Читать книгу Torchy - Ford Sewell - Страница 5

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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 AD 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 cafés, 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?