THE “SYBILLINE” WHISTLE
The whistle he had invented and the name Bob Dallow instantly carried
back the mind of Ben to what he looked upon as the pleasantest part
of his young life.
About six months previous to the opening of this story Bob Dallow had
put in an appearance at the Hardy home. Neither Ben nor his parents
had ever seen him before, but the homeless orphan boy had received a
hearty welcome.
It appeared that he was the son of a half sister of Mrs. Hardy, and
he had come into the Hardy household in such a lively, manly fashion
that he had won all their hearts at once.
“Just looking up my scattered relations as I hop about the world,
Aunt Mary,” he had announced to Mrs. Hardy. “Here to-day and there
to-morrow. I won’t bother you more than this afternoon and to-night.
It makes a fellow feel he’s got something to tie to, you know, when
he gets lonely, so I thought I would drop in on you.”
Bob had been an orphan for two years. Thrown on his own resources, he
had gone to work on the first job that offered with a smile, and left
it for another one with a hurrah. He fascinated Ben with the happy,
good-natured way in which he took the ups and downs of business life.
“Every regular job I get,” declared Bob, airily, “there was a
separate and distinct hoodoo about it. For instance, the first man I
worked for was a groceryman. He confidentially instructed me on his
short weight tactics one night and I left the next morning. My second
employer was a clothier. He insisted on paying off my first month’s
salary in a suit damaged by fire and water and four sizes too big for
me, so I left him and became a clerk in a dry goods store. My boss
there nearly starved me and made me sleep on a box under a stairway.
I pined for fresh air and took to the road.”
Bob explained that “taking to the road” meant for him, first, a
ticket collector for a side show at a circus, next, a brief career at
driving a band wagon, and lastly as a chauffeur.
“I am now pretty good at handling a machine,” he declared, “and am on
my way to a new job for a crack automobile man who makes a specialty
of racing for prizes.”
Bob brought a rather exciting atmosphere into the quiet Hardy home,
but it did not harm any. He succeeded in stirring up some new ideas
in the active mind of Ben, but the latter, his folks knew, loved
home life too fondly to ever become a confirmed rover. Then, too,
Bob was a boy of excellent principles. There was no bravado or
recklessness about his exuberant spirits. He was manly and always
seeing the bright side of things, adventurous and undaunted by
trivial disappointments.
“I’ll make it some day—in a big way. I feel it in my bones,” he
insisted hopefully.
“I hope you do,” replied Ben.
“So will you,” declared Bob, enthusiastically, the next day, when,
in showing his guest about his little work room at home, Ben brought
to light a whistle he had invented. It consisted of a bent circle of
tin. This was perforated on one side, and this in connection with a
peculiar shaping of the outer lip of the device enabled a person to
give out a shrill call that could be heard fully a mile distant on a
quiet day.
Ben had distributed freely samples of his handicraft among his boy
chums, and on picnic occasions the woods would ring with what his
comrades called a bird call. The modest young inventor noticed,
however, that most of the users of the whistles never got much beyond
a commonplace squeak, while the shrill efforts of the adepts scared
the birds away instead of attracting them.
Bob Dallow put a new phase on the affair. His twenty-four hours’
visit expanded and was encouraged to five days. The last afternoon
of his stay, when Ben came home from school he was somewhat excitedly
invited by his popular chum to accompany him to the garden.
“See her,” said Bob, “—or rather, listen.”
Bob placed the whistle between his lips. He began a tune, carried it
through, and finished it with a flush of triumph.
“I declare!” exclaimed the delighted Ben, lost in admiration of his
friend’s splendid efforts. “I never heard better music.”
Patience and practice had enabled Bob to become a master of the
little device.
“It’s a big thing,” he insisted, “and if I were you I’d have it
patented. I won’t say that anybody can play it—not everybody can play
a cornet, either. You’ve got to cultivate what they call the horn
lip to do that. You’ll find lots that can do it, though. I am one of
them. ‘Home, Sweet Home’ with variations, listen.”
“Why, Bob,” exclaimed Mrs. Hardy, whom the boys found standing near
by quite enraptured with the fine performance of her young guest.
Bob influenced Ben to make him a dozen of the little whistles. When
he left the Hardys the next morning with many happy thanks for their
kindness to him, his words to Ben were:
“I am going to make some money out of that whistle—see if I don’t.”
The prediction had somewhat faded out of Ben’s mind after the
departure of their lively visitor. Bob wrote to him only once,
telling him that he was enjoying life as a chauffeur for a liberal
employer. For over two months, however, no word had come from the
roving boy. As to the whistle, Ben had nearly forgotten about that.
Now the subject came up to his mind in quite a forcible way on the
public streets of Woodville.
Ben was following the impulse to go forward and request the whistler
to let him have a look at the device he used to render such
melliferous sounds, when the man at the piano stepped in front of the
instrument.
He drew open the flaps of a little satchel swung from his shoulder,
revealing a number of tin whistles.
“The Sybilline whistle, gentlemen,” he announced in broken English.
He was apparently of the better class of foreign street musicians.
“This ees not a toy. It ees a musical instrument. We don’t say all
ones can play as does these professore at my sides. But practeese he
make perfects. Only ten cents, gentlemen.”
The man with the whistle gave out a vivid and rapid series of
thrills, tremolos and bird imitations. A number of purchasers handed
up their dimes, Ben among them. Then he retired to one side and
closely inspected the whistle.
“Yes,” he said, his heart beating a trifle faster with pleasure and
pride, “it is the same, it is my invention.”
Ben went up to the whistler, who had now ceased playing and was
strolling to one side while his partner continued his appeals for
purchasers in the crowd.
“Mister,” asked Ben, extending his bought whistle, “where do you get
these.”
“The Sybilline—yes,” politely answered the man addressed. “At the
city, my friend.”
“Where in the city?” pressed Ben.
“At the Central.”
“And what is the Central?”
“It is the headquarters—it is the padrone who hires us.”
“What is his name?”
“It is Vladimir—he has many, many men who work for him. It is
percentages.”
“I understand,” murmured Ben, drawing back. “This doesn’t connect up
Bob Dallow, though. Maybe some one else struck the same whistle idea
I did.”
As Ben reached home he craned his neck, and then hurried his steps
with a low cry of surprise and delight. There was a light in the
dining-room, and seated at the table enjoying a hastily prepared
meal, and waited on by Mrs. Hardy, was the very boy so strongly in
his thoughts at the present moment—Bob Dallow.
“Well, well, well!” cried Ben, rushing unceremoniously into the
room and greeting the smiling Bob, with handshakes and slaps on the
shoulder, “here’s a grand sight for sore eyes.”
“Glad to see me, are you?” chuckled Bob, with his usual tantalizing
imperturbability.
“That’s what.”
“You’ll be gladder soon. Let a famished pilgrim enjoy the rarest
cookery in the country first, will you?”
“Say, you’re looking pretty prosperous, it seems to me, Bob,” said
Ben, scrutinizing his chum closely as he reseated himself at the
table.
“Think so?” smiled Bob.
“Yes. That’s a pretty fine suit you’re wearing.”
“One of my fine ones—oh, yes,” responded Bob, coolly. “Now then,”
taking a last sup of tea, “thank you, Mrs. Hardy—and thank you, Ben.”
“What for?”
“That whistle idea of yours.”
“Eh?” exclaimed Ben with a start, instantly coupling the musical team
downtown with the appearance of his friend.
“You see, I stopped over about the dividends,” explained Bob.
“Dividends?” repeated Ben, wonderingly.
“That’s the business proposition, exactly,” replied Bob, with an
affected grand air. “That whistle of yours—well, the results first.
See that?”
Very grandly Bob drew out a folding pocketbook and placed it open on
the table. Elastic bands held a little heap of new green banknotes on
either flap.
“Four hundred dollars,” announced Bob, with an expansive chuckle and
a grin.
“Where did you get it,” stammered Ben.
“Your whistle.”
“You’re joking, Bob.”
“Not at all. There it is, the benefits of your little invention—four
hundred dollars, half yours.”