REDUCTIONS IN THE STAFF
The first member of the staff of _Cosy Moments_ to arrive at the
office on the following morning was Master Maloney. This sounds
like the beginning of a "Plod and Punctuality," or "How Great
Fortunes have been Made" story; but, as a matter of fact, Master
Maloney was no early bird. Larks who rose in his neighbourhood,
rose alone. He did not get up with them. He was supposed to be at
the office at nine o'clock. It was a point of honour with him, a
sort of daily declaration of independence, never to put in an
appearance before nine-thirty. On this particular morning he was
punctual to the minute, or half an hour late, whichever way you
choose to look at it.
He had only whistled a few bars of "My Little Irish Rose," and had
barely got into the first page of his story of life on the prairie
when Kid Brady appeared. The Kid, as was his habit when not in
training, was smoking a big black cigar. Master Maloney eyed him
admiringly. The Kid, unknown to that gentleman himself, was Pugsy's
ideal. He came from the Plains; and had, indeed, once actually been
a cowboy; he was a coming champion; and he could smoke black
cigars. It was, therefore, without his usual well-what-is-it-now?
air that Pugsy laid down his book, and prepared to converse.
"Say, Mr. Smith or Mr. Windsor about, Pugsy?" asked the Kid.
"Naw, Mr. Brady, they ain't came yet," replied Master Maloney
respectfully.
"Late, ain't they?"
"Sure. Mr. Windsor generally blows in before I do."
"Wonder what's keepin' them."
"P'raps, dey've bin put out of business," suggested Pugsy
nonchalantly.
"How's that?"
Pugsy related the events of the previous day, relaxing something of
his austere calm as he did so. When he came to the part where the
Table Hill allies swooped down on the unsuspecting Three Pointers,
he was almost animated.
"Say," said the Kid approvingly, "that Smith guy's got more grey
matter under his thatch than you'd think to look at him. I--"
"Comrade Brady," said a voice in the doorway, "you do me proud."
"Why, say," said the Kid, turning, "I guess the laugh's on me. I
didn't see you, Mr. Smith. Pugsy's been tellin' me how you sent him
for the Table Hills yesterday. That was cute. It was mighty smart.
But say, those guys are goin' some, ain't they now! Seems as if
they was dead set on puttin' you out of business."
"Their manner yesterday, Comrade Brady, certainly suggested the
presence of some sketchy outline of such an ideal in their minds.
One Sam, in particular, an ebony-hued sportsman, threw himself into
the task with great vim. I rather fancy he is waiting for us with
his revolver to this moment. But why worry? Here we are, safe and
sound, and Comrade Windsor may be expected to arrive at any moment.
I see, Comrade Brady, that you have been matched against one Eddie
Wood."
"It's about that I wanted to see you, Mr. Smith. Say, now that
things have been and brushed up so, what with these gang guys
layin' for you the way they're doin', I guess you'll be needin' me
around here. Isn't that right? Say the word and I'll call off this
Eddie Wood fight."
"Comrade Brady," said Psmith with some enthusiasm, "I call that a
sporting offer. I'm very much obliged. But we mustn't stand in your
way. If you eliminate this Comrade Wood, they will have to give you
a chance against Jimmy Garvin, won't they?"
"I guess that's right, sir," said the Kid. "Eddie stayed nineteen
rounds against Jimmy, and if I can put him away, it gets me into
line with Jimmy, and he can't side-step me."
"Then go in and win, Comrade Brady. We shall miss you. It will be
as if a ray of sunshine had been removed from the office. But you
mustn't throw a chance away. We shall be all right, I think."
"I'll train at White Plains," said the Kid. "That ain't far from
here, so I'll be pretty near in case I'm wanted. Hullo, who's
here?"
He pointed to the door. A small boy was standing there, holding a
note.
"Mr. Smith?"
"Sir to you," said Psmith courteously.
"P. Smith?"
"The same. This is your lucky day."
"Cop at Jefferson Market give me dis to take to youse."
"A cop in Jefferson Market?" repeated Psmith. "I did not know I
had friends among the constabulary there. Why, it's from Comrade
Windsor." He opened the envelope and read the letter. "Thanks," he
said, giving the boy a quarter-dollar.
It was apparent the Kid was politely endeavouring to veil his
curiosity. Master Maloney had no such scruples.
"What's in de letter, boss?" he inquired.
"The letter, Comrade Maloney, is from our Mr. Windsor, and relates
in terse language the following facts, that our editor last night
hit a policeman in the eye, and that he was sentenced this morning
to thirty days on Blackwell's Island."
"He's de guy!" admitted Master Maloney approvingly.
"What's that?" said the Kid. "Mr. Windsor bin punchin' cops! What's
he bin doin' that for?"
"He gives no clue. I must go and find out. Could you help Comrade
Maloney mind the shop for a few moments while I push round to
Jefferson Market and make inquiries?"
"Sure. But say, fancy Mr. Windsor cuttin' loose that way!" said the
Kid admiringly.
The Jefferson Market Police Court is a little way down town, near
Washington Square. It did not take Psmith long to reach it, and by
the judicious expenditure of a few dollars he was enabled to obtain
an interview with Billy in a back room.
The chief editor of _Cosy Moments_ was seated on a bench, looking
upon the world through a pair of much blackened eyes. His general
appearance was dishevelled. He had the air of a man who has been
caught in the machinery.
"Hullo, Smith," he said. "You got my note all right then?"
Psmith looked at him, concerned.
"Comrade Windsor," he said, "what on earth has been happening to
you?"
"Oh, that's all right," said Billy. "That's nothing."
"Nothing! You look as if you had been run over by a motor-car."
"The cops did that," said Billy, without any apparent resentment.
"They always turn nasty if you put up a fight. I was a fool to do
it, I suppose, but I got so mad. They knew perfectly well that I
had nothing to do with any pool-room downstairs."
Psmith's eye-glass dropped from his eye.
"Pool-room, Comrade Windsor?"
"Yes. The house where I live was raided late last night. It seems
that some gamblers have been running a pool-room on the ground
floor. Why the cops should have thought I had anything to do with
it, when I was sleeping peacefully upstairs, is more than I can
understand. Anyway, at about three in the morning there was the
dickens of a banging at my door. I got up to see what was doing,
and found a couple of Policemen there. They told me to come along
with them to the station. I asked what on earth for. I might have
known it was no use arguing with a New York cop. They said they had
been tipped off that there was a pool-room being run in the house,
and that they were cleaning up the house, and if I wanted to say
anything I'd better say it to the magistrate. I said, all right,
I'd put on some clothes and come with them. They said they couldn't
wait about while I put on clothes. I said I wasn't going to travel
about New York in pyjamas, and started to get into my shirt. One of
them gave me a shove in the ribs with his night-stick, and told me
to come along quick. And that made me so mad I hit out." A chuckle
escaped Billy. "He wasn't expecting it, and I got him fair. He went
down over the bookcase. The other cop took a swipe at me with his
club, but by that time I was so mad I'd have taken on Jim Jeffries,
if he had shown up and got in my way. I just sailed in, and was
beginning to make the man think that he had stumbled on Stanley
Ketchel or Kid Brady or a dynamite explosion by mistake, when the
other fellow loosed himself from the bookcase, and they started in
on me together, and there was a general rough house, in the middle
of which somebody seemed to let off about fifty thousand dollars'
worth of fireworks all in a bunch; and I didn't remember anything
more till I found myself in a cell, pretty nearly knocked to
pieces. That's my little life-history. I guess I was a fool to cut
loose that way, but I was so mad I didn't stop to think."
Psmith sighed.
"You have told me your painful story," he said. "Now hear mine.
After parting with you last night, I went meditatively back to my
Fourth Avenue address, and, with a courtly good night to the large
policeman who, as I have mentioned in previous conversations, is
stationed almost at my very door, I passed on into my room, and had
soon sunk into a dreamless slumber. At about three o'clock in the
morning I was aroused by a somewhat hefty banging on the door."
"What!"
"A banging at the door," repeated Psmith. "There, standing on the
mat, were three policemen. From their remarks I gathered that
certain bright spirits had been running a gambling establishment in
the lower regions of the building--where, I think I told you, there
is a saloon--and the Law was now about to clean up the place. Very
cordially the honest fellows invited me to go with them. A
conveyance, it seemed, waited in the street without. I pointed out,
even as you appear to have done, that sea-green pyjamas with old
rose frogs were not the costume in which a Shropshire Psmith should
be seen abroad in one of the world's greatest cities; but they
assured me--more by their manner than their words--that my
misgivings were out of place, so I yielded. These men, I told
myself, have lived longer in New York than I. They know what is
done and what is not done. I will bow to their views. So I went
with them, and after a very pleasant and cosy little ride in the
patrol waggon, arrived at the police station. This morning I
chatted a while with the courteous magistrate, convinced him by
means of arguments and by silent evidence of my open, honest face
and unwavering eye that I was not a professional gambler, and came
away without a stain on my character."
Billy Windsor listened to this narrative with growing interest.
"Gum! it's them!" he cried.
"As Comrade Maloney would say," said Psmith, "meaning what,
Comrade Windsor?"
"Why, the fellows who are after that paper. They tipped the police
off about the pool-rooms, knowing that we should be hauled off
without having time to take anything with us. I'll bet anything you
like they have been in and searched our rooms by now."
"As regards yours, Comrade Windsor, I cannot say. But it is an
undoubted fact that mine, which I revisited before going to the
office, in order to correct what seemed to me even on reflection
certain drawbacks to my costume, looks as if two cyclones and a
threshing machine had passed through it."
"They've searched it?"
"With a fine-toothed comb. Not one of my objects of vertu but has
been displaced."
Billy Windsor slapped his knee.
"It was lucky you thought of sending that paper by post," he said.
"We should have been done if you hadn't. But, say," he went on
miserably, "this is awful. Things are just warming up for the final
burst, and I'm out of it all."
"For thirty days," sighed Psmith. "What _Cosy Moments_ really needs
is a _sitz-redacteur_."
"A what?"
"A _sitz-redacteur_, Comrade Windsor, is a gentleman employed by
German newspapers with a taste for _lèse majesté_ to go to prison
whenever required in place of the real editor. The real editor
hints in his bright and snappy editorial, for instance, that the
Kaiser's moustache reminds him of a bad dream. The police force
swoops down en masse on the office of the journal, and are met by
the _sitz-redacteur_, who goes with them peaceably, allowing the
editor to remain and sketch out plans for his next week's article
on the Crown Prince. We need a _sitz-redacteur_ on _Cosy Moments_
almost as much as a fighting editor; and we have neither."
"The Kid has had to leave then?"
"He wants to go into training at once. He very sportingly offered
to cancel his match, but of course that would never do. Unless you
consider Comrade Maloney equal to the job, I must look around me
for some one else. I shall be too fully occupied with purely
literary matters to be able to deal with chance callers. But I have
a scheme."
"What's that?"
"It seems to me that we are allowing much excellent material to lie
unused in the shape of Comrade Jarvis."
"Bat Jarvis."
"The same. The cat-specialist to whom you endeared yourself
somewhat earlier in the proceedings by befriending one of his
wandering animals. Little deeds of kindness, little acts of love,
as you have doubtless heard, help, etc. Should we not give Comrade
Jarvis an opportunity of proving the correctness of this statement?
I think so. Shortly after you--if you will forgive me for touching
on a painful subject--have been haled to your dungeon, I will push
round to Comrade Jarvis's address, and sound him on the subject.
Unfortunately, his affection is confined, I fancy, to you. Whether
he will consent to put himself out on my behalf remains to be seen.
However, there is no harm in trying. If nothing else comes of the
visit, I shall at least have had the opportunity of chatting with
one of our most prominent citizens."
A policeman appeared at the door.
"Say, pal," he remarked to Psmith, "you'll have to be fading away
soon, I guess. Give you three minutes more. Say it quick."
He retired. Billy leaned forward to Psmith.
"I guess they won't give me much chance," he whispered, "but if you
see me around in the next day or two, don't be surprised."
"I fail to follow you, Comrade Windsor."
"Men have escaped from Blackwell's Island before now. Not many,
it's true; but it has been done."
Psmith shook his head.
"I shouldn't," he said. "They're bound to catch you, and then you
will be immersed in the soup beyond hope of recovery. I shouldn't
wonder if they put you in your little cell for a year or so."
"I don't care," said Billy stoutly. "I'd give a year later on to be
round and about now."
"I shouldn't," urged Psmith. "All will be well with the paper. You
have left a good man at the helm."
"I guess I shan't get a chance, but I'll try it if I do."
The door opened and the policeman reappeared.
"Time's up, I reckon."
"Well, good-bye, Comrade Windsor," said Psmith regretfully.
"Abstain from undue worrying. It's a walk-over from now on, and
there's no earthly need for you to be around the office. Once, I
admit, this could not have been said. But now things have
simplified themselves. Have no fear. This act is going to be a
scream from start to finish."