“Then I’ll go that one better,” said Spotty. “I see by the papers there’s a dance at the Sunderland house to-night. Three thousand down or I dump him in the front door, drunk as a lord and dressed like a stevedore. I’ve got him where you can’t find him——” which was a bluff. “If you tell the police he’ll get worse than a drunk——” which was another.
“Not a red cent,” she said.
“Settles it!” said Crigg. He went away red-hot, mad enough to back up his bluff, just as the old lady thought he would.
When he got home he found that Tom couldn’t be kept much longer. There had been a deuce of a rough house. That clinched the matter with Spotty Crigg. About half-past eight he woke Tom, gave him some dinner with a cold bottle to get him started again, and spun him a yarn about finding him drunk and robbed. The deal went through on schedule. At half-past nine, Spotty drove up to the Letterblair house with the kid, rang the door-bell and pushed Tom right into the hall, nursing a loud, talkative drunk. They say it put that function on the bum. I heard afterward from Tom Letterblair that it was about the only time he ever really enjoyed himself at one of his sister’s parties.
Nobody ever told the police or the papers. Every man-jack in the deal was afraid to peach on the others, because he couldn’t afford to tell on himself. All except the old lady and Tom, of course, and they were too tickled with the way the things turned out to care about giving it away. Another funny thing: everybody quit a winner. You can see how Captain Wynch won. Tom paid Spotty Crigg a thousand for keeping him off the Treasure Trove, and I got fifty dollars for my job. And even the snob sisters won out. How? Well, sir, Tom Letterblair braced up from that time on. I suppose he took it that if he was far enough gone to the devil for his family to have to shanghai him, he must be a pretty bad egg. So he swore off, got on the water-wagon, and turned out pretty well, alongside of what they’d expected of him. His chorus girl, Dotty, ran away with another man, and that helped him some, too.
Finally, Tom got a case on a swell New York heiress, a dizzy blonde, who was just simply It in the Four Hundred. He married her, to the great and grand delight of Mr. and Mrs. J. Thrasher Sunderland.
And right there was where Tom had too much luck for any one man. I’ll be darned if that girl’s name wasn’t Dotty, and she always believed Tom had it pricked on his arm just on her account! What d’you think of that?
But perhaps you’re wondering how Maidslow got square. I’ll tell you.
He came to in the tug office, where the crew had passed him a few swift kicks and left him. Pretty stupid and dopy yet, he crawled home to his own room and slept some more of it off.
Then, when his head did finally clear out, he began to look himself over; to discover and explore, as you might say. When he looked in the glass he must have nearly fell dead. His yellow moustache was gone. Then, he’d gone to sleep in old clothes and he woke up in a swell high-class rig, silk-lined, and without a spot, patch, or sign of wear. He had on silk gauze underwear, patent leather shoes, diamonds in his shirt-front, cuff-links, and a pair of pretty hot socks. Feeling in his pockets, as a man will, he found a gold watch and chain, a gold cigarette case, a corkscrew mounted in rubies and three hundred and forty-two dollars in bills and coin. Every one in the deal had been too busy to touch him while he was drugged.