You see, I'd been knockin' around for months with someone who was clean all the way through—washed clean, spoke clean, thought clean—and now there was no tellin' what kind of a push I'd fall in with. You've had a peek at trainin' camps, eh? Them rubbers is apt to be a scousy lot. It was the goin' back to eatin' with sword swallowers that came hardest, though. I can stand for a good many things, but when I sees a guy loadin' up his knife for the shovel act, I rubs him off my list.
I was goin' over all this, on the way down to the office of that lawyer the Boss wanted me to see. I'd met him a few times, so when I sends in my name there wa'n't any waitin' around in the ante-room with the office boy.
"Bring Mr. McCabe right in," says he. "Mister McCabe," mind you. He's one of those wiry, brisk little chaps, with x-ray eyes, and a voice like a telephone bell. "Ah, yes!" says he, takin' the letter. "I know about that—some stock I was to turn into cash. Franklin!" he sings out. Franklin comes in like he'd come through a tube. "Bring me Mr. McCabe's bank book."
"Bank book!" says I. "I guess you've dipped into the wrong letter file. I don't sport any bank book."
"Perhaps you didn't yesterday," says he, "but to-day you do."
And say, what do you think the Boss had gone and done? Opened an account in my name, and fatted it up good and sweet, as a starter.
"But he didn't owe me anything like that," says I.
"A difference of opinion, Mr. McCabe," says the lawyer. "'For services rendered,' that was the way his instructions to me read. I sold the stock and made the deposit to your credit. That's all there is to it. Good day. Call again."
And the next thing I knew I was goin' down in the elevator with me fist grippin' that bank book like it was a life raft. First off I has to go and have a look at the outside of that bank. That's right, snicker. But say, I've had as much dough as that before, only I'd always carried it in a bundle. There's a lot of difference. Every tinhorn sport has his bundle, you know; but it's only your real gent that can flash a check book. I could feel my chest swellin' by the minute.
"Shorty," says I, "you've broke into a new class. Now you've got to make good."