McAllister and His Double

by Arthur Cheney Train

"Now our innocent friend had been sort of lonely ever since he'd lost sight of Buncomb, and this Blake turned out to be an awfully good sort. Tomlinson naturally inquired if he'd ever met the Colonel or Larry Summerdale, but he never had, and finally they took an apartment together."

"He must have been pleased when Tomlinson told him about the value of his stock," remarked McAllister, lighting another cigar.

"I'm comin' to that," replied Wainwright. "It seems that Tomlinson so far forgot his early New England traditions as to covet that stock himself. Shockin', wasn't it?

"One day, when they were lunching at the Trois Freres, our friend hinted that he was interested in mining stock. Blake laughed, and replied that if Tomlinson owned as much as he did of the stuff he wouldn't want to see another share as long as he lived, and added that he was loaded up with a lot of worthless stock—two thousand shares—in an old prospect in Arizona that he had inherited from his father, and wasn't worth the paper the certificate was printed on. The leery Tomlinson admitted having heard of the mine, but gave it as his impression that it had possibilities.

"Then he had a sudden headache, and went out and cabled to The Silver Bow offices at the World building here in New York to find out what the company would pay for the stock. In an hour or two he got an answer stating that they were prepared to give twenty dollars a share for not less than two thousand shares. Good, eh?

"Well, next day he led the conversation round again to mining stocks, and finally offered to buy Blake's holdings for five dollars a share. When the latter hesitated, Tomlinson was so afraid he'd lose the stock that he almost raised his bid to fifteen; but Blake only laughed, and said that he had no intention of robbing one of his friends, and that the old stuff really wasn't worth a cent. Tomlinson became quite indignant, suggested that perhaps he knew more about that particular mine than even Blake did, and finally overcame the latter's scruples and persuaded him to sell. Then Tomlinson disposed of some bonds by cable, and that evening gave Blake a draft for fifty thousand francs in exchange for his two thousand share certificate in The Silver Bow of Arizona. He told me it had a picture of a miner with a pick-ax and a mule standing against the rising sun on it. Sort of allegorical, don't you think?

"Blake continued to protest that our friend was being cheated, and offered to buy it back at any time; but Tomlinson's one idea was to get to New York as fast as possible. He had cabled that the stock was on the way, and that very night he slid out of Paris and caught the Norddeutscher Lloyd at Cherbourg. I inferred that he occupied the bridal chamber on the way back all by himself.

"The instant they landed he jumped in a cab and started for the World building; but when he got there he couldn't find any Silver Bow Mining Company. It had evaporated. It had been there right enough—for ten days—the ten days Tomlinson calculated that it had taken Blake to sell him the stock. But no one knew where it had gone or what had become of it.

"Well, of course," kept on Wainwright, "he nearly went crazy; cabled the police in Paris and had 'em all arrested, including Colonel Buncomb; and took the next steamer back. He says they had the trial in a little police court in the Palais de Justice. Buncomb had hired Maître Labori to defend him. Everybody kept their hats on, and apparently they all shouted at once. The Judge was the only one that kept his mouth shut at all. Tomlinson told his story through an interpreter, and charged Buncomb, Summerdale, and Blake with conspiracy to defraud.

"When the Colonel realized what it was all about he jumped into the middle of the room, pushed his silk hat back of his ears, flapped his coat-tails, and sailed into 'em in good old Southern style. I tell you he must have made the eagle scream. He was a Colonel in the Confederate Army, he was—the Thirtieth Georgia. The whole thing was a miserable French scheme to blackmail him. He'd appeal to the American Ambassador. He'd see if a parcel of French soup-makers and a police judge could interfere with the Constitution of the United States. Every once in a while he'd yell 'Conspuez' or 'À bas' and sort of froth at the mouth. He made a great big impression. Then Maître Labori got in his licks. He said Tomlinson was a wolf in sheep's clothing—a rascal—a 'vilain m'sieur,' whatever that is.