HANK FISHER OF
THE BOHEMIAN
CLUB GOES AFTER
THE DUTCHMAN
Joe Barrett Loses on the Deal But Comes
Up Smiling at Josh Tyrebuck
and Bud du Cane
Then came the details. The dollar tossed at the Bay Club, which gave Hank two thousand dollars’ worth of goods for nothing, the loan of the Wear Jack by Tyrebuck and George du Cane’s participation in the business.
George felt as though all his clothes had suddenly been stripped off him there in the street. Hank whistled.
Then he said: “That’s Barrett. Lord, I might have known. He didn’t toss fair, he wanted me to win, and now, look! He’s got the goods, five thousand dollars’ worth of advertising for a thousand dollars’ worth of bully beef and canned t’matoes. It won’t cost him more than that, for he’s giving me the stuff at retail prices. And now it will be all over the town and all over the waterside.”
“Curse him,” said George. His lips were dry. There was a jocular tone in that confounded press notice that cast a blight on everyone concerned except Joe Barrett. Joe, though he was the only loser of money in the business up to the present was, in some extraordinary way, put on a pedestal as a sport, whilst the others ran round the plinth like figures of fun.
“It’s him and his publicity man, Josh Scudder, who’ve done it,” said Hank. “I can tell Josh’s hand in it—it’s his style. Well, there it is, it can’t be helped. I’d planned to slip out quiet and come back with a brass band playing Dutchland under alles and Vanderdecken in leg irons; now the blanket’s stripped off us clean. We’ll be laughed at from Hell to Hoboken if we don’t make good. We’re on the toboggan full speed, no use grabbing at the snow. There’s only one way out—we’ve gotta get the Dutchman.”