WHEREIN A GOOD STOMACH FOR STRONG DRINK IS WORTH THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS
Wine was the _piece de resistance_ of that dinner. There were other
things, certainly, course after course, one of those leisurely,
carefully blended affairs for which Wallingford was famous among his
friends, a dinner that extended to nearly three hours, perfect in its
ordering and appointments; but champagne was, after all, its main
ingredient. It was on the table before the first course was served, and
half emptied bottles and glasses of it were there when they came to the
coffee and the cordials and the fat black cigars. In all, they had
consumed an enormous quantity, but Wallingford was as steady as when he
began, while Maylie was flushed and so buoyant that everything was a
hilarious joke. Wallingford, on their first encounter, had detected this
appetite in the young man, and had saved it for just such a possibility
as this. It was half past nine before they arose from the table, and by
that time Maylie was ripe for any suggestion. Wallingford's proposal
that they pile into a carriage and take a ride met with instant and
enthusiastic acquiescence. There were clubs to which Wallingford had
already secured the _entree_ by his personality and his free handling of
money, and now he put them to full and extravagant use.
Dawn was breaking when the roisterers finally rolled back to
Wallingford's apartments. Wallingford was holding himself right by a
grim effort, but Maylie had passed to a pitiable condition of
imbecility. His hair was stringing down over his forehead, and his face
was of a ghastly pallor. In the parlor, however, he drew himself
together for a moment and thought that he was capable of great
shrewdness.
"Look yere, ole man," he stammered, trying to focus his gaze upon his
watch; "this's mornin' now, an' i'ss all off. Tha's sale's at ten
o'clock an' we godda be there."
"We'll be there all right," said Wallingford. "What we need's a little
nap. There are two bedrooms here. We'll leave a call for nine o'clock.
Three hours of sleep will do us more good than anything else."
"Aw ri'," agreed Maylie, and winked laboriously to himself as an
absurdly foolish idea came to him that he would let Wallingford get to
sleep first, and would then change the call to his own room. He would
answer that call, take a hasty plunge, dress and walk out, leaving
Wallingford to sleep on for a week! Wallingford, in the dining room,
sought for the thing he had ordered left there: one more bottle, packed
tightly in its ice, and this he now opened. Into Maylie's glass he
poured two or three drops of a colorless liquid from a little vial he
carried, filled it with wine and set it before him. Maylie pushed it
away.
"Do' wan' any more wine," he protested.
"Sure you do. A nightcap with your dear old pal?" Wallingford persisted,
and clinked glasses with him.
Maylie obeyed that clink as he would not have responded to any verbal
urging. He reached for the glass of champagne and drank half of it, then
collapsed in his chair. Wallingford sat opposite to him and watched him
as intently as a cat watches a mouse hole, sipping at his own wine
quietly from time to time. His capacity was a byword among his friends.
Maylie's hand slipped from his chair and hung straight down, the other
one curling awkwardly upon his lap. His head drooped and he began to
snore. He was good for an all-day sleep. Only a doctor could arouse him
from it.
Wallingford still waited. By and by he lifted up the hanging hand and
dropped it roughly. Maylie made not the slightest motion. Wallingford
stood above him and looked down in smiling contempt; and the ghastly
blending of the artificial light with the morning, where it struggled
bluely in around the edges of the blinds, touched the smile into a
snarl. Suddenly he stooped to the limp figure in the chair and picked it
up bodily in his arms, and, staggering slightly under the burden,
carried the insensate lump to the far sleeping apartment and laid it
upon the bed. He loosened the man's collar and took off his shoes, then,
as calmly and unconcernedly as he might read a newspaper, he went
through Mr. Maylie's clothing.
Nothing worth mentioning in the outside coat pockets; nothing in the
inside coat pockets; in the inside vest pocket a few yellow papers! He
did not even stop at the window of this dim room to make sure of what he
held. He was sure without looking. Into the parlor and to an easy chair
he took them and opened them with grim satisfaction. They were
telegrams, all from the United Sales Recording Machine Company of New
Jersey, and they told an absorbingly interesting story. There were four,
and in the order of their receipt they read thus:
Were already informed our Mr. Bowman will report to you in time for
sale
Since you think Bowman's presence might hurt negotiations he will
not come look to you to bid us in at lowest possible figure
Up to one hundred and fifty thousand if bidding goes above that
wire for further instructions
Yes keep all under fifty thousand for your fee
Business! All pure business! The United Sales Recording Machine Company
of New Jersey was being held up, and it was good business for them to
see that they were mulcted of as little as possible. Wallingford rather
admired them for it. Since the property was at open sale they had as
much right to buy it as he had. He read these telegrams over and over in
profound content. He had foreseen them. Moreover, he had read not only
Maylie's intention, but his plan and every detail of it, and for him he
felt no admiration whatever. Maylie was too clumsy.
There was a small serving table in the dining room, and Wallingford
carried that in to the sleeper's bedside. Upon this he spread the four
telegrams in neat order, and weighted them down with _empty glasses_ for
Mr. Maylie's absorbed study if he should happen to awaken. Next he drew
his favorite chair into that room, and placed it at the opposite end of
the serving table. He put upon this the champagne bottle and his own
glass, and lighting a big and extremely black cigar he sat down to watch
his erstwhile comrade, for he was taking no chances. Whenever he felt
himself nodding or letting that cigar lax in his fingers he took a tiny
sip of the champagne. Sometimes he went in and held his head under the
cold water faucet.
At the end of the first hour sleep threatened to overcome him, in spite
of all that he could do, and going into the bathroom he undressed and
took a cold shower. That refreshed him exceedingly, and the feel of
cool, fresh linen upon him brightened him still more, for in his
personal habits he was clean as a cat. It crossed his mind once or twice
to send down and get newspapers, but he knew that the least strain upon
his eyes would send him to sleep quicker than anything else. The second
hour passed; the third, then the fourth one dragged wearily by. At the
beginning of the fifth he began to stumble as he walked from room to
room to keep awake, but never for more than five minutes at a time did
he let that sleeping man out of his sight.
It seemed an eternity until the telephone bell rang in the parlor with
startling insistence. With a glance of triumph toward the bed, he
hurried in to obey the welcome call.
"Yes, this is Wallingford," he answered huskily. "How about it?...
Good. How much?... What? All right, come straight up."
He stood scratching his head and trying to think for a few minutes,
endeavoring to recall a certain number that he had in mind. Then he
turned to the telephone book and fumbled through its leaves, backward
and forward. His thumbs and fingers were like clubs. They had no feeling
whatever. It took him whole minutes to separate two leaves from each
other, swaying upon his feet and muttering to himself, but finally he
found the name he wanted and put in the call. Slowly and with
tremendous effort he delivered his message, then slapped the receiver
on the hook and staggered back to his chair. His fight against sleep for
the next ten relaxed minutes was like a drowning man's fight for life,
but he conquered, and when, a few moments later, there came a knock at
his door, he was able to open it briskly.
"Hee-avings hee-elp us!" exclaimed Blackie Daw when he came in. "What a
bat you've been on! Have you looked at yourself, J. Rufus?" and kicking
the door shut he walked his friend up in front of the mantel mirror.
Wallingford focused his attention upon his own puffed face, on the
swelled and reddened eyelids, on the bloodshot eyes, and laughed
hoarsely.
"It's worth it," he declared. "I win over one hundred and fifty thousand
clean, cold simoleans. But how did you come to have to pay eight
thousand for the patents?"
"Klug," replied Blackie. "I thought for a minute he'd top my pile. He'd
raised a little money some place, but he spent four thousand of it
bidding in some machinery. It never flashed on him that the patents
would have to be sold, too, and he nearly took a fit when he found it
out. Game, though. He bid 'em up to his last cent. We had been going in
five-hundred-dollar raises until it got up to six thousand. That was Mr.
Klug's last bid, for I piled two thousand square on top of it and tried
to look like I could go two thousand at a jump for the next two hours,
and then Klug laid down."
"Eight thousand and four thousand. That's twelve thousand, and the
bank's note is ten," figured Wallingford with painful slowness. "The
costs will run about two hundred, and that lets the company have
eighteen hundred dollars to divide among the partners. Why, say,
Blackie, I get one twelfth of that! There's about a hundred and fifty
dollars coming to me. Suppose we go over and get it."
He laughed, but even as he did so he swayed and caught at a chair, and
his eyelids dropped.
"I've got to keep up now until we get into a Pullman," he mumbled with
halting effort. "Sleep? I'll sleep all the way to New Jersey. Did you
arrange to pay for the patents?"
"Did I?" triumphed Mr. Daw. "Trust your uncle for that. Say, J. Rufus,
what'll you give me to transfer them over to you?"
Wallingford turned to his friend a countenance that was almost ferocious
in its sudden alertness.
"I'll give you twenty minutes to do it in," he said with a growl.
"There's a lawyer on the way here now, and I can have a policeman here
in two minutes. You know you jumped bail in this town, don't you?"
Mr. Daw was shocked.
"There's no need for you to be so ugly about it, J. Rufus," he
protested. "I wouldn't take a cent away from you."
"Wouldn't you!" sneered J. Rufus. "Do you know why? I'd never give you a
chance. Let me show you the last man that tried to do me up," and he led
the way into the apartment where Mr. Maylie still lay in profound
slumber.
Mr. Daw grinned.
"He makes you look perfectly sober," he confessed; "but what are those
papers on the table?"
Mr. Wallingford laughed quite naturally this time.
"Poor boob!" he said. "He just lost forty thousand, and those telegrams
are his fee."