Torchy

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[Illustration: I FOUND MYSELF LOOKING SQUARE INTO THEM BIG GRAY EYES.
(Frontispiece)]

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TORCHY
BY
SEWELL FORD

AUTHOR OF
TRYING OUT TORCHY, ETC.

FRONTISPIECE BY
GEORGE BREHM

NEW YORK
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS

Made in the United States of America

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Copyright, 1909, 1910, by
SEWELL FORD

COPYRIGHT, 1911, by
EDWARD J. CLODE

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TO MY
TRULY USEFUL AND GENIAL FRIEND

W. A. C.

AT WHOSE SUGGESTION THIS
CHRONICLE OF THE DOINGS OF TORCHY
CAME TO BE MADE

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CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Getting in with the Glory Be 1
II. A Jolt for Piddie 18
III. Meeting up with the Great Skid 34
IV. Frosting the Profess 51
V. Where Mildred Got Next 67
VI. Shunting Brother Bill 83
VII. Keeping Tabs on Piddie 100
VIII. A Whirl with Kazedky 117
IX. Down the Bumps with Cliffy 132
X. Backing out of a Fluff Riot 148
XI. Rung in with the Gold Spooners 162
XII. Landing on a Side Street 177
XIII. First Aid for the Main Stem 193
XIV. In on the Oolong 209
XV. Batting it up to Torchy 226
XVI. Throwing the Line to Skid 241
XVII. Touching on Tink Tuttle 258
XVIII. Getting Hermes on the Bounce 275
XIX. When Miss Vee Threw the Dare 294

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TORCHY

CHAPTER I

GETTING IN WITH THE GLORY BE

Sure, I was carryin' the banner. But say, I ain't one of them kids that
gets callouses on the hands doin' it. When I'm handed the fresh air on
payday, I don't choke to death over it. I goes out and rustles for
another job. And I takes my pick, too. Why not? It's just as easy.

This time I gets a bug that the new Octopus Buildin' might have been put
up special for me. Anyway, it looked good from the outside, and I blows
in through the plate glass merry go round. The arcade was all to the
butterscotch, everything handy, from an A. D. T. stand to Turkish baths
in the basement.

"Got any express elevators?" says I to the starter guy.

"Think of buying the buildin', sonny?" says he.

"There'd be room for you on the sidewalk if I did," says I. "But say, if
you can tear your eyes off the candy counter queen long enough, tell me
who's got a sign out this mornin'."

"They're going to elect a second vice-president of the Interurban
to-day. Would that suit you?" says he, twistin' up his lip whisker and
lookin' cute.

"Maybe," says I; "but I'd take a portfolio as head office boy if I knew
where to butt in."

"Then chase up to 2146," says he. "You'll find 'em waitin' for you with
a net. Here's your car. Up!" and before I knows it I has done the
skyrocket act up to floor twenty-one.

Well say, you wouldn't have thought so many kids read the want ads. and
had the courage to tackle an early breakfast. The corridor was full of
'em, all sizes, all kinds. It looked like recess time at a boys' orphan
asylum, and with me against the field I stood to be a sure loser. I
hadn't no more'n climbed out before they starts to throw the josh my
way.

"Hey, Reddy, get in line! The foot for yours, Peachblow!" they yells at
me.

And then I comes back. "Ah, flag it!" says I. "Do I look like I belonged
in your class? Brush by, you three-dollar pikers, and give a salaried
man a show!"

With that I makes a quick rush at 2146 and gets through the door before
they has time to make a howl. The letterin' on the ground glass was
what got me. It said as how this was the home office of the Glory Be
Mining Company, and there was a string of high-toned names as long as
your arm. But the minute I sizes up the inside exhibit I wasn't so
anxious. I was lookin' for about a thousand feet of floor space; but all
I could see was a couple of six by nines, includin' a clothes closet and
a corner washbowl. There was a grand aggregation of two as an office
force. One was a young lady key pounder, with enough hair piled on top
of her head to stuff a mattress. The other was a long faced young feller
with an ostrich neck and a voice that sounded like a squeaky door.

"Go outside!" says he, wavin' his hands and puttin' on a weary look.
"Mr. Pepper can't see any of you until he has finished with the mail.
Now run along."

"I can't," says I; "my feet won't let me. Is that the Pepper box in
there?"

The door was open a foot or two; so I steps up to take a peek at the
main squeeze. And say, the minute I sees him I knew he'd do. He wa'n't
one of these dried up whiskered freaks, nor he wa'n't any human hog,
with no neck and three chins. He was the kind of a gent you see comin'
out of them swell cafes, and he looked like a winner, Mr. Belmont Pepper
did. His breakfast seemed to be settin' as well as his coat collar, and
you could tell with one eye that he wouldn't come snoopin' around early
in the day, nor hang around the shop after five. Pepper has his heels up
on the rolltop, burnin' a real Havana. That's the kind of a boss I
likes. I lays out to connect, too.

"Say," says I to the long faced duck, "you hold your breath a minute and
I'll be back!"

Then I steps outside, yanks the "Boy Wanted" sign off the nail, and says
to the crowd good and brisk, just as though I come direct from
headquarters:

"It's all over, kids, and unless you're waitin' to have a group picture
taken you'd better hit the elevator."

Wow! There was call for another sudden move just then. I was lookin' for
that, though, and by the time the first two of 'em struck the door I was
on the other side with the key turned. Riot? Well say, you'd thought I'd
pinched the only job in New York! They kicked on the door and yelled
through the transom and got themselves all worked up.

The lady key pounder grabs hold of both sides of her table and almost
swallows her tuttifrutti, the ostrich necked chap turns pea green, and
Mr. Pepper swings his door open and sings out, real cheerful:

"Mr. Sweetwater, can't you get yourself mobbed without being so noisy
about it? What's up, anyway?"

But Sweetwater wasn't a lightnin' calculator. He stands there with his
mouth open, gawpin' at me, and tryin' to figure out what's broke loose;
so I pushes to the front and helps him out.

"There's a bunch of also rans out there, Mr. Pepper," says I, "that
don't know when to fade. They're just grouchy because I've swiped the
job."

I was lookin' for him to sit up at that; but he don't. "What makes you
think that you've got it!" says he.

"'Cause I'm in and they're out," says I. "Anyway, they're a lot of
dopes, and a man like you wants a live one around. That's me. Where do I
begin?" And I chucks the sign into a waste basket and hangs my cap on a
hook.

Now, that ain't any system you can follow reg'lar. I don't often do it
that way, 'cause I ain't any fonder of bein' thrown through a door than
the next one. But this was a long shot and I was willin' to run the
risk. That fat headed starter knew he was steerin' me up against a mob;
so I was just achin' to squeeze the lemon in his eye by makin' good.

For awhile, though, I couldn't tell whether I was up in a balloon or let
in on the ground floor. Mr. Pepper was givin' me the search warrant
look-over, and I see he's one of these gents that you can't jar easy. I
hadn't rushed him off his feet by my through the center play. There was
still plenty of chance of my gettin' the low tackle.

"If I might ask," says he, smooth as a silk lid, "what is your name?"

"Ah, w'at's the use?" says I, duckin' my head. "Look at that hair! You
might's well begin callin' me Torchy; you'd come to it."

He didn't grin nor nothin'; but only I see his eyes wrinkle a little at
the corners. "Very well, Torchy," says he. "I suppose you have your
references?"

"Nah, I ain't," says I. "But if you're stuck on such things I can get
'em. There's a feller down on Ann-st. that'll write beauts for a quarter
a throw."

"So?" says he. "Then we'll pass that point. Why did you leave your last
place?"

"By request," says I. "The stiff gives me the fire. He said I was too
fresh."

"He was mistaken, I suppose," says Mr. Pepper. "You're not fresh, are
you?"

"Well say, I ain't no last year's limed egg," says I. "If you're lookin'
for somethin' that's been in the brine all winter, you'd better put the
hook in again."

He rubs his chin at that. "Do you like hard work?" says he.

"Think I'd be chasin' up an office boy snap, if I did?" says I.

He takes a minute or so to let that soak in, knockin' his cigar ashes
off on the rug in that careless way a man that ain't married does, and
then he springs another.

"I presume that if you were left alone in the office occasionally," says
he, "you could learn to run the business?"

"Nix, not!" says I. "When I plays myself for a confidential manager I
wants to pull down more than four per. Givin' book agents the quick back
up and runnin' errands is my strong points. For tips on the market and
such as that I charges overtime."

Course, I'd figured it was all off by then, seein' as how I hadn't rung
the bell at any crack. That's why I was so free with the hot air. Mr.
Pepper, he squints at me good and hard, and then pushes the call button.

"Mr. Sweetwater," says he, "this young man's name is Torchy. I've
persuaded him to assist us in running the affairs of the Glory Be Mining
Company. Put him on the payroll at five a week, and then induce that
mass meeting in the corridor to adjourn."

"Say," says I, "does that mean I'm picked?"

"You're the chosen one," says he.

"Gee!" says I. "You had me guessin', though! But you ain't drawn any
blank. I'll shinny on your side, Mr. Pepper, as long's you'll let
me--and that's no gust of wind, either."

And say, inside of three days I'd got the minin' business down to a
science. Course it was a cinch. All I has to do is fold bunches of
circulars, stick stamps on the envelopes, and lug 'em up to the general
P. O. once a day. That, and chasin' out after a dollar's worth of cigars
now and then for Mr. Pepper, and keepin' Sweetie jollied along, didn't
make me round shouldered.

Sweetie was cut out for the undertakin' business, by rights. He took
things hard, he did. Every tick of the clock was a solemn moment for
him, and me gettin' a stamp on crooked was a case that called for a
heart to heart talk. He used to show me the books he was keepin', and
the writin' was as reg'lar as if it'd been done on a job press.

"You're a wonder, you are, Sweetie," says I; "but some day your hand is
going to joggle, and there'll be a blot on them pages, and then you'll
die of heart disease."

Miss Allen, the typewriter fairy, was a good deal of a frost. She was
one of the kind that would blow her lunch money on havin' her hair done
like some actress, and worry through the week on an apple and two pieces
of fudge at noon. I never had much use for her. She called me just Boy,
as though I wa'n't hardly human at all. She'd sit and pat that hair of
hers by the hour, feelin' to see if all the diff'rent waves and bunches
was still there. It was a work of art, all right; but it didn't leave
her time to think of much else. I used to get her wild by askin' how the
six other sisters was comin' on these days.

We didn't have any great rush of customers in the office. About twice a
day some one would stray in; but gen'rally they was lookin' for other
parties, and we didn't take in money enough over the counter to pay the
towel bill. It had me worried some, until I tumbles that the Glory Be
was a mail order snap.

All them circulars we sent out told about the mine. And say, after I'd
read one of 'em I didn't see how it was we didn't have a crowd throwin'
money at us. It was good readin', too, almost as excitin' as a nickel
lib'ry. I'd never been right next to a gold mine before, and it got me
bug eyed just thinkin' about it.

Why, this mine of ours was one that the Injuns had kept hid for years
and years, killin' off every white man that stuck his nose into the same
county. But after awhile a feller by the name of Dakota Dan turned
Injun, got himself adopted by the tribe, and monkeyed around until he
found the mine. It near blinded him the first squint he got of them big
chunks of gold. The Injuns caught him at it and finished the business
with hot irons. Then they roasted him over a fire some and turned him
loose to enjoy himself. He was tougher'n a motorman, though. He didn't
die for years after that; but he never said nothin' about the gold mine
until he was nearly all in. Then he told his oldest boy the tale and
gave him a map of the place, makin' him swear he'd never go near it. The
boy stuck to it, too. He grew up and kept a grocery store, and it wa'n't
until after he'd died of lockjaw from runnin' a rusty nail in his hand
and the widow had sold out the store to a Swede that the map showed up.
The Swede swapped the map to a soap drummer for half a dozen cakes of
scented shaving sticks, and the drummer goes explorin'.

He had a soap drummer's luck. He didn't find any Injuns left. Most of
'em had died off and the rest had joined Wild West shows. The gold mine
was there, though, with chunks of solid gold lyin' around as big as
peach baskets. Mr. Drummer looks until his eyes ache, and then he hikes
himself back East to get up a comp'ny to work the mine. He'd just made
plans to build a solid gold mansion on Fifth-ave. and hire John D.
Rockefeller for a butler, when he strays into one of these Gospel
missions and gets religion so hard that he can't shake it. Then he sees
how selfish it would be to keep all that gold for himself. "But how'll
I divvy it?" says he. "And who with?"

Then he decides that he'll divide with ministers, because they'll use it
best. So he gets up this Glory Be Mining Company, and hires Mr. Pepper
to sell the stock at twenty-five cents a share to all the preachers in
the country.

Blamed if it wa'n't straight goods! I looked on the letters we sent out,
and every last one of 'em was to ministers. Talk about your easy money!
This was like pickin' it off the bushes. Mr. Pepper shows 'em how they
can put in fifty or a hundred dollars and in three or four years be
pullin' out their thousands in dividends.

You'd thought they'd came a runnin' at a chance like that, wouldn't you?
There we was givin' 'em a private hunch on a proposition that was all
velvet. But say, only about one in ten ever hands us a comeback. It was
enough to make a man turn the hose on his grandmother.

Course, a few of 'em did loosen up and send on real money. I used to
stand around and pipe off the boss while he shucked the mail, and I
could tell whether it was fat or lean by the time it took him to eat
lunch. The days when I was sent out to cash five or six money orders,
and soak away a bunch of checks, he'd call a cab at twelve-thirty and
wouldn't come back until near four; but when there wa'n't much doin'
he'd send out for a tray and put in the afternoon dictatin' names and
addresses to Miss Allen.

Then there come a slack spell that lasted for a couple of weeks, and we
didn't get hardly any mail at all, except from some crank out in
Illinois that had splurged on a whole ten dollars' worth of shares, and
wrote in about every other day wantin' to know when the dividends was
goin' to begin comin' his way. I heard Miss Allen talkin' it over with
Sweetie.

It was along about then that this duck from the post-office buildin'
showed up. He comes gumshoein' around one noon hour, while I was all by
my lonesome, and he asks a whole lot of questions that I'd forgot the
answer to. I was tellin' the boss about him that night around closin' up
time.

"I sized him up for one of them cheap skates from the Marshal's office,"
says I. "I didn't know what his game was and I wa'n't goin' to give up
all I knew to him; so I tells him to call around to-morrow and you'll
load him up with all the information his nut can hold. Was that right?"

Mr. Pepper seems to be mighty int'rested for awhile; but then he grins,
pats me on the shoulder, and says: "That was just right, Torchy, exactly
right. I couldn't have done it better myself."

But half an hour later, after Miss Allen has stuck her gum on the
paperweight and skipped, and Sweetwater has slid out too, and just as I
was gettin' ready to call it a day, Mr. Pepper calls me in on the rug.

"Torchy," says he, "during the brief period that we have been associated
in business I have found your services very valuable and your society
very cheering. In other words, Torchy, you're all right."

"There's a pair of us, then," says I. "You're as good as they make them,
Mr. Pepper."

"Thanks, Torchy," says he, "thanks." Then he looks out of the window for
a minute before he asks how I'd like a two-weeks' vacation with pay.

"Well," says I, "seein' as how Coney's froze up, and Palm Beach don't
agree with my health, I'd just as soon put them two weeks in storage
until July."

"I see," says he; "but the fact is, Torchy, I've had a sudden call to go
West."

"Out to the Glory Be mine?" says I.

"You've guessed it," says he. "And I am taking this opportunity for
releasing Sweetwater and Miss Allen."

"They ain't much use, anyway," says I. "But you wouldn't shut up the
shop for fair, would you? Don't you want some one on hand to answer
fool questions, or steer cranks off like that post-office guy that's
comin' to-morrow? Unless you think I'd hook the rolltop or pinch the
letterpress, you'd better leave me sittin' on the lid."

Well, sir, he seemed to take to that notion, and the next thing I knows
I'm tellin him about my scheme of wantin' to save up enough dough to pay
for a little bunch of them Glory Be stocks.

"It's a shame to waste all that good money on people that don't know a
cinch when it's passed out to 'em," says I, "and I've been thinkin' that
if I hung to the business long enough maybe I'd have a show to buy in."

Say, you couldn't guess what Mr. Pepper up and does then. He opens the
safe, counts out a hundred shares of Glory Be common, and fills out the
transfer to me right on the spot.

"Now, Torchy," says he, "it will cost you five weeks' salary to pay for
these; but if I raise you a dollar a week and take it out a little at a
time you'll never miss it. Anyway, you're a shareholder from now on."

Did you ever get rich all of a sudden, like that! You feel it first up
and down the small of your back, and then it goes to your knees. I
couldn't say a blamed word that was sensible. I don't know just what I
did say, and I never come to until after Mr. Pepper'd finished up and
gone, leavin' me with two-weeks' pay in my pocket, and a big envelope
full of them Glory Be shares, all printed in gold and purple ink, with a
picture of Dakota Dan in the middle.

I couldn't eat a bite of supper that night, and I puts in the evenin'
readin' over them pamphlets we'd been sendin' out until I knew every
word of it by heart. I'll bet I got up and hid them stocks in a dozen
diff'rent places before mornin', and an hour before bankin' time I was
sittin' on the steps of the Treasury Trust concern, waitin' to hire one
of them steel pigeon-holes down in the vaults. After I'd got the
envelope stowed away and tied the key around my neck with a string, I
goes back to the office. Sweetie and Miss Allen was there, with their
hammers goin'. They'd found their blue tickets and their week's pay and
was just clearin' out.

"I'd been planning to make a change for the last two weeks," says Miss
Allen. "I was looking for something like this."

"Me too," says Sweetie. "It's rough on Torchy, though."

"Say, don't you waste any sympathy on me," says I, "and don't let off
any more knocks at Mr. Pepper. I won't stand for it!"

With that they snickers and does a slow exit. That leaves me runnin' the
gold minin' business single handed; but me bein' one of the firm, as
you might say, it was all right. I'd always had a notion that I'd be a
plute some day; but honest, I wa'n't expectin' it so sudden. I was just
tryin' to get used to it, when the door opens and in drifts that guy
from the Marshal's office.

"Where's Mr. Belmont Pepper?" says he.

"Well," says I, "the last time I saw him he was headed west."

"Skipped out!" says the gent, doin' the foiled villyun stunt with his
face.

"Skipped nothin'," says I. "Mr. Pepper's gone out to look after the
mine."

"Oh, he's gone to the mine, has he?" says the duck. "See here, kid, I'm
a United States Deputy Marshal. Don't you try to tell me any fairy
stories, or you'll pull down trouble. We want your Mr. Pepper, and we
want him bad! He's a crook."

Well say, it was a hot argument we had. He tries to tell me that this
minin' business is all a bunko game, and that there's a paper out for
the boss. Then he camps down in the private office and says he'll wait
until Mr. Pepper shows up. He makes a stab at it, too, and a nice long
wait he has. I stuck it out for two weeks with him, tryin' to beat it
into his head that the Glory Be mine was a real gilt edged proposition.
I'd have been there yet, only they comes and lugs off all the desks and
things and makes me give up the keys.

Say, it was a tough deal, all right. It was some jay that stirred up all
the muss, howlin' for his coin that he thought he'd lost. But look at
the hole I'm in, after bein' so brash to Mr. Pepper about stayin' on the
lid, and him lettin' me write my own valuation ticket! How do I square
it with him when he comes back and finds I've stood around and seen him
closed out?

Old Velvet Foot, the deputy, says if the boss comes back at all he'll be
wearin' a diff'rent face and flaggin' under another name. But I know
better. He's as square as a pavin' block. If he wa'n't, why was he
distributin' Glory Be stocks among fool outsiders, instead of keepin' it
in the fam'ly?

"Ah, brush your belfry!" says I. "Your mind needs chloride of lime on
it."

But say, shareholder or not, I've got to plug the market for somethin'
that'll pass with the landlady. I've been livin' on crullers and coffee
for two days now, and that starter guy says if I don't quit hangin'
around the arcade he'll have me pinched. I've wrote out a note to leave
for Mr. Pepper, and I guess it's up to me to frisk another job.

You don't know where they want a near-plute as temp'rary office boy, do
you?

CHAPTER II

A JOLT FOR PIDDIE

It's a case of "comin' up, up" with me. Sure as ever! Ain't I got stock
in a gold mine? And now I'm in with the Corrugated Trust. Why, say, two
moves more and I'll be first vice-president. There's only his door, and
the general manager's, and then me.

I'm behind the brass rail, next to the spring water. When you have the
front to push through the plate glass, you see me first. If I likes your
looks, and your card reads right, maybe I gives you a peek at Mr.
Piddie. Anyone that gets past Piddie's a bird. He's the Inside Brother,
Keeper of the Seal, Watch on the Rhine, and a lot more. He draws down
salary for bein' confidential secretary to the G. M.; but Con. Sec.
don't half cover it. He keeps the run of everything, from what the last
quarterly dividend was down to how many tubs of pins is used by the
office force every month.

I'd never made good with Piddie in a month of Yom Kippurs if it hadn't
been for Old Heavyweight, the main squeeze. Piddie had ten of us lined
up for the elimination test, and was puttin' us through the catechism
and the civil service, when in pads Mr. Ellins--you know, Hickory
Ellins. Ever see our V. P.? Say, he uses up cloth enough in his vest to
make me a whole suit.

He's a ripe old sport, with a complexion like an Easter egg, and a pair
o' blinks that'd look a hole through a chilled steel vault. He runs us
over without losin' step, sticks out a finger as he goes by, and says
over his shoulder, "Piddie, take that one!"

Me, I was in range. Piddie made a bluff at goin' on with the third
degree business; but the other entries begins to edge for the door. I
was the one best bet; so what was the use? See what it is to have a
thirty-two candle power thatch? He couldn't have missed me, less'n he'd
been color blind. There's worse things can happen to you than red hair,
all right.

Piddie was sore on me from the start, though. He'd made up his mind to
tag a nice little mommer's boy, with a tow colored top and a girly
voice. Them's the kind that forgets to bring back change and always has
stamps to sell. Oh, I sized up Piddie for a two by four right at the get
away; but I've been keepin' him jollied along just for the fun of it.

"J. Hemmingway Piddie" is the way he has it printed. Think of wastin'
all them letters, when just plain Piddie is as good as seein' a strip
of pingpong pictures of him! He's mostly up and down, Piddie is, like
he'd been pulled out of a bundle of laths, and he's got one of these
inquisitive noses that's sharp enough to file bills on.

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