DIETZ’S 7462 BESSIE JOHN
Philo Gubb sat on an upturned bundle of rolls of wall-paper in the dining-room of Mrs. Pilker’s famous Pilker mansion, in Riverbank, biting into a thick ham sandwich. It was noon.
Mr. Gubb ate methodically, taking a large bite of sandwich, chewing the bite long and well, and then swallowing it with a wonderful up and down gliding of his knobby Adam’s apple. From time to time he turned his head and looked at the walls of the dining-room. The time was Saturday noon, and but one wall was covered with the new wall-paper, a natural forest tapestry paper, with lifelike representations of leafy trees. He had promised to have the Pilker dining-room completed by Saturday night. It seemed quite impossible to Philo Gubb that he could finish the Pilker dining-room before dark, and it worried him.
Other matters, even closer to his heart, worried Mr. Gubb. He had had a great quarrel with Mr. Medderbrook, the father of the fair Fat Lady of the World’s Greatest Combined Shows. Judge Orley Morvis had paid Mr. Gubb twenty dollars for certain detective work, but Mr. Gubb had not turned all this over to Mr. Medderbrook, and Mr. Medderbrook had resented this. He told Mr. Gubb he was a cheap, tank-town sport.
“I worked hard,” said Mr. Medderbrook, “to sell you that Utterly Hopeless Gold-Mine stock and now you hold out on me. That’s not the way I expect a jay-town easy-mark—”
“I beg your pardon, but what was that term of phrase you called me?” asked Mr. Gubb.
“I called you,” said Mr. Medderbrook, changing his tone to one of politeness, “an easy-mark. In high financial circles the term is short for ‘easy-market-investor,’ meaning one who never buys stocks unless he is sure they are of the highest class and at the lowest price.”
“Well, I should hereafter prefer not to be so called,” said Mr. Gubb.
Almost as soon as he had said the cruel words he regretted them, but the next day Mr. Medderbrook’s colored butler came to Mr. Gubb’s office with a telegram for which he demanded thirty-six dollars and fifty cents.