“It’s no joke,” says Pinckney. “The little his father left him is gone, and what’s coming from his Uncle Norton he doesn’t get until the uncle dies. Meanwhile he’s flat broke and too proud to beg or borrow.”
“Never tried trailin’ a pay envelope, did he?” says I.
“But he doesn’t know how,” says Pinckney. “His talents don’t seem to be marketable. I am trying to think of something he could do. And did you know, Shorty, he’s taken quite a fancy to you?”
“They all do,” says I; “but Marmaduke’s easier to stand than most of ’em. Next time I’m threatened with the willies I’ll send for him and offer to hire him by the hour.”
As a matter of fact, I didn’t have to; for he got into the habit of blowin’ into the studio every day or two, and swappin’ a few of his airy fancies for my mental short-arm jabs. He said it did him good, and somehow or other it always chirked me up too.
And the more I saw of Marmaduke, the less I thought about the bats. Get under the surface, and he wa’n’t nutty at all. He just had a free flow of funny thoughts and odd ways of expressin’ ’em. Most of us are so shy of lettin’ go of any sentiments that can’t be had on a rubber stamp that it takes a mighty small twist to put a person in the queer class.
However, business is business, and I’d just as soon Marmaduke hadn’t been on hand the other day when Pyramid Gordon comes in with one of his heavyweight broker friends. Course, I didn’t know anything about the stranger; but I know Pyramid, and his funnybone was fossilized years ago. Marmaduke don’t offer to make any break, though. He takes his fav’rite seat over by the window and goes to gazin’ out and rubbin’ his chin.
Seems that Mr. Gordon and his friend was both tangled up in some bank chain snarl that was worryin’ ’em a lot. Things wouldn’t be comin’ to a head for forty-eight hours or so, and meantime all they could do was sit tight and wait.
Now, Pyramid’s programme in a case of that kind is one I made out for him myself. It’s simple. He comes to the studio for an hour of the roughest kind of work we can put through. After that he goes to his Turkish bath, and by the time his rubber is through with him he’s ready for a private room and a ten hours’ snooze. That’s what keeps the gray out of his cheeks, and helps him look a Grand Jury summons in the face without goin’ shaky.
So it’s natural he recommends the same course to this Mr. Gridley that he’s brought along. Another thick-neck, Gridley is, with the same flat ears as Pyramid, only he’s a little shorter and not quite so rugged around the chin.