Wallingford left them in this hopeless spirit, and went "back East to look after his other business." That business took him directly to the offices of the United Sales Recording Machine Company of New Jersey, and into an immediate conference with the man who had charge of all its patent affairs.
"I have come to sell you the Pneumatic Sales Recorder Company," said Wallingford, by way of introduction.
"The Pneumatic Sales Recorder Company?" repeated Mr. Priestly vaguely, trying to convey the impression that the name was unfamiliar to him, and he looked into his desk file. "Oh, yes; we have a suit pending against them."
"Exactly," agreed his caller. "Suit number two is now pending. We won suit number one. We will win suits number two, three, four, five and six, if need be, but it is such a waste of money on both sides. You might just as well buy us out now as later."
Mr. Priestly shook his head without a smile. He was almost gloomy about it, even. He wasa small man with gray mutton-chop whiskers, and nothing could exceed his deep gravity. From another file he produced a copy of the patent taken out by Mr. Klug, and of the one just issued to Mr. Wallingford, assignor to Mr. King's company.
"The Pneumatic Sales Recorder Company," he stated, tossing down the papers as if they were too trifling to examine after he had found them, "has nothing whatever that we wish to purchase."
"Oh, yes, it has," Wallingford insisted. "It has two patents, and the absolute certainty of a business that in three years will take trade enough and profits enough away from you to buy the company several times over."
Again Mr. Priestly shook his head sadly.
"We shall have to wait three years to determine that," he hinted, with no sinister intonation whatever to go with the veiled threat. "We must defend our very existence here every day of our lives. If we did not we would have been put out of the business years ago."
"Exactly," again agreed the other. "In your files you have comprehensive reports on Mr. Carl Klug, Mr. Jens Jensen, Mr. Otto Schmitt and the others of the company. Youknow their small resources to a penny, and you can figure almost to the day how long they can last. But that, Mr. Priestly, is where you have made your error, for these men will soon be out of the game. I have here another list about which you will not need to collect any information, for you have it even in memory, no doubt."
He laid before Mr. Priestly a neatly-typewritten slip, containing barely over half a dozen names. In spite of his excellent facial command, Mr. Priestly could not repress a start of surprise, and he shot across at Mr. Wallingford one quick little glance, which had in it much more of respect than he had hitherto shown.
"J. B.Hammond," read Mr. Priestly, clutching at a straw. "The last name is familiar, but the initials are not."
"No," agreed Wallingford. "By the terms under which he sold out to you, Mr. W. A. Hammond is not to go into the sales recorder business at all. Allow me to read you a letter," and from a pocketbook he took a folded paper.
"My dear Mr. Wallingford," he read. "Under no circumstances could I participate in the manufacture of sales recorders; but my son,Mr. J. B. Hammond, is quite convinced that the Klug patent is both practical and tenable, and he advises me that he is willing to invest up to two hundred thousand dollars, provided a company of at least one millionbona fidecapitalization can be formed."
"It is a curious coincidence," added Wallingford, passing over this letter with a smile, "that two hundred thousand dollars is exactly the price you paid William Hammond for his business, after five years of very bitter litigation. The son, no doubt, would take a keen personal interest in regaining the losses of the father through a company that has so excellent a chance to compete with yours. You see, a company with a million dollars, composed of men who know all about the sales recorder business, would set aside these suits of yours in a jiffy, because they are untenable, and you know it, although I do not expect you to admit it just now. Mr. Keyes, whose name is next on the list, had nothing left to sell after losing almost a quarter of a million in fighting you, and so is unbound. It just happens, however, that he has been left quite a comfortable legacy, and would like nothing so much as to sink part of it in our company. Here is the letter from Mr. Keyes," and he spread the seconddocument in the case before Mr. Priestly, who now laid down the first letter and, readjusting his glasses, took up the second one in profound silence.
Mr. Wallingford lit a cigar in calm content and waited until Mr. Priestly had finished reading the letter of Mr. Keyes, when he produced another one.
"Mr. Rankley," he observed, "has never been in the sales recorder business, but he apparently has his own private and personal reasons for wishing to engage in it," and at the mention of Mr. Rankley's name Mr. Priestly broke the toothpick he was holding and threw it away.
Mr. Rankley, as he quite well knew, was Mr. Alexander's bitterest enemy, and Mr. Alexander was practically the United Sales Recording Machine Company of New Jersey. Wallingford went on down the list in calm joy. It was composed entirely of men of means, who would put into this enterprise not only experience and shrewd business ability, but a particularly energetic hatred of the big corporation and its components.
"I see," said Mr. Priestly, laying down the final letter upon the previous ones, and with great delicacy and precision placing a glasspaperweight squarely in the middle of them. "Permit me to retain these letters for a short time. I wish to take them before our board of directors."
"When?" asked Wallingford.
"Well, our regular monthly meeting—" began Mr. Priestly.
"No, you don't," interrupted the other. "I think a few minutes of conversation with Mr. Alexander himself would do away entirely with the necessity of consulting the board of directors. You think it possible, I know, that by going directly to Mr. Klug and his friends you would be able to purchase the patents cheaper than you can from me, but I am quite sure I can convince Klug and his company that these gentlemen will raise the price on you."
"Why didn't you form this new company in the first place, then?" demanded Mr. Priestly sharply, implying a doubt. "Why do you come to us at all!"
"Because I personally," patiently explained Wallingford, "can make more money by quietly selling the patent to you than I personally can make by selling it openly to them, as you will see if you reflect a moment. At present I own a twelfth share in the company. If I induce this other company to take hold ofit I must divide the purchase price into twelve equal shares, of which I receive but one. Is Mr. Alexander in the city?"
"I believe so," hesitated Mr. Priestly.
"Is he in his office?"
"Possibly," admitted the other.
"Oh, he's in, then," concluded Wallingford sagely. "Well, I think you can give me my answer in an hour. I'll be down at the Hotel Vandyne. You might telephone me. I want to go back West this evening."
It did not take Mr. Priestly and Mr. Alexander sixty minutes to conclude that they could save a lot of money by doing business with Mr. Wallingford, and they asked him to drive up to their office and see them again. When they got through "dickering," Mr. Wallingford had agreed, in writing, to deliver over to them, within sixty days, the Pneumatic Sales Recorder Company patents, for the sum of one hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars, the receipt of a ten-thousand-dollar advance payment being acknowledged therewith.
Before he started West, Wallingford wired Maylie: "Note due in morning. Advise bank on quiet to sue."
A storm that he had scarcely expected awaited Wallingford when he returned. His wife met him furiously. She had all her belongings packed separately from his own, and would have been gone before his arrival but that she could not express her anger in a mere letter.
"It is the last straw, Jim!" she charged him. "You're growing worse all the time. I saw that you were throwing me with this puppy Feldmeyer deliberately, but was foolish enough to think that you were doing it only so that I might be amused while you were busy. As well as I know you, I did not suspect that you could possibly bring yourself to use me as a lever to borrow money from him!"
A twinkle that he could not help came into Wallingford's eyes as he thought of how easily Feldmeyer had been bent to his own ends, and it was most unfortunate for him, for she caught the look and interpreted it instantly.
"You're even proud of it!" she cried. "There's nothing in this world sacred to you. Why, only last night he made open love to me and insisted that I 'disappear' with him on a trip he is taking. He only laughed when I told him how I hated him. He had been drinking, and he and Maylie had been together. They are on to you, Jim. Maylie has found out something about you and has told Feldmeyer, and now the man would believe anything of you. He showed me your notes, and as good as told me that I was in partnership with you in getting money out of him. And you exposed me to this!"
"Where is he?" asked Wallingford unsteadily.
"I shan't tell you. He has left the city. He left this morning, and I have been considering whether, after all, I had not better stay sold."
They were in the parlor. Now she opened the door into the next room.
"Where are you going?" he asked, stepping toward her.
For reply she only laughed, the most unpleasant laugh he had ever heard from her, and, stepping through, closed the door. Before he could reach it she had bolted it. Hewent immediately into the hall, but all the other doors to their suite were also locked.
Maylie stepped out of the elevator as he was pondering what to do.
"Heard you had come in," said the lawyer, in a jaunty tone of easy familiarity. "How are tricks?"
The fellow stood in front of the open parlor door, and the light streamed upon his face. Wallingford, in the dimness, could study his countenance without exposing his own to such full scrutiny. There sat upon Maylie a new self-possession that had something insolent about it. Fanny had been right. Maylie had been getting reports upon him.
"Step in," he cordially invited, and Maylie walked into the parlor. It was noticeable that he kept his hat on until after he had sat down. "Tricks are very fair indeed," continued Wallingford in answer to the offhand question. "We're going to get through with it in good shape."
Maylie laughed.
"You're all right," he said. "From all accounts you're a wonder. No matter what you tackle, the milk stopper business, carpet tacks, insurance, sales recorders, you're always a winner," and after this hint that he knewsomething of Wallingford's past he lit a cigarette with arrogant nonchalance, then got up to close the hall door which had been left slightly ajar.
Wallingford's half-closed eyes followed him across the room with a gleam in which there boded no good for Mr. Maylie. Turning, however, Maylie found his host laughing heartily.
"I seldom pick up the hot end of it," asserted Wallingford. "How about the bank?"
"They're offering suit right now, and the Pneumatic will not pay the note. The company hasn't the money, and the tightening up of the local financial situation that has come about in the past month will make it almost impossible to realize on such trifling securities as the members have. Moreover, if they had money they're scared stiff, and not one of them would put up a dollar, except Klug, perhaps. They'll let the company go to a forced sale. I guess that's what you wanted, isn't it?"
"I'm not going to say about that," replied Wallingford. "The less we talk, even with the doors locked, the better."
"That's so," agreed Maylie; "only there's one point of it wemusttalk about. How did you come out in the East?"
"I have just told you not to try to know too much."
"I don't want to know too much. I only want to know where I come in."
"Your experience with me ought to tell you that you will have no occasion to quarrel with your fee."
"I thought so," retorted Maylie, leaning forward with a laugh that was more like a sneer; "but I want more than a fee, and I'm going to have more than a fee!"
For just one instant Wallingford almost lost his suavity, but whatever game he played he held all its tangled ends continuously in view.
"So we're all thieves together, eh?" he said, smiling, and the gleam of gratification upon Maylie's face assured him that he was upon the right track. "Of course, I know that you have a string on me in this matter and can hold me up," he admitted, as if reluctantly, "so suppose we say ten thousand for you, if the deal goes through the way I want it."
"Now you're shouting!" exclaimed Maylie, and rising impulsively he shook hands with great enthusiasm. "You may count on me."
"I do," said Wallingford, also rising; and, still keeping his grip of the lawyer's hand, heturned his back squarely to the window, so that Maylie would be compelled to face it. "I consider you as mine from this minute."
As he said the words there came that little flicker in Maylie's close set eyes for which he had been looking. It told of negation—that Maylie still held his own plans in reserve. So adroit himself in plot and counterplot, it was no trick for Wallingford to fathom this amateur, and he let the lawyer go away hugging the delusion that he had this experienced schemer under his thumb; then Wallingford once more turned his attention to the locked door.
The silence within those other rooms had become oppressive, and a panic began to come over him. He knocked, but there was no response. He went out into the hall once more, and trying each of the knobs shook them. The far door, to his surprise, opened under his hand. Not one valued possession of Mrs. Wallingford's was in evidence. Empty dresser drawers were open, and two suit cases were gone. A trunk in the corner stood wide, and its bulky articles of lesser worth were strewn upon the floor. He immediately telephoned from that room. Yes, Mrs. Wallingford had gone. No, they did not know to which depot.She had merely called a cab and had hurried away. He ordered up time tables and studied them feverishly. Almost at this very moment trains were leaving from two different depots, and these were more than three miles apart. There was no chance of finding quickly to which one she had gone. A horrible fear oppressed him. That she had joined Feldmeyer was almost inconceivable, but that she might have taken even this revenge for the slight that had made her furious was a thought in harmony with the principles by which, through his own moral warp, he judged humanity, and he was frantic. At Feldmeyer's office he found the door also locked and the rooms for rent!
The next train for the East found Wallingford upon it. He spent days in attempting to get on the track of them, and he finally found out about Feldmeyer. He had gone to Europe. On the sailing list almost any name might conceal his wife, and to Europe went Wallingford, misled by his own worse self. It was characteristic of him that, having found Feldmeyer and being convinced that Mrs. Wallingford had never joined that gentleman, he should remind the doctor that he had been "chased" with his own money; and then he hurried home, more worried than ever, but his preciousten thousand dollars still intact and with some to spare. He needed that ten thousand for a specific purpose. Finally it occurred to him to enlist the services of "Blackie" Daw, and hunted that enterprising salesman of insecure securities. Blackie laughed at him and handed him a letter. Partly to punish her husband and partly to satisfy certain vague, mistaken longings she had cherished for a "quiet life," Mrs. Wallingford had immured herself in a little village, living most comfortably upon her diamonds; but now she was tired of it—and anxious for "Jim!"
"It's no use," she confessed when he had hurried to her. "Your way is wrong, but you've spoiled me with luxury."
"I'll spoil you with more of it," he assured her, petting her with an overgrown playfulness that seemed strange in one of his bigness of frame, and made of his varied character a most complex thing; "but if I don't hurry back on the job I'll get the hooks."
It was, in fact, high time for him to return to business, for he could get no wire from Maylie about the forced sale; and this was the strategic point for which he had been planning since the day he met Carl Klug. Three telegrams drew no response, and there was noone else to whom he dared wire in the present condition of affairs. Leaving his wife where she was for the present, he took the first train for the West and, arriving on the day before the sale, drove directly from the train to Carl Klug's, where he found a mournful assembly.
"That's him!" exclaimed Jens Jensen, as he came into the shop. "I always said he was a skinner."
Klug looked at him with dull eyes. Otto Schmitt arose to his threatening, rawboned height. Henry Vogel put his hand on Otto's arm.
"Wait a minute," he cautioned. "You don't know anything for sure about things."
"What's the matter?" Wallingford asked, stopped in the midst of his intended cordial greeting by the hostile air of the gathering.
"You done it a-purpose," charged Jens, shaking his skinny fist. "You got from us that note, and now it shuts us up in business. You say you back the company for all you're worth. Maybe you ain't worth anything. If you ain't you're a liar. If you are worth something you don't back us up. Then you're a liar again, so that makes you a skinner!"
"Gentlemen," said Wallingford sternly, "I am surprised. The question of whether I haveor have not money is not worth arguing just now. The point is this: if any one of you had money would you be willing to invest it against the millions of the United Sales Recording Machine Company of New Jersey? Would you, Mr. Jensen?"
"I don't know," said Jens sullenly. "I think you're a skinner."
Wallingford shrugged his shoulders.
"Would you, Mr. Schmitt?"
"No," said Otto, and unclenched his huge fists.
"Would you, Vogel?"
Vogel was positive about it, too. It would be throwing good money after bad.
"I ask Mr. Klug. Would you, Carl?"
"Yes," sturdily asserted Carl, his mustache bristling, his face puffing red. "Every cent. It is a good patent. It is a good machine. There's money in it."
"Maybe," admitted Mr. Wallingford; "but let me tell you something I found out during my trip East. For five years the Hammond Automatic Cashier Company fought the United Sales Recording Machine Company of New Jersey tooth and toe nail, and finally sold out to them for two hundred thousand dollars, a net loss of over a quarter of a million, besidesall their time. During the same period, the Keyes Accounting Device Company, with a capital of three hundred thousand dollars, was fought out of existence and quit without a cent. The Burch Company, the Electric Sales Checking System Company and the Wakeford and Littleman Store Supply Company, all rich, all met the same fate. That note you gave me was a mere incident. You had the ten thousand dollars, have used it in the business, and it is gone. If you had a hundred thousand dollars more on top of it, that would drop into the same hole, for I am told that the United Company lays aside twenty-five dollars from every sale for patent litigation. But since Jensen seems to think I am not a man of my word I will do this: There are seven of us in the company. I will put in ten thousand dollars if the rest of you will raise thirty. We will pay this note and hire lawyers as long as we last, and as a proof that I mean what I say here is ten thousand dollars that I will put into the hands of your treasurer the minute the rest of you are ready to make up your share."
From his pocket he drew ten bills of one thousand dollars each. It was the first time they had any of them seen money of such large denomination, and it had a visible effect.
"I can raise five thousand dollars on my house and shop," offered Carl Klug hopefully, but one glance at the glum faces of his friends was enough to discourage that idea.
Wallingford was rehabilitated, but not their faith in Carl Klug's unlucky device. The sale of the company must bring something, possibly enough to settle the note. If they could get out of it without losing any more they would consider themselves lucky.
"When is this sale?" asked Wallingford.
"To-morrow morning at ten o'clock. Here."
"Very well," said Wallingford. "If before that time any of you want to take up the offer I have just made, you are welcome to do so," and he put the money back in his pocket.
He had found out what he wanted to know, and drove away well satisfied with the results of his visit. His proposition to put further cash into the concern "if they would raise thirty thousand dollars" had wrought the effect he had calculated upon. It had scared them out completely.
At his hotel he found three telephone memoranda waiting for him. They were all from the same source: room number 425 of the only other good hotel in the city. He did notanswer this call until he got to his own rooms, and then he spoke with much briefness.
"No, do not come over," he peremptorily insisted. "I have no time to-day nor to-night, nor until after the sale. It is at ten o'clock, at 2245 Poplar Street. Stay right where you are. I'll send you over the stuff within an hour," and he rang off.
As soon as he could get connection he called up Maylie, but if the latter contemplated any trickery he did not show it by any hesitation of speech when he recognized Wallingford's voice. As a matter of fact, he already knew Wallingford to be in town. He was cordiality itself. Why, certainly, he would be right over! His cordiality, however, could not be exceeded by that of Mr. Wallingford when they met.
"You simply must stay for dinner with me, old man," said Wallingford. "I have a lot of things to talk over with you."
"I really have an engagement," Maylie hesitated. He had not, but he would much rather have been alone, this night of all nights.
"Nonsense," insisted Wallingford. "This is more important. It means money, and big money, to both of us, and we'll just have dinner up here. We want to be alone to-night.There might always be somebody at the next table, you know."
Within ten minutes Maylie was glad he had stayed, and the dinner he heard Wallingford order had reconciled him. He had been doing yeoman work for himself, and he felt entitled to a certain amount of indulgence. Within another ten minutes a bottle of champagne was opened, and Wallingford, taking one glass of it, excused himself to remove the stains of travel. When he came back, refreshed and clean, the quart of wine was nearly emptied, and Maylie, leaning back in a big leather chair, was puffing smoke rings at the ceiling in huge content.
Wine was thepièce de résistanceof that dinner. There were other things, certainly, course after course, one of those leisurely, carefully blended affairs for which Wallingford was famous among his friends, a dinner that extended to nearly three hours, perfect in its ordering and appointments; but champagne was, after all, its main ingredient. It was on the table before the first course was served, and half emptied bottles and glasses of it were there when they came to the coffee and the cordials and the fat black cigars. In all, they had consumed an enormous quantity, but Wallingford was as steady as when he began, while Maylie was flushed and so buoyant that everything was a hilarious joke. Wallingford, on their first encounter, had detected this appetite in the young man, and had saved it for just such a possibility as this. It was half past nine before they arose from the table, and by thattime Maylie was ripe for any suggestion. Wallingford's proposal that they pile into a carriage and take a ride met with instant and enthusiastic acquiescence. There were clubs to which Wallingford had already secured theentréeby his personality and his free handling of money, and now he put them to full and extravagant use.
Dawn was breaking when the roisterers finally rolled back to Wallingford's apartments. Wallingford was holding himself right by a grim effort, but Maylie had passed to a pitiable condition of imbecility. His hair was stringing down over his forehead, and his face was of a ghastly pallor. In the parlor, however, he drew himself together for a moment and thought that he was capable of great shrewdness.
"Look yere, ole man," he stammered, trying to focus his gaze upon his watch; "this's mornin' now, an' i'ss all off. Tha's sale's at ten o'clock an' we godda be there."
"We'll be there all right," said Wallingford. "What we need's a little nap. There are two bedrooms here. We'll leave a call for nine o'clock. Three hours of sleep will do us more good than anything else."
"Aw ri'," agreed Maylie, and winkedlaboriously to himself as an absurdly foolish idea came to him that he would let Wallingford get to sleep first, and would then change the call to his own room. He would answer that call, take a hasty plunge, dress and walk out, leaving Wallingford to sleep on for a week! Wallingford, in the dining room, sought for the thing he had ordered left there: one more bottle, packed tightly in its ice, and this he now opened. Into Maylie's glass he poured two or three drops of a colorless liquid from a little vial he carried, filled it with wine and set it before him. Maylie pushed it away.
"Do' wan' any more wine," he protested.
"Sure you do. A nightcap with your dear old pal?" Wallingford persisted, and clinked glasses with him.
Maylie obeyed that clink as he would not have responded to any verbal urging. He reached for the glass of champagne and drank half of it, then collapsed in his chair. Wallingford sat opposite to him and watched him as intently as a cat watches a mouse hole, sipping at his own wine quietly from time to time. His capacity was a byword among his friends. Maylie's hand slipped from his chair and hung straight down, the other one curling awkwardly upon his lap. His head droopedand he began to snore. He was good for an all-day sleep. Only a doctor could arouse him from it.
Wallingford still waited. By and by he lifted up the hanging hand and dropped it roughly. Maylie made not the slightest motion. Wallingford stood above him and looked down in smiling contempt; and the ghastly blending of the artificial light with the morning, where it struggled bluely in around the edges of the blinds, touched the smile into a snarl. Suddenly he stooped to the limp figure in the chair and picked it up bodily in his arms, and, staggering slightly under the burden, carried the insensate lump to the far sleeping apartment and laid it upon the bed. He loosened the man's collar and took off his shoes, then, as calmly and unconcernedly as he might read a newspaper, he went through Mr. Maylie's clothing.
Nothing worth mentioning in the outside coat pockets; nothing in the inside coat pockets; in the inside vest pocket a few yellow papers! He did not even stop at the window of this dim room to make sure of what he held. He was sure without looking. Into the parlor and to an easy chair he took them and opened them with grim satisfaction. They weretelegrams, all from the United Sales Recording Machine Company of New Jersey, and they told an absorbingly interesting story. There were four, and in the order of their receipt they read thus:
Were already informed our Mr. Bowman will report to you in time for saleSince you think Bowman's presence might hurt negotiations he will not come look to you to bid us in at lowest possible figureUp to one hundred and fifty thousand if bidding goes above that wire for further instructionsYes keep all under fifty thousand for your fee
Were already informed our Mr. Bowman will report to you in time for sale
Since you think Bowman's presence might hurt negotiations he will not come look to you to bid us in at lowest possible figure
Up to one hundred and fifty thousand if bidding goes above that wire for further instructions
Yes keep all under fifty thousand for your fee
Business! All pure business! The United Sales Recording Machine Company of New Jersey was being held up, and it was good business for them to see that they were mulcted of as little as possible. Wallingford rather admired them for it. Since the property was at open sale they had as much right to buy it as he had. He read these telegrams over and over in profound content. He had foreseen them. Moreover, he had read not onlyMaylie's intention, but his plan and every detail of it, and for him he felt no admiration whatever. Maylie was too clumsy.
There was a small serving table in the dining room, and Wallingford carried that in to the sleeper's bedside. Upon this he spread the four telegrams in neat order, and weighted them down withempty glassesfor Mr. Maylie's absorbed study if he should happen to awaken. Next he drew his favorite chair into that room, and placed it at the opposite end of the serving table. He put upon this the champagne bottle and his own glass, and lighting a big and extremely black cigar he sat down to watch his erstwhile comrade, for he was taking no chances. Whenever he felt himself nodding or letting that cigar lax in his fingers he took a tiny sip of the champagne. Sometimes he went in and held his head under the cold water faucet.
At the end of the first hour sleep threatened to overcome him, in spite of all that he could do, and going into the bathroom he undressed and took a cold shower. That refreshed him exceedingly, and the feel of cool, fresh linen upon him brightened him still more, for in his personal habits he was clean as a cat. It crossed his mind once or twice to send downand get newspapers, but he knew that the least strain upon his eyes would send him to sleep quicker than anything else. The second hour passed; the third, then the fourth one dragged wearily by. At the beginning of the fifth he began to stumble as he walked from room to room to keep awake, but never for more than five minutes at a time did he let that sleeping man out of his sight.
It seemed an eternity until the telephone bell rang in the parlor with startling insistence. With a glance of triumph toward the bed, he hurried in to obey the welcome call.
"Yes, this is Wallingford," he answered huskily. "How about it?... Good. How much?... What? All right, come straight up."
He stood scratching his head and trying to think for a few minutes, endeavoring to recall a certain number that he had in mind. Then he turned to the telephone book and fumbled through its leaves, backward and forward. His thumbs and fingers were like clubs. They had no feeling whatever. It took him whole minutes to separate two leaves from each other, swaying upon his feet and muttering to himself, but finally he found the name he wanted and put in the call. Slowly and with tremendouseffort he delivered his message, then slapped the receiver on the hook and staggered back to his chair. His fight against sleep for the next ten relaxed minutes was like a drowning man's fight for life, but he conquered, and when, a few moments later, there came a knock at his door, he was able to open it briskly.
"Hee-avings hee-elp us!" exclaimed Blackie Daw when he came in. "What a bat you've been on! Have you looked at yourself, J. Rufus?" and kicking the door shut he walked his friend up in front of the mantel mirror.
Wallingford focused his attention upon his own puffed face, on the swelled and reddened eyelids, on the bloodshot eyes, and laughed hoarsely.
"It's worth it," he declared. "I win over one hundred and fifty thousand clean, cold simoleans. But how did you come to have to pay eight thousand for the patents?"
"Klug," replied Blackie. "I thought for a minute he'd top my pile. He'd raised a little money some place, but he spent four thousand of it bidding in some machinery. It never flashed on him that the patents would have to be sold, too, and he nearly took a fit when he found it out. Game, though. He bid 'em up to his last cent. We had been going infive-hundred-dollar raises until it got up to six thousand. That was Mr. Klug's last bid, for I piled two thousand square on top of it and tried to look like I could go two thousand at a jump for the next two hours, and then Klug laid down."
"Eight thousand and four thousand. That's twelve thousand, and the bank's note is ten," figured Wallingford with painful slowness. "The costs will run about two hundred, and that lets the company have eighteen hundred dollars to divide among the partners. Why, say, Blackie, I get one twelfth of that! There's about a hundred and fifty dollars coming to me. Suppose we go over and get it."
He laughed, but even as he did so he swayed and caught at a chair, and his eyelids dropped.
"I've got to keep up now until we get into a Pullman," he mumbled with halting effort. "Sleep? I'll sleep all the way to New Jersey. Did you arrange to pay for the patents?"
"Did I?" triumphed Mr. Daw. "Trust your uncle for that. Say, J. Rufus, what'll you give me to transfer them over to you?"
Wallingford turned to his friend a countenance that was almost ferocious in its sudden alertness.
"I'll give you twenty minutes to do it in," he said with a growl. "There's a lawyer on the way here now, and I can have a policeman here in two minutes. You know you jumped bail in this town, don't you?"
Mr. Daw was shocked.
"There's no need for you to be so ugly about it, J. Rufus," he protested. "I wouldn't take a cent away from you."
"Wouldn't you!" sneered J. Rufus. "Do you know why? I'd never give you a chance. Let me show you the last man that tried to do me up," and he led the way into the apartment where Mr. Maylie still lay in profound slumber.
Mr. Daw grinned.
"He makes you look perfectly sober," he confessed; "but what are those papers on the table?"
Mr. Wallingford laughed quite naturally this time.
"Poor boob!" he said. "He just lost forty thousand, and those telegrams are his fee."
Sleep, blessed sleep! Desperately Wallingford fought it off until the lawyer had arrived and the necessary documents had been signed, and then, more dead than alive, he allowed himself to be bundled into a cab.
"Now, J. Rufus," said Blackie Daw as he jumped in beside him, "we have your affairs all wound up and a red ribbon tied around them, so let's 'tend to Happy Horace. I'm a bridegroom! Congratulate muh."
"Huh?" grunted J. Rufus, and immediately there followed another succession of unintelligible sounds. Wallingford was snoring.
It was precisely twenty-four hours before Mr. Daw could convey this important information to his friend and make him understand it, and it was not until they had arrived in Jersey City that J. Rufus, still dull from his nerve-racking experience, was normal enough to ask:
"Who's the lucky lady?"
"The Star of Morning and the Queen of Night," responded Blackie with vast enthusiasm. "The one best bet of blazing Broadway. The sweetest peach in the orchard of joy. The fairest blossom in Cupid's garden. The—"
"It's a fine description," interrupted Wallingford. "I'd be able to pick her out any place from it; but what was her name before she shortened it?"
"You want to know too quick," complained Blackie. "You ought to have waited till I explained something more about her; but you always were an impatient cuss, and I'll tell you. Her name was and is, upon the bill-boards and in the barber-shop windows, Violet Bonnie, whose exquisite voice and perfect figure—"
"Isshedivorced again?" once more interrupted Wallingford.
"Last week," answered Blackie with no abatement of his enthusiasm, "and Happy Horace happened to be on the spot. I was introduced to her over at Shirley's the night she was celebrating the granting of her decree, and I had so much money with me it made my clothes look lumpy. She took an awful shine to that bank roll; not so much the diameter ofit but the way I rolled it. It never rested, and by two in the morning she had transferred her affections from the swiftly flowing mezuma to me. At four o'clock G. M. we waded out from among the ocean of empties and, attended by a party so happy they didn't care whether it was day before yesterday or day after to-morrow, we took passage in seaworthy taximeters and floated to the Little Church Around the Corner, where the bright and shining arc light of musical comedy became Mrs. Violet Bonnie Daw. It was a case of love at first sight."
"For how long have you secured a lease?" inquired Wallingford.
"I don't know," replied Blackie reflectively. "She was married the first time for three years, the second for two and the third for one. According to those figures Number Four would have a right to look forward to about six months of married bliss."
"I never was drunk for six months at a time in my life," reflected Wallingford, "but I can see how it could happen. When it's all over, come around to me and I'll lead you to a sanitarium. In the meantime, when am I to have a chance to congratulate the lady?"
"Right away. She is now awaiting yours truly with quite yearning yearns. You know,J. Rufus, your urgent telegram interrupted the howlingest honeymoon that ever turned the main stem into the Great Purple Way. Here's the address. Come over as soon as you have held up the United people, and interrupt us. If you don't find us at home, just go charter a car and roll up and down the avenue until you see the speediest automobile cab outdoors. Chase that, because it's us."
When he called at two o'clock on the following afternoon, however, after having seen Mr. Priestly to their mutual satisfaction, he found them at home just preparing for breakfast, and blinking at the gray world through the mists of a champagne headache. He found Violet Bonnie Daw, seen thus intimately, to be an extremely blond person with a slight tendency towardembonpoint, but her eyes were very blue, and her complexion, even without a make-up, very clear, able even to dominate her charming morning gown of a golden shade that exactly matched her hair. True, if one looked closely there were already traces of coming crow's-feet about the eyes, but one must not look closely; and her very real cordiality made amends for any such slight drawbacks.
"So you're my husband's old pal!" she exclaimed as she shook hands with him warmly.Then she surveyed him from head to foot with an expert appraisement. "You look like a good sport all right," she concluded. "Blackie tells me you just cleaned up a tidy wad of pin money out West, and that you could give Pittsburgh's Best cards and spades on how to spend it. And Blackie's no slouch himself," she rattled on. "My, you ought to have been with us last night."
Blackie grinned dolefully.
"We left a string of long-necked bottles from the Café Boulevard to Churchill's," he stated somberly, but still with quite justifiable pride, "and when we rolled home this morning even the bankers were coming to work."
"It was something fierce," smiled his wife reminiscently, "but I guess we had a good time. Anyhow, it was so hilarious that we can't tell this morning what to take for a pick-me-up."
"That's where I won my first gold medals," boasted Wallingford, chuckling. "What sort of a bar outfit have you?"
"Everything from plain poison to prussic acid," Blackie informed him. "The preceding husband of Mrs. Daw was a swell provider."
"You bet he was," agreed Mrs. Daw as she led the way to the dining room and threw openthe cupboard of the sideboard. "Harry was a good sport all right, but his stomach gave out."
The sideboard, given over in most apartments to cut glass and other ordinary dining-room adornments, was in this case stocked with fancy bottles of all shapes and colors and sizes, and in the lower part of it was ice.
"Pardon the bartender, mum," observed J. Rufus, his eyes lighting up with the dawning of creative skill as he removed his coat.
Mrs. Daw watched him musingly through the open door of the dining room as he worked deftly among those bottles and utensils.
"He's a good sport all right," she confided to her present husband, and she was still more of that opinion when Wallingford served three tall, thin glasses with sugared edges, crowned with cracked ice and filled with a golden greenish liquid from which projected two straws. One sip and a sigh of satisfaction from both Mr. and Mrs. Daw, and then they drained the glasses.
"Our hero!" declaimed Mrs. Daw, looking up at him in gratitude. "You have saved our lives. Which will you have, Mr. Wallingford, breakfast or lunch?"
By evening she was calling him Jimmie, and any trifle of disapproving impression thatWallingford had at first harbored was gone. As Blackie claimed, she was born to adorn the night and became more beautiful as dusk fell. Perhaps clothes and consummate art in toilet had something to do with this, but before the three had parted in the morning, Wallingford had decided to introduce his wife after all, a matter about which he had been in considerable doubt. Now, however, he was convinced that the lady was thoroughly respectable. No breath of scandal had ever attached itself to her name. She was always off with the old love before she was on with the new, and could hold up her head in any society!
Mrs. Wallingford came to town the next day, and at no time did she share the enthusiasm of these two men for the incomparable Mrs. Daw. There was a striking contrast between the women, and even their beauty was not only of a strikingly different kind but of a strikingly different nature. Mrs. Daw was a flaming poinsettia, Mrs. Wallingford a rose, and the twain were as antagonistic as were their hues of cheek. Mrs. Daw, however, was more at ease, for she was in her natural environment, the niche to which her nature had fashioned her and of which she had made deliberate choice; but Mrs. Wallingford, in spiteof her surroundings, had much in her—though she did not recognize it—of the quantities that would go to make up a Lady Godiva. Her proper sphere, one of calm, pure domesticity, she had never known, though she had vaguely yearned for it; but she was adaptable, and, particularly throughout her married life, she had been thrown with all sorts and conditions of chance nomads such as her husband was likely to pick up; so she accepted Mrs. Daw as a matter of course and got on with her without friction. Nevertheless, her face fell a trifle when her husband joyously announced one afternoon that he had just thought up a great stunt—a honeymoon party for the Daws. He had acted the moment the suggestion had come to him. He had already chartered a private car and had given orders to have it stocked with the very best of everything. He had telephoned the Daws. Mrs. Daw had only the day before signed a contract with a leading dramatic producer, but what was a contract?
The next day, in all the luxury that car builders and fitters had yet been able to devise, they started upon a hilarious tour across the continent; but so far as their mode of life and amusement was concerned they might justas well have stayed on Broadway, for their nights were spent in drinking, their mornings in sleep and their afternoons in sobering up, though in all this Mrs. Wallingford held herself as much reserved and aloof as she could without spoiling the content of the others. They were merely moving a section of the rapid hotel life of New York across the country with them, and the only things which made their hours seem different were the constantly changing scenic environment and the sensation of speed. So long as they were moving swiftly they were satisfied, but a slow rate brought forth howls of discontent. It was on a small connecting line in the middle west that this annoyance reached its climax, and after an hour of exceptionally slow travel Wallingford sent for the conductor and put in a vigorous protest. Yes, there was a faster train on that road. Then why hadn't they been attached to that fast train? The conductor did not know. It was orders.
"You go get different orders!" demanded Wallingford, and for another hour he made life a burden to that official.
Goaded to desperation, wiring at every stop, the conductor finally, with a sigh of relief, saw the polished private car "Theodore" shuntedoff on the siding at Battlesburg and left behind.
To the quartette of riotous travelers Battlesburg was only an uninteresting detail of their trip, which had intruded itself unbidden upon their sight; but to Battlesburg the arrival of a private car with real people in it was an epoch. Why, it might be the President! Long-legged Billy Ricks, standing idly upon the platform because the dragging hours passed by there as well as anywhere else, did not even wait to take a good look at it, but loped up the one long street, so fired with enthusiasm that he scarcely wobbled as his bony knees switched past each other in their faded blue overalls. He did not bother with people near the depot—they would find out soon enough; but at the little frame office of "Judge" Lampton, Justice of the Peace, Notary Public and Real Estate Dealer, he bobbed his head in for a moment.
"Private car on the sidin'!" he bawled. "Name's 'Theodore'!" and he was gone.
Judge Lampton, smoking a long, ragged stogie, jerked his feet down from among the dust-covered litter of ages upon his combination bookcase-desk. Doc Gunther, veterinary surgeon and proprietor of the livery stableacross the way, lifted his head forward from against the dark-brown spot it had made during the past years upon the map of Battlesburg, where it hung upon the wall, and vigorously took a fresh chew of tobacco. Then the two friends, without exchanging one word, stalked solemnly out of the office and toward the depot. In the meantime Billy Ricks had paused to hurl his startling information in at the door of Joe Warren's cigar store, of Ben Kirby's cash grocery, of Tom Handy's Red Front saloon, of the Dogget Brothers' furniture and undertaking establishment, of the Barret & Lucas dry goods and notion store, and of every other place of business on that side of the street, including the Palace Hotel, until he came to Gus Newton's drug store and confectionery, where the real dyed-in-the-wool sports of the town shot dice and played penny-ante in a little back room. Here he met a round half dozen of these high-spirited youths piling out upon the street with their eyes depot-ward.
"Private car on the sidin'!" Billy shouted to them. "Name's 'Theodore'!"
"Uh-huh," agreed Gus Newton, "I ordered it. It's late," and, shouting back further ready mendacity, his crowd hurried on.
Just in front of the Battles County Bank, Billy met Clint Richards, owner and city editor of the BattlesburgBlade. Clint was also reporter, exchange and society editor and advertising solicitor of theBlade, and, as became a literary man, he wore his hair rather long. He was in a hurry, and had his broad-brimmed black felt hat pulled down determinedly upon his head.
"Private car—" began Billy Ricks.
"Yes," interrupted Clint, "I know about it. Thank you," and his coat tails fluttered behind him.
Billy stopped in dejection. The street which, when he started, had been so lazy and deserted, was now alive. People were pouring from all the places of business beyond him and hurrying toward him. Back of him they were all hurrying away from him. He had been outstripped by the telephone, and ungrateful Battlesburg would fail to connect him with the sensation in any way. Well, he might as well go down to the depot himself, and he turned in that direction; but now his feet shuffled.
At the siding, the denizens of Battlesburg—men, women, children and dogs—were packed four deep around the glistening, rolling palace"Theodore." Agitated groups of two and three and four, scattered from the depot platform to the siding, were discussing the occurrence excitedly, and Dave Walker, the station agent, turned suddenly crisp and brusque with importance, was refusing explanations and then relenting in neighborly confidence with each group in turn. Clint Richards, pale but calm and confident, bustled through the quivering throng, and they all but set up a cheer as they recognized the official and only authorized asker of important questions. The vestibule being open, he pulled himself up the steps and tried the door. It was locked.
"Push the button, Clint," advised Gus Newton, who knew a thing or two, you bet! and Clint, with a smile and a nod in his direction, for Gus was an advertiser, rang the bell.
A brisk and clean-looking young negro in a white apron and jacket came to the door and Clint handed in his card. The porter disappeared. A moment later the news gatherer was admitted. A sigh of relief went up from the waiting crowd, and they swayed in unison from side to side as they stood on tiptoe and craned their necks to see farther in through those broad windows.
Through the wicker-furnitured observationlibrary the porter led the way into a rich compartment the full width of the car, where at luncheon sat the honeymoon quartette, rich in gay apparel and brave in sparkling adornment. They had evidently just sat down, for an untouched cocktail stood at each place. The extremely large and impressive Mr. Wallingford, the breadth of whose white waistcoat alone proclaimed him as a man of affairs, arose to greet the representative of the BattlesburgBladewith great cordiality.
"The members of the progressive press are always welcome," he announced, clasping Mr. Richards' hand in a vast, plump palm, and exuding democratic good will from every square inch of his surface. "We're just going to have a bit of luncheon. Join us."
"I wouldn't think of intruding," hesitated Mr. Richards, his eyes leaping with an appreciation of the rare opportunity and his brain already busy framing phrases like "priceless viands," "toothsome delicacies," "epicurean luxuries."
"Nonsense!" insisted Wallingford heartily, and introduced his visitor with much pompous ceremony to Mr. Horace G. Daw, mine dealer and investment specialist; to Mrs. Violet Daw, formerly Violet Bonnie, the famous comic-operaqueen, but now the happy bride of a month; to Mrs. Fanny Wallingford; to himself as a recently retired manufacturer and capitalist; then he placed Mr. Richards in a chair with a cocktail in front of him.
Mr. Richards was naturally overwhelmed at this close contact with two of America's leading millionaires, and he agreed with his host that the P. D. S. Railroad was positively the worst-conducted streak of corrugated rust in the entire United States. He was even more indignant than the travelers that, after having been promised a through train, they had been hitched to the local egg accommodation, and was even more satisfied than they that Mr. Wallingford had given the chills and ague to the entire transportation system of the P. D. S. until their car had finally been dropped off here to wait for the 3.45, which was a through train and the one which should have carried them in the first place. Why, Wallingford ought to buy the P. D. S., plow up the right of way and sow it in pumpkins!
"Sir," declared Mr. Richards, "the P. D. S. is a disgrace to the science of railroading! Why, its through trains stop only on signal at this thriving manufacturing center of four thousand souls. From your car windows hereyou may see the smoke belching forth from the chimneys of the Battlesburg Wagon Works, of the G. W. Battles Plow Factory, of the Battles & Handy Sash, Door and Blind Company, of the Battles & Son Canning Company, of the Battles & Battles Pure Food Creamery and Cheese Concern; and yet the only two through trains of the 'Pretty Darn Slow Railroad,' as we call it here, clink right on through! The Honorable G. W. Battles himself has taken up this matter and can do nothing, and when he can do nothing—"
The utter hopelessness of a situation for which the Honorable G. W. Battles himself could do nothing was so far beyond mere words that Mr. Richards turned from the subject in dejection and inquired about the financial situation back East. He found out all about it, and more. Mr. Daw and Mr. Wallingford, their faculty of invention springing instantly to the opportunity, helped him to fill his notebook to the brim, and turned him loose at last with one final glowing fabrication about the priceless sparkling Burgundy which was served during the seven courses of the little midday morsel. Adorned with a big cigar, from which he did not remove the gold band, Mr. Richards hastened from the car, and tothe pressing throng outside he observed, from the midst of an air of easy familiarity with the great ones of earth:
"That's Colonel Wallingford, the famous Eastern millionaire, and he's a prince! You certainly want to see theBladeto-night," and he hurried away to put his splendid sensation into type.
"Colonel" Wallingford looked at his watch.
"Two hours yet!" he exclaimed with a yawn. "Two solid hours in a yap town that's not on the map. What shall we do with the time? Play cards?"
"What's the use?" demanded "Blackie" Daw. "If I'd win your money you'd choke me till I gave it back, and if you won mine I'd have you pinched."
"Let's get off then and look at the burg," suggested J. Rufus.
It was Mr. Daw's turn to yawn. He looked out on one side of the manufacturing portion of Battlesburg, and on the other side at the mercantile and residence portion.
"I think I can see all I want to remember of it from here," he objected; "but anything's better than nothing. Shall we go, Vi?"
"That's us," replied the vivacious bride, who was already beginning to respond to all Mr.Wallingford's suggestions with more alacrity than either Mrs. Wallingford or Mr. Daw quite approved. "Let's go wake 'em up, Jimmy. Ring for a carriage."
The invaluable porter was already exchanging his white coat and apron for his dark-blue coat and derby, and, in another moment, that dusky autocrat, his face calm with the calmness of them who dwell near to much money, had asked the crowd outside the way to a livery stable.
Billy Ricks projected himself instantly through the assemblage. "I'll show you," he said eagerly.
The autocrat surveyed Billy Ricks briefly and gauged him accurately.
"Suppose you go get the best two-horse carriage, to seat four, that you can find in town," and in Billy's palm he pressed a half dollar.
The excitement grew intense! The millionaires were positively to appear! Doc Gunther's best "rig," his rubber-tired one, came rolling down Main Street, turned, and drew up near the car. The porter, now wearing his official cap, jumped down with his stepping box. Ah-h-h! Here they came! First emerged huge, sleek Mr. Wallingford, looking more like a million cleverly won dollars thanthe money itself. Mr. Daw stepped down upon the gravel, tall and slender, clad in glove-fitting "Prince Albert," his black mustache curled tightly, his black eyes glittering. Descended the beautiful, brown-haired Mrs. Wallingford, brave in dark-green broadcloth. Descended the golden-haired Mrs. Daw, stunning in violet from hat to silken hose. Perfectly satisfactory, all of them; perfectly adapted to fill the ideal of what a quartette of genuine nabobs should look like! Under the skillful guidance of Mr. Wallingford they pranced up Main Street, of fully as much interest and importance as any circus parade that had ever wended its way along that thoroughfare.
The town of Battlesburg, converting a level, dusty country road into "Main Street" for a space, lay across the railroad like a huge tennis racquet, its hand grip being the manufacturing district, its handle the business quarter, its net the residence section; and here were the first cross streets, little, short byways, the longest of them ten or twelve blocks in extent, and all ending against the fences of level fields. As they rode through the town, however, its pavements stirred to unusual liveliness by the great event, the impression that here was a place of merely sleeping moneygrew and grew upon J. Rufus Wallingford and appealed to his professional instincts.
"Some town, this," he concluded, turning to Mr. Daw. "They have rusty wealth here, and, if somebody will only give it a start, it will circulate till it gets all bright and shiny again. Then you can see by the flash where it is and nab it."
"Heads or tails to see who gets it," suggested Mr. Daw, and drew a dollar from his pocket.
"Heads!" called Mr. Wallingford, pulling on the reins, and just in front of the Baptist Church the fate of Battlesburg was decided.
Mr. Daw flipped the coin in the air over Mrs. Wallingford's lap. Upon the green broadcloth the bright silver piece came down with a spat, and the Goddess of Liberty faced upward to the sky.
"I win the place!" exulted J. Rufus as they rolled on out past the cemetery and toward Battles' Grove. "I don't know just yet how I'll milk it, but the milk is here."
"You wouldn't honestly come back to this graveyard, would you?" inquired Mrs. Daw. "Why, you'd die."
"If I did, I'd die with money in both hands,"responded Wallingford. "I can smell money, and I don't think there's a pantry shelf in this town without some spare coin tucked away in the little old cracked blue teapot. All you have to do is to play the right music, and all that coin will dance right out. I shouldn't be surprised that I'd come back here and toot a tune."
"There's no danger just yet a while," laughed Mrs. Wallingford. "You have too much wealth. In spite of this trip I never saw you get rid of money so slowly."
"He's a good enough spender for me," stated Mrs. Daw, with a sidelong glance at him from her round blue eyes. "He's a good sport, all right."
"I rather like this town, Jim," interposed Mrs. Wallingford quickly, catching that glance. "Let's do come back here and start up a business of some sort."
"I'm glad I lost," declared Mr. Daw vehemently. "It's too far away from a push button."
He also had seen that glance. It was nothing to which he could object, of course, but he did not like it. A damper had somehow been put upon the spirits of the party, and, after they had driven far out of sight of thetown, Mrs. Wallingford suggested that they had better turn back.
"I don't know," said her husband, looking at his watch. "We have nearly an hour and a half yet, and we can easily make it from here in half an hour."
"But what a long, long ways we are from a drink, if we wanted one," objected Mrs. Daw. "Just think of all that fizzy red wine in the ice box."
"You're a smart woman," declared J. Rufus with laughing enthusiasm, "and you win! Back we go."
They had scarcely proceeded a mile upon the return trip, however, when a shrill whistle screamed behind them. They turned, and there across the fields they saw a passenger train whizzing along at tremendous speed. The same thought came to them instantly.
"I thought there wasn't another train in that direction until 3.45," exclaimed Mr. Daw, "and now it is only 2.40!"
The team was abruptly stopped, and both men gazed accusingly at their watches. Suddenly Wallingford swore and whipped up the horses.
"We've Western time!" he called over his shoulder.
The explanation, though depressing, was correct. They had thought that they were over the line in the morning, and had set their watches ahead. When they discovered their error they had let it stand and had forgotten about it. They made the trip back to Battlesburg at record speed, and just beyond the cemetery they met Billy Ricks, in the middle of the road. He had been running.
"Number Two's jus' been through, an' it took away your private car!" gasped Billy.
Mr. Wallingford, gazing straight ahead, made no intelligible answer, but he was muttering under his breath.
"Your colored gentleman tried to stop 'em," Billy went on with enthusiasm, delighted to be the bearer of good or ill tidings so long as it was startling, "but the conductor cussed an' said he had orders to stop here and take on private car 'Theodore,' an' he was goin' to do it. Number Two didn't even stop at the depot. It jus' backed on to the sidin' an' took your private car an' whizzed out, an' the conductor stood on the back platform damnin' Dave Walker till he was plumb out o' hearin'!"
Mrs. Wallingford smiled. Mr. Daw chuckled. Mrs. Daw laughed hilariously.
"Ain't that the limit?" she demanded. "Let'sallbe happy!"
"I jus' thought I'd come on out and tell you, 'cause you might want to know," went on Billy expectantly.
For the first time Mr. Wallingford looked at him, and the next minute his hand went in his pocket. Billy Ricks drew a long breath. Two half dollars for officious errands in one day was a life record, and he trotted behind that carriage all the way to the depot, where Mr. Wallingford, with the aid of Dave Walker, immediately began to "burn up the wires." It seemed that the management of the P. D. S. positively refused to haul the "Theodore" back to Battlesburg. It was not their fault that the passengers had not been aboard at the time they were warned Number Two would stop for them. They would hold the car at the end of that division, and instruct their agent at Battlesburg to issue transportation to the four on the next west bound train; and that was all they would do!
The only west bound train that night was a local freight; the only west bound train in the morning was the accommodation which had brought them to Battlesburg; then came Number Two, the next afternoon. They drovestraight to the Palace Hotel and met the only man in Battlesburg who was not impressed by the high honor that a lucky accident had bestowed upon the city and upon his hostelry. Suspicion, engendered by thirty years of contact with a traveling public which had invariably either insulted his accommodations or tried to cheat him—and sometimes both—had soured the disposition of the proprietor of the Palace and cramped his soul until his very beard had crinkled. Suspicion gleamed from his puckered eyes, it was chiseled in the wrinkles about his nose, it rasped in his voice; and the first and only thing he noted about Mr. J. Rufus Wallingford and his splendid company was that they had no luggage! Whereupon, even before the multi-millionaire had finished inscribing the quartette of names upon his register, he had demanded cash in advance.
Judge Lampton, who had edged up close to the register, was shocked by this crass demand, and expected to see the retired capitalist give Pete Parsons the dressing down of his life. Instead, however, Mr. J. Rufus Wallingford calmly abstracted, from a pocketbook bulging with such trifles, a hundred-dollar bill which he tossed upon the desk, andwent on writing. As impassive as Fate, Pete Parsons turned to his safe, slowly worked the combination, and still more slowly started to make change. In this operation he suddenly paused.
"Billy," said he to the ever-present Ricks, "run over to the bank with this hundred-dollar bill and see if Battles'll change it."
For just one instant the small eyes of Wallingford narrowed threateningly, and then he smiled again.
"Show us to our rooms," he ordered. "Send up the change when it comes."
He laid down the pen, but his hand had scarcely left the surface of the book when it was clutched by that of Judge Lampton.
"In the name of the judiciary and of the enterprising citizens of this place, I welcome you to Battlesburg," he announced.
Mr. Wallingford, "always on the job"—to use the expressive parlance of his friend Mr. Daw—drew himself up and radiated.
"Thank you," he returned. "I have already inspected your beautiful little city with much pleasure, and all that you need to make this a live town is a good hotel."
The Judge shot at Pete Parsons a triumphant grin. Ever since Mr. Lampton had beendenied credit beyond the amount of two dollars at the Palace Hotel bar, himself and Mr. Parsons had been "on the outs."