That seems to be the general idea, and as he promises to stop in at the house and fix things up for me at home, and pushes a roll of twenties at me to spray around with as I see fit, of course, I has to take the job. I trails in with Mr. Robert while he apologizes elaborate to Ambrose and explains how he's had to ask me to fill in.
"Perfectly all right, old man," says Ambrose. "In fact—well, you get the idea, eh? The little wife hasn't quite got her bearings yet. Might feel better about meeting her new relatives after she's been around a bit. And Torchy will do fine."
He tips me the wink as Mr. Robert hurries off.
"Same old cut-up, eh, Amby?" says I.
"Who me?" says he. "No, no! Nothing like that. Old married man, steady as a church. Uh-huh! Two years and a half in the harness. You ought to see the happy hacienda we call home down there. Say, it's forty-eight long miles out of Buenos Ayres. Can you picture that! El Placida's the name of the cute little burg. It looks it. They don't make 'em any more placid anywhere."
"I wonder you picked it then," says I.
"I didn't exactly," says Ambrose. "El Placida rather picked me. Funny how things work out sometimes. Got chummy with an old boy going down on the boat, Senor Alvarado. Showed him how to play Canfield and Russian bank and gave him the prescription for mixing a Hartford stinger. Before we crossed the line he thought I was an ace. Wanted to know what I was going to do down in his great country. 'Oh, anything that will keep me in cigarettes,' says I. 'You come with me and learn the wool business,' says he. 'It's a bet,' says I. So instead of being stranded in a strange land and nibbling the shrubbery for lunch, as my dear brother and the Ellinses had doped out, I lands easy on my feet with a salary that starts when I walks down the gank plank. Only I have to be in El Placida to draw my pay."
"But you made good, did you?" I asks.
"I did as long as Senor Alvarado was around to back me up," says Amby, "but when he slides down to the city for a week's business trip and turns me over to that Scotch superintendent of his the going got kind of rough. Mr. McNutt sends me out with a flivver to buy wool around the country. Looked easy. Buying things used to be my long suit. I bought a lot of wool. But I expect some of them low-browed rancheros must have gypped me good and plenty. Anyway, McNutt threw a fit when he looked over my bargains. He didn't do a thing but fire me, right off the reel. Honest, I'd never been fired so impetuous or so enthusiastic. He invites me to get off the place, which means hiking back to Buenos Ayres.
"Well, what can you do with a Scotchman who's mad clear to the marrow? Especially a rough actor like McNutt. I'd already done a mile from the village when along comes 'Chita in her roadster. You know, old man Alvarado's only daughter. Some senorita, 'Chita is. You should have seen those black eyes of her's flash when she heard how abrupt I'd been turned loose. 'We shall go straight to papa,' says she. 'He will tell Senor McNutt where he gets off.' She meant well, 'Chita. But I had my doubts. I knew that Alvarado was pretty strong for McNutt. I'd heard him say there wasn't another man in the Argentine who knew more about wool than McNutt, and if it came to a showdown as to which of us stayed on I wouldn't have played myself for a look in.