IN AND OUT
BY EDGAR FRANKLIN
Frontispiece by PAUL STAHR
New York
W. J. Watt & Company
PUBLISHERS
Copyright, 1917, by
W. J. WATT & COMPANY
PRESS OF
BRAUNWORTH & CO.
BOOK MANUFACTURERS
BROOKLYN, N. Y.
[Illustration: The girl weighed, perhaps, one hundred and twenty pounds,
and handling that amount of weight was a mere joke to Wilkins]
CONTENTS
I. THE GREAT UNRECOGNIZED
II. THEORY'S VICTIM
III. OPPORTUNITY
IV. THE RELUCTANT ONE
V. THE WEE SMA' HOURS
VI. JOHNSON BOLLER PROPOSES
VII. THE BUTTERFLY
VIII. SCORNED
IX. CRIME?
X. THE WEB
XI. THE OTHER LADY
XII. THE CRASH
XIII. IN THE BOX
XIV. CONCERNING THREE GROUPS
XV. THICK AND FAST
XVI. THE LIE
IN AND OUT
CHAPTER I
The Great Unrecognized
Up in the ring, the long-nosed person who had been announced as Kid
Horrigan was having things much his own way with the smaller person
billed as the Bronx Tornado.
It was the wont of Kid Horrigan to step forward lightly, to rap the
Tornado smartly on the bridge of the nose, and thereafter to step back
as lightly and wait until the few wild blows had fanned the air and the
Tornado had returned to his meaningless and somewhat bewildered crouch.
Thereupon, in almost preoccupied fashion, the Kid stepped forward once
more--and when he had done it again and again the performance began to
grow monotonous and, down in Box B at the ringside, Johnson Boller
yawned aloud.
The yawn finished, he leaned over wearily and addressed Anthony Fry.
"If that little wheeze had the pep of a dead mosquito," said Johnson
Boller disgustedly, "he'd take that big stiff when his hands are up like
that and slip him an uppercut that would freeze him solid!"
Anthony Fry's intellectual features relaxed in a faint smile.
"He's had several chances, hasn't he?" he mused.
"Several? He's had fifty! He gets three a minute and--well, look at
that!"
"Yes, he missed another opportunity then, didn't he?" said Anthony.
"Curious!"
Johnson Boller's cigar rolled to the other side of his mouth and he
hunched down farther in his chair.
"And nine more rounds of it to go!" he sighed.
Anthony Fry merely smiled more pensively and nodded, removing his
nose-glasses and tapping his teeth reflectively--and, among other
things, causing the red-faced, partially alcoholized trio behind them in
Box B to wonder what he was doing at a prize fight anyway.
As externals go, there was some ground for the wonder. Anthony Fry at
forty-five was very tall, very lean in his aristocratic way, and very,
very dignified, from the crown of his high-held head to the tips of his
toes. In dress he was utterly beyond criticism; in feature he was thin,
austere, and impressive. At first glance one might have fancied him a
world-famous surgeon or the inscrutable head of the Steel Trust, but the
fact of the matter was that Anthony, these fifteen years gone, had
inherited Fry's Imperial Liniment, with all that that implied.
It implied a good deal in the way of income, yet even among his friends
Anthony did not care to have the liniment phase of his quietly elegant
existence dwelt upon too insistently. Not that he regarded the
business--run by a perfect manager and rarely visited--as a secret shame
exactly, but unquestionably Anthony would have preferred that his late
father and his two dead uncles, when starting their original pursuit of
wealth, had corraled the world's diamond supply or purchased Manhattan
Island at a bargain.
Just now, perhaps, Anthony's more striking features were emphasized by
the nearness of Johnson Boller, one of his few really intimate friends.
Johnson Boller's age was just about the same, but there the similarity
between them stopped short.
Johnson Boller was plump, one might almost say coarse. Where Anthony
walked with slow dignity, Johnson swaggered. Where Anthony spoke in a
measured undertone and smiled frigidly, Johnson thumped out the words
and laughed with a bark. About most things except food he was inclined
to be gloomy and pessimistic, and this evening the gloom within was even
thicker than usual, because Johnson Boller's wife had left him.
She was a new wife and his first--a beautiful and spirited wife, all of
fifteen years younger than Johnson Boller. She was in love with him and
he with her, tremendously--and now she was gone. After only six months
of unalloyed happiness in the five-thousand-dollar apartment on
Riverside Drive, Mrs. Johnson Boller had left for her annual visit of
one month to the sister whose accursed husband owned great chunks of
Montreal, Quebec, and insisted on living on one of them.
One vast hour Johnson Boller had roamed the vacuum that had been their
ideal home; then he had packed his grip and gone to stay with Anthony
Fry, in that utter ultimate of everything impeccable and expensive in
the way of bachelor apartments, the Hotel Lasande--and even the sight of
the fight tickets, when Anthony's invaluable Wilkins had returned with
them, had failed to bring more than a flitting smile to Johnson Boller.
Now they were watching the second preliminary bout, and could he but
have traded one thousand of these bouts for a single hour with his
beloved Beatrice, Johnson Boller would have gladly.
"In the main," said Anthony Fry, "that absurd little chap up there
typifies my whole conception of opportunity."
"Huh?" Johnson Boller said.
"The chance for that fatal uppercut is there--it was there a minute ago
and it will be there a minute hence, and probably two minutes hence. Our
Tornado hasn't seen it yet; he may go to the end of the ten rounds and
never see it, and yet, unless this Horrigan chap changes his tactics, it
will be repeated again and again. Would he see it if the bout ran twenty
rounds?"
"How the dickens should I know?" Johnson Boller muttered.
"I'd be quite willing to wager," Anthony smiled thoughtfully, "that he
_would_ see it!"
Johnson Boller surveyed his friend narrowly. It was obvious that
Anthony's attention had strayed from the alleged battle--and small
wonder! It was equally obvious that Anthony's mind was wandering off
into the abstract; and not infrequently these little journeys--provided
they went not too far--were quite entertaining.
Johnson Boller, therefore, with an impulse he was to regret bitterly in
the very near future, gave a prod to discussion by smiling in his own
unhappy way and saying:
"What's the idea, Anthony? You're wrong, but--what is it?"
"My idea," said the proprietor of Fry's Imperial Liniment slowly, "is
merely this, Johnson: that the whole proposition of the man who is a
dire failure, the man who is a tremendous success, is vastly
exaggerated."
"Meaning?"
"That failure does not of necessity imply incapacity or ineptitude--or
success any tremendous capability, in many cases, for that matter. Taken
by and large, we are all made of much the same stuff, you know. The
trouble lies in the failure of the plain, average, reasonably stupid
citizen to recognize opportunity's one solitary knock!" Anthony smiled,
growing himself more interested by the second. "Now, if opportunity were
but decent enough to knock twice, at least double the number of striving
humans would recognize her nearness and grasp her. If she could bring
herself to knock three times, say, our successes would be tripled.
If----"
"And if she knocked a thousand times in succession, everybody'd be a
millionaire," Johnson Boller suggested.
"Something like that," smiled Anthony. "The chap who does know
opportunity, recognizes her mainly by accident, I honestly believe. Now,
if we could but take each man and place opportunity before him and hold
her there until he fully understood that she was present, the word
failure would be omitted from the dictionaries a generation hence."
Anthony Fry winked rapidly, which in itself was rather a bad sign
because it indicated that the theorizing portion of his cultured brain
was growing quite rapt. At another time, very likely, Johnson Boller
would have heeded the warning and turned Anthony's attention gently back
to the fight; but to-night Boller sought refuge from the haunting
loneliness that Beatrice had left behind.
"I don't agree with you!" he said flatly.
"Eh?"
"Nix!" said Johnson Boller. "Any guy who can come face to face with a
regular honest-to-goodness opportunity, Anthony, and not know her inside
of one second, could have her tied to his right leg for two hundred
years and never know she was there."
"You really believe that?"
"Oh, I know it!" said Johnson Boller. "I have several millions of years
of human experience to prove that I'm right."
Anthony leaned closer, causing the largest of the red-faced trio behind
to growl senselessly as he was forced to shift for a view of the ring.
"Let us assume, Johnson, the individual A," said Anthony. "A wished to
become a lawyer; he had his chance and missed it. We will assume him to
be peculiarly stupid; we will say that he had opportunity for the second
time--and again failed to grasp her. Can you think that, deliberately
led up to his third opportunity of becoming a lawyer, A will turn his
back for the third time?"
"Certainly," said Johnson Boller, without thought and solely because
Anthony's precise driveling interested him a little more than the affair
of the ring.
"Pah!" Mr. Fry said angrily.
Just here Mr. Horrigan slipped while making his --nth jab at the
Tornado's nose--slipped and fell upon the Tornado's fist and thereafter
reeled about for a few seconds. Johnson Boller emitted his first real
laugh of the evening; Anthony Fry, who had not seen the incident, failed
even to smile.
"It would be interesting," he said crisply, "to select a subject,
Johnson, and try the experiment."
"What experiment?"
"That of learning just how many times opportunity must be presented to
the average individual to secure full recognition of her presence and
her beauties."
"Wouldn't it?" mused Johnson Boller absently.
"I mean, to reach haphazard into the six millions that go to make up New
York, to pick just one individual and segregate him, and then show
him--_opportunity_! To take him aside, where there is nothing else to
distract him, and thrust opportunity in his very face--the opportunity,
whatever it might be, that he has always desired. It seems to me,
Johnson, that watching that experiment might be distinctly worth while!"
"Aha!" yawned Johnson Boller.
"So, therefore," Anthony said placidly, "we will find our subject and
make the experiment."
This time, and with a considerable jar, Johnson Boller awoke to the fact
that danger was at his elbow!
He sat bolt upright and stared at Anthony Fry, and in the queerest way
his flesh crawled for a moment and his hands turned cold, for he knew
that expression of Anthony's all too well. Intent, wholly absorbed, that
expression indicated that, however ridiculous the proposition might be,
its fangs had fastened in Anthony's very soul!
This was the expression which recalled--oh, so clearly--the dread time
when Anthony Fry had become obsessed with the idea that crime is a
matter of diet and external impression, when he had secured the two
yeggmen and established them where he could watch and feed them; when,
eventually, he had been forced to pay for their crowning crime or go to
jail as an accomplice!
This was the expression that brought back the period in which Anthony
had cherished the theory that music's true germ lay in the negro race,
properly guided and separated from all outside influences and--well,
this was the expression, fast enough, and Boller's throat tightened. He
had not even found words of protest when Anthony pursued:
"And upon my soul! See how the thing has been prearranged for us!"
"What?"
"Look here, Johnson," the owner of Fry's Liniment hurried on, quite
excitedly. "Have you noticed how packed the house is to-night?"
"What? Yes, and----"
"Every seat in the place is sold--_except this one seat in our box_!"
"What of it?"
"It's fate!" chuckled Mr. Fry. "It is fate and nothing else, Johnson.
Out of all the millions in New York, one man--absolutely unknown to,
unsuspected by, either you or me--is coming to take this seat, doubtless
for the star bout."
"But----"
"To that man," said Anthony, "I shall offer opportunity!"
"What d'ye mean? Money?" Johnson Boller asked incredulously.
"It will involve money, doubtless; I can afford a little."
"Well, you go and poke a handful of bills into a man's face and all
you're going to prove is that----"
"I have no idea of doing anything of the sort," Anthony said
impatiently. "What I purpose doing is simply this: I shall----"
Johnson Boller had recovered from the first shock. He drew a long, deep
breath, and, leaning over to his old friend, placed a firm, strong hand
on his knee and looked soothingly into his kindled eye.
"Listen, Anthony!" said he. "_Don't!_"
"Eh? You've no notion of what I mean to do," Anthony said briefly.
"No, but I can guess enough to dope it out pretty well, and--don't do
it!" Johnson Boller said earnestly. "This theory stuff is all right,
Anthony; I like to sit and chatter about it as much as you do. On the
level, I do! I like to talk with you about these things, and wonder what
would happen if this was thus and the other thing was otherwise. But
when you come to pulling it on a perfect stranger at a prize fight,
Anthony, try to remember that everybody may not understand you as well
as I do."
"My dear chap!" Anthony laughed.
"Don't laugh; I know what I'm talking about," Mr. Boller went on,
feverishly almost. "You wait till we get home, Anthony, and we'll talk
over all this about opportunity and get it settled. For the matter of
that, I can see now that you're dead right!" Johnson Boller said, and
there was something almost pathetic in his voice. "You're dead right,
Anthony! All you have to do is to stick opportunity before a man long
enough and he's bound to chuck a hammerlock into her and slam her down
to the mat for keeps! So that's settled, and we don't have to do any
experimenting with human subjects. Or if you do have to have a live one
to work on, wait till we get home and we'll take Wilkins, Anthony!
That'd be better, anyway."
He paused, eying his old friend with deep anxiety. Anthony Fry, having
thrown back his head, laughed heartily.
"Johnson," said he, "the whole trouble with that poor old head of yours
is that it is absolutely without the power of visualization! It knows
the wool business; it makes thousands and thousands of dollars out of
the wool business; but to save its very life it cannot reach out into
the abstract!"
"It doesn't want to reach into the abstract!"
"Well, it should, because it will grow more and more stodgy if it
doesn't," Mr. Fry said complacently. "Good gracious, Johnson! Coming to
life! Just consider what may be coming to this seat!"
"I don't dare!" Johnson Boller said honestly.
"An old man, perhaps--one who fancies his opportunities all past and
done for. What more vitally interesting than thrusting opportunity upon
such a man, Johnson?"
"So far as I'm concerned, anything under the sun and----"
"Or perhaps a middle-aged failure," Anthony rambled on. "A man just past
the age when hope is richest--a man who has seen his chances come and
go. I don't know, Johnson, but I rather believe that I'm hoping for a
middle-aged man."
"Yes, one that's weak enough to gag before he can yell for the police,"
Johnson Boller grunted. "Now, Anthony, before you----"
"Or best of all, perhaps, an average young man," smiled the
experimenter. "That would really be the most interesting sort of
subject, Johnson--just a plain chap, not fully matured, not soured by
disappointment nor rendered too sophisticated by contact with the world.
On the whole, I really hope that a young man is coming!"
And now, for a time, Johnson Boller said nothing at all. There was
always the chance that Anthony might work it out of his system in
talk--there was the other chance, growing rosier and rosier by the
minute, that the odd chair had not been sold at all.
It was rather queer, when one considered that seats for this particular
star bout had been at a premium for a week, but it was nevertheless the
fact that the preliminary arguments were over and the announcer spinning
his megaphoned tale for the big battle, and the seat still unoccupied.
To Johnson Boller it even hinted at the existence of a special
Providence designed to watch the doings of such as Anthony Fry.
The minutes were wearing along, too. The cheering was done with and the
megaphone had left the ring. Seconds and trainers were climbing down
through the ropes, and the principals were listening boredly to the
final words of instruction. And now the gong had struck and they were at
it--and still the odd chair in Box B remained unoccupied.
"Opportunity!" mused Anthony Fry. "The Great Unrecognized!"
"Eh?"
"The Great Unrecognized," Anthony repeated complacently. "Not a bad term
for her, eh?"
Johnson Boller made a last survey of the neighborhood, permitted himself
a sigh of relief, and grinned broadly at his old friend.
"Great term, Anthony!" he agreed genially. "He isn't coming!"
"He'll be here yet," Anthony smiled.
"Not now," Boller chuckled. "No man gives up ten or fifteen dollars for
one of these seats and then stays away for any reason save death. Your
victim was hit by a motor-truck on the way here--and at that he may be
getting off easier than if you'd caught him and tried some psychological
experiments on him."
And here Mr. Boller stretched and removed his cigar, so that his grin
might spread from ear to ear.
"It only goes to show you, Anthony, that there's some power watching
over people like you and governing their affairs, that is past our
understanding. Now, if that poor unknown devil had ever turned up
and----"
He stopped short.
In Anthony Fry's eye the blue-white fire of enthusiasm glinted out
suddenly. Half rising, Mr. Fry gazed down the vast place, and then, with
a smile, sat back again and eyed his friend.
"Something's wrong with your power, Johnson," said he. "Here he comes
now!"