Honest, he was scared stiff; but he didn't let anyone but me see it. Even a little thing like goin' down to Wall Street and lookin' up some securities gets him rattled. He hadn't been gone more'n an' hour 'fore he calls me up on the 'phone and says some broker's clerk has asked him if our concern don't want to bid on P. O. privileges at seven-eighths. "What are P. O. privileges?" says Mallory.
"Oh, tush!" says I. "And you let 'em hand you such a burry one? P. O. privileges is the right to lick stamps at the gen'ral post-office, and it's a gag them curb shysters has wore to a frazzle. You go back and tell that fresh paper-chewer we're only buyin' options on July snow removals preferred."
That's what comes of foolin' around at college. Mallory comes back lookin' like some one had sold him a billboard seat to a free window show.
But that was nothin' to the down-and-out slump I found him in next night, when I goes around for my writin' lesson and so on.
"Is it the spino comeandgetus," says I, "or has Miss Tuttifrutti sent back your Christmas card?"
"It's worse than either," says he, with his chin on the top button of his vest. "I guess I'm what you would call a false alarm, Torchy. I've been tried out and haven't made good."
"G'wan!" says I. "Everyone gets a lemon now and then. Some tries to swaller it whole, and chokes to death; others mixes 'em up with eggs and things, and knocks out a pie, with meringue on top. Draw us a map of how you fell off the scaffold."
Well, I jollied the hard luck tale out of him. It was a case of sendin' a boy with a pushcart to bring home a grand piano. The Old Man had done it. He's kind of sore on the way Mr. Robert lugged Mallory in by the hair, 'cause I heard him growlin' somethin' about makin' a kindergarten out of the Corrugated; so he springs this on him. He calls for Mallory and tells him there's a Russian gent down to the Waldorf that's come over to place a big Gover'ment contract.
"We've got to have a slice of that," says he. "Just you run down and get it for us." Like that, offhand, as if it was somethin' you could do anytime between lunch and one-thirty.
Near as I could make out, Mallory goes for it in his polite, standoff, after-you way, and the closest he gets to Russky is a minute with a cocky secretary that says his Excellency is very sorry, but he'll be too busy to see him this trip—maybe next time, about 1912, he'll have an hour off.