“Your dear chum was in the country, resting up,” replied Wallingford, with matter-of-fact cheerfulness. “By George, I never had wine put me down and out so in my life”—whereat the cadaverous Short-Card Larry could not repress a wink for the benefit of Yap Pickins. “What was the good-thing they wired yesterday?”
“Whipsaw!” scorned Phelps. “Say, do you see that horse out there?”—and he pointed to a selling-plater, up at the head of the stretch, which was being warmed up by a stable-boy. “Well, that’s Whipsaw, just coming in from yesterday’s last race.”
Wallingford chuckled.
“They’re bound, you know, to land on a dead one once in a while,” he grunted; “but I’m strong for their game, just the same. You remember what that Razzoo thing that they tipped off did for me the other day.”
“Yes?” admitted Phelps with a rising inflectionand a meaning grin. “Nice money you won on him. It spends well.”
“Enjoy yourselves,” invited Wallingford cordially. “I’ve no kick coming. I’m through with stud poker till they quit playing it with a hole-card.”
“I don’t blame you,” agreed Short-Card Larry solemnly. “Anybody that would bet a four-flush against two aces in sight, the way you did when Billy won that three-thousand-dollar pot from you, ought never to play anything stronger than ping-pong for the cigarettes.”
Wallingford nodded, with the best brand of suavity he could muster under the irritating circumstances.
“I suppose I did play like a man expecting his wife to telephone,” he admitted. “Excuse me a minute; I want to get a bet down on this race.”
“Whom do you like?” asked Pickins.
“Rosey S.”
The four began to laugh.
“That’s the hot Boston tip,” gasped Phelps. “Say, Wallingford, don’t give your money to the Mets. Let us make a book for you on that skate.”
“You’re on,” agreed J. Rufus, delighted that the proposition should come from them, for he had beenedging in that direction himself. “I’ll squander a hundred on the goat at the first odds we see.”
They went into the betting-shed. Rosey S. was quoted at six to one. Even as they looked the price was rubbed, and ten to one was chalked in its place. The laughter of the quartet was long and loud as they pulled money from their pockets.
“The first odds goes, Big Pink,” Banting reminded him.
Wallingford produced his hundred dollars, and quietly noted that the eyes of the quartet glistened as they saw the size of the roll from which he extracted it. They had not been prepared to find that he still had plenty of money. Jake Block passed near them, and Wallingford hailed him.
“Hold stakes for us, Jake, on a little private bet?” he asked.
“Sure thing,” acquiesced Jake. “What is it?”
“These fellows are trying to win out dinner-money on me. They’re giving me six hundred to one against Rosey S.”
Block glanced up at the board and noted the increased odds, but it was no part of his policy to interfere in anything.
“All right,” he said, taking the seven hundred dollarsand stuffing the money in his pocket. “You don’t want to lay a little more, do you, at that odds?”
“No,” declined Wallingford. “I’m unlucky when I press a bet.”
Rosey S. put up a very good race for place, but dropped back in the finish to a chorus of comforting observations from the quartet, who, to make matters more aggravating, had played the winner for place at a good price.
Jake Block came to them right after the race and handed over the money. He was evidently in a great hurry. Wallingford started to talk to him, but Block moved off rapidly, and it dawned upon J. Rufus that the horseman wanted to “shake” him so as not to have to invite him to dinner with himself and Beauty Phillips.
Sunday morning he went around to that discreet young lady’s flat for breakfast, by appointment. “Mrs. Phillips” met him with unusual warmth.
“I’ve been missing you,” she stated with belated remembrance of certain generous gifts. “Say,” she added with sudden indignation, “you may have my share of Block for two peanuts. What do you suppose he did? Offered me five dollars to boost him with Beauty.Five dollars!”
“The cheap skate!” exclaimed Wallingford sympathetically.
The Beauty came in and greeted him with a flush of pleasure.
“Well,” she said, “I got it, all right. The horse runs in the fourth race Friday, and its name is Whipsaw.”
“Whipsaw!” exclaimed Wallingford. “He’s stringing you.”
“No, he isn’t,” she declared positively. “It was one o’clock last night before I got him thawed out enough to give up, and I had to let him hold my hand, at that,” and she rubbed that hand vigorously as if it still had some stain upon it. “He told me all about the horse. He says it’s the one good thing he’s going to uncover for this meeting. He tried Whipsaw out on his own breeding-farm down in Kentucky, clocking him twice a week, and he says the nag can beat anything on this track. Block’s been breaking him to run real races, entering against a lot of selling-platers, with instructions to an iron-armed jockey to hold in so as to get a long price. Friday he intends to send the horse in to win and expects to get big odds. I’m glad it’s over with. We promised to go out to Claremont this afternoon withBlock, but that settles him. To-morrow I’m going out with you.”
J. Rufus shook his head.
“No, you mustn’t,” he insisted. “You must string this boy along till after the race Friday. He might change his mind or scratch the horse or something, but if he knows you have a heavy bet down, and he’s still with you, he’ll go through with the program.”
“I can’t do it,” she protested.
He turned to her slowly, took both her hands, and gazed into her eyes.
“Yes, you can, Beauty,” he said. “We’ve been good pals up to now, and this is the last thing I’ll ever ask of you.”
She looked at him a moment with heightening color, then she dropped her eyes.
“Honest, Pinky,” she confessed, “sometimes I do wish you had a lot of money.”
On Monday, nearing noon, Wallingford dropped into a flashy café just off Broadway, where he knew he would be bound to find some one of his quartet. He found Short-Card Larry there alone, his long, thin fingers clasped around a glass of buttermilk.
“Hello, Wallingford,” he said, grinning. “Going out to the track to-day?”
“I’m not going to miss a race till the meeting closes,” asserted Wallingford. “I’ve a good one to-day that I’m going to send in a couple of hundred on.”
“What is it?” asked Larry.
“Governor.”
“Governor!” snorted Larry. “Who’s in the race with him?” He drew a paper to him and turned to the entries. “Why,” he protested, “there isn’t a plug in that race that can’t come back to hunt him.”
“That’s all right,” said Wallingford. “I’m for the National Clockers’ Association, and I’m going to play their picks straight through.”
“Here’s a match,” offered Larry scornfully. “Set fire to your money and save yourself the trouble of the trip.”
“Maybe you’d like to save it from the flames. What odds will you give me?”
This being an entirely different proposition, Larry began to think much better of the horse.
“Five to one,” he finally decided, after studying over the entries again. “Don’t know whether that’s the track odds or not. But you can take it or leave it.”
“I’ll take it,” agreed Wallingford, and tossed his money on the bar.
Mr. Teller drew a check-book from his pocket, and Wallingford, glancing at the top of the stub as Larry filled out the blank for a thousand, noted with satisfaction the splendid balance that was there. Evidently the gang was well in funds. They had, no doubt, been quite busy of late.
“Of course you’ll cash that,” requested Wallingford, not so much on account of this particular bet as to establish a precedent.
“Sure,” agreed Teller; “although I’ll only have to deposit it again.”
“I’m betting the two hundred you don’t, remember,” said Wallingford, and they signed a memorandum of the bet, which they deposited with the rock-jawed proprietor, after that never-smiling gentleman had nonchalantly opened his safe and cashed Larry’s check.
On Tuesday morning, Governor having lost and Short-Card Larry having imprudently exulted to his friends over the two-hundred-dollar winning, Mr. Teller came around to Wallingford’s hotel with his pocket full of money to find there Badger Billy and Mr. Phelps, both of whom had come on similar business.
“I suppose you got his coin on to-day’s sure thing,” observed Larry with a scowl, he being one to whom a bad temper came naturally.
“Three hundred of it,” said fat Badger Billy triumphantly. “To-day he has a piece of Briefromageby the name of Handicass.”
“Which ought to be called Handcase,” supplemented Phelps, and the two threw back their heads and roared. “The cheese is expected to skipperhome about the time the crowd realizes they’re off.” And they all enjoyed themselves in contemplation of what was going to happen to Handicass.
“Got any more?” demanded Larry.
“Not this morning,” returned Wallingford, accepting his rôle of derided “come-on” with smiling fortitude. “I want to save some for to-morrow’s bet.”
“You see,” explained Billy Banting, purring up his red cheeks with laughter, “Wallingford’s playing a system of progression. He hikes the bet every day, expecting to play even in the finish.”
“I see,” said Larry, grinning; “but don’t you fellows hook all this easy money. Count me in for a piece of to-morrow’s bet.”
He had a chance. Handicass ran to consistent form with all the other “picks”—except the one accident, Razzoo—of the National Clockers’ Association, and on Wednesday, Wallingford bet four hundred on the “information” which that concern wired to him and to Mr. Phelps. On that day, too, having received at breakfast-time a report from Beauty Phillips that the Whipsaw horse was still “meant,” he wrote careful instructions to Blackie Daw, then held his thumbs and crossed his fingers and touched wood and looked at the moon over the propershoulder, and did various other things to keep Fate from sending home one of those tips as an accidental winner on either Wednesday or Thursday.
Nothing of that disastrous sort happened, however, and his pet enemies, the quartet, having won from J. Rufus on Saturday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, had by this time pooled their interests and constituted themselves Wallingford’s regular bookmaking syndicate. Their only fear on Friday morning, after Phelps had received his wire from Boston, was that Wallingford would not care to bet that day, since the horse which had been given out was that notorious tail-ender, Whipsaw! They invaded J. Rufus’ apartments as soon as they got the wire, and were relieved to find that Wallingford was still firm in his allegiance to the National Clockers’ Association.
They were a little surprised, however, to find Blackie Daw at breakfast with Wallingford, but they greeted that old comrade with great cordiality, coupled with an inward fear that he might interfere with their designs upon Wallingford.
“You haven’t been making a book against J. Rufus on the day’s races, have you?” inquired Phelps.
“Not yet,” said Blackie, laughing, “but I’m willing. What’s he on?”
“Whipsaw,” interposed Wallingford.
Blackie laughed softly.
“I don’t know the horse,” he said, “but I just seem to remember that he’s the joke of the track.”
“No,” explained Larry; “he’s too painful to be a joke.”
“What odds do you expect to get, Wallingford?” asked Blackie, reaching for his wallet.
“Hold on a minute,” said Phelps hastily. “You don’t want to butt in on this, Daw. We’ve been making book for J. Rufus all week, and it’s our money. You hold stakes.”
“Don’t you worry,” snapped Wallingford, suddenly displaying temper; “there will be enough to go around. I’ll cover every cent you four have or can get,” and he pushed his chair back from the table. “This is my last day in the racing game, and I’m going to plunge on Whipsaw. I’ve turned into cash every resource I had in the world. I’ve even soaked my diamonds and watch to get more. Now come on and cover my coin.” From his pocket he produced a thick bundle of bills of largedenomination. “What odds do I get? The last time Whipsaw was in a race he opened at twelve to one and I ought to get fifteen at least to-day. Here’s a thousand at that odds.”
“Not on your life!” said Short-Card Larry. “I wouldn’t put up fifteen thousand to win one on any game.”
“What’ll you give me, then? Come on for this easy money. Give me ten?”
No, they would not give him ten.
“Give me eight?”
They hesitated. He immediately slid the money in his pocket.
“You fellows are kidding. You don’t want to make book for me. I’ll take this coin out to the track and get it down at the long odds.”
His display of contemptuous anger decided them.
“I’ll take my share,” asserted Short-Card Larry, he of the quick temper, and among them the four made up the money to cover Wallingford’s bet.
“Here’s the stakes, Blackie,” said Wallingford, passing over the money toward him. “You’re all willing he should hold the money?”
They were. They knew Blackie.
“Moreover,” observed Yap Pickins meaningly, “we’ll keep close to him.”
“Here’s another thousand that you can cover at five to one,” offered Wallingford, counting out the money.
Now they were as eager as he.
“We’ll take you,” said Teller, “but I’ll have to go out and get more mezuma.”
“All right. Bring all you can scrape together and I’ll cover the balance of it at two to one.”
For just one moment they were suspicious.
“Look here,” said Billy Banting, “do you know something about this horse?”
“If I did I wouldn’t tell. Don’t you know that I can get from fifteen to twenty at the track? Why do you suppose I want to make such a sucker bet as this? It’s because I’d rather have your money than anybody else’s; because I want tobreakyou!”
He was fairly trembling with simulated anger now.
“If that’s the case you’ll be accommodated,” said Teller with an oath. “Come on, boys; we’ll bring up a chunk of money that’ll stop all this four-flush conversation.”
Mr. Phelps, having already “produced to his limit,” stayed with Wallingford while the others went out. First of all, they dropped inat a quiet pool-room where they were known, and made inquiries about Whipsaw. They were answered by a laugh, and an offer to “take them on for all they wanted at their own odds,” and, reassured, they scattered, to raise all the money they could. They returned in the course of an hour and counted down a sum larger than Wallingford had thought the four of them could control. He was to find out later that they had not only converted their bank accounts and all their other holdings into currency, but had borrowed all their credit would stand wherever they were known. Wallingford, covering their first five thousand with one, calmly counted out an amount equal to one-half of all the rest they had put down, passed it over to Blackie to hold, then flaunted more money in their faces.
“This is at evens if you can scrape up any more,” he offered sneeringly. “Go soak your jewelry.”
Before making that suggestion he had noted the absence of Larry’s ring and of Billy’s studded watch-charm. Phelps was the only one who still wore anything convertible, a loud cravat-pin, an emerald, set with diamonds.
“Give you two hundred against your pin,” said he to Phelps, and the latter promptly took the bet.
“Are you all in?” asked Wallingford.
They promptly acknowledged that they were “all in.”
“All right, then; we’ll have a drink and go out to the track. You’ll want to see this race,because I win!”
They were naturally contemptuous of this view, even hilariously contemptuous, and they offered to lend Wallingford money enough, after the race, “to sneak out of town and hide.”
While they were taking the parting drink Blackie Daw slipped into Wallingford’s bedroom for just one moment “to get a handkerchief.” There he found, mopping his brow, a short, thick-set chap known as Shorty Hampton, a perfectly reliable and discreet betting commissioner.
“I was just goin’ to duck,” growled Shorty in a gruff whisper. “I’ve got two or three other parties to see. I’ve been suffocating in this damned little room for the last hour, waitin’.”
“All right. Here’s the money,” said Blackie, and handed himhalf the stakes which had just been intrusted to his care. “Spread this in as many pool-rooms as you can; get it all down on Whipsaw.”
“Three ways?” asked Shorty.
“Straight, every cent of it,” insisted Daw. “No place or show-money for us to-day.”
At the track they saw Beauty Phillips alone in the grand-stand, and joined her. Wallingford introduced Blackie, and they chatted with her a few moments, then Wallingford took him away. He did not care to have Jake Block see them with her until after the fourth race. As they moved off she gave Wallingford a quick, meaning little nod.
True to Pickins’ threat the quartet kept very close indeed to Daw, but, during the finish of the rather exciting third race, Blackie, manœuvering so that Wallingford was just behind him, slipped from his pocket the remaining half of the stake-money.
“Well, boys,” said Wallingford blandly, the money safely tucked away in his own pocket. “I still have a little coin to wager on Whipsaw. Do you want it?”
“No; we’re satisfied,” returned Larry dryly.
“All right, then,” said Wallingford. “I’m going down and get it on the books.”
Harry Phelps sighed.
“It’s too bad to see that easy money going away from us, Pink,” he confessed.
Jake Block spent but little time that afternoon in the grand-stand by the side of Beauty Phillips and her mother. From the beginning of the racing he was first in the stables and then in the paddock with an anxious eye. He was lined up at the fence opposite the barrier for the start of the fateful fourth, and he stood there, after the horses had jumped away, to watch his great little Whipsaw around the course. But Beauty Phillips was not without company. Wallingford sauntered up at the sound of the mounting bell and sat confidently by her.
“Did you get it all down, Jimmy?” she asked.
“Every cent,” said he, wiping his brow nervously. “Did you?”
“Mother and I are broke if Whipsaw don’t win,” she confessed with dry lips. “What do you suppose makes Mr. Block look up here with such a poison face every two or three minutes?”
Wallingford chuckled hugely.
“The odds,” he explained. “I’ve cut them to slivers. I bet all mine and Blackie’s money with the Phelps crowd, then turned around and bet all ours and theirs again. Say, it’s murder if I lose. Not even a fancy murder, either.”
Blackie Daw, attended by three of his guard, came over to join them,Blackie evidencing a strong disposition to linger in the rear, for he was taking a desperate chance with desperate men. If Whipsaw lost he had his course mapped out—down the nearest steps of the grand-stand and out to the carriage-gate as fast as his legs would carry him. There, J. Rufus’ automobile was to be waiting, all cranked up and trembling, ready to dart away the moment Blackie should jump in. Just as Blackie and the others joined Wallingford and Beauty Phillips, Larry Teller came breathlessly up from the betting-shed.
“There’s something doing on that Whipsaw horse,” he declared excitedly. “He opened at twenty to one—and in fifteen minutes of play—either somebody that knows something—or a wagonload of fool-money—had backed him down to evens. Think of it! Evens!”
There was a sudden roar from the crowd, more like a gigantic groan than any other sound. They were off! One horse was left at the post, but it was not Whipsaw. Two others trailed behind. The other five were away, well bunched. At the quarter, three horses drew into the lead, Whipsaw just behind them. At the half, one of the three was droppingback, and Whipsaw slowly overtaking it. Now his nose was at her flanks; now at the saddle; then the jockeys were abreast; then the white jacket and red sleeves of Whipsaw’s rider could be seen to the fore of the opposing jockey, with the two leaders just ahead. At the three-quarters, three horses were neck and neck again, but this time Whipsaw was among them. Down the stretch they came pounding, and then, and not until then, did Whipsaw, a lithe, shining little brown streak, strike into the best stride of which he was capable. A thousand hoarse watchers, as they came to the seven-eighths, roared encouragement to the horses. Whipsaw’s name was much among them, but only in tones of anger. Men and even women ran down to the rail and stood on tiptoe with red faces, shrieking for Fashion to come on, begging and praying Fashion to win, for Fashion carried most of the money; and the shrieking became an agony as the horses flashed under the wire, Whipsaw a good, clean half length in the lead!
Beauty Phillips discovered she was on her feetBeauty Phillips discovered she was on her feet
As the roaring stopped in one high, abrupt wail, Beauty Phillips, who never knew emotion or excitement, suddenly discovered, to her vast surprise, that she was on her feet! that she was clutching her throat for its hoarseness! that she was dripping with perspiration! that she was faint and weak and giddy!that her blood was pounding and her eyeballs hurt; and that she had been, from the stretch down, jumping violently up and down and shrieking the name of Whipsaw! Whipsaw! Whipsaw! Whipsaw!
A frenzied hand grabbed Blackie Daw by the elbow.
“Duck, for God’s sake, Blackie!” implored the shaking voice of Billy Banting. “Go down to the old joint on Thirty-third Street and wait for us. We’ll split up that stake and all make a get-away.”
“Not on your life!” returned Blacked calmly, and pulled Wallingford around toward him by the shoulder. “I shall have great pleasure in turning over to Mr. Wallingford the combined bets of the Broadway Syndicate against that lovely little record-breaker, Whipsaw.”
“It’s a good horse,” said Wallingford with forced calmness, and then he began to chuckle, his broad shoulders shaking and his breast heaving; “and it was well named. I fawncy the Broadway Syndicate book will now go out of business—and with no chance to welch.”
“All we wise people knew about it,” Blackie condescendingly explained to the quartet. “You see, I am running the National Clockers’ Association.”
Before the voiceless Broadway Syndicate was through gasping over this piece of news, Jake Block came stalking through the grand-stand. Though elated over his victory and flushed with his winnings, he nevertheless had time to cast a bitter scowl in the direction of Beauty Phillips.
“The next time I hand any woman a tip you may cut my arm off!” he declared. “I’m through with you!”
“Who’s that?” asked Larry Teller, glaring after the man who had mentioned the pregnant word “tip.”
“Jake Block, the owner of Whipsaw,” Wallingford was pleased to inform him.
“It’s a frame-up!” shouted Billy Banting.
A strong left hand clutched desperately at Blackie Daw’s coat and tore the top button off, and an equally strong right hand grabbed into Blackie Daw’s inside coat-pocket. It was empty, Pickins found, just as a stronger hand than his own gripped him until he winced with pain.
“What have you done with the stakes?” shrieked Pickins, trying to throw off that grip, but not turning.
“What’s it your business? But, if you want to know, all that stake-money was bet in the shed and in the books about town—on Whipsaw to win!”
The broad-shouldered man who had edged up quite near to them during the race, and who had interfered with Pickins, now stepped in front of the members of the defunct Broadway Syndicate. They only took one good look at him, and then fell back quite clamily. In the broad-shouldered giant they had recognized Harvey Willis, the quite capable Broadway policeman and friend of Wallingford, off for the day in his street clothes.
“Run along, little ones, and play tricks on the ignorant country folks from Harlem and Flatbush,” advised Beauty Phillips as she took Wallingford’s arm and turned away with him. “You’ve been whipsawed!”
She was exceptionally gracious to J. Rufus that evening, but for the first time in many days he was extremely thoughtful. A vague unrest possessed him and it grew as the Beauty became more gracious. He guessed that he could marry her if he wished, but somehow the idea did not please him as it might have done a few weeks earlier. He liked the Beauty perhaps even better than before, but somehow she was not quitethe type of woman for him, and he had not realized it until she brought him face to face with the problem.
“By the way,” he said as he bid her good night, “I think I’ll take a little run about the country for a while. I’m a whole lot tired of this man’s town.”
Arattling old carryall, drawn by one knobby yellow horse and driven by a decrepit patriarch of sixty, stopped with a groan and a creak and a final rattle at the door of the weather-beaten Atlas Hotel, and a grocery “drummer,” a beardless youth with pink cheeks, jumped hastily out and rushed into the clean but bare little office, followed as hastily by a grizzled veteran of the road who sold dry-goods and notions and wore gaudy young clothes. Wallingford emerged much more slowly, as became his ponderous size. He was dressed in a green summer suit of ineffable fabric, wore green low shoes, green silk hose, a green felt hat, and a green bow tie, below which, in the bosom of his green silk negligee shirt, glowed a huge diamond. Richness and bigness were the very essence of him, and the aged driver, recognizingtrue worth when he saw it, gave a jerk at his dust-crusted old cap as he addressed him.
“’Tain’t no use to hurry now,” he quavered. “Them other two’ll have the good rooms.”
J. Rufus, from natural impulse, followed in immediately. There was no one behind the little counter, but the young grocery drummer, having hastily inspected the sparse entries of the preceding days, had registered himself for room two.
“There ain’t a single transient in the house, Billy,” he said, turning to the dry-goods and notion salesman, “so I’ll just put you down for number three.”
A buxom young woman came out of the adjoining dining-room, wiping her red hands and arms upon a water-spattered gingham apron.
“Three of us, Molly,” said the older salesman. “Hustle up the dinner,” and out of pure friendliness he started to chuck her under the chin, whereat she wheeled and slapped him a resounding whack and ran away laughing. This vigorous retort, being entirely expected, was passed without comment, and the two commercial travelers took off their coats to “wash up” at the tin basins in the corner. The aged driver, intercepting them to collect, came in to Wallingford,who, noting the custom, had already subscribed his name with a flourish upon the register.
“Two shillin’,” quavered the ancient one at his elbow.
Wallingford gave him twice the amount he asked for, and the old man was galvanized into instant fluttering activity. He darted out of the door with surprising agility, and returned with two pieces of Wallingford’s bright and shining luggage, which he surveyed reverently as he placed them in front of the counter. Two more pieces, equally rich, he brought, and on the third trip the proprietor’s son, a brawny boy of fifteen, clad in hickory shirt, blue overalls and plow shoes, and with his sleeves rolled up to his shoulders, helped him in with Wallingford’s big sole-leather dresser trunk.
“Gee!” said the boy to Wallingford, beaming upon this array of expensive baggage. “What do you sell?”
“White elephants, son,” replied Wallingford, so gravely that the boy took two minutes to decide that the rich stranger was “fresh.”
It was not until dinner was called that any one displayed the least interest in the register, and then the proprietor, a tall, cowboy-like man, with droopingmustaches and a weather-browned face, came in with his trousers tucked into his top boots.
“Hello, Joe! Hello, Billy!” he said, nodding to the two traveling men. “How’s business?”
“Rotten!” returned the grocery drummer.
“Fine!” asserted the dry-goods salesman. “Our house hasn’t done so much business in five years.”Sotto voce, he turned to the young drummer. “Never give it away that business is on the bum,” he said out of his years of experience.
The tall proprietor examined the impressively groomed Wallingford and his impressive luggage with some curiosity, and went behind the little counter to inspect the register.
“I’d like two rooms and a bath,” said Wallingford, as the other looked up thoughtfully.
“Two! Two?” repeated Jim Ranger, looking about the room. “Some ladies with you? Mother or sister, maybe?”
“No,” answered Wallingford, smiling. “A bedroom and sitting-room and a bath for myself.”
“Sitting-room?” repeated the proprietor. “You know, you can sit in this office till the ’leven-ten’s in every night, and then the parlor’s—” He hesitated, and, seeing the unresponsive look upon hisguest’s face, he added hastily: “Oh, well, I reckon I can fix it. We can move a bed out of number five, and I’ll have the bath-tub and the water sent up as soon as you need it. This is wash-day, you know, and they’ve got the rinse water in it. I reckon you won’t want it before to-night, though.”
“No,” said J. Rufus quietly, and sighed.
Immediately after lunch, J. Rufus, inquiring again for the proprietor, was told by Molly that he was in the barn, indicating its direction with a vague wave of her thumb. Wallingford went out to the enormous red barn, its timbers as firm as those of the hotel were flimsy, its lines as rigidly perpendicular as those of the hotel were out of plumb, its doors and windows as square-angled as those of the hotel were askew. Across its wide front doors, opening upon the same wide, cracked old stone sidewalk as the hotel, was a big sign kept fresh and bright: “J. H. Ranger, Livery and Sales Stable.” Here Wallingford found the proprietor and the brawny boy in the middle of the wide barn floor, in earnest consultation over the bruised hock of a fine, big, draft horse.
“I’d like to get a good team and a driver for this afternoon,” observed Wallingford.
“You’ve come to the right place,” declared Jim Ranger heartily, and when he straightened up he no longer looked awkward and out of place, as he had in the hotel office, but seemed a graceful part of the surrounding picture. “Bob, get out that little sorrel team and hitch it up to the new buggy for the gentleman,” and as Bob sprang away with alacrity he turned to Wallingford. “They’re not much to look at, that sorrel team,” he explained, “but they can go like a couple of rats, all day, at a good, steady clip, up hill and down.”
“Fine,” said Wallingford, who was somewhat of a connoisseur in horses, and he surveyed the under-sized, lithe-limbed, rough-coated sorrels with approval as they were brought stamping out of their stalls, though, as he climbed into his place, he regretted that they were not more in keeping with the handsome buggy.
“Which way?” asked Bob, as he gathered up the reins.
“The country just outside of town, in all directions,” directed Wallingford briefly.
“All right,” said Bob with a click to the little horses, and clattering out of the door they turned to the right, away from the broad, shady street ofold maples, and were almost at once in the country. For a mile or two there were gently undulating farms of rich, black loam, and these Wallingford inspected in careful turn.
“Seems to be good land about here,” he observed.
“Best in the world,” said the youngster. “Was you thinkin’ of buyin’ a farm?”
Wallingford smiled and shook his head.
“I scarcely think so,” he replied.
“’Twouldn’t do you any good if you was,” retorted Bob. “There ain’t a farm hereabouts for sale.”
To prove it, he pointed out the extent of each farm, gave the name of its owner and told how much he was worth, to all of which Wallingford listened most intently.
They had been driving to the east, but, coming to a fork in the road leading to the north, Bob took that turning without instructions, still chattering his local Bradstreet. Along this road was again rich and smiling farm land, but Wallingford, seeming throughout the drive to be eagerly searching for something, evinced a new interest when they came to a grove of slender, straight-trunked trees.
“Old man Mescott gets a hundred gallons ofmaple syrup out of that grove every spring,” said Bob in answer to a query. “He gets two dollars a gallon, then he stays drunk till plumb the middle of summer. Was you thinkin’ of buyin’ a maple grove?”
Wallingford looked back in thoughtful speculation, but ended by shaking his head, more to himself than to Bob.
They passed through a woods.
“Good timber land, that,” suggested Wallingford.
“Good timber land! I should say it was,” said Bob. “There’s nigh a hundred big walnut trees back in there a ways, to say nothing of all the fine oak an’ hick’ry, but old man Cass won’t touch an ax to nothing but underbrush. He says he’s goin’ to will ’em to his grandchildren, and by the time they grow up it’ll be worth their weight in money. Was you thinkin’ of buyin’ some timber land?”
Wallingford again hesitated over that question, but finally stated that he was not.
“Here’s the north road back into town,” said Bob, as they came to a cross-road, and as they gained the top of the elevation they could look down and see, a mile or so away, the little town, its gray roofs and red chimneys peeping from out its sheltering ofgreen leaves. Just beyond the intersection the side of the hill had been cut away, and clean, loose gravel lay there in a broad mass. Wallingford had Bob halt while he inspected this.
“Good gravel bank,” he commented.
“I reckon it is,” agreed Bob. “They come clear over from Highville and from Appletown and even from Jenkins Corners to get that gravel, and Tom Kerrick dresses his whole family off of that bank. He wouldn’t sell it for any money. Was you thinkin’ of buying a gravel bank, mister?”
Instead of replying Wallingford indicated another broken hillside farther on, where shale rock had slipped loosely down, like a disintegrated slate roof, to a seeping hollow.
“Is that stone good for anything?” he asked.
“Nothing in the world,” replied Bob. “It rots right up. If you was thinkin’ of buyin’ a stone quarry now, there’s a fine one up the north road yonder.”
Wallingford laughed and shook his head.
“I wasn’t thinking of buying a stone quarry,” said he.
Bob Ranger looked shrewdly and yet half-impatiently at the big young man by his side.
“You’re thinkin’ o’ buyin’ somethin’; I know that,” he opined.
Wallingford chuckled and dropped his big, plump hand on the other’s shoulder.
“Elephant hay only,” he kindly explained; “just elephant hay for white elephants,” whereat the inquisitive Bob, mumbling something to himself about “freshness,” relapsed into hurt silence.
In this silence they passed far to the northwest of the town, and a much-gullied highway led them down toward the broader west road. Here again, as they headed straight in to Blakeville with their backs to the descending sun, were gently undulating farm lands, but about half a mile out of town they came to a wide expanse of black swamp, where cat-tails and calamus held sole possession. Before this swamp Wallingford paused in long and thoughtful contemplation.
“Who owns this?” he asked.
“Jonas Bubble,” answered Bob, recovering cheerfully from his late rebuff. “Gosh! He’s the richest man in these parts. Owns three hundred acres of this fine farmin’ land we just passed, owns the mill down yander by the railroad station, has a hide and seed and implement store up-town, and lives in thefinest house anywhere around Blakeville; regular city house. That’s it, on ahead. Was you thinkin’ o’ buyin’ some swamp land?”
To this Wallingford made no reply. He was gazing backward over that useless little valley, its black waters now turned velvet crimson as they caught the slant of the reddening sun.
“Here’s Jonas Bubble’s house,” said Bob presently.
It was the first house outside of Blakeville—a big, square, pretentious-looking place, with a two-story porch in front and a quantity of scroll-sawed ornaments on eaves and gables and ridges, on windows and doors and cornices, and with bright brass lightning-rods projecting upward from every prominence. At the gate stood, bare-headed, a dark-haired and strikingly pretty girl, with a rarely olive-tinted complexion, through which, upon her oval cheeks, glowed a clear, roseate under-tint. She was fairly slender, but well rounded, too, and very graceful.
“Hello, Fannie!” called Bob, with a jerk at his flat-brimmed straw hat.
“Hello, Bob!” she replied with equal heartiness, her bright eyes, however, fixed in inquiring curiosity upon the stranger.
“That’s Jonas Bubble’s girl,” explained Bob, as they drove on. “She’s a good looker, but she won’t spoon.”
Wallingford, grinning over the fatal defect in Fannie Bubble, looked back at the girl.
“She would make a Casino chorus look like a row of Hallowe’en confectionery junk,” he admitted.
“Fannie, come right in here and get supper!” shrilled a harsh voice, and in the doorway of the Bubble homestead they saw an overly-plump figure in a green silk dress.
“Gosh!” said Bob, and hit one of the little sorrel horses a vindictive clip. “That’s Fannie’s stepmother. Jonas Bubble married his hired girl two years ago, and now they don’t hire any. She makes Fannie do the work.”
That evening, after supper, Wallingford sat on one of the broad, cane-seated chairs in front of the Atlas Hotel, smoking a big, black cigar from his own private store, and watched the regular evening parade go by. They came, two by two, the girls of the village, up one side of Maple Street, passed the Atlas Hotel, crossed over at the corner of the livery stable, went down past the Big Store and as far as the Campbellite church, where they crossed again and began a new round; and each time they passed the Atlas Hotel they giggled, or they talked loudly, or pushed one another, or did something to enlarge themselves in the transient eye. The grocery drummer and the dry-goods salesman sat together, a little aloof from J. Rufus, and presently began saying flippant things to the girls as they passed. A wake of giggles, after each such occasion,frothed across the street at the livery-stable corner, and down toward the Campbellite church.
Molly presently slipped out of the garden gate and went down Maple Street by herself. Within twenty minutes she, too, had joined the parade, and with her was Fannie Bubble. As these passed the Atlas Hotel both the drummers got up.
“Hello, Molly,” said the grocery drummer. “I’ve been waiting for you since Hector was a pup,” and he caught her arm, while the dry-goods salesman advanced a little uncertainly.
“You ’tend to your own business, Joe Cling,” ordered Molly, jerking her arm away, but nevertheless giving an inquiring glance toward her companion. That rigid young lady, however, was looking straight ahead. She was standing just in front of Wallingford.
“Come on,” coaxed the grocery drummer; “I don’t bite. Grab hold there on the other side, Billy.”
Miss Bubble, however, was still looking so uncompromisingly straight ahead that Billy hesitated, and the willing enough Molly, seeing that the conference had “struck a snag,” took matters into her own vigorous hands again.
“You’re too fresh,” she admonished the grocerydrummer. “Let go my arm, I tell you. Come on, Fannie,” and she flounced away with her companion, turning into the gate of the hotel garden. Miss Fannie cast back a curious glance, not at the grocery drummer nor the veteran dry-goods salesman, but at the quiet J. Rufus.
The discomfited transients gave short laughs of chagrin and went back to their seats, but the grocery drummer was too young to be daunted for long, and by the time another section or two of the giggling parade had passed them he was ready for a second attempt. One couple, a tall, thin girl and a short, chubby one, who had now made the circuit three times, came sweeping past again, exchanging with each other hilarious persiflage which was calculated to attract and tempt.
“Wait a minute,” said the grocery drummer to his companion.
He dashed straight across the street, and under the shadow of the big elm intercepted the long and short couple. There was a parley in which the girls two or three times started to walk away, a further parley in which they consented to stand still, a loud male guffaw mingled with a succession of shrill giggles, then suddenly the grocery salesman called:
“Come on, Billy!”
The dry-goods man half rose from his chair and hesitated.
“Come on, Billy!” again invited the grocery drummer. “We’re going down to wade in the creek.”
A particularly high-pitched set of giggles followed this tremendous joke, and Billy, his timid scruples finally overcome, went across the street, a ridiculous figure with his ancient body and his youthful clothes. Nevertheless, Wallingford felt just a trifle lonesome as he watched his traveling companions of the afternoon go sauntering down the street in company which, if silly, was at least human. While he regretted Broadway, Bob Ranger, dressed no whit different from his attire of the afternoon, except that his sleeves were rolled down, came out of the hotel and stood for an undecided moment in front of the door.
“Hello, Bob!” hailed Wallingford cordially, glad to see any face he knew. “Do you smoke?”
“Reckon I do,” said Bob. “I was thinkin’ just this minute of walkin’ down to Bud Hegler’s for some stogies.”
“Sit down and have a cigar,” offered Wallingford,producing a companion to the one he was then enjoying.
Bob took that cigar and smelled it; he measured its length, its weight, and felt its firmness.
“It ain’t got any band on it, but I reckon that’s a straight ten-center,” he opined.
“I’ll buy all you can get me of that brand for a quarter apiece,” offered Wallingford.
“So?” said Bob, looking at it doubtfully. “I reckon I’d better save this for Sunday.”
“No, smoke it now. I’ll give you another one for Sunday,” promised Wallingford, and he lit a match, whereupon Bob, biting the end off the cigar with his strong, white teeth, moistened it all over with his tongue to keep the curl of the wrapper down.
With vast gratification he sat down to enjoy that awe-inspiring cigar, and, by way of being entertaining, uttered comment upon the passing parade—frank, ingeniously told bits of personal history which would have been startling to one who had imbibed the conventional idea that all country folk are without guile. Wallingford was not so much shocked by these revelations, however, as he might have been, for he had himself been raised in a country town, though one not so small as Blakeville.
It was while Bob was in the midst of this more or less profane history that Molly and Fannie Bubble came out of the gate.
“Come here, Molly,” invited Bob; “I want to introduce you to a friend of mine. He’s going to stop here quite a long time. Mr. Wallingford—Molly; Miss Bubble—Mr. Wallingford. Come on; let’s all take a walk,” and confidently taking Molly’s arm he started up the crossing, leaving Miss Bubble to Wallingford.
“It’s a beautiful evening, isn’t it?” said Fannie, as Wallingford caught step with her.
Wallingford had to hark back. Time had been when the line of conversation which went with Miss Bubble’s opening remark had been as familiar to him as his own safety razor, but of late he had been entertaining such characters as Beauty Phillips, and conversation with the Beauty had consisted of lightning-witted search through the ends of the earth and the seas therein for extravagant hyperbole and metaphor. Harking back was so difficult that J. Rufus gave it up.
“Lovely evening,” he admitted. “I’ve just been thinking about this weather. I’ve about decided to build a factory to put it up in boxes for the ChicagoMarket. They’d pay any price for it there in the fall.”
Miss Fannie considered this remark in silence for a moment, and then she laughed, a quiet, silvery laugh that startled J. Rufus by its musical quality.
“I don’t see why you should laugh,” protested Wallingford gravely. “If a man can get a monopoly on weather-canning it would be even better than the sleep-factory idea I’ve been considering.”
“What was that like?” asked Fannie, interested in spite of the fact that these jokes were not at all the good old standards, which could be laughed at without the painful necessity of thought.
“Well,” Wallingford explained, “I figured on building an immense dormitory and hiring about a thousand fat hoboes to sleep for me night and day. Then I intended to take that sleep and condense it and put it up in eight-hour capsules for visitors to New York. There ought to be a fortune in that.”
Again a little silence and again that little silvery laugh which Wallingford found himself watching for.
“You’re so funny,” said Miss Fannie.
“For a long time I was divided between that and my anti-bum serum as a permanent investment,” hewent on, glancing down at her as he extended himself along the line which had seemed to catch her fancy. She was looking up at him, her eyes shining, her lips half parted in an anticipatory smile, and unconsciously her hand had crept upon his arm, where it lay warm and vibrant. “You know,” he explained, “they inoculate a guinea-pig or a sheep or something with disease germs, and from this animal, somehow or other, they extract a serum which cures that disease. Well, I propose to get a herd of billy-goats boiling spifflicated, and extract from them the jag serum, and with that inoculate all the rounders on Broadway at so much per inoc. Then they can stand up in front of an onyx bar and guzzle till it oozes out of their ears, without any worse effects than a lifting pain in the right elbow.”
This time the laugh came more slowly, for here was a lot of language which, though refreshing, was tangled in knots that must be unraveled. Nevertheless, the laugh came, and at the sound of it Wallingford involuntarily pressed slightly against his side the hand that lay upon his arm. They were passing Hen Moozer’s General Merchandise Emporium and Post-Office at the time, and upon the rickety porch, its posts, benches, and even floors whittledlike a huge Rosetta stone, sat a group of five young men. Just after the couple had cleared the end of the porch a series of derisive meows broke out. It was the old protest of town boy against city boy, of work clothes against “Sunday duds,” of native against alien; and again J. Rufus harked back. It only provoked a smile in him, but he felt a sudden tenseness in the hand that lay upon his arm, and he was relieved when Bob and Molly, a half block ahead of them, turned hastily down a delightfully dark and shady cross street, in the shelter of which Bob immediately slipped his arm around Molly’s waist. J. Rufus, pondering that movement and regarding it as the entirely conventional and proper one, essayed to do likewise; but Miss Fannie, discussing the unpleasant habit of her young townsmen with some indignation but more sense of humor, gently but firmly unwound J. Rufus’ arm, placed it at his side and slipped her hand within it again without the loss of a syllable.
Wallingford was surprised at himself. In the old days he would have fought out this issue and would have conquered. Now, however, something had made this bold young man of the world suddenly tame. He himself helped Miss Fannie to put himback upon grounds of friendly aloofness, and with a gasp he realized that for the first time in his life he had met a girl who had forced his entire respect. It was preposterous!
Unaccountably, however, they seemed to grow more friendly after that, and the talk drifted to J. Rufus himself, the places he had seen, the adventures he had encountered, the richness of luxury that he had sought and found, and the girl listened with breathless eagerness. They did not go back to Maple Street just now, for the Maple Street parade was only for the unattached. Instead, they followed the others down to the depot and back, and after another half-hourdétourthrough the quiet, shady street, they found Bob and Molly waiting for them at the corner.
“Good night, Fannie,” said Molly. “I’m going in. To-morrow’s ironing day. Good night, Mr. Wallingford.”
“Good night,” returned Miss Fannie, as a matter of course, and again Wallingford harked back. He was to take Miss Fannie home. Quite naturally. Why not?
It was a long walk, but by no means too long, and when they had arrived at the big, fret-sawed houseof Jonas Bubble, J. Rufus was sorry. He lingered a moment at the gate, but only a moment, for a woman’s shrill voice called:
“Is that you, Fannie? You come right in here and go to bed! Who’s that with you?”
“You’d better go right away, please,” pleaded Fannie in a flutter. “I’m not allowed to be with strangers.”
This would have been the cue for a less adroit and diplomatic caller to hurry silently back up the street, and, as a matter of fact, this entirely conventional course was all that Mrs. Bubble had looked for. She was accordingly shocked when the gate opened, and in place of Fannie coming alone, J. Rufus, in spite of the girl’s protest, walked deliberately up to the porch.
“Is Mr. Bubble at home?” he asked with great dignity.
Mrs. Bubble gasped.
“I reckon he is,” she admitted.
“I’d like to see him, if possible.”
There was another moment of silence, in which Mrs. Bubble strove to readjust herself.
“I’ll call him,” she said, and went in.
Mr. Jonas Bubble, revealed in the light of theopen door, proved to be a pursy man of about fifty-five, full of importance from his square-toed shoes to his gray sideburns; he exuded importance from every vest button upon the bulge of his rotundity, and importance glistened from the very top of his bald head.
“I am J. Rufus Wallingford,” said that broad-chested young gentleman, whose impressiveness was at least equal to Mr. Bubble’s importance, and he produced a neatly-engraved card to prove the genuineness of his name. “I was introduced to your daughter at the hotel, and I came down to consult with you upon a little matter of business.”
“I usually transact business at my office,” said Mr. Bubble pompously; “nevertheless, you may come inside.”
He led the way into a queer combination of parlor, library, sitting-room and study, where he lit a big, hanging gasolene lamp, opened his old swinging top desk with a key which he carefully and pompously selected from a pompous bunch, placed a plush-covered chair for his visitor, and seated himself upon an old leather-stuffed chair in front of the desk.
“Now, sir,” said he, swinging around to Wallingfordand puffing out his cheeks, “I am ready to consider whatever you may have to say.”
Mr. Wallingford’s first action was one well-calculated to inspire interest. First he drew out the desk slide at Mr. Bubble’s left; then from his inside vest pocket he produced a large flat package of greenbacks, no bill being of less than a hundred dollars’ denomination. From this pile he carefully counted out eight thousand dollars, and put the balance, which Mr. Bubble hastily estimated at about fifteen hundred, back in his pocket. This procedure having been conducted with vast and impressive silence, Mr. Wallingford cleared his throat.
“I have come to ask a great favor of you,” said he, sinking his voice to barely above a whisper. “I am a stranger here. I find, unfortunately, that there is no bank in Blakeville, and I have more money with me than I care to carry about. I learned that you are the only real man of affairs in the town, and have come to ask you if you would kindly make room for this in your private safe for a day or so.”
Mr. Bubble, rotating his thumbs slowly upon each other, considered that money in profound silence. The possessor of so much loose cash was a gentleman, a man to be respected.
“With pleasure,” said Mr. Bubble. “I don’t myself like to have so much money about me, and I’d advise you, as soon as convenient, to take it up to Millford, where I do my banking. In the meantime, I don’t blame you, Mr. Wallingford, for not wanting to carry this much money about with you, nor for hesitating to put it in Jim Ranger’s old tin safe.”
“Thank you,” said Wallingford. “I feel very much relieved.”
Mr. Bubble drew paper and pen toward him.
“I’ll write you a receipt,” he offered.
“Not at all; not at all,” protested Wallingford, having gaged Mr. Bubble very accurately. “Between gentlemen such matters are entirely superfluous. By the way, Mr. Bubble, I see you have a large swamp on your land. Do you intend to let it lie useless for ever?”
“What else can I do with it?” demanded Mr. Bubble, wondering. That swamp had always been there. Naturally, it would always be there.
“You can’t do very much with it,” admitted Wallingford. “However, it is barely possible that I might see a way to utilize it, if the price were reasonable enough. What would you take for it?”
This was an entirely different matter. Mr. Bubble pursed up his lips.
“Well, I don’t know. The land surrounding it is worth two hundred dollars an acre.”
Wallingford grinned, but only internally. He knew this to be a highly exaggerated estimate, but he let it pass without comment.
“No doubt,” he agreed; “but your swamp is worth exactly nothing per square mile; in fact, worth less than nothing. It is only a breeding-place of mosquitoes and malaria. How many acres does it cover?”
“About forty.”
“I suppose ten dollars an acre would buy it?”
“By no means,” protested Mr. Bubble. “I wouldn’t have a right of way split through my farm for four hundred dollars. Couldn’t think of it.”
It was Wallingford’s turn to be silent.
“Tell you what I’ll do,” he finally began. “I think of settling down in Blakeville. I like the town from what I’ve seen of it, and I may make some important investments here.”
Mr. Bubble nodded his head gravely. A man who carried over eight thousand dollars surplus cash in his pocket had a right to talk that way.
“The matter, of course,” continued Wallingford, “requires considerable further investigation. In the meantime, I stand ready to pay you now a hundred dollars for a thirty-day option upon forty acres of your swamp land, the hundred to apply upon a total purchase price of one thousand dollars. Moreover, I’ll make it a part of the contract that no enterprise be undertaken upon this ground without receiving your sanction.”
Mr. Bubble considered this matter in pompous silence for some little time.
“Suppose we just reduce that proposition to writing, Mr. Wallingford,” he finally suggested, and without stirring from his seat he raised his voice and called: “Fannie!”
In reply two voices approached the door, one sharp, querulous, nagging, the other, the younger and fresher voice, protesting; then the girl came in, followed closely by her stepmother. The girl looked at Wallingford brightly. He was the first young man who had bearded the lioness at Bubble Villa, and she appreciated the novelty. Mrs. Bubble, however, distinctly glared at him, though the eyes of both women roved from him to the pile of billsheld down with a paper weight on Mr. Bubble’s desk. Mr. Bubble made way for his daughter.
“Write a little agreement for Mr. Wallingford and myself,” directed Mr. Bubble, and dictated it, much to the surprise of the women, for Jonas always did his own writing. They did not understand that he, also, wished to make an impression.
With a delicate flush of self-consciousness in her occupation Fannie wrote the option agreement, and later another document, acknowledging the receipt of eight thousand dollars to be held in trust. In exchange for the first paper J. Rufus gravely handed Mr. Bubble a hundred-dollar bill.
“To-morrow,” said he, “I shall drop around to see you at your office, to confer with you about my proposed enterprise.”
As Wallingford left the room, attended by the almost obsequious Bubble, he caught a lingering glance of interest, curiosity, and perhaps more, from the bright eyes of Fannie Bubble. Her stepmother, however, distinctly sniffed.
Meanwhile, Wallingford, at the gate, turned for a moment toward the distant swamp where it lay now ebony and glittering silver in the moonlight,knitted his brows in perplexity, lit another of his black cigars, and strolled back to the hotel.
What on earth should he do with that swamp, now that he had it? Something good ought to be hinged on it. Should he form a drainage company to restore it to good farming land? No. At best he could only get a hundred and fifty dollars an acre, or, say, six thousand dollars for the forty. The acreage alone was to cost him a thousand; no telling what the drainage would cost, but whatever the figure there would not be profit enough to hypothecate. And it was no part of Wallingford’s intention to do any actual work. He was through for ever with drudgery; for him was only creation.
What should he do with that swamp? As he thought of it, his mind’s eye could see only its blackness. It was, after all, only a mass of dense, sticky, black mud!
Still revolving this problem in mind, Wallingford went to his bedroom, where he had scarcely arrived when Bob Ranger followed him, his sleeves rolled up again and a pail of steaming water in each hand.
“The old man said you was to have a bath when you come in,” stated Bob. “How hot do you want it?”
“I think I’ll let it go till morning and have it cold,” replied Wallingford, chuckling.
“All right,” said Bob. “It’s your funeral and not mine. I’ll just pour this in now and it’ll get cool by morning.”
In the next room—wherein the bed had been hastily replaced by two chairs, an old horsehair lounge and a kitchen table covered with a red table-cloth—Wallingford found a huge tin bath-tub, shaped like an elongated coal scuttle, dingy white on the inside and dingy green on the outside, and battered full of dents.
“How’d you get along?” asked Bob, pausing to wipe the perspiration from his brow after he had emptied the two pails of water into the tub.
“All right,” said Wallingford with a reminiscent smile.
“Old Mrs. Bubble drive you off the place?”
“No,” replied Wallingford loftily. “I went in the house and talked a while.”
“Go on!” exclaimed Bob, the glow of admiration almost shining through his skin. “Say, you’re a peach, all right! How do you like Fannie?”