THE SELF-COMMENCER
There's nothin' the world loves so much as a good tryer. I don't mean
the birds that havin' everything in their favor, includin' a ten-mile
start, finishes first in the Big Race--I'm talkin' about the guys that
never get better than second or third, but generally land in the money.
The old Consistent Charlies that, no matter how many times they're
beaten, figures the time to quit is when you're dead and buried!
Did you ever stop to think that the tryers which never get nowhere is
responsible for the other guys' success? They're the babies that make
a race or a fight out of it, and if it wasn't for them dubs there'd be
no successes at all. In order to have winners, we got to have
_losers_, don't we? And don't forget that yesterday's losers are
to-morrow's winners and vice-president or vice versa, whatever it is.
A fighter knows that these birds which come up smilin' no matter how
many times he drops 'em for the count is as dangerous as dynamite,
until he knocks 'em cold. No matter how bad this loser may be battered
up, he's always got a chance while he's tryin'. I've seen guys that
was winnin' by two miles curl up and quit before a dub they had beaten
till the crowd was yellin' for mercy, simply because this poor
bunged-up simp kept comin' in all the time--battered, bloody, drunk
with wallops--_but tryin' up to the last bell_!
Now these guys may never get nowhere, but they're the birds that's put
most of the guys that _do_ where they are. Why? Think it over! You
gotta be _good_ to beat them birds, don't you? They make competition
keen, they keep the other guys on their toes, they're the gasoline that
keeps the old world goin' forward on high and the birds that get over
are only the chauffeurs. You gotta have both to run the car and the
universe wouldn't move forward six inches if we didn't have one failure
for every success.
So if you've failed to set the world on fire up to date, don't walk out
on the dock to see what kind of a jump it is. If you can't be a
winner, you can be a good loser and it's a toss-up which is the bigger
thing! A guy who can beat the yellah streak we all pack somewheres,
every time he fails to register a win, and will keep rememberin' that
to-morrow has got yesterday beat eighty-seven ways, is no loser! On
paper he mightn't be a winner, but he _is_. He's a bigger winner than
the bird that gets over, because he's whipped the quit in him without
no kind applause to cheer him on. I've seen losers that attracted more
attention in runnin' _last_ than any six winners in the same precinct.
Them kind of birds can't help tryin'. They couldn't quit if they
wanted to, which they don't! They got somethin' in 'em that keeps
shovin' 'em along whether they're regrettin' the breaks or not.
They're always full of the old ambish no matter what the score is in
the ninth. They're what you might call self-starters in the automobile
of life--they don't need a _win_ now and then to crank 'em up, they
keep goin' forward hittin' on all cylinders from the nursery to the
embalmer!
Alex was one of them guys.
The Big Town fell for his stuff because it was _new_, the same as it
will fall for _yours_ to-morrow if you get somethin' it never seen and
the nerve to try it out!
About a month after Alex was workin' as head salesman for the Gaflooey
Auto Company at a pittance of ten thousand a year, he come up to the
flat for dinner one night. I seen right away that somethin' was wrong,
because he only eat about half of the roast duck and brung along his
own cigars. After nature could stand no more, and we had dragged
ourselves away from the table to let the servant girl make good, we
adjourn to the parlor and the wife gets ready to punish the neighbors
with the victrola.
"Well," says Alex, sittin' down in the only rocker, of course, "it
looks like they have finally gimme somethin' that even _I_ can't do!"
"Can that be possible?" I says, pickin' up the sportin' final.
"Wait till you hear this one!" remarks the wife, crankin' up the
victrola. "John McCormack singin' 'If Beauty Was Water, You'd Be
Niagara Falls!' It's a knockout!"
"Say!" snorts Alex, gettin' peeved. "Can't a man find no attention
here?"
"Look in the telephone book under the A's," I says.
"Never mind, dearie!" the wife tells him. "I'll listen. What's on
your mind?" She goes over and sits on the arm of his chair, knowin'
full well it gets my goat.
"I see you're the only one in this family that's got any sense!" pipes
Alex, pattin' her hand.
"Yen," I says, "I ain't got enough sense to turn on a radiator. All
I'm good for is to get the dollars, which of course is nothin' at all
in keepin' up the home!"
"Well, you'll never have Rockefeller and that crowd gnashin' their
teeth with all the dollars you'll get!" says Alex, "and that ain't no
lie!"
"Now, boys," butts in the wife, "let's all be friends even if we do
belong to the same family. What is it, Alex? Speak up like a man."
"Well," he says, "the Gaflooey people has started to make tourin' cars
and roadsters! What d'ye think of that?"
"I'm simply dumfounded!" I says. "Has Congress heard about this?"
"There you go again!" snorts Alex. "Always tryin' to ridicule
everything I do. It's simply a case of sour grapes with you--jealousy,
that's all!"
"Sour grapes ain't jealousy," I says. "Sour grapes is brandy. Go on
with your story, Alex."
"Don't mind him," whispers the wife in his ear. "He'd laugh in church!"
"Why not?" I says. "I ain't done no gigglin' since you and me first
went there together."
"Will you let go?" she says. "Go on, Alex."
"Well," he says, "they called me into the president's office to-day,
and the former begins by tellin' me I'm the best salesman they ever
had."
"He don't care what he says, does he?" I butts in. "I suppose you
admitted the charge, eh?"
"After that," goes on Alex, snubbin' me, "he tells me they have decided
to get into the pleasure car game, instead of just makin' trucks and
the like. Their first offerin' is gonna be one of them chummy,
clover-leaf roadsters which will hold five people comfortably."
"If they're well acquainted!" I says.
"Will you leave the boy alone?" asks the wife. "I never saw anybody
like you in my life!"
"Don't I know it?" I says. "Otherwise, how would we ever of got
married?"
"Now," goes on Alex, "they want me to go up and see Runyon Q. Sampson,
the well-to-do millionaire, and get him to buy the first car. You can
imagine what a terrible good advertisement that will be for us if he
should buy it, can't you?"
"It'll be O.K. till he tries to ride in it," I says, "and then the
chances are you'll have to leave town and the Gaflooey people will be
facin' a suit!"
"There ain't another car on the market that can hold a match to the
Gaflooey!" hollers Alex, his goat prancin' madly about.
"What's it made out of--celluloid?" I says.
"You may think you're funny!" he tells me, "but that's nothin' more or
less than ig'rance. Here I am wastin' valuable time tryin' to explain
somethin' to Cousin Alice and you keep interruptin' till a man don't
know where he's at! Let's see now, where was I?" he asks the wife.
"The beautiful and good-lookin' princess had just promised to wed you,"
I says, "but the crusty old king couldn't see into it!"
The wife throws a pillow at me and it busted a vase that cost me three
hundred green certificates. After a short brawl over the remains, I
laid off Alex and he went ahead.
"As I said before," he goes on, "the president of the Gaflooey Company
has selected me to go up and sell old Sampson this here chummy
roadster. If I land the order, which naturally enough I will, it means
I get made manager of the New York salesrooms. Then me and Eve
Rossiter will prob'ly get married and--"
"What?" squeals the wife. "Are you and Eve engaged? And she never
said a word to me!"
"How could she?" I says. "When he prob'ly had her doped?"
"No, we ain't engaged," says Alex. "I ain't even asked the girl will
she be mine yet."
"Then how do you know she'll marry you?" asks the wife.
"Well," says Alex, "I figure if you married this here pest, I ought to
be able to marry anybody! But what I'm up against is this--I got to
take one of them roadsters up there to-day and demonstrate it to
Sampson. They have gone to work and made an appointment for me, and
what I don't know about automobiles would fill seven large libraries.
Here I'm supposed to show Mister Sampson the points on our car which is
better than any other and I can't tell the windshield from the magneto.
Now d'ye blame me for bein' worried?"
"I thought you was the world's greatest salesman," I sneers. "You
don't mean to say this job has got you yellin' for the police already,
do you? What are you gonna do, quit?"
"Speak English!" he comes back. "That word quit don't belong in our
language. Who said anything about quittin'? Even though I don't know
a thing about automobiles, I'm gonna sell Runyon Q. Sampson a Gaflooey
chummy roadster. A feller don't need knowledge to be a success half as
much as he needs confidence and I got more confidence than a feller
shootin' at a barn with a double-barrelled shot gun. Anyhow, I'll
betcha a rich millionaire like Sampson don't know any too much about
automobiles himself, bein' too busy with makin' money and the like, eh?"
"I suppose you're gonna make him think that you know more about them
gas buckboards than the guy which wrote 'em, eh?" I says.
"You'll never get nowhere!" he answers, lookin' at me like how can a
guy live and be so thick behind the ears. "You'll never be nothin' but
an average citizen, because you never get a new idea! No, I ain't
gonna make Sampson think _I_ know more about automobiles than anybody
in the world--that's what has queered many a sale. I'm gonna make him
think _he_ does, and that him buyin' our roadster proves it!"
"I'll bet you could make Rockefeller think they wasn't a nickel in
oil!" says the wife admirin'ly.
Alex gets up and reaches for his hat.
"If they was enough money in it for me, I'd try it," he says, "and that
ain't no lie!"
I didn't see Alex till the next mornin' and then he blows in the flat.
"Hello!" he says. "Here you are as usual, loafin' away the hull
mornin'. It's almost eight o'clock, d'ye know that?"
"Sure!" I says. "You can't get me on that one. The answer is seven
fifty-five!"
"What d'ye mean, seven fifty-five?" he asks.
"Ain't seven fifty-five almost eight o'clock," I says, "and didn't you
ask me if I knew it?"
"Ain't he clever?" says the wife, pattin' me on the back.
Alex looks at me in open disgust.
"If that's bein' clever," he says, "I'm a professor from Harvard!
Where d'ye get that stuff?"
"It's a gift!" I says. "What are you doin' here this hour of the day?"
"Hurry up and git through eatin'," he says, "I want you to take a ride
with me."
"What have you been pinched for?" I says.
"Will you leave him be?" butts in the wife. "Don't mind him, Alex,
he'll go with you. Where are you going?"
"Up to Runyon Q. Sampson's to sell him a Gaflooey roadster," says Alex.
"I got the car right outside now. Just wait till you git a look at it,
you'll be crazy to buy one yourself!"
"You said it!" I tells him, puttin' on my coat. "I certainly would be
crazy if I bought one of them! Who's gonna drive this up there?"
"I got a mechanic from the shop," says Alex. "A feller which knows so
much about automobiles that he could take a pair of pliers and a lug
wrench and go clear to Frisco with nothin' else!"
"Not even a car, eh?" I says. "_Some_ mechanic!"
"Be still!" says the wife. "Well, Alex, I certainly hope you have all
kinds of luck. Let me know how you make out, will you?"
"Sure!" I tells her. "Call up police headquarters in about an hour and
you'll prob'ly be able to get all the details, right off the blotter."
We go outside and there's the Gaflooey chummy roadster leanin' right up
against the curb. It looked like it might be a regular automobile when
it grew up, but just then it seemed like it had been snatched from the
cradle before its features was fully formed. Two of them roadsters
would of made a nice pair of roller skates and the expense for tires
must of been practically nothin', because the ones that was on it
looked like a set of washers. The body was painted yellah and the
trimmin's was in Alice blue and catsup red.
In the front seat is this guy which Alex claimed was the world's
greatest mechanic. You could see that at a glance anyhow, because he
was dressed in a pair of overalls that had lasted him ever since he
first broke into the automobile game and he carried about three quarts
of medium oil on his face and hands.
"Well," says Alex, throwin' out his chest, "what d'ye think old Runyon
Q. Sampson will say when he casts his eye over that, eh?"
"You'd only get sore if I told you," I says, "but I'll say this much,
Alex. If you can sell him that mechanical toy there on the pretense
that it's an automobile, I'm goin' up to-morrow and sell him Grant's
Tomb for a paperweight!"
"Git in," pipes Alex, "and stop knockin'!"
"I won't have to knock after we get started--that's if we do," I tells
him, forcin' myself into the rear, "the motor will look after that!"
Alex nudges the mechanic.
"This here's my cousin," he tells him. "He ain't a bad feller in spite
of that."
He turns around to me, "Joe," he says, "I want you to meet Mister Eddie
Worth, the best man on gas engines that ever burnt his hands on an
exhaust pipe!"
"Greetin's, Eddie!" I says, shakin' hands with him and gettin' a half
pound of grease for nothin'.
"Gimme a cigarette!" answers Eddie. "I been waitin' here an hour for
youse guys. The motor is prob'ly all cold now and the starter may
gimme an argument."
He gets out and monkeys around the front of the car.
"Ain't it nice and roomy back there?" Alex asks me.
I moved my knees away from my chin so's I could talk.
"Great!" I says. "Only the Gaflooey people is liable to get in trouble
on account of them coppin' the design from somebody else."
"What d'ye mean?" he asks me, lookin' puzzled.
"Well," I tells him, "you gotta admit that the seatin' arrangements
back here is a dead steal from a can of sardines!"
"Did you ever see anything you couldn't find fault with?" he sneers.
"Yeh," I says. "I once got three nickels in change for a dime."
At this critical moment, the mechanic gets down on his hands and knees
in the street and begins to worry the car like a dog with a bone. Then
all of a sudden he crawls underneath it and disappears from the public
eye. A lot of shippin' clerks, bookkeepers, salesgirls, brokers,
lawyers and the like, on their way downtown to their jobs, figures that
you can go to work any day, but an auto bein' fixed calls for immediate
attention and gets around us in a circle. This seemed to get Alex's
goat, but it was huckleberry pie to the mechanic. He crawls out from
under, rolls up his sleeves, ruffles his hair, looks over the crowd and
rubs his hands together.
"Gimme a cigarette!" he says. "And reach down in that tool box there
and hand me up them pliers, a couple of S wrenches, the hammer and a
screwdriver!"
The crowd sighs with delight, but Alex leaps off the seat like they was
bees in the upholstery.
"What d'ye want all them there tools for?" he yells. "Stop this monkey
business, I'm an hour late now! What's the matter with the car?"
The mechanic looks around at the crowd and shakes his head pityin'ly.
They give Alex the laugh, and a manicure tells her friend that if she
was the mechanic she wouldn't bother with it, but would make Alex fix
it himself for gettin' so bold.
"What's the matter with the car?" repeats the mechanic, waggin' his
head from side to side with a sarcastic movement. "It's been abused,
that's all! I ain't had time to go over it carefully; it'll have to be
towed down to the shop where we can git it up on jacks and take it
apart. I found a leak in the radiator, the bolts is missin' from the
muffler, there's a crack in the rear housin' and the clutch seems to
grind a bit."
Alex grits his teeth and grabs hold of the windshield.
"Is that all?" he hisses.
"Well, not _all_, no!" says the mechanic, scratchin' his chin. "They
must be a couple of pins sheered off of the differential and the--"
"They ain't no sich a thing!" roars Alex. "This here's a brand new
car, right from our factory--you wooden-headed fule! It ain't been run
a mile and they ain't a thing the matter with it, not even a scratch on
the paint! You was sent up here to drive this car, not to wreck it.
You--"
"Hey, don't git to callin' me no wooden-headed fool!" hollers the
mechanic, jumpin' around and wavin' the pliers. "That's against the
union rules, and you'll get the worst of it if I bring it before the
board. They must be some mistake here. I thought you wanted me to
look over this boat for your friend here and see what it needed. How'd
I know you only wanted me to drive? I ain't no mind-reader, I'm a
mechanic and--"
"Shut up!" says Alex; "and drive us out to Tarrytown. As a matter of
fact, the car's all right, ain't it?"
"Certainly!" says the mechanic. "Ain't it a new one? Gimme a
cigarette and I'll see if I can get this tin can here to roll."
It's just about eighteen miles as the pigeon soars from where we
started to Runyon Q. Sampson's country home at Tarrytown, and we fled
up there in two hours. This car was a wonder on hills, that is it's a
wonder we got up 'em at all. We climbed most of 'em with the emergency
brake on so's we wouldn't slip back to the garage, and I figured that
the car must of been painted yellah in honor of the motor, which quit
like a dog every time the goin' got rough. The mechanic drives us in
through the entrance of Sampson's domicile, as we remark at the garage,
and then stops for encouragement before goin' further. Alex elects me
to go up and notify Sampson that we're all set to show him the Gaflooey
chummy roadster, while he and the mechanic stays behind to look over
the car and see that everything is workin' fairly perfect. I got as
far as the porch and a guy in a drum-major's uneyform without the hat
nails me. He was as big as the Woolworth Buildin' and just as
emotional. He looked like what them stage butlers tries to.
"What would you wish?" he asks, friendly as a traffic cop to a
taxi-driver.
"Well, if I thought they was any use," I says, "I'd wish I had a
million bucks, but as it is, I'd like to see Runyon Q. Sampson, your
master."
"Step this way!" he says, startin' to walk ahead.
"I can't step that way!" I says, watchin' him close. "It must be a
gift. I'll have to folley you in my own way on account of havin' a
blowout in my rubber heels an--"
Just then a little bald-headed guy with one of them short gray
mustaches which the wealthy banker wears in the movies, crosses our
path and the big feller stops and salutes him.
"Gentleman to see you, sir," he says.
"Hmph!" grunts Runyon Q. Sampson, which is who the little guy was, as
the gentle readers has prob'ly guessed. "I can't see any one now. I
have an appointment this afternoon to--"
"I guess I'm that appointment," I butts in, "or part of it, anyways.
Was you expectin' to look over a Gaflooey chummy roadster?"
"Well, what of it?" he snaps.
"My lord, the carriage awaits!" I says, makin' a bow. "Folley me and
you'll go motorin'!"
"Are you the agent?" he asks, as we walk back over the lawn.
"No," I says, "I'm his cousin. He's carryin' me along for luck or
somethin'. We also have a mechanic with us in case of fire. Are you
fond of automobilin'?"
"Much more so than of conversation!" he barks.
"That stops me!" I says. "I'm dumb from now on. What is it who's this
says? Silence is golden, speech is human--ain't it?"
We have reached the car by this time, and Alex steps forward.
"Good morning, Mister Sampson!" he says. "I want to thank you for the
company and myself, for volunteering your judgment as to whether our
new model chummy roadster is a good car or not."
Sampson walks around it a couple of times, opens the hood, looks at the
motor and sniffs.
"It's entirely too small!" he announces. "The body is grotesque, the
paint is a horrible color and the chassis seems out of alignment."
"Exactly what I thought you would say!" agrees Alex, noddin' his head
like Sampson had raved over the car. "We will make any changes you
suggest. After all, you'll be the one to use it and that makes you the
one to be pleased. We have custom made suits, shoes and shirts--why
not custom made automobiles?"
"Hmph!" grunts Sampson.
"I'll fall," I says, hopin' to break the embarrassin' silence. "Why
not?"
"Shut up!" hisses Alex. "Would you allow us to give you a little
spin?" he asks.
"Ha, ha!" pipes the mechanic all of a sudden. "That's a hot one, ain't
it?" he grins at Sampson. "Sure, old top, we'll give you a spin!" he
says, jabbin' the floor board with his feet. "That's if this boiler
will roll. Some of you guys will have to give the motor a little spin,
if you want to go away from here. She's gone cold on me again! Gimme
a cigarette, will you?"
Alex presented him with a glance that would of froze boilin' oil.
"Step right in, Mister Sampson," he says. "We'll run around the roads
here and--"
"We'll do nothing of the sort!" snaps Sampson. "I've got to be at my
office by three o'clock and you can drive me down there. In that way
I'll be wasting no time and I can see what your car can do through
traffic as well as on the road."
"Elegant!" says Alex. "Step right in."
Runyon Q. Sampson steps right in and after gettin' a cigarette from me,
the mechanic steps on the gas. We run every bit of a hundred yards
across the lawn and then all of a sudden the Gaflooey roadster stops
deader than Columbus. The mechanic tried everything from blowin' the
horn to crawlin' underneath it again, but they was nothin' stirrin'.
"Well," he says to Alex, finally, "there's only one way we can get away
from here now!"
"What's that?" asks Alex, bendin' down so's Runyon Q. Sampson won't
hear it.
"By freight!" says the mechanic. "It seems to me that one of them rear
axles has gone to work and busted on us."
"Listen to me," says Alex. "Get us away from here right away and
there's ten dollars extry in it for you!"
"Now you're talkin' sense!" says the mechanic. "Gimme a cigarette."
He grabs up the tool box and hides himself under the car again, while
Runyon Q. Sampson begins to fidget around and look at his watch like it
was the first one he ever seen.
Twenty minutes passed, folleyed by thirty more, and still this mechanic
is under the car, makin' sounds like he was fillin' a rush order for
tin pans. Alex is as nervous as a cop makin' his first pinch and our
friend Sampson begins sayin' things about the Gaflooey roadster that
would never of been used by the builders as testimonials. Finally,
Alex whispers to me will I get underneath and see what the world's
champion auto mechanic is doin' to while away the time.
I got out and looked under and--Oh, boy!
This bird is layin' on the ground under the car, readin' a dope book on
the races! He's got the book in one hand and a hammer in the other and
every now and then he reaches back and wallops the dirt pan, without
lookin', so's it'll sound like he's fixin' things up.
"What seems to be the trouble?" I asks him.
"I think Dimpled Dan is like money from home in the first race to-day,"
he says, "provided they--what--what are you doin' here?" he winds up,
droppin' the book.
"Git outa there!" I hollers. "If you're a mechanic, I'm Christopher
Columbus!"
"What d'ye expect for seventy cents an hour--Edison?" he growls.
Runyon Q. Sampson has took it all in and now he lets out a beller and
leaps from the car.
"You infernal idiot!" he bawls at poor Alex. "You've made me miss my
appointment. What do you mean by taking up my time with this travesty
on an automobile? Why, the thing can't even move! If this is the way
it performs when it's fresh from your factory, what can a man expect
when it's a few weeks old?"
"Maybe it ain't ripe enough yet," I butts in, hopin' to save the
situation. "It does look kinda young, don't it?"
"Silence!" roars Runyon Q. "I wouldn't buy one of your cars if they
were selling at three cents a carload! That's final! Don't you dare
come up and bother me again. Get this pile of junk off my place here
just as fast as you can, or, by the eternal, I'll have you all arrested
for trespassing!"
With them few remarks he stamps off across the lawn, bellerin' like a
bull.
"Well, Alex," I says, "at last you have hit somethin' in little old New
York that you can't do, eh?"
"That old boob gimme a pain anyways!" remarks the mechanic. "What does
he know about machinery? Gimme a cigarette!"
Alex sits down on the runnin' board of the Gaflooey chummy roadster and
lights a cigar. He puffs away, lookin' off in the air kinda sad and
mournful, like he had just been handed a wire readin', "Father has told
all. We are lost.--Agnes," or somethin' to that effect. Even though
he was a relative of the wife's and had spent every minute since he hit
New York confessin' to bein' a world beater, I felt sorry for him!
Runyon Q. Sampson was off the Gaflooey people for life, and Alex had
fell down on the biggest thing he'd tried yet. I knew how he must of
felt about it, so I went over and slapped him on the back.
"Cheer up, Alex," I says. "I know that was a tough one to lose, but a
guy can't finish in front all the time! You know you ain't up in dear
old Vermont now and this town's much harder to beat than the average.
I told you that when you first come here. I knowed it was only a
question of time before you'd hit the bumps--everybody does sooner or
later in New York--and then you--"
Alex gets up and throws away the cigar.
"All I hope," he says. "All I hope is that the one they deliver to him
works all right!"
"Deliver to who?" I says.
"Runyon Q. Sampson!" he comes back. "I come up here to sell that
feller a Gaflooey chummy roadster and that's what I'm a goin' to dew!
I'll have his check before the end of the week. I don't know how I'm
gonna do it now, but in some way this here sale is gonna occur, you can
gamble on that! D'ye think a little thing like this can discourage me?
Why if the car had exploded and blowed us all up in the air while we
was sittin' in it, I would of sold Sampson the speedometer for a watch
before we had hit the ground again!" He turns around on the mechanic
and rolls up his sleeves. "The faster you git away from here, the
longer you'll live!" he snarls. "What art was you follerin' before you
took up automobiles?"
"Well, to be on the level with you," says the mechanic, "I was second
man in a cigar store on Twenty-third Street. I got fired because me
and the cash register could never agree on the day's receipts. I seen
an ad for a mechanic at the Gaflooey service station and I got took on
there as a helper. A feller has got to do something don't he? Gimme a
cigarette."
Alex makes a dash for him, but I hold him back.
"Fade!" I warns him. "You're gettin' away with murder as it is, and if
I let this bird go they's no tellin' what'll happen to you!"
"What do I get for my mornin's work, heh?" he hollers.
"You're gettin' immunity!" I says. "Beat it!"
"All right!" he snarls. "I oughta knowed I'd only get the worst of it
goin' out on a job with a coupla boobs like you guys. This feller
claims he's a salesman, hey? Well, I'll lay the world eight to five he
couldn't sell ice cream sodas in Hades! Gimme a ciga--"
Alex throws the tool box at him, and he blows.
While we're standin' there tryin' to figure out some way to get this
chummy roadster to make good, a guy steps out from behind a hedge and
joins our little party. He had just about passed the votin' age and he
wore a raincoat with one of them cute little belts around it, a
dare-devil soft hat and carried a suitcase. His feet dragged like they
wasn't used to such heavy exercise as walkin' and he steps in front of
us with a cigarette droopin' outa the corner of his mouth.
"Pardon me," he yawns. "Are you having some difficulty with the car?"
"Oh, fluently!" I says. "You must be a fortune teller. Some
difficulty is right! We been attemptin' to get away from here all
mornin' and it's the same as makin' the Russians think the Czar was a
good feller--there's nothin' doin'. I don't think the motor is tryin'
and--"
He sets down the suitcase and yawns some more.
"I know something about autos," he says. "Have a couple of my own and
occasionally I have to fuss around 'em a bit. Do you mind if I look at
the motor?"
"We'd just love it!" I says. "Go to it."
He opens the hood, yawns a coupla times and monkeys around for a minute.
"Try her now," he says.
Alex gets in and pushes a button with his foot.
I don't know what this handsome stranger did, but whatever else it was,
it was a success, because the motor immediately begins to tear holes in
the peace and quiet of the surroundin' country.
"She'll be all right as soon as she warms up now," says our savior.
"The gas was disconnected--coupling jolted off evidently--and one of
the cylinders was missing. Must have given you trouble on hills,
what?" he yawns some more. "Nice little bus," he says, "and, now, I
wonder if you'd do a favor for me?"
"I only got four bucks on me," I says, "but you're welcome to that if
you can use it."
He grins.
"It isn't money," he says. "It's something more important than that."
"Fudge!" says Alex. "There ain't no sich thing in this town!"
"Yes there is!" says the newcomer, steppin' back to a hedge, "and here
it is!"
With that, out steps the Venus de Milo wearin' both arms and a set of
scenery that must of enabled some Fifth Avenue store to move over to
Easy Street. She looked like what the press agents claim is in the
chorus of every musical comedy that hits Broadway and she's wearin'
enough diamonds to have keep the Alleys in tooth powder. After I had
got over bein' dazzled by the first look, I give her the East and West
again and recognize her. She's nothin' less than Margot Meringue, the
big movie star.
"I'm Arnold Sampson," says the young feller, "and this is Mrs. Arnold
Sampson. My wife was formerly--"
"I know," I butts in, "I seen her the week before last with the missus
in Marvelous Margot's Mistake. She was vampirin' around and--"
"How did you like me?" smiles Margot.
"Well," I says, "we seen the pitcher three times runnin'--is that good
enough?"
"We have just been married," goes on Arnold, throwin' out what chest he
had with him.
"Congratulations!" pipes Alex, shakin' his hand.
"Pretty soft!" I says, doin' the same.
"I saw you and father in the car here," explains Arnold, "and as you
appear to be friends of his, I wonder if you'd come up to the house
with us? Father is less liable to make a scene, if there is some one
else present. You see, he doesn't know that we're married as yet."
Alex suddenly looks interested and nudges me to keep quiet.
"I can see the whole thing in a nutshell," he says. "Your father
objects to you--oh--now--marryin' an actress, heh?"
"No," yawns Arnold. "In this case the traditional is reversed. My
father objects to the actress marrying me!" he bows to Margot. "He is
personally quite fond of my wife and his objection is based solely upon
his own unflattering opinion of me. He declares I'll never be able to
support Mrs. Sampson in the manner she is accustomed to living, as her
income is something like fifty thousand a year. Father allows me a
bare five thousand and he refuses to increase it until I go to work in
his office, or something equally as silly. Can you imagine anything
more idiotic than that? Dad is worth millions and he expects me to
work!"
"What an inhuman parent!" says Alex. "What have you got against work?"
"My dear fellow," says Arnold, "I don't really know. I don't seem able
to get enthusiastic about it--that's all. I wouldn't mind going down
to Dad's office and toying with an adding machine or driving nails in
packing cases, but I'm sure I'd fall asleep on the job, or something
idiotic like that! You might say I lack the urge," he yawns and grins.
"I guess I wasn't built to hustle. I haven't got the pep, as we used
to say at--"
"Listen!" butts in Alex, his eyes beginnin' to glitter. "You was built
the same as anybody else, only thinner. I know what's the matter with
you--c'mere, I'll show you!" He takes Arnold by the arm and leads him
over to the Gaflooey chummy roadster. "D'ye see that automobile
there?" he says. "Look at it. What is it--nothin' but a pile of metal
and wood! It can't talk, it can't think--but it's got a little button
down there in the dash and when you push it, that car will keep on
runnin' till the gasoline gives out or it hits a tree! That button's
called a self-commencer and that's what you need! Ain't there no
buttons up in your head that you can push and get yourself goin'? Is
that pile of metal better than you? You can go down now and take a job
where you won't get your hands dirty, but if your Dad hadn't been a
self-starter fifty years ago, _you'd_ be callin' a Wop foreman 'Boss'
to-day and likin' it!"
Arnold stops yawnin' and looks interested, where he don't look mad.
Margot nods her head and puts her hand on his arm.
"Arnold dear," she says, "he's right! It's time you did try to do
something, especially now. I don't want to lecture you, dear, but--"
"I don't know whether he's right or not," says Arnold, "but I do know
that extraordinary speech of his has me thinking. Also, it sounded
great to me and there's no reason why it shouldn't sound just as great
to Dad! He loves that sort of thing and I'm going up and repeat it,
word for word! I'm going to tell him we're married and that I'll start
to work for him whenever he likes. I can try it, anyhow!"
Margot looks at Alex like she would kiss him if it wasn't for the looks
of the thing, and Alex whispers in my ear that the Gaflooey roadster is
as good as sold. We all got in it--it was runnin' like a watch
now--and roll up to the house. The newly-weds goes inside, while me
and Alex stays out on the porch, and in about half an hour they come
out again, bringin' old Runyon Q. Sampson with 'em. The old gent walks
over to Alex and holds out his hand.
"My boy," he says, "I want to thank you for what you've done to this
cub of mine. I don't know what you told him, but he's a different
person from the time I saw him last. He sounds like a real man, now!
I'm going to do something for you in return. I won't buy one of these
infernal cars of yours, wouldn't have it for a gift! But, if you'll
tell me what your commission on the sale would have amounted to, I'll
write you a check for that figure."
Margot looks at Alex, and then she looks at the car.
"Why, I think its a perfect dear!" she says, "and those colors real
harmony itself!"
Alex bounces forward, his eyes glitterin' again.
"We were thinkin' of callin' this model the Margot Meringue," he says,
"and--"
"Come, come!" interrupts old Runyon Q., "let's straighten this matter
up." He takes out his check book and fountain pen. "I want to take
you children down to Tiffany's and have Margot pick out a suitable
wedding gift. We have--"
"May I have anything I want?" asks Margot, kinda innocent.
"Of course you can!" beams the old boy, pinchin' her cheek.
"Then buy me a Gaflooey chummy roadster!" she says. "I think this one
is a perfect love of a car!"
Oh, boy!
Alex tries to look unconcerned, but he couldn't help droppin' his hat.
The old man coughs and gets red in the face, but he was game.
"All right!" he snorts at Alex. "You win. You can say you're the only
man that ever got the best of Runyon Q. Sampson! What's the amount?"
I went into the office of the Gaflooey Company with Alex when he went
back and the president is waitin' for him with blood in his eye.
"You needn't begin your excuses!" he says to Alex. "The mechanic has
told me how you made a mess of everything and Sampson refused to buy
the car. I didn't think they made any ten-thousand-a-year-men up in
Vermont when I hired you, but I took a chance. New York's too big for
you fellows; I guess you were only a flash in the pan! Just think what
it would have meant had you sold the car to old Sampson! Why, the
advertising alone would--"
"I guess you're right about me bein' a flash in the pan," butts in
Alex, "but I found another pan! I don't know whether this is any good
for advertisin' or not, but I sold that chummy roadster to Sampson and
he has give it to his daughter-in-law for a weddin' gift."
The president jumps from his chair, very light for a man of his heft.
"Great!" he hollers, "great!" He looks at Sampson's check which Alex
hands over. "I knew you'd do it! I saw you had the stuff in you the
minute you first walked in this office. That's the place to get first
string men--right from the country, and Vermont has furnished more than
her share. They told me you'd fall down because New York was too big
for you, but I knew different. They can't fool me when it comes to
judging men! I'll get our advertising men right to work on this copy,
and we'll hit the morning papers with it. This is great! Now if
Sampson's daughter-in-law was only in the public eye, know what I mean,
this would be wonderful! We've had a man after Margot Meringue for a
month, but she's away somewhere. You probably won't know her; she's a
big movie star and we'd _give_ her a car if she'd only endorse it.
Why, if we landed her--"
"That's who Sampson give the car to," says Alex. "His son and her just
got wed and he give her the Gaflooey roadster for a weddin' gift. How
about that New York manager job--do I get it?"
"Do you get it!" shrieks the president. "Why, say--you're _it_, right
now!"
"That's fine!" says Alex. "I'll take the job the day after to-morrow!"
"I see!" says the president, breakin' his neck tryin' to make himself a
good fellah. "You want a day off after your labors, eh?"
"No!" says Alex, "I got to go out and see Sampson again to-morrow,
because havin' give this roadster to his daughter-in-law, naturally
he'll need one for hisself now!"