J. RUFUS PROVES A SAD, SAD DISAPPOINTMENT TO
SOME CLEVER PEOPLE
They were glad to see Blackie Daw back on Broadway--that is, in the
way that Broadway is glad; for they of the Great White Way have no
sentiments and no emotions, and but scant memories. About Blackie's
companion, however, they were professionally curious.
"Who is this large, pink Wallingford person, and where did you get
it?" asked Mr. Phelps, whose more familiar name was Green-Goods Harry.
Mr. Daw, standing for the moment with Mr. Phelps at the famous old
cheese-and-crackers end of the Fifth Avenue bar, grinned.
"He's an educated Hick," he responded, "and I got him out of the heart
of the hay-fever district, right after he'd turned a classy little
trick on the easy producers of his childhood home. Sold 'em a bankrupt
bucket-shop for eight thousand, which is going _some_!"
Mr. Phelps, natty and jaunty and curly-haired, though shifty of eye,
through long habit of trying to watch front and back doors both at
once, looked with a shade more interest across at the imposing white
vest of young J. Rufus where he stood at the bar with fat and somber
Badger Billy. There was a cocksure touch to the joviality of young
Wallingford which was particularly aggravating to an expert like Mr.
Phelps. Young Wallingford was so big, so impressive, so sure of
pleasing, so certain the world was his oyster, that it seemed a shame
not to give his pride a tumble--for his own sake, of course.
"Has he got the eight thousand on him, do you think?" asked the
green-goods one, his interest rapidly increasing.
"Not so you could notice it," replied Daw with conviction. "He's a
wise prop, I tell you. He's probably lugging about five hundred in his
kick, just for running expenses, and has a time-lock on the rest."
"We might tinker with the lock," concluded Harry, running his fingers
through his hair to settle the curls; "it's worth a try, anyhow."
"You'll bounce right off," declared Mr. Daw. "I tried to put a sweet
one over in his home town, and he jolted the game so quick he made
its teeth rattle."
"Then you owe him one," persisted Mr. Phelps, whom it pained to see
other people have money. "Do you mean to say that any pumpkin husker
can't be trimmed?"
"Enjoy yourself," invited Mr. Daw with a retrospective smile, "but
count me out. I'm going to Boston next week, anyhow. I'm going to open
a mine investment office there. It's a nice easy money mining
district."
"For pocket mining," agreed his friend dryly.
Young Wallingford, in his desire for everybody to be happy, looked
around for them at this juncture, and further conversation was out of
the question. The quartet lounged out of the Fifth Avenue bar and
across Broadway in that dull way peculiar to their kind. At the
Hoffman House bar they were joined by a cadaverous gentleman known to
the police as Short-Card Larry, whose face was as that of a corpse,
but whose lithe, slender fingers were reputed to have brains of their
own, and the five of them sat down for a dull half-hour. Later they
had dull dinner together, strolled dully into four theaters, and,
still dull, wound up in the apartments of Daw and J. Rufus.
"What do you think of them?" asked Blackie in their first aside
moment.
"They give me the pip," announced J. Rufus frankly. "Why do they hate
themselves so? Why do they sit in the darkest corners and bark at
themselves? Can't they ever drink enough to get oiled happy?"
"Not and do business with strangers on Broadway," Daw explained.
"Phelps has been shy about thin glassware for five years, ever since
he let an Indiana come-on outdrink him and steal his own money back;
Billy Banting stops after the third glass of anything, on account of
his fat; the only time Larry Teller ever got pinched was for getting
spifflicated and telling a reporter what police protection cost him."
"If I wasn't waiting to see one of them bite himself and die of poison
I'd cut 'em out," returned Mr. Wallingford in the utmost disgust. "Any
one of them would slung-shot the others for the price of a cigarette.
Don't they ever get interested in anything?"
"Nothing but easy marks," replied Mr. Daw with a grin. "The way
they're treating you is a compliment. They're letting you just be one
of them."
"One of them! Take it back, Blackie!" protested Wallingford. "Why,
they're a bunch of crooks!"
In deep dejection young Wallingford, rejoining his guests, ordered
three lemonades and a quart of champagne. There was a trifle more of
animation among them now, however, since they had been left alone for
a few moments. They told three or four very hilarious stories, in each
of which the nub of the joke hinged on an utter disregard of every
human decency. Then, quite casually and after a lull, Badger Billy
smoothed down his smart vest and cleared his throat.
"What do you fellows say to a little game of stud?" he proposed.
"Sure!" agreed Wallingford with alacrity. "That's the first live noise
I've heard to-day," and he went to the 'phone at once to order up some
cards and chips.
With his back turned, the three lemonade drinkers exchanged pleased
smiles. It was too easy! Mr. Daw let them smile, and reposed
calmly upon the couch, entirely disinterested. Professional ethics
forbade Mr. Daw to interfere with the "trimming" of the jovial Mr.
Wallingford, and the instincts of a gentleman, with which, of course,
they were all perfectly provided, prevented him from taking any part
in that agreeable operation. To his keen amusement the game was very
brief--scarcely more than twenty minutes.
It was Short-Card Larry who, with a yawn, discovered suddenly how late
it was and stopped the game. As he rose to go, young Wallingford,
chuckling, was adding a few additional bills to the plethoric roll in
his pocket.
"What made you chop the game, Larry?" asked Green-Goods Harry in
impatient wonder. "We'd ought to strung it along a while. What made
you let him have that hundred and fifty so quick?"
"Let him!" retorted Larry savagely. "He took it! Twice I gave him aces
back to back on my deal, and he turned them down without a bet. On his
own deal he bet his head off on a pair of deuces, with not one of us
three able to draw out on him; and right there he cops that hundred
and fifty himself. He's too fresh!"
"Well," said Badger Billy philosophically, "he'll come for more."
"Not of mine, he won't," snorted the dexterous one. "I can't do any
business against a man that's next. I hope he chokes."
"There you go again, letting your temper get the best of you,"
protested Mr. Phelps, himself none too pleased. "This fresh lollop has
coin, and it ought to be ours."
"Ought to be? It _is_ ours," growled Larry. "We'll get it if we have
to mace him, at noon, on Madison Square."
In the meantime J. Rufus was chuckling himself to sleep. He rose at
eleven, breakfasted at one, and was dressing and planning to besiege
New York upon his own account, when the telephone advised him that Mr.
Phelps was down-stairs with a parched throat, and on the way up to get
a drink!
"Fine business!" exclaimed J. Rufus with a cordiality which had
nothing whatever to do with the puzzled expression on his brow.
"What'll you have? I'll order it while you're on your way up."
"Nothing stronger than a Scotch highball," was the reply, whereupon
young Wallingford, as soon as the telephone was clear, ordered the
materials therefor.
"Fine business," he repeated to himself musingly as he stood with his
hand still on the receiver after he had hung it up; "also rough work.
This thirst is too sudden."
He was still most thoughtful when Mr. Phelps knocked at the door, and
had yet more food for contemplation when the caller began talking with
great enthusiasm about his thirst, explaining the height and breadth
and thickness thereof, its atomic weight, its color and the excellent
style of its finish.
"If I just had that thirst outside of me where I could get at it, I
could make an airship of it," he imaginatively concluded.
"Gas or hot air?" inquired young Mr. Wallingford, entirely unmoved, as
he poured the highballs and dosed both quite liberally with the
Scotch, whereat Mr. Phelps almost visibly winced, though gamely
planning to drink with every appearance of enjoyment.
"Where's Daw?" he asked, after two sips which he tried to make seem
like gulps.
"Gone out to a print-shop to locate a couple of gold mines," announced
Wallingford dryly, holding his own opinion as to the folly of Mr.
Daw's methods. They were so unsanctioned of law.
"Sorry for that," said Mr. Phelps, who was nevertheless relieved to
hear it, for Mr. Daw was rather in the way. "We've got a great game
on; a Reuben right from Reubensville, with five thousand of pa's
money in his jeans. I wanted you fellows to come and look him over."
"What's the use?" returned Wallingford. "Come down to the lobby and
I'll show you a whole procession of them."
"No, but they're not so liberal as this boy," protested Phelps
laughing. "He just naturally hones and hones and hones to hand us this
nice little bundle of kale, and we're going to accommodate him. You
can get in on the split-up if you want to. Daw would have first
choice, of course, if he was here, but since he isn't you might as
well come in. Five thousand iron men are hardly worth bending to pick
up, I guess."
"Oh, I don't know," objected Wallingford condescendingly. "It would
make cigarette money, anyhow, if there are not too many to tear it
apart."
"It takes just four," Phelps informed him: "look-out, spieler,
panel-man and engraver."
Wallingford shook his head, refusing even to speculate on the duties
of the four named actors in the playlet.
"Four makes it hardly union wages," he objected.
Green-Goods Harry cast at him a look of quick dislike.
"I know, but wait till you see the sample," he insisted. "The fun's
worth more than the meat. He's the rawest you ever saw; wants green
goods, you know; thinks there really is green-goods, and stands ready
to exchange his five thousand of the genuine rhino for twenty of the
phoney stuff. Of course you know how this little joke is rimmed up. We
count out the twenty thousand in real money and wrap it up in bales
before both of his eyes, then put it in a little satchel of which we
make Mr. Alfred Alfalfa a present. While we're giving him the solemn
talk about the po-lice Badger Billy switches in another satchel with
the same kind of looking bales in it, but made out of tissue-paper
with twenties top and bottom; then we all move, and Henry Whiskers
don't dare make a holler because he's in on a crooked play himself;
see?"
"I see," assented Wallingford still dryly. "I've been reading the
papers ever since I was a kid. What puzzles me is how you can find
anybody left in the world who isn't hep."
"There's a new sucker born every minute," returned Mr. Phelps airily,
whereat Wallingford, detecting that Mr. Phelps held his intelligence
and education so cheaply as to offer this sage remark as original,
inwardly fumed.
"Come on and look him over, anyhow," insisted Phelps, rising.
Wallingford arose reluctantly.
"What's the matter with your highball?" he demanded.
"It's great Scotch!" said Mr. Phelps enthusiastically, and drank about
a tablespoonful with great avidity. "Come on; the boys are waiting,"
and he surged toward the door.
Wallingford finished his own glass contemplatively and followed with a
trace of annoyance.