Listen! If you ever wake up some mornin' with an idea for something new—whether it's a soup, a vaudeville act or a religion—and you expect to cash on it, go to the nearest hardware store and ask the guy behind the counter how much he'll take for all the locks in the joint. Take 'em at any price and fasten 'em on the door of the safe where you keep the idea—the same bein' your mouth—and then throw the keys in any good, deep river!
If the inventors of stud poker, movin' pictures, the alligator pear, pneumonia and so forth had gone around talkin' about them things before they got 'em patented they never would of took in a nickel on their idea, but theirfriendswould be draggin' down the royalties yet! The minute you tip another guy to your stunt it's yours and his both. He mightn'tmeanto steal your stuff, but he can't help himself. The more he thinks about it, the better he likes it, and it ain't long before he gets believin' it washisidea anyways and where do you get off by claimin' you thought of it?
I admit freely that you can't cash on your scheme unless you get it before the world, but the thing is to wait till you got it covered with so many copyrights and patents that not even the James Boys could steal it and thentell 'em all at once!
If Edgar Simmons had of did that, he'd be a rich millionaire to-day instead of havin' to cut his winnin's with Alex. Edgar had an idea, and he didn't know what to do with it.
Alex did!
The wife and I is sittin' down to the evenin' meal one night, when the telephone rings. Only one of us got up.
"Hello!" I says.
"Hello!" is the answer. "This is Alex. What would you say to me runnin' up there to supper to-night?"
"Nothin'," I answers. "I see where they was a guy got pinched only last week for swearin' over the phone!"
"Look here!" he says, kinda peeved. "Do you want me to come up there to-night or don't you?"
"Don't you!" I says.
"They's plenty of places where they would be glad to have me to dinner," he snarls. "Places that is just as good as yours!"
"How doyouknow how good they are?" I says. "You ain't never tried no dinners nowheres else but up here."
"They ain't no man can keep me from seein' my cousin!" he says. "Tell Alice I'll be right up!"
I hung up the phone.
"Well," I says to the wife, "I got bad news for you."
"Who was it?" she asks, droppin' the knittin' layout on the floor.
"That trick relative of yours," I tells her. "He's comin' up here for dinner again, so I guess I'll go down to the corner and play a little pinochle."
"You ought to be the weather man," says the wife, "you're such a rotten guesser! You ain't goin' nowheres. You're gonna stay here and help entertain Alex."
"Entertain him?" I says. "What d'ye think I am—a trained seal or somethin'?"
"Don't kid yourself!" she says. "You ain't even makin' the money I could get with a trained seal! You gotta stop this pinochle thing—you don't see Alex wastin' his time playin' pinochle with a lotta loafers!"
"You bet you don't!" I comes back. "You'll never see Alex playin' no game where they's a chance of the other guy winnin'! He wouldn't bet zero was cold! And don't be callin' my friends loafers—every one of them guys is successful business men!"
"That mob you hid out in here one night looked like a lotta plumbers to me!" she says. "Any man who sits up half the night playin' cards is a loafer!"
"One of them loafers I while away my time with lives in the next flat," I says, "and the dumbwaiter door is wide open."
"I don't care," says the wife, flushin' all up. "Let him hear me!"
"I ain't stoppin' him," I says. "But you don't want it to get rumored all over New York that you and me is quarrelin', do you?"
The wife's answer is nothin'. She walks over to the window and looks out on Manhattan, doin' a soft shoe dance with one toe on the floor. If bein' good lookin' was water, she'd be Niagara Falls. You've seen her picture many a time on a can of massage cream—which she never touched in her life! The label claims it was this stuff that put her over, but she don't know whether rouge is for red cheeks or measles. They ain't a day goes by without some movie company pesterin' her to sign up, and she can write her own ticket when it comes to salary. Well, I'm in dutch again, but I don't care! This here knockout is wed to me, and they ain'tnothin'can give me the blues!
"Listen!" I says. "Honey, we only been wed ten years—and here we are scrappin'already!"
She turns on the weeps and I'm across the floor like a startled rabbit. We come to terms in about five minutes, and as far as a disinterested stranger could of seen, everything is O.K. again.
"Well," I says, finally, "you ain't mad at me no more, heh, honey?"
She wags her head, no.
"We gotthatall settled, heh?" I says.
Her head is on my shoulder and why shouldn't it be, and she says yes.
They is a pause. To bust it up, I coughs.
"If that pest Alex wasn't comin' here to-night," I says, "we might go to the theatre."
"Themovieshurts my eyes!" she answers, givin' me a sarcastical smile.
"D'ye mean to give the neighbors the idea I have never staked you to nothin' but the movies?" I hollers, gettin' sore, naturally enough.
"Don't be callin' my cousin no pest!" she says and—well, we're off again!
In less than five minutes, some new-comers which has a flat across the hall, knocks on the dumbwaiter bell furiously. I answered.
"Why don't you people let go?" inquires a harsh voice. "We can't stand that tourney in there no longer!"
"They ain't no way of puttin' a man in jail for movin'," I says.
"The idea of a man hollerin' at his wife like that!" comes a female voice in back of this guy.
"Shut up—I'm doin' this!" exclaims her lovin' spouse,—and then they had a mêlée of their own!
In the middle of this our doorbell rings and in comes Alex.
"They should of named this apartment house the Verdun," he says. "They seems to be a battle goin' on here every time I come up! I could hear every word you people was sayin' as plain as day, away out in the hall!"
"What did you come in for then?" I asks him. "Especially as you could hear this was the rush hour!"
He ignores me and kisses the wife—a thing he knows gets me wild.
"Now, boys!" butts in the wife, splittin' her world famous grin fifty-fifty, "let's stop quarrelin'. They ain't a reason on earth why we can't be friends, even if we are relatives."
"When are you gonna have dinner?" asks Alex.
"This here's eatless night with us," I says. "Not to give you a short answer."
"Don't pay no attention to him, Alex," says the wife. "You know you can eat here whenever you want."
"Sure!" I says. "Don't mind me. All I gotta do is pay for this stuff—that's all!"
The wife gimme a bitter glance.
"That's right," she says. "Tell the world that I have wed a tightwad!"
"What d'ye mean?" I hollers. "I'm as loose as ashes with my money and they ain't nobody knows it better than you. I don't even moan over the monthly phone bill, which from the last one you musta been callin' up friends in Australia!"
"Here!" butts in Alex. "This thing's gotta stop! Come on, kiss and make up. The first thing you know the Red Cross will be openin' a branch here. If I didn't know how much you people loved each other, I'd get the idea that you was really angry."
"Of course we love each other!" I says. "We only pull this now and then so's we won't get sickenin' to the neighbors by billin' and cooin'allthe time! Ain't I right, honey?"
"Are you sorry?" inquires the wife.
"Sorry?" I says. "Why, I'd go out and buy a tube of carbolic acid if it wasn't so high!"
With that they was peace.
We're just sittin' down to a well-earned meal, when the bell rings again. Actin' as maid is one of the best things I do around my five rooms, if you count the bath, so I answered it. They was a man and a woman standin' there and my heart run up to play with my tonsils when I seen them. I figured they was a couple more guests for dinner and you knew what they're askin' for steak these days.
"I'm sorry to bother you," says the dame, "but we are the people who live in the flat right under yours."
"If you think we're too noisy, moan to the landlord!" I says, "I gotta right to stage an argument in my flat whenever I so choose!"
She giggles. The guy that was with her don't make a sound.
"Why, I'm sure we never heard any noise from above," she says. "I think you and your wife are no doubt the quietest folks in the whole house."
Oh, boy!!!
"How long have you been deaf?" I says.
"You're just like your wife claims," she grins. "Full of life and fun! But I'm keepin' you from your food, ain't I? I wanted to know if you'd let Mister Simmons climb down your fire escape."
"Feed him some veronal," I says, "and he'll no doubt be O.K. in the mornin'. The first day is always tough!"
"Why, what do you mean?" she says. "I merely asked if my husband could climb down your fire escape."
I seen I had wild pitched the first time, so I tried my luck again.
"Is your joint on fire?" I says.
"Oh, no!" she tells me. "But we are locked out. My husband invented a new kind of lock—he's always inventing something that will do everything but work. He put this lock on our door and now he can't open it himself! Isn't that killing?"
"A riot!" I admits. "Come right in."
The wife is gettin' nervous at me bein' out there so long, and when she heard a female voice laughin', of course that didn't help matters none. She meets this dame half way in the hall and the minute they seen each other they fall together in fond embrace. I found out later they'd known each other as long as a week and the last time they met was an hour before.
Well, we get introduced all around and then this bird which invented a lock that nobody on earth could open, includin' himself, goes out on the fire escape followed by his charmin' wife. They entered their flat by the novel method of usin' the kitchen window. This guy didn't open his mouth from the time he come in till he went out, and when spoke to, he blushed all over and acted like he wished to Heaven he could hide under the sofa. His wife, though, had nothin' against conversation as a sport. She was talkin' when she come in and she went out the same way. I never seen nobody in my life who could talk as fast and frequent as this dame and if her husband had hung that trick lock on her tongue he would of made himself solid with me!
"That's that lovely Mrs. Simmons," says the wife, when they had went. "It's too bad her husband ain't a live one."
"Gettin' married has buried many a good man!" I says.
"It didn't changeyounone," she says. "You was a dead one when I got you!"
"Here!" butts in Alex. "Don't you people get started again! I wanna finish my supper in peace. What's wrong with Mister Simmons?"
"He ain't got no pep," says the wife. "They's many a more ambitious man than he is with a tomb around him! He's been keepin' books for twenty dollars a week since the discovery of arithmetic, and he ain't got a raise since they blowed up theMaine. He's afraid to ask for more money for fear the boss will find out he's on the pay roll and fire him. They's one ounce more brains in a billiard ball than they is in his head. He—"
"Wait!" interrupts Alex. "This here sounds interestin' to me. In the first place, they ain't a doubt in my mind but what you got that feller figured all wrong! Like all the rest of you simple minded and innocent New Yorkers, you get brains andimaginationmixed. They is a big difference!Brainsis what puts a man over, andimaginationis what keeps him back. The ideal combination is all brains and no imagination! The feller with brains sets his mind on what he wants, forgets everything else, goes to it and gets it. He don't for a minute consider what might happen if he fails, or that the thing he proposes has never been done before, or that maybe his scheme ain't really as good as he first thought it was. Why don't he think of them things? Because he ain't got no imagination! The imaginative feller is beat from the start. He keeps thinkin' from every possible angle, what might happen to him if hefailsand, by the time he gets that all figured out, his idea is cold and his enthusiasm for it has drowned in the sea of possibilities his roamin' mind has created! The feller which said, 'look before you leap!' might of been clever, but I bet he thought a five-dollar bill was as big as they made 'em till he went to his grave! If I'd had imagination, I'd never of come to New York and made good. I'd of been afraid the town was too big for me. Now this feller Simmons, I'll betcha, is simply sufferin' from a case of too much imagination. He must havesomethin'in his head or he couldn't even keep books. It takes brains to balance accounts, the same as it takes money to pay 'em. Am I right?"
"What d'ye say, if we go to the movies?" I says.
Alex gets up in disgust.
"Is that all the interest I'm gettin' here?" he asks.
"This ain't no bank!" I tells him.
"Be still!" says the wife. "I heard every word you said, Alex dear. I think you're horribly interestin'. But I still claim Simmons is a fat-head whose butcher bill gives him trouble every month! He never takes that poor wife of his nowheres, but a walk past the Fifth Avenue Library, and she don't know if they have dancin' or swimmin' in cabarets. He's always drawin' things on pieces of paper, and he sits up half the night inventin' what-nots that would be all right, if they wasn't useless."
"Yes," says Alex, "and some day he'll hit on somethin' that'll prob'ly make him famous!"
"I wanna see Beryldine Nearer in 'The Vaccinated Vampire'," I says, reachin' for my hat. "I seen her last week in 'Almost A Fiend' and she was a knockout!"
"Shut up!" says the wife. "What was you sayin', again, Alex?"
"I says it's the dreamer which has made the world what it is to-day," he goes on, strikin' a pose. "Hethinksof somethin' and the practical feller comes along and makes money out of it. Take—"
"They ain't no man can keep me from the movies!" I butts in. "I ain't gonna be late and only see half of this picture. I done that too often! You and Alice can fight it out amongst yourselves if—"
"All right!" says the wife. "Come on, we'll all go. I admit freely I'm crazy to see Beryldine Nearer again, myself. I seen a gown on her in the last picture which I think I can duplicate in time for Mrs. Martin's card party. We'll ask Mr. and Mrs. Simmons to go with us too. The poor dear, it'll be a treat for her."
"It'll be a treat for her husband, too!" I says. "I ain't gonna take the whole neighborhood to the movies. You must think I'm the Liberty Loan, don't you?"
The wife comes over and kisses me.
"Now, dear," she says. "Don't be so close across the chest. Won't you take 'em for me?"
Well, when all Broadway used to roll over and play dead when she pulled that smile, what chance haveIgot?
"I'd take carbolic for you!" I answers, givin' her a squeeze. "Go ahead, honey, invite the first two pagefuls outa the phone book if you want and I'll take 'em all!"
"There you go," she says. "No wonder we're not wealthy! If it wasn't for me holdin' you down, we wouldn't have a nickel. I'll call down and tell Mrs. Simmons to get ready—they may have an engagement themselves!"
"I doubt if I'm lucky enough for that to happen!" I says.
Well, I missed out again. They come up all right, and Mrs. Simmons is tickled to death. When set for the street, she was a pretty good looker herself, but Simmons ain't even got a hat with him.
"Mister Simmons prefers to stay at home," says his wife, causin' my heart to leap with joy. "He has some important work to do, haven't you, dear?"
Simmons flushes all up.
"Why—eh—yes—quite so—much obliged—excuse me," he stutters, backin' away like he thought I'd wallop him for not goin'.
Alex is lookin' at him strangely.
"Pardon me," he says. "We just been talkin' over some of the wonderful ideas you been workin' on. I have a inventive twist in my brains myself and that lock you put together interests me very much. Could I see it?"
Simmons brightens up in a flash and commences to grin.
"I'd be very glad indeed to show it to you," he says. "Very glad! Its a—"
Alex goes over and puts his arm on his shoulder.
"You folks run along to the movies," he tells us. "Mr. Simmons and me is got a little conference on—eh, Simmons?" He prods him in the ribs and giggles.
Simmons wags his head. A guy with two glass eyes could see he was tickled silly.
I dragged the rest of 'em out.
Well, we come in from the movie around eleven o'clock and stopped in the Simmons flat. They had dragged me into a delicatessen parlor on the way back and put the bee on me for a cold lunch. We was to eat it in Mrs. Simmons's flat. All she furnished was the idea. Alex and Simmons is sittin' in the dinin' room and they're so interested in each other they don't even look up when we come in. The table is full of drawin's and blue prints and scraps of paper all covered over with figures. Simmons is pointin' out somethin' to Alex on a piece of paper, and I'll lay the world four to one Alex ain't got the slightest idea what the other guy's talkin' about, but he's listenin' like he's hearin' the secret of makin' gold outa mud.
"I'll bet you have gone to work and bored Mister Hanley half to death!" says his wife. "How often have I told you that strangers is not interested in them fool ideas of yours?"
"Not at all!" says Alex. "I fail to recall when I spent such a enjoyable night. Mister Simmons is a genius, if they ever was one, and I predict a great future for his automatic cocktail shaker. Then, if he gets his keyless lock workin' right, why—"
"Let's eat in the kitchen, it's cosier," interrupts Mrs. Simmons. "Do you folks mind?"
They was no bloodshed over it, and we all went in. Simmons claims he would like to change his collar, and invites me back to look over the flat, a treat the wife has already had. Once we get in his boudoir, he finds they is everything in the world in it with the exception of a clean collar, and he calls Mrs. Simmons to the rescue.
"Here!" she says, handin' him the laundry. "Hurry up, so's we can eat. He's always losin' somethin'!" she remarks.
I got a comical answer on the tip of my tongue, when Simmons drops his collar button on the floor, and, the same as all the other collar buttons in the world, they picked out the furtherest corners of the room to roll into. The poor boob gets as red as a four-alarm fire and goes crawlin' around the room tryin' to run them collar buttons down.
"It's too bad them buttons wasn't made of rubber," I says, thinkin' to pass the thing off. "They would of bounced right back in your hand, hey?"
He straightens up like he had stepped on a egg and runs his hands through his hair.
"A rubber collar button!" he mutters. "A rubber collar button! No—no—notrubber, but—"
"My Gawd!" cuts in Mrs. Simmons. "Will heeverstop it? Sit down and eat, folks, he's ravin' again! Here, Edgar, try some of this cold ham. It set our friends back a dollar and it ought to be good!"
"I'm—I'm sorry!" pipes Edgar, movin' away with that little, nervous step of his. "I couldn't eat a thing. I got a headache, I guess—I—excuse me, but I'll see you all again."
With that he blows.
"Ain't he the limit?" inquires Mrs. Simmons, grabbin' the choicest bits of that ham and goin' south with it.
"Mine's worse!" remarks the wife. "What would them men ever do without us?"
"Save money!" I says. "Slip me some of that cold chicken, will you?—I got a stomach, too!"
Well, we didn't see Edgar Simmons no more that night. In fact it was all of two weeks before he appeared again, and then it was by way of the phone. He asked me if I would tell my Cousin Alex to come down at once, he had somethin' very important to tell him. I waited till supper had come and gone that night, and then I got hold of Alex. The wife and Mrs. Simmons went to the theatre together and I arranged the conference for my flat. The minute Alex arrived I phoned Simmons and he come right up. He's all excited over somethin' and he's got a parcel under his arm.
"I have followed your advice," he tells Alex, "and at last I've invented something practical. There's millions in it!"
"What?" I says. "The mint?"
Alex kicks me in the shins under the table so hard that I moaned aloud.
"What is it?" he asks.
Simmons unwraps the parcel and pulls out a piece of cloth. It's the neckband of a shirt and the same as the ordinary neckband in every way—except it's got collar buttonsbuilt right into it!
"What's the idea?" I asks.
"Heavens, man, can't you grasp it?" says Simmons, slammin' the table with his fist. "Here we have the only collar button in the worldthat can't be lost! You never have to look for it, because it's always attached to the shirt. You can't lose the button unless you lose the shirt! It's made right with it! It—"
"Wait!" butts in Alex, leapin' to his feet. "Simmons—you have got somethin'! Is it patented?"
"Yes," says Simmons.
"Have you felt out the shirt people on it?" asks Alex next.
"That's what I wanted to seeyouabout," says Simmons. "I can't get them to look at it! I get shifted from one subordinate to another and they seem to think I'm some sort of a crank. If I could only get it before Philip Calder, the president of the Brown-Calder Shirt Company, I'd be made!"
"Hmm!" grunts Alex. "Well, what d'ye wantmeto do?"
Simmons coughs and fidgets with the button.
"It struck me when you was talkin' to me the other night," he says, "that if there was one man in New York who could see Calder and make him realize the merits of my invention, you were that man! Will you try it?"
"I'lldoit!" answers Alex. "Gimme the model and you'll hear from me in a few days. Do you wish to sell the neckbands themselves, or just the patent on your idea?"
"I don't care who makes the neckbands," says Simmons, "as long as I get paid for my invention! Of course, I don't expect you to help me for nothing, either."
"Ha! ha!" I butts in. "That bird wouldn't tell you the time for nothing You'll be lucky if you ever even see that invention any more!"
"Don't mind my cousin," Alex tells him. "Outside of a tendency to the measles, he's the worst thing we got in our family! We'll take up the financial end of this later."
Bright and early the next mornin', or eleven o'clock to be exact, Alex invites me to go with him so's I can watch how he would go about seein' the president of the Brown-Calder Company and sellin' him the Simmons patent collar button. As they is always a chance that Alex will fall down, I went along. We had no trouble at all landin' outside the president's office, but once we got there it was different.
"Is Mister Calder in?" says Alex to a blond stenographer, which looks like them movie queens would like to.
She puts four stray hairs back of her left ear and arises.
"Have you got an appointment?" she inquires.
"No," grins Alex, "my nose got that way from bein' hit with a baseball."
She had lovely teeth and showed 'em to us.
"Cards?" she says next, lookin' from one of us to the other.
"I'll play these!" says Alex. "Listen! I wanna go in Mister Calder's office without bein' announced. I ain't seen him for years and he'll be tickled silly when we meet. I wanna sneak in and just be there the first time he looks around. I'm a surprise—see?"
She looks kinda doubtful.
"W-e-ll, I don't know," she says. "I've only been here since yesterday, but my orders is to let nobody past this gate without first findin' out their business and so forth. Still and all, I don't wanna be harsh with none of the boss's old college chums or nothin' like that. If you can guarantee I won't lose my job, I'll let you get away with it."
"If you lose your job," says Alex, openin' the gate and pullin' me in after him, "I'll hire you for five dollars more than you're gettin' here. All right?"
"I only trust you're man enough to keep your word," she says. "The boss's office is the first one to the left."
"Thanks," says Alex. "Them eyes of yours is alone worth the trip!"
This guy Calder's door is open and he's sittin' at a big desk writin' away on somethin' like everything depended on speed. He's a great, big fat bird, with one of them trick Chaplin mustaches and he's smokin' a cigar as big as he is. His head is playin' it's hairless day. All in all, he looked like big business, and my knees is knockin' together till I'm afraid he'll hear 'em and turn around. Alex gumshoes up to the desk and without sayin' a word, he lays the neckband right down beside Calder, who immediately swings around with a snort.
"What's all this—how did you get in here?" he bellers.
"We took the subway down from Ninety-sixth Street," says Alex. "That thing you got in your hand is the neckband of a shirt."
"Well?" growls Calder, tappin' the desk with a lead pencil.
"It contains two collar buttons—one front and one back," says Alex. "As you may have noticed, they are built right into the cloth and are meant to comeattached to the shirt. This does away forever with the necessity of buying a collar button. It cannot be broken, lost or mislaid. Any shirt manufacturer making shirts with this neckband attached will naturally have the bulge on his rivals. I can turn out the neckband for practically nothing. I hold the patent."
Calder sneers.
"Ha!" he says. "There's a million cranks come in my office every day. I suppose you want to sell me this, eh?"
"No, sir!" says Alex, with a pleasant grin.
I liked to fell through the floor at that!
"No, sir?" repeats Calder, droppin' the pencil.
"No, sir!" answers Alex.
"Well, what the—whatdoyou want then?" roars Calder. "Come now, speak up. I'll give you five minutes, that's all!"
"That's three minutes more than I got to spare!" chirps Alex, pullin' over a chair. "I don't want you tobuythis neckband, Mister Calder. What I want is this—I know thatyouare the greatest authority on shirts and everything connected with the business, in the United States if not in the world! I think I have a big thing here, a thing that will revolutionize one end of that business. I say Ithinkso, because I don't know. Now—the concern I represent wants your opinion of it. We're willing to pay to have you, the world's greatest authority, go on record as to the merits of this invention. If you say it's no good, I'll throw it away and forget about it; if you say it's good, I'll have no trouble placing it anywhere in the world!"
Well, say! That old guy brightens all up when Alex calls him the champion shirtmaker of the world, and pickin' up the band, he turns it over in his hands a few times. You could see that the old salve Alex handed him had gone big!
"Hmph!" he says, finally. "How much would these things cost me?"
"Roughly speakin', about three cents each," says Alex.
"How long will they stand up under laundering?" is the next question Calder fires at him.
"They're the only thing that won't come out in the wash!" answers Alex, without battin' an eye.
The old guy smiles and presses a button. In comes a clerk.
"Send in Mister Lacy, no matter what he's doing, at once!" barks Calder. He turns to Alex as the clerk flees from the room. "Have you been anywhere else with this?" he asks.
Alex looks pained.
"Why, Mister Calder!" he says, "certainly not! Before I went any further I wanted the opinion of the greatest—"
This Lacy guy comes in.
"Mister Lacy is superintendent of our manufacturing department," says Calder. "I'm going to talk with him for three minutes about the effect of the war on the onion crop in Beloochistan. I'll send for you at the expiration of that time. Ah—you can leave the—ah—neckband here!"
"Pardon me!" says Alex, "I have got to be up at the office of the Evers-Raine Shirt Company at three and I can just about make it."
"What the devil are you going to another shirt company for?" roars Calder.
"I have an old friend in the—ah—manufacturing department," says Alex, lookin' straight at him, "who I'm very anxious to see."
Well, they stare at each other for a minute without sayin' a word. They're both playin' poker, and it's Calder who lays his down first!
"Look here!" he grunts. "I'm going to take an option on this infernal thing for a week. How much is that worth to you?"
"Ten thousand dollars," answers Alex, pleasantly.
"I'll pay seven and give you a check right now!" says Calder, slammin' the desk with his fist. "Here, Lacy!" he says to the other guy. "This is what we'll put on our shirts hereafter, unless I'm very much mistaken! What do you think of it?"
Lacy picks up the neckband and looks at it.
"And to think," he mutters in an awed voice. "And to think nobody ever thought of this before!"
"Hmm!" says Calder, takin' the band back. "That's all settled then! Young man," he says to Alex, "the cashier will give you a check. Come back at the end of the week and I'll either give you back your neckband, or a contract for five hundred thousand of them a year for twenty years!"
"Thanks!" says Alex. "Will you have that check certified?"
Well, Simmons like to went insane with joy when we sprung the news on him and Alex insists on him takin' that seven thousand dollar check whole. He didn't ask for a nickel, which had me puzzled. Mrs. Simmons goes out shoppin' for furs, diamonds and automobiles, and the wife asks me why I don't invent somethin', but outside of that they was nothin' more doin' till the end of the week. Then, Alex comes up and breaks the news to Simmons that the Brown-Calder Shirt Company will take all the neckbands that Simmons can supply, as long as people wear shirts.
"We have got to deliver 50,000 in a month," says Alex, "at the rate of two and a half cents apiece. Can you do it?"
Simmons falls back on the sofa in a dead faint!
Well, they was great excitement and the wife finally brings him to life with smellin' salts.
"It was prob'ly the sudden mention of so much money, eh?" I says.
"I'm ruined!" hollers Simmons, leapin' up and dancin' around. "Why, it took me two weeks to make that one miserable model I gave you!" he yells at Alex. "I couldn't make fifty thousand of them things in a lifetime!"
Alexis eyes glitters.
"Here!" he says, slappin' Simmons on the back. "Pull yourself together, man! You've got to think of somethin'. How did you make that one?"
"By hand!" wails Simmons.
"Well, they must be some way of makin' a machine that can turn out so many thousand an hour!" says Alex, walkin' back and forth. "Why—"
"I don't care who makes 'em!" says Simmons. "All I want is to get paid for my idea. I—"
"Listen to me!" interrupts Alex, shakin' him. "Can't you invent some kind of a machine for turnin' them neckbands out?"
"Oh, I had a little something figured out the other night," says Simmons, "but what's the use of me botherin' with that? Why, a machine of that kind would cost at least twenty thousand dollars to make! Where can I get that much money?"
"Look here!" Alex tells him. "You got seven and I'll loan you the balance. You get busy on that machine right away—there's no time to lose!" He grabs his hat. "Come with me and I'll get you the money and then we'll go to my lawyer and draw up a—that is, I'll take your receipt."
That's the last I seen of either of them for a month. At the end of that time, the wife tells me one day that Mr. and Mrs. Simmons is givin' a big dinner that night and that Alex will be there. They'll never notice us no more, if we don't come. Besides, they're goin' for a trip around the country in a few days and this here's a farewell party.
Well, it's a soup and fish affair, and naturally it takes the wife half the night to get dressed up for it. Fin'ly, however, she's dressed to thrill and we blowed in. The minute we did, Simmons pulls me over in a corner where Alex is sittin', smilin' like his name was George Q. Goodhumor.
"Well, sir!" says Simmons, no longer shy and retirin', "I just about cleaned up. My machine is turnin' out three thousand bands an hour, and I get a cent for each and every one!"
"You fin'ly doped out a machine then, heh?" I says.
"Oh, yes!" he tells me. "But unfortunately I don't control it. I have to pay the owner for each band turned out, although it's my invention. But I'm satisfied! I got a bonus of twenty-five thousand dollars from the Brown-Calder people for selling them the exclusive rights to use the neckband, and then we have the foreign rights to—"
"Wait!" I cuts in, turnin' to Alex. All this big money talk was makin' me dizzy. "Where doyouget off?" I asks him.
"Well, I put the neckband over, didn't I?" he says.
"Yes," I admits, "but Simmons invented it and he gets the royalty. How much cash did he give you?"
"Nothing!" grins Alex.
I looked at Simmons.
"Perfectly correct!" he says, outgrinnin' Alex.
"You—did all that fornothin'I hollers, not believin' my ears.
"Well, hardly that," says Alex, lightin' a half-dollar cigar. "You see I loaned Mister Simmons thirteen thousand dollars, if you remember, so that he could make his machine."
"Yeh, yeh!" I says, gettin' impatient. "And—"
"Well, as it stands now," says Alex, "every time the machine turns out a neckband, he gets a cent out of the two and a half cents profit."
"Sure—he told me that!" I says. "But where doyouget off?"
Alex grins some more.
"I own the machine!" he says. "Have a cigar, cousin?"
A guy once said, "Be sure you're right, then go ahead!" and like the bird which invented the sayin', "What are you gonna have?" he became famous on that one line. They's millions of people have repeated both of them remarks since. As far as the last one is concerned, it's about died out now and cracked ice has started gettin' acquainted with lemonade and the like instead of its old haunts, Scotch, Rye and Gin, which has pulled a Rip Van Winkle. I never told no man I was a fortune teller, but if I was a bartender right now, believe me, I'd spend my nights off studyin' the art of makin' chocolate nut sundaes and pineapple ice cream sodas, because the time has come with alarmin' suddenness when alcohol will be used only for rubbin' baby's head when he falls off of the table and the like.
However, that ain't neither here or there, as the guy says which mislaid his watch, so let's get back to the bird which said, "Be sure you're right, then go ahead!" That may be a good line, but it's poor dope for the young. I'll tell the world fair that no winner ever got paid off by stickin' strictly to that. If Columbus had waited till somebody sent him a souvenir postal from the Bronx, so's he'd be sure they really was some choice real estate over here, he never would of discovered America. Napoleon would never of got further than bein' a buck private in the army if he'd of played safe instead of goin' ahead on the "I Should Worry!" plan. I could name a million more guys which got over along the same lines only I hate to walk to the library. But pick up any newspaper and the front page will give you the answer. The guys that go over the top in this well known universe are the boys which goes aheadfirstand figures what chances they got afterwards. They let the results they get tell whether they'rerightor not. I don't mean a guy should bust the traffic laws of any of the prominent virtues in order to be a success, they ain't a game on earth that can't be played on the level and won clean, but instead of askin' yourself, "Can I do it?" say, "This will besoftfor me!" and you're a odds on favorite to win!
Me and the wife is sittin' down to breakfast one mornin', and I have barely had time to find fault with the eggs when they's a ring at the bell.
"See who that is, will you, dear?" says the wife, turnin' a page of theMornin' Shrapneland shootin' the smile that used to jam the Winter Garden in my direction. "You know how tired I am in the mornings."
"Yeh," I says, very sarcastical. "Eatin' grape fruit is enough to wear down the strongest. Since how long have I became the maid around here?"
"Before we were married," she says, sinkin' the last of the cream in her coffee—a thing she knows full well practically always enrages me. "Before we was wed, you claimed you'd do anything for me."
"A man can kid, can't he?" I says.
"Don't get catty, dear," says the wife, still featurin' that million dollar smile. "Hurry, there goes the bell again. You really should put on your collar and tie before answering the door, too."
"Who d'ye think is payin' us a call—Wilson?" I says. "I ain't supposed to wear a dress suit in to breakfast, am I?"
They is no answer from the trenches across the table, outside of the munchin' of food, and as our door bell is makin' the telephone green with envy from the way it was ringin', I went out and opened the portals to our flat.
In comes Alex the Great, undisputed champion pest of the world.
He throws his hat on the sofa, kisses the wife, pulls a chair up to the table and reaches over for the paper. Every one of them things is sure fire for gettin' my goat!
"No wonder you people never get nowheres!" he remarks. "Sleepin' away half the day. Here it is eleven o'clock and you just havin' breakfast! I was up at six, had a ice cold bath and walked ten miles."
"I wish you had of made it eleven!" I says.
"Why?" he asks me.
"Because," I says, "that would of brung you a even two blocks past our house and I could of had my breakfast in peace."
"How often have I told you that I don't come here to see you?" he snarls. "If it wasn't for Cousin Alice, I'd never come near your flat!"
"You stayed away a month once," I says, "and she managed to keep out of the hospitals."
"Oh, hush!" says the wife. "You boys are always snappin' at each other. A outsider would think you was in business together or something. How is everything, Alex?"
"Fine!" he says, rubbin' his hands together and castin' a hungry eye over the bacon and eggs. "I already had a breakfast fit for a king, but the early mornin' air gimme a fresh appetite. I think I could stand a little of that bacon and—"
"They's only one piece left," I says, spearin' it with my fork. "Try and get it!"
"Will you be still?" says the wife. "We have plenty in the ice box, Alex, if you want some."
"Don't be blowin' about how much food we got in the ice box," I says. "They may be some spies from Hoover's office around."
"That reminds me," says Alex, makin' the best of it by devourin' all the crackers and jam. "I expect to go to Washington this week and offer my services to Mister Hoover."
"What was you thinkin' of doing for Mister Hoover, Alex?" says the wife.
"I got a scheme for—," he begins, when I ceased firin' on the bacon and eggs and arose.
"Listen!" I butts in. "I don't like to walk out in the middle of your act, Alex, but I gotta date. I have just bought a infielder from Jersey City which they tell me is a second Ty Cobb. The last guy which come recommended to me like that acted like hittin' the ball was a felony and he must of figured that droppin' grounders put Cobb over. I have give everything but the franchise for this new bird, and I wanna see right now if he's one of them things or a ball player."
"Don't make no engagements for to-night," says the wife, "because we're goin' to the movies with them lovely Wilkinsons."
"Who's them lovely Wilkinsons?" I says.
"You could spend a year at the bottom of the ocean and never get acquainted with a fish!" says the wife. "The Wilkinsons is the people which just moved in across the hall. Her husband is a salesman for a big wholesale clothing house downtown and if you're nice to him he can prob'ly get you a raincoat or something, for a great deal different price than you'd pay yourself."
"Yeh," I says. "It would no doubt cost me about ten bucksmore, if I bought it from him! I know them birds. That guy will gimme his card and send me down to the foundry where he works, and they'll sell me somethin' which has graced their shelves for the last ten years, at ten per cent over the retail price. The public will laugh me outa wearin' it and, on top of that, this guy will want the first five rows at the world's series for doin' me the favor! Anyways, I don't need no raincoat, I got two already."
"I never seen nobody like you," says the wife. "I'll bet you think the war was a frame-up! Accordin' to you, nobody or nothin' is on the level, and the whole world and Yonkers is out to give you the work. I have already talked with Mister Wilkinson, which is a nice little innocent fellow and not a brute like you which battles night and day with his wife, and he will have a raincoat up here for you to-morrow."
I throwed up my hands!
"How much is it?" I says.
"Practically nothin'," says the wife. "Forty-five dollars."
Oh, boy!
"Listen!" I says, openin' the door. "Unless that bird has give you his age in mistake for the price of the raincoat, you can tell him that if I had forty-five bucks to hurl away like that I wouldn't wear no raincoat. I wouldn't care if it rained or not!"
"It's one of the latest trench models," says the wife. "I got two of them. One for myself."
"You and that lovely little Wilkinson will have to shoot craps for them then!" I hollers. "I wouldn't let him take me for ninety bucks if—"
"They are both paid for long ago," smiles the wife, pinchin' my cheek, and pullin' the smile that used to get her photo in the magazines. "I give him a check last week!"
As unfortunately I am nothin' but human, I beat it before they was violence and bloodshed. I was afraid to trust myself with speech, but I managed to let off a little steam before I left by throwin' three pillows and a Rumanian beer stein at Alex, havin' caught him grinnin' at me like a idiot.
It was about six hours before I got back and my temper had failed to improve with age, havin' had a rough day at the ball park. We played a double-header with the Phillies and lost a even two games. Both the scores sounded more like Rockefeller's income tax than anything else. Iron Man Swain pitched the first game for us and before five innin's had come and went, I found out that the only thing iron about him was his nerve in drawin' wages as a pitcher. Everybody connected with the Philly team but the batboy got a hit and from the way them guys run around the bases it looked more like a six-day race than a ball game!
I sent in Red Mitchel to pitch the second half of the massacre, and all he had was a boil on his arm. As far as his offerin's was concerned, everybody on the Philly club could of been christened Home Run Baker. When he throwed the ball on the clubhouse roof tryin' to get a guy nappin' off first, lettin' in two extry runs instead, I went out to the box and removed him by hand. Ed Raymond finished the game for us, and he's so scared we might win it that he walks the first three men and knocks the fourth guy cold with a inshoot. I didn't even stay to see the finish—I had enough!
One of the features of the day was the work of this so-called "Second Ty Cobb" at short. He come to bat eleven times in the two games and got one hit. That was a left jab from the Philly first baseman which got peeved at bein' called a liar and bounced one off the Second Ty Cobb's ear. At fieldin' he made more errors than the Kaiser and was just as popular with the crowd. I give up five thousand berries and a outfielder for him, and after them two games I couldn't of sold him as a watch charm to the manager of a high school club!
From all of this you may get an idea of the sweet humor I was in when I blowed into the flat that night. My idea was to put on the feed bag, and then go around to the corner and play a little pinochle with the gang. Like the guy which fell off Washington's Monument I was doomed to disappointment, because they was quite a little reception committee awaitin' me. Among them present besides the wife was Alex and them lovely Wilkinsons.
The lovely Wilkinsons consisted of the regular set—husband and wife. They had only been wed about three weeks, new time, and from the way they behaved towards each other, a innocent bystander would think they had only staggered away from the altar a hour before. They sit together on the sofa, three inches closer to each other than the paper is to the wall and both of them must of been palmists judgin' from the way they hung on to each other's hands. The male of the layout is a husky kid which either come direct from one of the college football teams or had just knocked off posin' for the lingerie ads in the subway. The female would of been a knockout, if my wife had been in Denver, but bein' in the same room with her the best Mrs. Wilkinson could do was to finish a good second. They is one thing about the wife, they may be dames which can knit sweaters faster than her, but when it comes to bein' excitin' to gaze upon she leads the league! I don't have to tell the world that, the world keeps tellin' it to me. This here is far from our first season as matrimoniacs, and when I say that it still makes me dizzy to look at her, you may get a idea of how she checks up.
But to get back to them lovely Wilkinsons, they are sittin' there on the sofa keepin' a close eye on each other, and Alex is givin' 'em everything he's got in the line of chatter. They're both payin' the same undivided attention to him that the Board of Aldermen in Afghanistan pays to the primaries in Bird's Nest, Va. Them babies is too busy gazin' on each other and bein' happy, and while that stuff gets silly at times—they is worse things than that.
After we have got the introductions all took care of, the wife rushes me down to Delicatessen Row to grab off some extry food on account of these added starters at our modest evenin' meal. I got a armful of these here liberty links,néefrankfurters, and some liberty cabbage which before the Kaiser went nutty was knowed as sauerkraut. They ain't no use callin' off all the other little trinkets I got to help make the table look tasty, especially as Mister Hoover is liable to scan this and I don't wanna get myself in wrong, but when I got through shoppin' I didn't have enough change left out of a five-case note to stake myself to a joyride in the subway.
Just as we're goin' to the post in this supper handicap, the bell rings, and in come Eve, which same is no less than the blushin' bride of Alex. They is now so many people in the flat that for all the neighbors know I have opened up a gamblin' dive or one of them cabaret things. Everybody is talkin', with the exception of me, which havin' sit down to eat proceeded to do so with the greatest abandon, as the guy says. Them three girls—the wife, the lovely Mrs. Wilkinson and Eve, was sure some layout to have across the table, I'll tell the world fair! They had the front row of the Follies lookin' like washwomen durin' the rush hour, and all I did was sit there and eat and wonder how in Heaven's name they ever come to fall for a set of guys like me, Alex and the lovely Wilkinson.
Well, the meal come to an end without no violence, and they was only one time when it seemed like boxin' gloves would be needed. Even that wasn't exactlymyfault. From the general chatter of the lovely Wilkinson, I figured him as a big, fatheaded, good-lookin' bonehead whose greatest trick so far had been marryin' his wife. He got my goat a coupla times hand runnin' by dealin' himself, first, the last piece of bread and, second, the last potato on the table. Either one of them things would of enraged me by themselves, but pullin' 'em together was a open dare to me to commit homicide. I laid for him for a half hour and fin'ly I get a openin'.
"Mister Wilkinson is packed to the ears with ambition," says the wife to me across the table. "He expects to fall into a lot of money very shortly."
"I don't see how they can be no room for him to be packed with nothin' else," I says, "after all the meat and potatoes he put away to-night. And as far as that fallin' into a lot of money is concerned, he must be figurin' on stumblin' at the door of the mint, hey?"
They is a dead silence and the lovely Wilkinson give a nervous snicker and piled up his plate with liberty links and cabbage to hide his confusion. Alex laughs like a hyena and Mrs. Wilkinson looks even prettier when mad than she did when tryin' to be a charmin' guest. The wife gimme a glance that would of killed a guy with a weaker heart and tries to laugh it off.
"You mustn't mind him," she says. "He's always kiddin' that way about everything. Really—I'm—I'm so angry I don't know what to do!"
"I'll tell you what to do," I says. "See if you can get the embargo lifted on that food down at your end of the table and ease a little nourishment up here!"
"He oughta leave the table!" remarks Alex.
"You ain't talkin' to me!" I says. "I'm wonderin' if you guys will leave the table or not. You already have eat everything else!"
"That's right!" says the wife. "Go ahead and advertise the fact that I have married a roughneck!"
"My neck must of got that way from wearin' that sweater you knit me," I says. "Hey, dearie?"
Eve gimme a laugh, but I seen the wife was gettin' ready to bring up the heavy artillery so I laid off.
While the girls is seein' what soap and water will do to a pail of dishes, I released some cigars and us strong men had a even stronger smoke. The lovely Wilkinson seems to have somethin' on his mind and says practically nothin', both when he talked and when he didn't. Alex kids me about my ball team and, finely, the household cares bein' attended to in the kitchen, we all set sail for the movies.
The wife calls me aside, gimme a kiss and says for me to buy the tickets. Of course after she done that I don't have to tell you who pushed the quarters in under the cashier's window. The picture we seen was one of them forty-eight reel thrillers and was called "Lunatic Lily's Lover" or somethin' like that. They was a guy killed in every reel but the first one. They was three killed in that. The picture must of been made by the local branch of the suicide club, assisted by a lot of candidates for the insane asylum. I'll tell the world that the guy which wrote the scenario had at least delirium tremens. The girls thought it was great, but I knew better and put in my time figurin' out on the back of a envelope how many games we had to lose to be in last place by August.
The lovely Wilkinson gets very talkative once inside the theatre. He starts right in on the picture and claims it's a awful thing. Every time a guy goes over a cliff or dives off of a bridge and all the salesladies and bankers sittin' around us gasps out loud, he speaks up and says it's all faked with a trick camera and they ain't none of them really doin' nothin' at all. He claims he's got a friend which used to sell tickets for a movie theatre and he told him all about it. The more stunts the hero of this picture does, the worse the lovely Wilkinson gets, and it ain't long before he has captured the goat of friend Alex, which is champion moving picture fan of the United States and Coney Island. When the lovely Wilkinson claims that nobody in real life could do the tricks this movie hero was pullin' off, Alex butts in.
"How doyouknow them things can't be done?" he says.
"Anybody but an idiot could see that!" says Wilkinson. "The idea of trying to make intelligent people believe that this fellow with his hair brushed back like a rabbit's could sell one of those wealthy millionaires gold mines and the like. Why, he'd be thrown out of the office and—"
"No wonder you ain't a success!" butts in Alex.
The lovely Wilkinson shows a little spirit.
"How do you know I ain't a success?" he says. "I'm making my good twenty-five dollars each and every week."
"Yeh?" sneers Alex. "I once heard tell of a feller which was makin' thirty, but I ain't sure of it because none of the newspapers said a word about it." He turns around and lowers his voice on account of some hisses comin' from fans in the back. "Look here!" he says. "All jokes to one side, they ain't nothin' that this feller done in the picture that can't be done by anybody. A man can do anything he wants to,anything, they ain't no limit—if he's got enough sand to fight his way through whatever stands in his way! I don't care what the thing is he wants, a man can get anything if he keeps tryin' and—"
"You hate yourself, don't you?" butts in the lovely Wilkinson, peevishly. "I suppose you thinkyoucould do anything—"
"I do not," says Alex. "Iknowit! I ain't talkin' about myself though, I'm talkin' about you. You're a young married feller with a sweet, beautiful, and, for all I know, sensible little wife. You people are just startin' out, and I want to see you make good. I think you got the stuff in you somewheres, but not to be rough or nothin' of the sort, I must say you have been a success at concealin' it so far. Twenty-five dollars a week ain't enough wages for nobody—as long as they's somebody makin' twenty-six—understand? And if you get where they pay you twenty-five dollars aminuteinstead of a week, you wanna try and make 'em think you're worth thirty! The mistake you and a lot of young fellers make is quittin' at a given point. They ain't no point to quit! I bet when you was makin' eighteen dollars a week you hustled like blazes to make twenty, but when you got up to twenty-five you prob'ly told yourself that you was makin' as much as most of the boys you knew and more than some, so why wear yourself out and slave for a fatheaded boss, eh? Right in sight of the grandstand you blew up and quit in the stretch. I bet you think right now that you're makin' good because you're holdin' down the job, hey? That ain't makin' good, that's stealin' the boss's money—petty larceny, and deprivin' your future kids of a even chance—a felony! Give the boss everything you got, and he'll pay for it. If he don't, get out and dive in somewheres else! They ain't no place on earth where they ain't a openin' for a live one at any hour of the day or night!"
The lovely Wilkinson says nothin'.
Pretty soon and much to my delight, this here picture comes to a end, and while we're goin' out in the lobby, the lovely Wilkinson calls his wife aside and whispers somethin' in her ear. It ain't over a second later that we're all invited up to the Wilkinson flat for a little bite and the like before retirin'.
The girls starts a hot and no doubt interestin' argument about how many purls make a knit and so forth, and the lovely Wilkinson, after fidgetin' around a bit, calls us into another room. He closes the door very careful.
"I got something very personal and very important I'd like to speak to you about," he says to Alex.
"I'll go out on the fire escape," I says.
"No!" he says. "I want you to stay and hear this too." He turns to Alex again. "I been thinking over what you said in the theatre to-night," he begins, "and I guess you're pretty near right about me. However, I have a big chance now to make good and get out of the twenty-five dollar class, only, as usual, luck is against me."
"They is no such thing as luck," says Alex. "Forget about that luck thing, put the letter 'P' before the word and you got it! That's the first rule in my booklet, 'Success While You Wait.' I must send you one."
"Thanks," says the lovely Wilkinson. "You see, I'm a salesman for a big wholesale clothing house downtown and right at the beginning of the war I went up to Plattsburg to try for a commission in the army. I was rejected on account of a bad eye. While I was up there, I met Colonel Williams, who is now practically in charge of the buying of equipment for the army. I've been trying for months to land the overcoat contract for my house and last week I finally got things lined up. I have got to have one thousand of our storm-proof army coats in Washington by five o'clock to-morrow afternoon. At that time, Colonel Williams will see me at the War Department and I can give him prices on various lots and so forth."
"Why do you have to bring that many coats down?" asks Alex. "Wouldn't a couple be enough for a sample?"
"No," says Wilkinson. "These coats are to be given to men in a cantonment near Washington, where they will get actual wear under varying conditions. If I'm not in Washington with them at five to-morrow, I'll lose my chance because, the following day, men from four rival houses have appointments with the Colonel."
"Well," I butts in, "what's stoppin' you from goin' to Washington?"
"Nothing is stoppingme," he says, "but I can't get the coats down there with me in time! The two shipments that we have sent by freight have gone astray somewhere and, as government supplies have the right of way over all other shipments, the express companies will not guarantee a delivery at any set time."
"But them coats are government supplies, ain't they?" says Alex.
"Not yet!" says the lovely Wilkinson. "Not until they are accepted. Right now they are nothing but samples of clothing. I've gone into that part thoroughly."
Alex gets up and walks around the room a coupla times, throwin' up a smoke screen from his cigar. Then he stops and looks at his watch.
"It's now almost eleven o'clock," he says. "Where are them coats?"
The lovely Wilkinson looks puzzled.
"Why," he says. "Why—they're in our stock room at 245 Broadway."
"Can we get in there to-night?" asks Alex, reachin' for his hat.
"I have a key," says Wilkinson, "but I'm afraid I don't quite get the idea. I—"
"Look here!" says Alex, very brisk. "I'm goin' to deliver you and one thousand of them overcoats outside the War Department in Washington at five o'clock to-morrow afternoon! What will you get if you land this order?"
The lovely Wilkinson leaps out of his chair.
"Why—I—," he splutters, "I—get fifteen per cent if—but you can't get the coats there, it's impossible! Why—"
"Never let me hear you use that word impossible' again!" snorts Alex. "Speak United States! I spent a half hour to-night tellin' you that a man can doanythingif he wants to. Now look here, they ain't no time to lose. I'll land you and your coats in Washington to-morrow on time. That will cost your firm around a thousand dollars—the same bein' the price of the means of locomotion. I will take your word of honor that you will pay me twenty per cent of any profits you make on any order you take as a result of my efforts. Is it a bargain? Speak quick!"
"If you are thinking of getting a special train," says Wilkinson, "it can't be—"
"Yes or no!" hollers Alex. "I'll take care of the rest!"
"Yes!" yells the lovely Wilkinson, jumpin' around like some of Alex's pep has entered his system. "If you put this over for me, I'll give youhalfof anything I get!"
"You're gonna put it over yourself!" says Alex. "Now listen to me. You grab a taxi and beat it down to your stock room. Get them overcoats ready and in about a hour I'll call there for you. We're goin' to Washington to-night and don't be over five minutes sayin' good-by to your wife!"
"But—" says Wilkinson, lookin' like Alex had him hypnotized.
"Git!" bawls Alex, and slams a hat on the lovely Wilkinson's head.
Well, within four minutes the lovely Wilkinson has beat it, leavin' behind a astounded and weepin' wife and Alex is on the phone callin' up the Gaflooey Auto Company's service station and in ten minutes more he has arranged to have a truck and a mechanic chug-chuggin' outside the house. Then he turns to me.
"Here is another chance for you to lose some dough," he says. "I'm gonna take Wilkinson and his trick overcoats down to Washington by way of a auto truck. If we leave here at midnight, we got about seventeen hours to make 225 miles, that's an average of around thirteen miles a hour. The Gaflooey one-ton truck can make twenty, if chased. Of course we may hit some bum roads or lose the carburetor and so forth, which might delay us some. What'll you bet I don't put this over?"
I walked over to the window and looked out at New York. They is one of them rains fallin' that generally plays a week stand before passin' on to the next village. I figured that trip in the middle of the night, the rain and the tough goin'.
"Gimme a proposition," I says.
"All right," says Alex. "Me and Eve needs some furniture for the library. I'll bet you fifteen hundred against a thousand that I get Wilkinson in Washington in time to put over his deal."
"I got you," I says. "If he gets there too late to put over anything with the War Department, I win—right?"
"Correct!" says Alex. "And now have Cousin Alice put up some sandwiches and the like for us. I got a lot to do!"
Well, at five minutes to twelve that night they was a Gaflooey truck gasolined its merry way aboard a Forty-second Street ferry. On board it was Alex, the lovely Wilkinson, one thousand storm-proof army overcoats and yours in the faith.
I ain't liable to forget that trip for a long while to come, because I got soaked to the skin—with water—and just missed gettin' pneumonia by one cough. The rain kept gettin' worse and worse and it hadn't a thing on the roads. We went through Trenton, N. J., along around 4 a.m. in a storm that would of made the Flood look like fallin' dew. The mud is up over the hubs of the truck, but it keeps plowin' along at a steady gait with Alex and the mechanic takin' turns at the wheel. I crawled in under some of them one thousand overcoats at Philly and went to sleep, the last I heard bein' the lovely and half-drowned Wilkinson callin' out the time every fifteen minutes and moanin', "We'll never make it!"
Mornin' brung no let up in the rain, but the old Gaflooey truck keeps thunderin' on. Sometimes we done five miles a hour, sometimes twenty and when this big baby was goin' twenty, believe me, it was rough sleddin'! We run into a bridge at Wilmington, Del., and at Baltimore we bumped a Flivver off of the road, but outside of that they was nothin' but rain and mud and the lovely Wilkinson complainin' about the dampness, like he was the only one that was gettin' a endless cold shower.
It was twenty minutes of five when we rolled into the city limits of Washington and I'll tell the world we was a rough lookin' bunch. Alex is grinnin' from ear to ear and slappin' Wilkinson on the back and this guy has perked up a bit, though wishin' out loud that he was home with coffee, bacon and eggs and Mrs. Wilkinson. I am cursin' the day that ever brung Alex into our family circle and wonderin' if death by double pneumonia is painful. The mechanic is fallin' asleep at the wheel, wakin' himself up from time to time with shots out of a flask and of lemon ice-cream sodas or something he had on his hip.
We stopped in front of the War Department and Alex says we better straighten up ourselves and the overcoats before callin' on Colonel Williams. At that, the mechanic falls off the seat and dives into a restaurant and we go back to look at the coats.
"If any of us had any brains," says Alex, jerkin' a coat off the pile, "we would all of worn one of these here things and kept nice and dry—Sufferin mackerel!" he winds up all of a sudden.
Me and the lovely Wilkinson swings around and there's Alex holdin' up the coat.
Oh, boy!!!!!
This here storm-proof army coat, which Wilkinson hoped to unload on the U. S. army, just simply fell apart in his hands! He grabbed another and another—and they're all alike. The rain has took all the color outa them, they have shrunk till they is hardly enough cloth to accommodate the buttons and the linin's, which was supposed to be leather, has fell right to shreds from the water. All in all, they was nothin' but a mess of soggy, muddy rags which no self-respectin' junk dealer would of took for a gift!
The lovely Wilkinson's face is a picture. He's as pale as the mornin' cream and I thought for a minute he was gonna bust out cryin'. I couldn't help feelin' sorry for the kid, but when I thought of that wild night ride through the rain and mud to bring this bunch of garbage to Washington, I wanted to laugh out loud! And then I remember Alex bettin' me Wilkinson would take the order, and I haw-hawed myself silly, right there in the street.