Torchy

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"Don't worry, lady," says I. "The kid's got it dead right--it's one of
them kind."

Then I wets my finger and shows him how it'll go "S-z-z!" when I touch
it off. That gets a laugh out of little Hemmingway, and in a minute
we're all good friends.

She's Mrs. Piddie, of course, and she's a brick. Say, how is it these
two-by-fours can pull out such good ones so often? Why, if she'd been
got up accordin' to this year's models, and could have thrown the front
she ought to, she'd have been fit for a first-tier box at the grand
op'ra.

"Chee!" thinks I. "Did she pick Piddie in the dark?"

She'd come in to drag him out shoppin' and hypnotize him into loosenin'
up. It was a case of gettin' things for little Hemmingway.

"Me, I go have new s'oes, an' new coat wif pockets too," says he.

Say, they wins me, kids like that do. There's some I ain't got any use
for, the kind brought up in hotels and boardin' houses that learn to
play to the gallery before they can feed themselves, and others I could
name; but clean, grinnin' youngsters, with big eyes that take in
everything, they're good to have around. And, little Hemmy was a star. I
got so int'rested showin' him things in the office that I clean forgot
about Piddie and what he was up to.

"He will be back soon, won't he?" says Mrs. Piddie.

Now if you give me time I can slick up an answer so it'll sound like the
truth and mean something else; but as an offhand liar I'm a frost.
Somehow I always has to swaller somethin' before I can push out a cold
dope. Course, I knew he'd got to be back before long; but I see right
off that this wa'n't any day for a fam'ly reunion. Piddle wa'n't goin'
to be any too sociable by dinner time that night, 'less'n he'd hit up
the bucketshop, which the chances was against. So it was my turn to make
a foxy play.

"He's due here before long, that's a fact," says I, "but there's no
tellin'. You see, there's a big deal on, and Mr. Piddie's gone downtown,
and----"

"Oh!" says Mrs. Piddle, her eyes shinin'. "Then he has some important
business engagement?"

You couldn't help seein' how she had it framed up,--the whole Corrugated
Trust and half of Wall Street holdin' its breath while hubby, J.
Hemmingway Piddie, Esq., worked his giant intellect for the good of the
country.

"That's it," says I. "I couldn't say pos'tive that he'd be as late as
four o'clock; but----"

"Oh! then we'll not wait," says she, "Come, Hemmingway, we must go
home."

"Don't I det my new s'oes?" says Hemmy.

There was a proposition for you! The kid was runnin' true to form and
stickin' to the main line. No side issues for him! Pop might be a big
man, and all that; but his size didn't cut much ice alongside of the
new-shoes prospect. Things was beginnin' to look squally, and Mrs.
Piddie's mouth corners was saggin' some, when I has a thought.

"Hold on," says I. "Maybe he's left a note or something for you."

See what it is to have a little wad stowed away in the southwest corner
of your jeans? I slips through into the main office, gets one of the
typewriter girls to address an envelope to Mrs. Piddie, jams a sawbuck
into it, and comes out smilin'.

"Maybe this'll do as well as Pop himself," says I. "Feels like it had
long green in it," and the last I heard of little Hemmy he was tellin'
the elevator man about the "new s'oes" that was comin' to him.

"It's a fool way to lend out coin," thinks I; "but what's the diff? That
kid's got his hopes set on bein' shod to-day, and Piddie's bound to make
good sometime."

Piddie didn't look it, though, when he drifts in about one-thirty. If
he'd had a load on his mind earlier in the day, he'd got somethin' more
now. Just sittin' at the desk doin' nothin made the dew come out on his
noble brow like it was the middle of August. He was too much of a wreck
to stand any joshin'; so I let him alone, not even tellin' him about the
fam'ly visit.

The first thing I knows he comes over to me, his jaw set firmer'n I
ever see it shut before, and a kind of shifty look in his eyes. He hands
me a letter and a package.

"Torchy," says he, "take these down to that address just as soon as you
can. You've got to go quick. Understand?"

"Fourth speed, advanced spark, that's me!" says I, grabbin' my hat and
coat. "Free track for the Piddie special! Honk, honk!" and I jams him up
against the letterpress as I makes a rush for the door.

When I gets into the subway I sizes up the stuff I'm carryin'. Well say,
it ain't often I gets real curious; but this was one of them times. I
started in by rollin' a pencil under the envelope flap while the gum was
moist. Not that I'd made up my mind to rubber; but just so's I could if
I took the notion. And, sure enough, I got the notion, or it got me.

Chee! I near slid off the rattan seat when I reads that note. Guess I
must have sat there, starin' bug-eyed and lookin' batty, from 14th to
Wall. Do you know what that mush-head of a Piddie was at? He was givin'
an order to bolster up Blitzen by buyin' up to a hundred thousand
shares, and in the package was a bunch of gilt-edged securities to cover
the margins.

Now wouldn't that jiggle the grapes on sister's new lid? Piddie, a
narrow-gauge, dime-pinchin' ink-slinger, doin' the bull act like he was
a sooty plute from Pittsburg! That's what comes of swallowin' the
get-rich-fast bug.

Well, when I gets out at the Street I didn't have any programme planned.
First I strolls down to the number on the letter and takes a look at the
buildin'. That was enough. There was some good names on the hall
directory; but most of 'em was little, two-room, fly-by-night firms,
with a party 'phone for a private wire and a mail-order list bought
off'm patent medicine concerns. The people Piddie was doin' business
with was that kind.

Next I takes a walk around into Broad-st., where the mounted cops keep
the big-wind bunch roped in so's they can't break loose and pinch the
doorknobs off the Subtreasury. The ear-muff brigade was lettin'
themselves out in fine style, tradin' in Ground Hog bonds, Hoboken gas,
Moonshine preferred, and a whole lot of other ten-cent shares, as
earnest as if they was under cover and biddin' on Standard Oil firsts.

While I was lookin' 'em over, wonderin' what to do next, I spots Abey
Winowski on the fringe of the push. And say, it wa'n't so long ago that
Abey was wearin' sky-blue pants and a Postal shield, trottin' out with
messages from District Ten. But here he is, with a checked ulster and a
five-dollar hat, writin' figures on a pad.

"Hello, Motzie!" says I. "How long since they lets the likes of you
inside the ropes?"

"Hello, Torchy!" says he. "Got any orders?"

"I'm lined with 'em," says I. "What's good?"

"Blitzen," says he. "It's on the seesaw; but'll fetch fifty."

"Ain't it a wildcat?" says I.

"Just from the menagerie," says he. "Goin' to take a dollar flyer?"

"Guess I'll see what my brokers has to say first," says I.

With that I goes around to a little joint I knows of, where they has a
board for unlisted stocks, and I sets back and watches the curves
Blitzen was makin'. First she'd jump four or five points, and then she'd
settle back heavy. The Curb was playin' tag with it; that was all, so
far as I could see. Nice lot of Hungry Jakes to feed with
int'rest-bearin' securities!

About fifteen minutes before the market closed I quit and moseyed along
uptown, just killin' time and tryin' to figure out what ought to be
done. Course, I didn't have any idea of playin' private detective and
showin' Piddie up to Mr. Robert,--that's out of my line,--but I didn't
like the scheme of just chuckin' the bonds back at him and let him get
away with any bluff about my interferin' with something I didn't
understand at all. Besides, if the returns showed that he'd have won on
the deal, what was to hinder his tryin' the same trick again next time
he got the chance? That wouldn't been a fair shake for the firm.

Say, I worked my thinker overtime that trip; but I couldn't dig up a
thing that was worth savin' from the scrap basket, and when I strolled
into the office just about closin' time I wa'n't any nearer to knowin'
what to do than when I started.

Most everyone had left when I pushes through the gate and takes a peek
into Piddie's office. He was there. And, say, for a speakin' likeness of
a dropped egg that's hit the floor instead of the toast, he was it! He's
slumped all over the desk, with his head in his hands, and his hair all
mussed up, and his shoulders lopped. I always suspicioned he was built
out with pneumatic pads, and blew himself up in the mornin' before he
buttoned on the four-inch collar that kept his chin up; but I did'nt
guess he had a rubber backbone. It was a case of fush with Piddie. He
was all in. What I could see of his face had about as much color to it
as a sheet of blottin' paper.

Layin' on the floor was a map of the whole disaster. It was a Wall
Street extra, with a scarehead story of how Blitzen had kept 'em
guessin' all day and then, in the last quarter of an hour of tradin',
had gone bumpin' the bumps from twenty-eight down to almost nothin' at
all. I didn't stop to read the whole thing; but I read enough to find
out that Blitzen had gone soarin' on a false alarm, and that when the
facts was give out right the balloon had took fire. And there was
Piddie, still fallin'!

"Hello," says I. "You look like a boned ham that's in need of the acid
bath and sawdust stuffin'. What's queered you so sudden?"

He jumps and tries to pull himself together when he first hears me; but
after he finds who it is he goes to pieces again and flops back in the
chair groanin'.

"Is it new mown hay of the lungs, or too many griddle cakes on the
stomach?" says I.

But he only gasps and groans some more. Maybe I should of felt sorry for
him; but, knowin' the sort of sprung kneed near crook he was, I didn't.
He was scared mostly, and he was doin' all the sympathizin' for himself
that was needed. All of a sudden he braces up and looks at his watch.

"Perhaps you didn't get there in time?" says he.

"With the letter and package?" says I. "Watcher take me for? Think I got
mucilage on my shoes? I was there on time, all right."

"Oh, mercy!" says he. "Torchy, I'm a ruined man."

"You look it," says I; "but cheer up. You never was much account anyway;
so there's no great harm done."

Then he begins to blubber, and leak brine, and take on like a woman with
a sick headache. "It wasn't my fault," says he. "I was led into it.
Torchy, tell them I was led into it! You'll believe that, won't you?"

"Cert," says I. "I'll make affidavit I seen 'em snap the ring in your
nose. But what's it all about?"

"Oh, it's something awful that's happened to me," he wails. "It's too
terrible to talk about. You'll know to-morrow. I sha'n't be alive then,
Torchy."

"Ain't swallowed a buttonhook, have you?" says I.

Next he begins throwin' a fit about what's goin' to become of the missus
and the kid. Say, I've been in at two or three acts like this before,
and I gen'rally notice that at about such a stage they play that card,
the wife and kid. Your real tough citizen don't, nor your real
gent,--they shuts their mouths and takes what's comin' to 'em,--but Mr.
Weakback has a sudden rush of mem'ry about the folks at home, and
squeals like a pup with his tail shut in the door.

"Ah, say," says I, "cut it out! You ought to move up to Harlem and learn
to pound the pipes. You're a healthy plunger, you are, sneakin' bonds
out of the safe to stack up against a crooked game, and then playin' the
baby act when you lose out! Come now, ain't that the awful thing that's
happened to you?"

He couldn't have opened up freer if he'd been put through the third
degree. I gets the story of his life then, with a handkerchief
accomp'niment,--all about the house he's tryin' to buy through the
buildin' loan, and the second-hand bubble he wants to splurge on 'cause
the neighbors have got 'em, and how he was tipped off to this sure thing
in Blitzen by a party that had always been a friend of his but couldn't
get hold of the stuff to turn the trick himself. He put in all the fine
points, even to the way he came to have a chance at the safe.

"If I could only put them back!" says he, sighin'.

"What then?" says I. "Next time I s'pose you'd swipe the whole series,
wouldn't you?"

If you could have heard him tell how good he'd be you'd think practicin'
a little crooked work now and then was the only sure way to learn how to
keep straight.

"Piddie," says I, "I don't want to hurt your feelin's, but you act to me
like a weak sister. If I was to do what the case calls for, this thing
ought to go to the boss."

"Please don't, Torchy! Please don't!" says he, scrabblin' down on his
hands and knees.

"Nix on that!" says I. "This is no carpet-layin' bee. I'm no squealer,
anyway; besides, I had a little interview with Mrs. Piddie and the kid
this noon, and after seein' them I can't rub it in like you deserve.
What I've seen and heard I'm goin' to forget. Now sit up straight while
I break the news to you gentle. I went down there to-day, just as you
told me."

"Yes, I know," he groans, squirmin'.

"But I didn't like the looks of the joint; so I didn't dump the bonds.
There they are. Now see they get back where you found 'em!"

Talk about your hallelujah praise meetin's! Piddie was havin' one, all
by himself--when the inside door opens and Mr. Roberts steps out of his
office.

"I'll take care of those bonds, Mr. Piddie," says he.

Chee! what a stunner! Mr. Robert had been in there all the time, writin'
private letters, and had took in the whole business.

Did he give Piddie the fire on the spot? Nah! Mr. Robert carries around
a frigid portico; but he's got a warm spot inside. He says he's mighty
sorry to hear how near Piddie'd come to goin' wrong; but he's glad it
turned out the way it did, and if Piddie'll say how much they rung him
in for on Blitzen he'll be happy to make good right there.

And how much do you guess? A pair of double X's! He'd worried himself
near sick, worked himself up desp'rate, and had finished by doin'
something that stood to get him put away for ten or fifteen years--all
for forty bucks!

"Piddie," says I, "for a tinhorn, you're a wonder! But, say, when you
get home to-night tell that kid of yours I want to see them new shoes of
his before he gets the toes all stubbed out."

CHAPTER VIII

A WHIRL WITH KAZEDKY

Chee! W'atcher think? I ain't read an "Old Sleut'" for more'n a week,
and there's two murder myst'ries runnin' in the sportin' extras that I'm
way behind on. You wouldn't guess it in a month, but I'm takin' a fall
out of the knowledge game. Mr. Mallory says I'm part in the sixt' grade
and part in the eight'.

"I believe it," says I; "my nut feels that way."

Honest, I'm stowin' away so much that I never knew before that I'm
thinkin' of wearin' a leather strap around my head, same's these strong
boys wears 'em on their wrists.

"Ah! w'at's the use?" says I. "Nobody's ever goin' to ask me what's four
per cent of thoity thousand plunks, an' if I had that much I wouldn't
farm it out for less'n six, anyway. And I don't see where this De Soto
comes in. Sounds like he might have played first base for the Beanies;
but he's been dead too long for that. What odds does it make if I don't
know the capital of Nevada? I ain't lookin' for no divorce, am I?"

But there's no shakin' Mallory off. He's dug up a lot of kid school
books for me, and I got 'em stowed away in the desk here, like this was
P. S. 46, 'stead of the front office of the Corrugated Trust. And when I
ain't takin' cards into the main squeezes, or answerin' fool questions
over the 'phone, or chasin' out on errands for Piddie, I'm swallowin'
chunks of information about the times when G. Wash. was buildin' forts
in Harlem and makin' good for a continuous in front of the Subtreasury.

Course, it's a clean waste of time. Suppose I gets the run next week,
could I win another head office boy job by spielin' off a mess of guff
about a lot of dead ones? Nit, never! But Mallory's got the bug that
it'll all come in handy to me sometime, and I'm doin' it just to keep
him satisfied. We get together most every night in his room, and I has
to cough up what I've got next to durin' the day. And say, when I've
been soldierin', and try to run in a stiff bluff instead of the real
goods, he looks as disappointed as if I'd done something real low down.
So gen'rally I hits up the books when there's nothin' else doin'.

Mr. Robert's on. He comes in one mornin' and pipes off the 'rithmetic.
"What's this, Torchy?" says he. "Studying?"

"Yep," says I. "When I went through Columbia College there wa'n't
anybody there but the janitor; so I'm takin' a postprandial whirl at
this number dope, and it's fierce."

"Whose idea?" says he.

"Mr. Mallory's," says I. "But I've laid it out flat to him that I draws
the line at Greek. I'd never want to talk like them 23d-st. flower
peddlers, not in a thousand years!"

Didn't tell you, did I, about Mallory's doin' the skyrocket act? After
Mr. Robert gets next to the fact that Mallory's a two seasons' old
football hero from his old college he yanks him out of that
twelve-dollar-a-week filin' job and makes him a salaried gent, inside of
two days.

"Which is something I owe chiefly to you, Torchy," says Mallory.

"Honk, honk!" says I. "Them's the kind of ideas that will get you run in
for reckless thinkin'. You was winnin' all that when you did that sprint
for goal your friend Dicky was tellin' about the other day. Now all you
got to do is get up on your toes and make one or two touchdowns for old
Corrugated."

"I know," says he; "but I'm afraid that in this game I'm outclassed."

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.

"And then you backs up the alley?" says I.

"There was nothing else for me to do," says Mallory. "He went off
without giving me another chance."

"Say," says I, "if I had all your parlor manners, I'd organize an
English holdin' comp'ny for 'em, so's not to be jacked up for bein' a
monopoly. Why didn't you give him the low tackle and sit on his head
until he promised to behave? Was that the only try you made?"

"No, I sent up my card twice after that," says he, "and it came back. So
I've flunked. I think I'd better go down in the morning and resign."

Now wouldn't that rust you?

"Then here goes the books," says I, chuckin' 'em into the corner. "If
doin' the knowledge stunt leaves you with a backbone like a piece of
boiled spaghetti, I'm through."

That makes Mallory sit up as if I'd jabbed him with a pin. "Do I seem
that way to you?" says he.

"You don't think you're givin' any weight-liftin' exhibition, do you?"
says I.

He lets that trickle through for a minute or so, and then he comes back
to life. "Torchy," says he, "you're right. I'm acting like a quitter.
But I don't mean to let go just yet. Hanged if I don't try to see that
man to-night, now, as quick as I can get down there! He's got to see me,
by Jove!"

"There's more sense to that than anything else you've said in a week,"
says I. "Wish I could be there to hold your hat."

"Why not?" says he. "Come on. I may need fresh inspiration."

"Whatever I gives you'll be fresh, all right," says I; "but if I was
you, and was goin' to butt into any Fifth-ave. hotel along about
dinner-time, I'd wear the regalia. Yours ain't in on a ticket, is it?"

It wa'n't. Mallory had to go clear to the bottom of the trunk after it;
but when he'd shook out the wrinkles and got himself inside the view was
worth while. After he's blown up his op'ra hat and got out his stick you
couldn't tell him from a three times winner.

"Chee!" says I. "You've got Silent Smith tied to a post. If you acts
like you look, you don't need me."

He wouldn't have it that way, though. I'd got to go along and be ready
to give him any points I thought of. We goes in a cab, too, in over the
rubber mats to the carriage door, just like we'd come to hire the royal
suite.

"The Baron Kazedky," says Mallory, shovin' his card across at the near
plute behind the desk.

Then the cold wave begun comin' our way. Mister Baron was out. Nobody
knew where he'd gone. He hadn't left any word. And he didn't receive
callers after four P.M., anyway. Mallory was gettin' his breath after
stoppin' them body blows, when I pushes in.

"Say, Sir Wally," says I, leanin' over towards the clerk and speakin'
confidential, "lemme give you somethin' from the inside. If Kazedky
misses seein' Mr. Mallory to-night, you'll be called up to-morrow to
hear some Russian language that'll take all the crimp out of that Robert
Mantell bang of yours. Now ring up one of them bench-warmers and show us
the Baron!"

But, say, you might's well try bluffin' your way through the fire lines
on a brass trunk check, "You'll find the manager's office two doors to
the left, gentlemen," says he.

"Much obliged for nothin'," says I.

Course, there wa'n't any use registerin' a kick. Orders is orders, and
we was on the wrong side of the fence. Mallory and I takes a turn
through the corridors and past the main dinin'-room, where they keeps an
orchestra playin' so's the got-rich-quick folks won't hear each other
eat their soup.

We was tryin' to think up a new move. I was for goin' out somewhere and
callin' for the Baron over the 'phone; but Mallory's got his jaw set now
and says he don't mean to leave until he has some kind of satisfaction.
He's kind of slow takin' hold; but when he gets his teeth in he's a
stayer.

We knocks around half an hour, and nothin' happens. Then, just as we was
pushin' through the mob into the Palm Room I runs into Whitey Buck. You
know about Whitey, don't you? Well, you've seen his name printed across
the top of the sportin' page that he runs. And say, Whitey's the smooth
boy, all right! Him and me used to do some great old joshin' when I was
on the Sunday editor's door.

"Hello, Whitey!" says I. "Who you been workin' for a swell feed now?"

"That you, Torchy?" says he. "Why, I took your head for an exit light.
How's tricks?"

"On the blink," says I. "We're up against a freeze out, Mr. Mallory and
me. You know Mallory, don't you?"

"What, Skid Mallory?" says he, takin' another look. "What a pipe! Why,
say, old man, I want you the worst way. Got to hash up a full-page
sympose knockin' reformed football, and if you'll take off a
thousand-word opinion I'll blow you to anything on the bill of fare.
Come on in here to a table while we chew it over. Torchy, grab a garcon.
Sizzlin' sisters! but I'm glad to root you out, Skid!"

He was all of that; but it didn't mean anything more'n that Whitey sees
an easy column comin' his way.

Mr. Mallory wa'n't so glad. "Sorry," says he, "but whatever football
reputation I ever had I'm trying to live down."

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