A BOMB FOR MR. GROGAN
The telephone in the outer office of the Lake City Telephone Company rang
insistently. Miss Masters, the stenographer, after the fashion of
stenographers, let it ring. At length the telephone gave vent to a long,
shrill, despairing appeal and was silent. Then, and then only, did Miss
Masters lay aside the bundle of letters she was sorting and pick up the
receiver.
"Yes?" she said. "Well, what is it?"
Apparently a voice responded.
"Speak a little louder, please," the girl said impersonally. "I can't
hear a single word you're saying."
More words from the outside poured through the receiver.
"Yes." Miss Masters nodded mechanically. "Yes, this is the main office of
the Lake City Electrical Company. What?"
There was another pause.
"This is Miss Masters at the 'phone,--yes--yes--I'm the stenographer.
What's that? Private secretary? Yes, I am Mr. John Boland's private
secretary. No, our president, Mr. Harry Boland, has not come downtown
yet. We are expecting him at any moment."
A red-headed office boy stuck an inquisitive head through the door.
"Who's that," he demanded, "someone for the boss?"
Miss Masters merely motioned him to silence.
"Yes," she went on, "his father, Mr. John Boland, will be in some time
during the morning. Who shall I say called?"
The girl waited for the answer and hung up the receiver.
"Who is it, Miss Masters?" inquired the boy.
"Well, Dickey, I don't think it's any of your business," retorted Miss
Masters good-naturedly. "But, for fear you'll burst with curiosity, I'll
say that it's Mr. Martin Druce."
"Happy as a crab this morning, ain't you?" jeered the boy. "Well, you
want to look out for that geezer, Druce. He's a devil with the girls."
Miss Masters made a face at him and the boy, whistling derisively,
disappeared through the door, not failing to slam it loudly after him.
Miss Masters resumed her letter sorting. The door opened slowly. A man
entered with his hat over his eyes. His hands were deep in his pockets
and he chewed a despondent looking cigar. Had the reader been present he
would have recognized him instantly, despite his unaccustomed air of
lugubriousness, as our old friend, Mr. Michael Grogan.
"Good morning, Mr. Grogan," said Miss Masters cordially.
Grogan made no reply. The girl went on with her work. Then as if
communing with herself she said: "And yet they say the Irish are always
polite."
"Eh?" said Grogan, rousing himself, "what's that?"
Miss Masters vouchsafed no reply. She merely laughed. Grogan, conscious
that he was being chaffed, stared at her. He was pleased with what he
saw. He found Miss Masters handsome. Her office dress, slit at the bottom
and displaying at this moment a neat ankle, was ruched about the neck and
sleeves. It was a rather elaborate dress for a stenographer, but John
Boland was a vain man and liked to have the employes he kept close about
him maintain the appearance of prosperity. In fact, he paid these
particular employes well with the explicit understanding that they would
keep their appearance up to his standard.
"You're making light of me gray hairs, I see," said Mr. Grogan, smiling.
"Well," said the girl, "I said good morning to you and you didn't even
grunt in reply."
"The top of the morning to you, Miss Masters," said Grogan, hastening to
remedy his oversight and removing his hat with an ornate bow.
"Sure, and I'm wishing you the same and many of them," replied the girl.
Mr. Grogan bowed again and added:
"And, if I have failed in the politeness due a lady, I begs yer pardon."
"You're forgiven, Mr. Grogan," replied Miss Masters, resuming her work.
Grogan returned to his meditations. He was regarding his mutilated cigar
ruefully when Miss Masters observed:
"If all of the millionaires were as thorough gentlemen as you are, Mr.
Grogan, we wouldn't have any labor unions."
The word millionaire seemed to sting Grogan.
"I'll thank you," he said abruptly, "to leave me out of the millionaire
class."
"Why, Mr. Grogan," said the girl, surprised, "I thought you'd like that!"
"So would I--wanst," retorted Grogan, "but now when any one says 'you
millionaire,' faith, I get ready to dodge a brick."
"I should think it would be pleasant to know you had a million dollars."
There was a note of envy in the girl's voice.
Grogan rose slowly, walked to the desk and leaned across it confidentially.
"So it always was," he said sententiously, "but now they're beginning to
ask, 'Where did you get it?'"
"Oh," said the girl.
"It's not 'Oh,' I'm saying," said Grogan, "it's 'Ouch!'"
"Something's disturbing you, eh?"
"Something--and somebody. 'Tis a girl."
"Oh, Mr. Grogan!"
"Whist!" retorted Mr. Grogan, "You don't get me meaning. It's not the
kind you buy ice cream sodies for. No! This lady has a club in her fist
and a punch in both elbows."
"For you?"
"I suspicion so, and I'm oneasy in me mind."
"It's silly to worry, Mr. Grogan," said Miss Masters, "sit down and look
over the papers." She extended a morning newspaper, smiling.
"I may as well." Grogan took up the paper and selected a chair.
"Stirring times in Chicago, just now," said the young woman.
"They're stirring, all right," Grogan agreed. "They're too stirring. What I
want is peace. I'd like to pass the rest of my days in quiet--quiet--and--"
The sentence expired on his lips as he stared at the front page of the
paper held open in his hands.
"What's the matter, Mr. Grogan," said Miss Masters starting up, alarmed.
Grogan wiped his forehead and moistened his lips.
"Nothing," he said, "it's hot and I'm--I'm--"
He threw the newspaper on the floor.
"Here," he said, "give me another newspaper."
The girl picked up another paper from the heap on the corner of the desk
and passed it across to him. Grogan looked at the headlines.
"Help--murder," he cried. Then he cast the paper on the floor and got to
his feet abruptly.
"Mr. Grogan," asked the girl, "what is the matter?"
"I asked for quiet," Grogan replied, picking up the papers and shaking
them angrily, "and on the front page of this paper is a letter written
and signed by Mary Randall."
"And why should Mary Randall disturb you?"
"Do you know she writes to me?"
"Writes to you?"
"She does."
"What does she say?"
"Everything--and then some," was the grim response. "Don't laugh!" he
ordered. "Here's one of the last of them." Grogan took a dark blue
envelope from his pocket, extracted a single sheet of the same color and
read.
"Michael Grogan:--Do you remember what your old Irish mother said to you
when you left Old Erin to seek your fortune in the new world? She said:
'Mike, me boy, don't soil your hands with dirty money.' Mary Randall."
"Don't soil your hands with dirty money," repeated Miss Masters.
"That's a nice billy dux to find beside your plate at breakfast, ain't it
now?" demanded Grogan. Then after a pause he murmured half to himself,
"Me old Irish mother, God bless her, with her white hair and her sweet
Connemara face! I can see her now, just as she stood there that day in
the door of our cabin when I went off up the road, a slip of a boy, with
a big bag of oatmeal over me shoulder--one shirt and me Irish fighting
spirit. That was me capital in life, that and her blessing. She's
sleeping there now, and the shamrock is growing over her--"
Grogan stopped. His voice had grown husky.
"Say," he demanded turning on Miss Masters abruptly, "why don't you make
me stop? Don't you see I'm breaking me heart?"
The girl had really been moved. "I can't," she said, "because--" She got
out her powder puff and proceeded hastily to decorate her nose. She was
still engaged in this operation when the telephone rang. Grogan started.
"What's that?" he demanded.
"Why, it's only the telephone. What is the matter with you, Mr. Grogan?"
"I dunno," responded Grogan despondently, "I'm as nervous as a girl in a
peek-a-boo waist."
The telephone rang again.
"Why don't you answer that?" demanded Grogan sharply.
"I will," replied the girl, "but there's no great rush, is there?"
"Yes there is," insisted Grogan, "I can't bear the suspense."
The young woman laughed and picked up the receiver.
"Lake City Electrical Company," she said. "What? Who is it, please."
Grogan, who had continued pacing up and down the office, stopped and made
wild gestures to Miss Masters. Covering the mouthpiece of the instrument
so she would not be heard, the girl asked.
"What is it, Mr. Grogan?"
"Whist!" replied Grogan, "If that is Mary Randall on the wire there, I've
gone to Alaska. I've given all me money away and I'm living on snow
balls."
Miss Masters smiled and replied with assurance: "This isn't Mary
Randall."
"Thank God for that," breathed Grogan.
"Hello," went on Miss Masters into the telephone. "Oh, you're long
distance? Well?"
There was a pause.
"I'm sorry, but Mr. Harry Boland hasn't come downtown yet."
"He may be in any moment--shall I--"
She broke off sharply as Harry himself came in the door drawing off his
gloves.
"Wait! Just a moment please," she went on. "He has just come in."
"Someone for me, Miss Masters?" the young man inquired, hanging up his
hat on a rack by the door. Without waiting for a reply he turned to
Grogan. "Good morning, Mike."
"'Tis a fine day--I hope," returned Grogan cautiously.
"Yes, someone calling you, Mr. Boland," broke in Miss Masters.
"Don't want to talk to anyone," said the young man curtly.
"Hello, hello," continued Miss Masters at the telephone. "Hello, long
distance? Mr. Boland is too busy--"
"Wait, please," interrupted Harry quickly, "did you say 'long distance?'"
Miss Masters nodded. "Just a moment," she said into the telephone.
"Yes, Mr. Boland," she said. "It's a long distance. Some one wants to
talk to you in--Millville, Illinois."