KEEPING TABS ON PIDDIE
Say, I thought I knew Piddie. If anybody'd asked me to pick a party for
the Honest John act from among the crowd we got around the Corrugated
Trust here, I'd made J. Hemmingway Piddie my one best bet. He's been
with the concern ever since Old Hickory Ellins flim-flammed his partners
out of their share of the business and took out a New Jersey chartered
permit that allowed him to practice grand larceny.
If Piddie hadn't been a pinhead, he'd had his name on the board of
directors years ago. But there ain't no use tryin' to make parlor
comp'ny out of kitchen help; so Piddie's just trailed along, bein' as
useful as he knew how, and workin' up from ten a week to one fifty a
month, just as satisfied as if he was gettin' his per cent. of the
profits.
What he does around the shop wouldn't turn anyone gray-headed; but he
makes the most of it. He swells up more over orderin' a few office
supplies than Mr. Robert would about signin' a million-dollar contract,
and the way he keeps watch of the towels and soap and spring water you'd
think our stock was fallin' below par, 'stead of payin' nine per cent,
on common. Gen'rally Piddie don't handle anything but petty cash; but
once in awhile, when no one else is handy, they chuck something big his
way, and he never lets up until everyone knows all about it. You can
tell how chesty he feels, just by his strut.
Well, there'd been a big rush on, and they was usin' Piddie more or less
frequent, so I was gettin' used to his makin' a noise like a balloon,
when one mornin' he come turkeyin' out to the brass gate and says to me:
"Torchy, call up 0079 Broad and get the opening on Blitzen."
"Sure," says I. "And if it touches seven-eighths don't you want to
unload a couple of thousand shares?"
"When I have any further orders," says he, puffin' out his face, "you
will get them!"
"Oh, slush!" says I. "Don't play so rough, Piddie."
I was onto him, all right. I've seen these hot-air plungers before. They
follow up a stock for weeks, and buy and sell in six figures, and reckon
up how they've hit the market for great chunks--but it's all under their
lids. You can't spend pipe dreams, if you win; and if you lose, it
don't shrink the size of your really truly roll. It's almost as
satisfyin' as walkin by the back door of a bakery when you're hungry.
That kind of game is about Piddie's size, too. All it calls for is
plenty of imagination, and he's got that by the bale. I was kind of glad
to see him enjoyin' himself so innocent, and now and then I'd help along
the excitement.
"Heard about how Morgan's tryin' to get hold of Blitzen?" I'd say, and
Piddie would prick up his ears like a fox-terrier sightin' a rat.
"Who told you?" Piddie'd ask.
"Why," I'd say, "I got it straight from a delicatessen man that lives on
the same block with a man that runs a hot dog cart in John-st. Don't
want anything closer'n that, do you!"
Then Piddie'd look kind of foolish, and go off and call down some one
good and hard, just to relieve his feelin's.
First thing I knew, though, Piddie was havin' star-chamber sessions with
a seedy-lookin' piker that wore an actor's overcoat and a brunette
collar that looked like it had been wished onto his neck about last
Thanksgivin'. They'd get together in a corner of the reception room and
whisper away for half an hour on a stretch. If it hadn't been Piddie,
I'd put it down for a hard-luck tale with a swift touch for a curtain;
but no one that ever took a second look at Piddie would ever waste
their time tryin' a touch on him. So I guessed the gent was a bucketshop
tout who was tryin' to interest Piddie in some kind of a deal.
Still, I couldn't get any picture of Piddie takin' a chance with real
money. It wa'n't until I seen him walkin' around stary-eyed one day, and
gettin' nervous by the minute, that I could believe he's really been
rung in. He was goin' through all the motions, though, of a man that's
shoved everything, win or lose, on the red, and it was a circus to keep
tabs on him. He makes a bluff at bein' awful busy with the billbook; but
he couldn't stay at the desk more'n three minutes at a spell. Inside of
an hour I counted four times that he washed his hands and six drinks of
water that he had.
"You'll be damp enough to need wringin' out, if you keep that up," says
I.
"Keep what up?" says he. Honest, he was so rattled he didn't know
whether he was usin' the roller towel or runnin' over the ticker tape.
Half an hour before lunchtime he skips out and leaves word with me that
maybe he'll be back late.
"All right," says I. "If the boss calls for you I'll tell him he'll have
to shut down the shop until you blow in again."
Maybe you've seen symptoms like that in a hired man. It gen'rally means
that there's somethin' doin' in ponies or margins, and that next payday
is goin' to seem a long ways off. If I'd been asked to give a guess, I
should have put it as about two hundred bucks that Piddie had thrown
into the market. Anyway, it wa'n't enough to knock the props out of
call-money quotations; so I was lettin' Piddie do all the worryin'.
He didn't show back at twelve-thirty, nor at twelve-forty-five. Some one
else did, though. She was a nice little lady, one of the smooth-haired,
big-eyed kind, as soft talkin' and as gentle actin' as the heroine in
"No Weddin' Cake for Her'n," just before she gets to the weepy scenes.
You could see by the punky mill'nery and the last season's drygoods that
she'd just drifted in from Mortgagehurst, New Jersey. The little snoozer
she has by the hand was a cute one, though. When he gets a glimpse of my
sunset top piece he sings out:
"O-o-o-o, mama! Burny, burn!"
"Why, Hemmingway!" says she. "I am surprised. Naughty, naughty!"
"Don't worry, lady," says I. "The kid's got it dead right--it's one of
them kind."
Then I wets my finger and shows him how it'll go "S-z-z!" when I touch
it off. That gets a laugh out of little Hemmingway, and in a minute
we're all good friends.
She's Mrs. Piddie, of course, and she's a brick. Say, how is it these
two-by-fours can pull out such good ones so often? Why, if she'd been
got up accordin' to this year's models, and could have thrown the front
she ought to, she'd have been fit for a first-tier box at the grand
op'ra.
"Chee!" thinks I. "Did she pick Piddie in the dark?"
She'd come in to drag him out shoppin' and hypnotize him into loosenin'
up. It was a case of gettin' things for little Hemmingway.
"Me, I go have new s'oes, an' new coat wif pockets too," says he.
Say, they wins me, kids like that do. There's some I ain't got any use
for, the kind brought up in hotels and boardin' houses that learn to
play to the gallery before they can feed themselves, and others I could
name; but clean, grinnin' youngsters, with big eyes that take in
everything, they're good to have around. And, little Hemmy was a star. I
got so int'rested showin' him things in the office that I clean forgot
about Piddie and what he was up to.
"He will be back soon, won't he?" says Mrs. Piddie.
Now if you give me time I can slick up an answer so it'll sound like the
truth and mean something else; but as an offhand liar I'm a frost.
Somehow I always has to swaller somethin' before I can push out a cold
dope. Course, I knew he'd got to be back before long; but I see right
off that this wa'n't any day for a fam'ly reunion. Piddle wa'n't goin'
to be any too sociable by dinner time that night, 'less'n he'd hit up
the bucketshop, which the chances was against. So it was my turn to make
a foxy play.
"He's due here before long, that's a fact," says I, "but there's no
tellin'. You see, there's a big deal on, and Mr. Piddie's gone downtown,
and----"
"Oh!" says Mrs. Piddle, her eyes shinin'. "Then he has some important
business engagement?"
You couldn't help seein' how she had it framed up,--the whole Corrugated
Trust and half of Wall Street holdin' its breath while hubby, J.
Hemmingway Piddie, Esq., worked his giant intellect for the good of the
country.
"That's it," says I. "I couldn't say pos'tive that he'd be as late as
four o'clock; but----"
"Oh! then we'll not wait," says she, "Come, Hemmingway, we must go
home."
"Don't I det my new s'oes?" says Hemmy.
There was a proposition for you! The kid was runnin' true to form and
stickin' to the main line. No side issues for him! Pop might be a big
man, and all that; but his size didn't cut much ice alongside of the
new-shoes prospect. Things was beginnin' to look squally, and Mrs.
Piddie's mouth corners was saggin' some, when I has a thought.
"Hold on," says I. "Maybe he's left a note or something for you."
See what it is to have a little wad stowed away in the southwest corner
of your jeans? I slips through into the main office, gets one of the
typewriter girls to address an envelope to Mrs. Piddie, jams a sawbuck
into it, and comes out smilin'.
"Maybe this'll do as well as Pop himself," says I. "Feels like it had
long green in it," and the last I heard of little Hemmy he was tellin'
the elevator man about the "new s'oes" that was comin' to him.
"It's a fool way to lend out coin," thinks I; "but what's the diff? That
kid's got his hopes set on bein' shod to-day, and Piddie's bound to make
good sometime."
Piddie didn't look it, though, when he drifts in about one-thirty. If
he'd had a load on his mind earlier in the day, he'd got somethin' more
now. Just sittin' at the desk doin' nothin made the dew come out on his
noble brow like it was the middle of August. He was too much of a wreck
to stand any joshin'; so I let him alone, not even tellin' him about the
fam'ly visit.
The first thing I knows he comes over to me, his jaw set firmer'n I
ever see it shut before, and a kind of shifty look in his eyes. He hands
me a letter and a package.
"Torchy," says he, "take these down to that address just as soon as you
can. You've got to go quick. Understand?"
"Fourth speed, advanced spark, that's me!" says I, grabbin' my hat and
coat. "Free track for the Piddie special! Honk, honk!" and I jams him up
against the letterpress as I makes a rush for the door.
When I gets into the subway I sizes up the stuff I'm carryin'. Well say,
it ain't often I gets real curious; but this was one of them times. I
started in by rollin' a pencil under the envelope flap while the gum was
moist. Not that I'd made up my mind to rubber; but just so's I could if
I took the notion. And, sure enough, I got the notion, or it got me.
Chee! I near slid off the rattan seat when I reads that note. Guess I
must have sat there, starin' bug-eyed and lookin' batty, from 14th to
Wall. Do you know what that mush-head of a Piddie was at? He was givin'
an order to bolster up Blitzen by buyin' up to a hundred thousand
shares, and in the package was a bunch of gilt-edged securities to cover
the margins.
Now wouldn't that jiggle the grapes on sister's new lid? Piddie, a
narrow-gauge, dime-pinchin' ink-slinger, doin' the bull act like he was
a sooty plute from Pittsburg! That's what comes of swallowin' the
get-rich-fast bug.
Well, when I gets out at the Street I didn't have any programme planned.
First I strolls down to the number on the letter and takes a look at the
buildin'. That was enough. There was some good names on the hall
directory; but most of 'em was little, two-room, fly-by-night firms,
with a party 'phone for a private wire and a mail-order list bought
off'm patent medicine concerns. The people Piddie was doin' business
with was that kind.
Next I takes a walk around into Broad-st., where the mounted cops keep
the big-wind bunch roped in so's they can't break loose and pinch the
doorknobs off the Subtreasury. The ear-muff brigade was lettin'
themselves out in fine style, tradin' in Ground Hog bonds, Hoboken gas,
Moonshine preferred, and a whole lot of other ten-cent shares, as
earnest as if they was under cover and biddin' on Standard Oil firsts.
While I was lookin' 'em over, wonderin' what to do next, I spots Abey
Winowski on the fringe of the push. And say, it wa'n't so long ago that
Abey was wearin' sky-blue pants and a Postal shield, trottin' out with
messages from District Ten. But here he is, with a checked ulster and a
five-dollar hat, writin' figures on a pad.
"Hello, Motzie!" says I. "How long since they lets the likes of you
inside the ropes?"
"Hello, Torchy!" says he. "Got any orders?"
"I'm lined with 'em," says I. "What's good?"
"Blitzen," says he. "It's on the seesaw; but'll fetch fifty."
"Ain't it a wildcat?" says I.
"Just from the menagerie," says he. "Goin' to take a dollar flyer?"
"Guess I'll see what my brokers has to say first," says I.
With that I goes around to a little joint I knows of, where they has a
board for unlisted stocks, and I sets back and watches the curves
Blitzen was makin'. First she'd jump four or five points, and then she'd
settle back heavy. The Curb was playin' tag with it; that was all, so
far as I could see. Nice lot of Hungry Jakes to feed with
int'rest-bearin' securities!
About fifteen minutes before the market closed I quit and moseyed along
uptown, just killin' time and tryin' to figure out what ought to be
done. Course, I didn't have any idea of playin' private detective and
showin' Piddie up to Mr. Robert,--that's out of my line,--but I didn't
like the scheme of just chuckin' the bonds back at him and let him get
away with any bluff about my interferin' with something I didn't
understand at all. Besides, if the returns showed that he'd have won on
the deal, what was to hinder his tryin' the same trick again next time
he got the chance? That wouldn't been a fair shake for the firm.
Say, I worked my thinker overtime that trip; but I couldn't dig up a
thing that was worth savin' from the scrap basket, and when I strolled
into the office just about closin' time I wa'n't any nearer to knowin'
what to do than when I started.
Most everyone had left when I pushes through the gate and takes a peek
into Piddie's office. He was there. And, say, for a speakin' likeness of
a dropped egg that's hit the floor instead of the toast, he was it! He's
slumped all over the desk, with his head in his hands, and his hair all
mussed up, and his shoulders lopped. I always suspicioned he was built
out with pneumatic pads, and blew himself up in the mornin' before he
buttoned on the four-inch collar that kept his chin up; but I did'nt
guess he had a rubber backbone. It was a case of fush with Piddie. He
was all in. What I could see of his face had about as much color to it
as a sheet of blottin' paper.
Layin' on the floor was a map of the whole disaster. It was a Wall
Street extra, with a scarehead story of how Blitzen had kept 'em
guessin' all day and then, in the last quarter of an hour of tradin',
had gone bumpin' the bumps from twenty-eight down to almost nothin' at
all. I didn't stop to read the whole thing; but I read enough to find
out that Blitzen had gone soarin' on a false alarm, and that when the
facts was give out right the balloon had took fire. And there was
Piddie, still fallin'!
"Hello," says I. "You look like a boned ham that's in need of the acid
bath and sawdust stuffin'. What's queered you so sudden?"
He jumps and tries to pull himself together when he first hears me; but
after he finds who it is he goes to pieces again and flops back in the
chair groanin'.
"Is it new mown hay of the lungs, or too many griddle cakes on the
stomach?" says I.
But he only gasps and groans some more. Maybe I should of felt sorry for
him; but, knowin' the sort of sprung kneed near crook he was, I didn't.
He was scared mostly, and he was doin' all the sympathizin' for himself
that was needed. All of a sudden he braces up and looks at his watch.
"Perhaps you didn't get there in time?" says he.
"With the letter and package?" says I. "Watcher take me for? Think I got
mucilage on my shoes? I was there on time, all right."
"Oh, mercy!" says he. "Torchy, I'm a ruined man."
"You look it," says I; "but cheer up. You never was much account anyway;
so there's no great harm done."
Then he begins to blubber, and leak brine, and take on like a woman with
a sick headache. "It wasn't my fault," says he. "I was led into it.
Torchy, tell them I was led into it! You'll believe that, won't you?"
"Cert," says I. "I'll make affidavit I seen 'em snap the ring in your
nose. But what's it all about?"
"Oh, it's something awful that's happened to me," he wails. "It's too
terrible to talk about. You'll know to-morrow. I sha'n't be alive then,
Torchy."
"Ain't swallowed a buttonhook, have you?" says I.
Next he begins throwin' a fit about what's goin' to become of the missus
and the kid. Say, I've been in at two or three acts like this before,
and I gen'rally notice that at about such a stage they play that card,
the wife and kid. Your real tough citizen don't, nor your real
gent,--they shuts their mouths and takes what's comin' to 'em,--but Mr.
Weakback has a sudden rush of mem'ry about the folks at home, and
squeals like a pup with his tail shut in the door.
"Ah, say," says I, "cut it out! You ought to move up to Harlem and learn
to pound the pipes. You're a healthy plunger, you are, sneakin' bonds
out of the safe to stack up against a crooked game, and then playin' the
baby act when you lose out! Come now, ain't that the awful thing that's
happened to you?"
He couldn't have opened up freer if he'd been put through the third
degree. I gets the story of his life then, with a handkerchief
accomp'niment,--all about the house he's tryin' to buy through the
buildin' loan, and the second-hand bubble he wants to splurge on 'cause
the neighbors have got 'em, and how he was tipped off to this sure thing
in Blitzen by a party that had always been a friend of his but couldn't
get hold of the stuff to turn the trick himself. He put in all the fine
points, even to the way he came to have a chance at the safe.
"If I could only put them back!" says he, sighin'.
"What then?" says I. "Next time I s'pose you'd swipe the whole series,
wouldn't you?"
If you could have heard him tell how good he'd be you'd think practicin'
a little crooked work now and then was the only sure way to learn how to
keep straight.
"Piddie," says I, "I don't want to hurt your feelin's, but you act to me
like a weak sister. If I was to do what the case calls for, this thing
ought to go to the boss."
"Please don't, Torchy! Please don't!" says he, scrabblin' down on his
hands and knees.
"Nix on that!" says I. "This is no carpet-layin' bee. I'm no squealer,
anyway; besides, I had a little interview with Mrs. Piddie and the kid
this noon, and after seein' them I can't rub it in like you deserve.
What I've seen and heard I'm goin' to forget. Now sit up straight while
I break the news to you gentle. I went down there to-day, just as you
told me."
"Yes, I know," he groans, squirmin'.
"But I didn't like the looks of the joint; so I didn't dump the bonds.
There they are. Now see they get back where you found 'em!"
Talk about your hallelujah praise meetin's! Piddie was havin' one, all
by himself--when the inside door opens and Mr. Roberts steps out of his
office.
"I'll take care of those bonds, Mr. Piddie," says he.
Chee! what a stunner! Mr. Robert had been in there all the time, writin'
private letters, and had took in the whole business.
Did he give Piddie the fire on the spot? Nah! Mr. Robert carries around
a frigid portico; but he's got a warm spot inside. He says he's mighty
sorry to hear how near Piddie'd come to goin' wrong; but he's glad it
turned out the way it did, and if Piddie'll say how much they rung him
in for on Blitzen he'll be happy to make good right there.
And how much do you guess? A pair of double X's! He'd worried himself
near sick, worked himself up desp'rate, and had finished by doin'
something that stood to get him put away for ten or fifteen years--all
for forty bucks!
"Piddie," says I, "for a tinhorn, you're a wonder! But, say, when you
get home to-night tell that kid of yours I want to see them new shoes of
his before he gets the toes all stubbed out."