Torchy. Ford Sewell

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СКАЧАТЬ 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

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A JOLT FOR PIDDIE

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      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 СКАЧАТЬ