Читать книгу Torchy - Ford Sewell - Страница 7

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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 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.

Refined conversation is Piddie's strong hold. It bubbles out of him like steam out of the oatmeal kettle. Sounds that way, too. You know these mush eaters, with their, "Ah, I'm su-ah, quite su-ah, doncher know"? He's got that kind of lingo down to an art. I'll bet he could talk it in his sleep. I've heard 'em before; but I never looked to hold a sit. under one.

It's a privilege, though, bein' so close to Piddie. If I don't forget all the things he tells me, and follows 'em, I'll be made over new in a month more. He begins with my name. Torchy don't fit right with him. It might do for some places he didn't mention, but not for the home offices of the Corrugated Trust.

"Maybe you'd like Reginald better!" says I.

"But—er—aw—is that your baptismal name, my boy?" says he.

"Nix," says I. "I'm no Baptist. And, anyway, I couldn't give up my real name, cause I'm travelin' incog., and me noble relatives would be shocked if they knew I was really workin'. You can call me Torchy, or Reginald, whichever you think of first, and if you be careful to say it real nice maybe I'll come."

Every time I throws a jolt like that into J. Hemmingway, he looks kind of stunned and goes off to chew it over. But he gets even all right. Sometimes he'll take a whole forenoon to dig up somethin' he thinks is goin' to give me the double cross.

Most of his spare time, though, he puts in tellin' me about how I'm to behave when Mr. Robert comes back. For the first few days I had an idea Mr. Robert was the pulley that carried the big belt, and that when he stopped there was a general shut down. I got nervous watchin' for him. Then I rounds up the fact that he's Bob Ellins, who cuts more ice in the society columns than he does in the Wall Street notes.

Piddie has him down for a little tin god, all right, and that wa'n't such a fool move of Piddie's, either. Some day Hickory Ellins will have to quit and take the hot baths regular, and then Mr. Robert will get acquainted with an eight o'clock breakfast. See where Piddie comes in? He's takin' out insurance on his job. He needs it bad enough. If I ever get to think as much of a job as Piddie does of his, I'll have some one nail me to the office chair.

Rule No. 1 on my card was never to let anyone through the brass gate unless they belonged inside or had a special permit. Piddie wants to know if I've ever had any experience with that kind of work.

"Say, where do you think I've been!" says I. "Why, I did that trick for six months, shuntin' dopes away from the Sunday editor's door, and there was times when nothin' but a club would keep some of 'em out. Back to the bridge, Piddie! When I'm on the gate it's just as good as though you'd set the time lock."

Well, I'd been there over one payday and halfway to the next, when one mornin' about ten-thirty the door comes open with a bang, and in steps a husky young gent, swingin' one of these dinky, leather-covered canes, and lookin' like money from the mint. He didn't make any play to draw a card, same's they generally does; but steers straight for the brass gate, full tilt. I never says a word; but just as he reaches over to spring the catch and break in, I shoves my foot out and blocks it at the bottom, bringin' him up all standin'.

"Say, this ain't no ferryhouse," says I.

"Hello!" says he. "A new one, eh?"

"I ain't any Fourth-ave. antique," says I; "but I'm over seven. Was you wantin' to see anyone special?"

He seems to think that's a joke. "Why," says he, "I am Mr. Ellins."

"G'wan!" says I. "You ain't half of him."

That reaches his funnybone, too. "You're perfectly right, young man," says he; "but I happen to be his son. Now are you satisfied?"

"Nope," says I. "That bluff don't go either. If you was Mr. Robert I'd have been struck by lightnin' long 'fore this. You've got one more guess."

Just then I hears a gurgle, like some one's bein' choked with a chicken bone, and I squints around behind. There was Piddie, lookin' like the buildin' was fallin' down and tryin' to uncork some remarks.

"Ah, Piddie!" says the gent. "Perhaps you will introduce me to your new sentry and give me the password."

Well, Piddie did. He almost got on his hands and knees doin' it. And say, blamed if the duck wa'n't Mr. Robert, after all!

"Gee!" says I, "that was a bad break."

That didn't soothe Piddie, though. He used up the best part of an hour tryin' to tell me what an awful thing I'd gone and done.

"This ends you, young man!" he says. "You're as good as discharged this very moment."

"Is that all?" says I. "Why, by the way you've been takin' on I figured on nothin' less than sudden death. But if it's only bein' fired, don't you worry. I've had that happen to me so often that I get uneasy without it. If I should wear a stripe for every time the can's been tied to me, my sleeves would look like a couple of barber's poles. Cheer up, Piddie! Maybe they'll let you pick out somethin' that suits you better next time."

He couldn't get over it, though. Along about lunch time he comes out to me, as solemn as though he's servin' a warrant for homicide, and says that Mr. Robert will attend to my case now.

"Piddie," says I, givin' him the partin' grip, "you've been a true friend of mine. When you hear me hit the asphalt, send out for a chocolate ice cream soda and drown your sorrow."

Then I turns down a page in "Old Sleuth's Revenge" and goes to the slaughter.

Mr. Robert has just talked about three cylinders full of answers to the letters that's piled up while he's been gone, and as the girl goes out with the records he whirls around in the mahogany easy-chair and takes a good long look at me.

"If it comes as hard as all that," says I, "I'll write out my resignation."

"Mr. Piddie's been talking to you, I suppose?" says he.

"He's done everything but say mass over me," says I.

"Piddie is a good deal of an——" then he pulls up. "Where the deuce did he find you?"

"It wasn't him found me," says I; "it was a case of me findin' him; but if it hadn't been for your old man's buttin' in, that's all the good it would have done me."

"Ah!" says he. "That explains the mystery. By the way, son, what do they call you?"

"Guess," says I, and runs me fingers through it. "Just Torchy, and it suits me as well as Percival or Montgomery."

"Torchy is certainly descriptive," says he. "How long have you been doing office work?"

"Ever since I could lift a waste basket," says I.

"Are you ambitious?" says he.

"Sure!" says I. "I'm waitin' for some bank president to adopt me."

"You came in here expecting to be discharged, I presume?" says he.

"What, me?" says I. "Nah! I thought you was goin' to ask me over to the Caffy Martang for lunch."

For a minute or so after that he looks me straight in the eye, and I gives him the same. And say, for the kind, he ain't so worse. Course, I wouldn't swap him for Mr. Belmont Pepper, who's the only boss I ever had that I calls the real thing; but Mr. Robert would get a ratin' anywhere.

"Torchy," says he after a bit, "I'm inclined to think that you'll do. Have a chair."

"Don't I get the blue ticket, then?" says I.

"No," says he, "not until you do something worse than obey orders. Besides you're the cheekiest youth that has ever graced the offices of the Corrugated Trust, and once in awhile we have use for just such a quality. For instance, I am tempted to send you on a very important errand of my own. Wait a moment while I think it over."

"Time out!" says I.

Well say, I didn't know what was comin', he took so long makin' up his mind. But Mr. Robert ain't one of the kind to go off half cocked. He's got somethin' on his shoulders besides tailor's paddin', and when he sets the wheels to movin' you can gamble that he's gettin' somewhere. After awhile he slaps his knee and says:

"No, there isn't another person around the place who would know how to go about it. Torchy, I'm going to try you out!"

It wasn't anything like I'd ever been up against before. He hands me an express receipt and says he wants me to go over to Jersey City and get what that calls for without landin' in jail.

"You'll see a bundle done up in burlap somewhere around the express office," says he, "a big bundle. It looks like a side of veal; but it isn't. It's a deer, one that I shot four days ago up north. Torchy, did you know that it was illegal to shoot deer during certain months of the year?"

"You can be pinched for shootin' craps any time," says I.

"Really?" says he.

Then he goes on with his tale, givin' me all the partic'lars, so I wouldn't make any batty moves. And say, they can think up some queer stunts, hangin' around the club of an afternoon and lookin' out at Fifth-ave. through the small end of a glass. This was one of them real clubby dreams. It started by Mr. Robert countin' himself in on a debate that he didn't know the beginning of.

"When they asked me if I could do it, I said, 'Of course I can,'" says he, "and then I asked what it was."

The bunch had been gassin' about an old gun hangin' over the fireplace. It was one of these old-timers, like they tell about Daniel Boone's havin', in the Nickel Libr'ies, the kind you load with a stove poker. Flintlocks—that's it! They was wonderin' if there was anyone left that could take a relic like that out in the woods and hit anything besides the atmosphere. And the first thing Mr. Robert knows he has been joshed into bettin' a hatful of yellowbacks that he can take old Injun killer out and bring back enough deer meat to feed the crowd—and him knowin' no more about that sort of act than a one-legged man does about skatin'! They gives him two weeks to do it in.

That wa'n't the worst of it, though, accordin' to him. They passes the word around until everyone that knows him is on the broad grin. The joke is handed across billiard tables between shots, and is circulated around the boxes at the opera. It's the best ever; for Mr. Robert has never hunted anything livelier than a Welsh rabbit, after the show.

He's a boy that likes to make good, though. He never makes a brag; but he boxes up that old shootin' iron and drops out of sight. 'Way up in the woods somewhere he digs up an old b'gosh artist that was brought up with one of them guns in his hand, and he takes a private course. After he's used up a keg of powder shootin' at tin cans they start out to find where the deers roost. They find 'em, too. Mr. Robert is so rattled that he misses the one he aims at; but he bores a tunnel through another in the next lot.

Course, he thinks he's got a cinch then. He hustles to the nearest flag station and spends eight dollars sendin' telegrams to the bunch, invitin' 'em to a venison feed at the club. Then he has his game sewed up neat in meal bags and expressed to John Doe, Jersey City. See how cute he was? He'd heard about the game laws by that time; so he lays his plans to duck any trouble. But he hadn't counted on that gang tippin' off the Jersey game wardens, nor on their trailin' the baggage and express bundles with huntin' dogs.

"The dogs had smelled it out just as I came in to claim it," says he; "so all I could do was to keep my mouth closed, standing around and looking foolish until I got tired and came away. And that, Torchy, is the situation up to the present moment. My venison is under guard over in Jersey City, and if it isn't delivered at the club by six o'clock to-night I shall not only lose my bet, but have my life made miserable from cheap jokes for months to come. It occurred to me that if your wits were as bright as the hair that covers them, you might be able to help me out. What do you think?"

"Chee!" says I, scratchin' me bonfire, "I guess I'm down the coal chute. I've rescued locked-in typewriter girls from fire escapes, and lied the boss out of a family row; but I never tried my hand at kidnappin' enough meat for a dinner party. How about buyin' off the game sleuth?"

"He has been bought by the other side," says Mr. Robert. "He wouldn't dare to sell them out."

Well, I thunk some more thinks just as punky as that, and then we settles it that I'm to hike over and take a squint, anyway. I gets him to give me a line on what kind of a looker the warden was, and he throws me a couple of tens for campaign expenses. I was just stowin' away the green stuff as I goes through the outside office, and Piddie's eyebrows go up.

"They're goin' to let me finish out the week," says I. "Ain't they the gentle things?"

Then I skips out for the 23d-st. boat, leavin' Piddie with his mouth open, and Mr. Robert wrapped up with the idea that, some way or other, I'm goin' to talk that game cop into a dope dream and rescue the roast.

But, say, I didn't need to look twice at that snoozer to see that no line of hot air I had in stock would soften him up. He had an undershot jaw, a pair of eyes that saw both sides of the street at once, and a head like a choppin' block. He was sittin' right alongside of that burlap bundle, waitin' to spring his tin badge on some one.

"Do they send such things as that through without cratin'?" says I to a guy behind the chicken wire, jerkin' me thumb at Mr. Sleuth. "What's the label on him?"

"That's Mr. Hinkey Tolliver, special officer," says he. "Better look out or he'll break a hand grenade on that still alarm of yours."

"Ah, back to the blotter!" says I. "Who gave you any license to make funny cracks on my Mrs. Leslie Carter disguise?"

We swapped a few more like that, while I sizes up Hinkey, tryin' to map out a way to brace him. But it was a losin' proposition. He has one of them eyes nailed to what I wanted to take away and the other trained on the door, and you could tell by the way he held his jaw that nothin' short of an earthquake would jar him loose.

It was too much for me. If it hadn't been that Mr. Robert had put it up to me so flat, I'd have quit then. But I couldn't lay down with just a look; so I takes a turn around into the passenger waitin' room, battin' my head for a new line.

I guess it was kind of second sight that steers me over into the corner where there is an AD T. branch. I wa'n't lookin' for anyone I knew, seein' it's been so long since I wore the cap; but who should I pipe off, sittin' on the call bench, but Hunch Leary! And, say, between the time I'd give him the nod to come out, and his askin' how it was I'd shook the red stripe, I'd framed up the whole scheme. First I goes over to the girl under the blue bell and rings up Mr. Robert.

"Hello," says I, "this is Torchy."

"Good!" says he. "Have you got it?"

"Got nothin'!" says I. "You must think I'm a writ of habeas corpus. I want to know who was the gent that most likely tipped off your warden friend."

When I'd got that I asks the time of the next uptown boat, and makes a deal with one of them ferry hawks to back his chariot up near the express office door and be ready to make a swift move for the gangplank.

Then me and Hunchy fakes up this little billy ducks to Mr. Hinkey Tolliver, tellin' him to chase to the nearest 'phone and call up the gent that Mr. Robert had put me wise to.

It was worse'n playin' a three-ball combination for the side pocket, and I holds my breath while Hunch pokes his book at him and waits to see if there's any answer. Tolliver, he reads it over two or three times, first with one eye and then the other. One minute I thought he was goin', and the next he settles back like he'd made up his mind to balk. He squints at the burlap package, and then at the message, and all of a sudden he makes a break for the 'phone.

He hadn't begun movin' before I was up to the window with my receipt, callin' for 'em to get a hustle on, as Mr. Doe had run out of veal and had to have it in a hurry. Ever try to poke up one of them box jugglers? They took their time about it—and me lookin' for trouble every tick of the clock! But I got an O. K. on it after awhile, and for a quarter I hired a wagon helper to drag the bundle out and chuck it into the hansom. Then I climbs in and we made the boat just as the bell rang. She was pullin' out of the slip when Tolliver rushes out about as calm as a bulldog chasin' a tramp.

"Say," says the driver, climbin' down to take a look at the baggage, "who you got sewed in the sack!"

"Get on your perch!" says I. "Ain't you makin' extra money on this? And when you fetch up at the club, do it like you was used to stoppin' at such places."

It was a great ride that me and the deer meat had across town and up Fifth-ave. I'd stopped once to put Mr. Robert next; so he was waitin' for me out in front of the club, wearin' a grin that was better'n a breakfast food ad.

But that wa'n't anything to the look on Piddie when Mr. Robert shows up next mornin' and pats me on the back like I was one of his old Hasty Puddin' chums.

"Piddie," says I, "look what it is to be born handsome and lucky, all in one throw!"