratched it with the penknife point. "You see? soft as cheese—rotten," he said. And then the knife struck something hard. A chill crept over him. Stupefied, he scraped the base metal back, revealing a portion of an irrefutably good dollar.
The dismayed rascals looked up. In Thompson's hand a large, businesslike gun wavered portentously from one head to the other.
"Go on!" he admonished. His tone was not particularly pleasant. "Peel her off! Yah! You puling infants! You cheap, trading-stamp crooks!" He raked off the money. "Be tran-tranquil! You doddering idiots, I'd shoot your heads off for two bits I Try to rob a countryman, will you? Why, gentle shepherds all, I've been on to such curves as yours ever since Hec was a pup! You and your scout Loring and your Bickford and your Post!" he scoffed. "Don't open your heads. Bah! Here, you skunks!" He threw an ostentatiously bad dollar on the table. "Take that, and break even if you can. That patronizing half-baked tailor's dummy that called me out of my name will be back bimeby, with his pockets full. I'd like to see him taken down a peg, but I dassent spoil the sale of my mine. Tell him I'm in bed, full, but'll be out in an hour or so. He'll come again to buy me out. Hates me like poison, he does. If you can get him to bite, go it! But I doubt if you'll find even that saphead as rank as you three wise guys. Anyway, I don't want to see him while I feel this way. My head aches, and I suppose there's some sort of law against shooting the likes of him—or you. I'm leavin' for another hotel, right now. Don't you fellows bother me if you value your hides. If you can skin, that puppy, why, sic 'em, Towse! and the devil take the hindmost! Oh, you Smart Alecks!"
He backed out with a traditional wiggle of his fingers.
It is to be regretted that the stringent regulations of the postal authorities will not permit us any report of the heart-to-heart talk that followed his departure, other than the baldest summary. It was marked by earnestness, sincerity, even by some petulance, interspersed with frank and spirited repartee. Mutual recrimination resulted.
Subdued and chastened, Mr. Mitchell was reduced to the ranks; Loring, by virtue of his own and Mitchell's vote, replacing him. Archibald's preference was for a third person still—namely, himself—and he acquiesced with ill grace.
They had but little over ten thousand dollars remaining for the return match; and this, as Loring pointed out with just indignation, would only put them even. They knew that Wyatt would have at least twice that much with him. So they scurried forth and made such good use of the scant time left them, by borrowing, by squeezing both Bickford and the hard-working bookkeeper, and by resource to certain nest-eggs laid by for case of extreme urgency (known among themselves as "fix money"), they scraped together some six thousand more. The "ripping" dinner went untasted. They were hardened, but human.
All ravages of carking care were smoothed away, and they were disposed in luxuriant and contented ease when Wyatt came.
"Aw, gentlemen, I am punctual, you see!" he announced gayly. "It is weally vewy kind of you to be so obliging—I'm suah. Is the—ah—mining puhson in?"
Mr. Loring, speaking for the trio, affably regretted that their young friend was not, in fact, at his best during Mr. Wyatt's previous call. They had remonstrated with him for his injurious conduct. At present he was sleeping off the effects of his slight exhilaration: they thought it would not be at all judicious to disturb him: they felt sure that, on awakening, he would prove amenable to reason. Meanwhile, the night was young; if Mr. Wyatt cared to join them in a friendly rubber they would be delighted.
"Chawmed, I'm suah!" said Wyatt. "I do not desiah any contwovewsy with that vewy wuffianly puhson while he is—ah—wuffled. So I shall wait and shall be happy to join you."
The score was close; it was only through ingenious manipulation by their opponents that Wyatt and his partner were forced to win a small sum.
"Weally, gentlemen," drawled Wyatt, looking at his watch, "I shall be fowced to leave you. I have an engagement at eleven, and I weally feah ouah Mr. Townshend will be, as I might say, hors de combat foh the night. I have to thawnk you fow a vewy agweeable evening, nevahtheless."
He was carelessly sweeping the money into his pocket when Mitchell, his partner, checked him.
"I beg your pardon, but is that not a bad dollar?" he said.
"Oh, no mattah—no consequence at all, I assuah you," said Wyatt liberally. He would have pocketed the piece, but Loring, who had paid it, gave him another, and flung the slighted coin over to Mitchell.
"If you're so set on this dollar being bad," he said angrily, "I'll bet you what you dare it's not bad."
"Done with you for twenty!" Mitchell covered it promptly.
Loring drew out a handful of bills. "Here you are. Any one else want any of this?" he inquired captiously.
Archibald shook his head and laughed. Wyatt screwed his monocle into his eye, regarded both sides of the coin attentively, and laid it down.
"Quite bad, I assuah you," he said. "I should pwonounce it about the wohst specimen extahnt."
"Maybe you'd like to bet on it?" said Loring, flaunting the big bills.
Wyatt was evidently nettled. "Weally, you aw wong—I assuah you," he said stiffly.
"If you aw—pawdon me—quite able to lose that money without—ah—inconvenience I am weady to covah it, at least, as fah as what I have with me goes."
"Done!" said Loring. This was not so bad, after all.
"How much?… Aw! Seventeen thousand. Exactly. The bet is made, gentlemen. I—ah—propose that we wing the bell foh the pwopwietah and, shahl we say, the clahk, to act as judge and stakeholdeh."
"That will be satisfactory," said Loring. "Allow me, in turn, to make a suggestion, Mr. Wyatt. Put the money in your billbook, hand it to the stakeholder, and let him give it, unopened, to the winner. Of course, you will first take out your other money. There is no need for them to know that more than a trivial sum is at stake. We do not want to court unpleasant notoriety."
"Quite twue! An excellent suggestion," said Wyatt gravely. He proceeded to put it in effect.
The summoned dignitaries arrived, the situation was explained, and Wyatt, handing the money to the proprietor and the questionable dollar to the clerk, requested judgment.
The clerk looked at the coin, rubbed it, rang it. It gave out a dull and leaden sound.
"Bad, beyond a doubt," he said.
"Try it with your knife," said Loring confidently.
The clerk complied. By mischance he bore on too hard. The knife went through to the table.
A sound of mirth swept to them. With horror frozen on their faces, the three rascals were aware of Thompson, leaning in the doorway—unmistakably sober, given up to reprehensible levity, holding out a bright tin pail with an expectant air.
Let us give even the devil his due. For Mitchell laughed.