Bob Bowen sat in the private office of Gus Saunders at three fifteen.
On the way down-town he had stopped at a doctor’s office and had had
his head bound up. As he himself put it, a couple of days would see
him able to butt into another wall.
“And I’ve sure butted it this time,” he said with assumed
cheerfulness, as he concluded his story. In the eyes of Alice Ferguson
he read quick sympathy—sympathy, and something else that set his
pulses to leaping. But he refused to meet her eyes.
“I sure have,” he went on. “Where I made my mistake was in thinking
that Henderson was—was—well, that he was something less than
Henderson! My one consolation is that I knocked him out so effectually
that he never got word to the unknown Charley to sell out. When the
news of the real condition of the Apex Crown got abroad, and the
market busted all to nothing, Henderson was still rocked in the cradle
of the deep. It makes me feel better to think that that skunk went
down with us!
“But I’m only sorry for—for your sake, Miss Ferguson. I’m not worrying
about my own money; but yours—”
“Mine is safe,” said the girl, gazing at him with shining eyes.
Bowen sat up a trifle straighter. “What?”
“I have a confession to make, Mr. Bowen—a happy confession,” said the
girl, earnestly, leaning forward. “Mr. Saunders had been trying to get
in touch with you all morning and had failed. No one knew where you
were. At noon I came down here and got reports. Then the stock began
to go up and up. It reached ninety, and was still climbing!
“To tell you the truth, I was afraid. Why? I can’t say, except that it
was just a feeling inside of me. There was no word from you; all sorts
of rumors were flying around about Apex Crown, and—and Mr. Saunders
said that the stock was being so rottenly manipulated that there might
be an investigation! That frightened me more than anything. So I told
Mr. Saunders to sell the whole thing—”
Saunders came to his feet with a whoop of delight.
“Feminine instinct, by George!” he shouted, his repressed mirth
breaking out in a roar of laughter. “Bob, old man, she made me sell
out the whole blamed bunch around ninety! So help me, she did, and we
did!”
Bowen stared from one to the other, staggered. He could not at first
grasp the reality of what had taken place.
“You’re not trying just to brace me up—”
“Rats!” Saunders clapped him on the shoulders happily. “Not a bit of
it. I’m a cold-blooded business man, and I don’t give a whoop about
bracing you up! As a matter of fact, I did not get control of the
stock after all. Henderson’s holdings never did come on the market,
you know, except in part. So when I saw how things were going, I let
Miss Ferguson boss the job. And it’s blamed lucky I did!”
“Great Jehu!” said Bowen slowly. “Then—then we’re not broke after
all—”
“Not by two hundred thousand or so! Which, I judge, our friend
Dickover pays—”
Bowen came to his feet, a trifle unsteadily.
“Gus,” he said, his voice solemn, but a twinkle in his gray eyes,
“this can only happen once in a lifetime. Thank Heaven it happened in
my lifetime! Now, see here. It was Miss Ferguson who saved the bacon
to-day, and I want to tell you that she’s too good a partner to lose.
Would you mind making this a real private office for a few minutes?”
With a blank look that swiftly changed to a grin of comprehension, Mr.
Saunders left.
Bowen turned to Alice Ferguson, and at sight of her rapidly crimsoning
countenance the old boyish smile came to his lips.
“Hold on!” he exclaimed. “Don’t say anything for about two minutes,
please! I’m all done with business. I don’t want to hear the word
again—between us. When I’m talking about partnership like I want to
talk, I mean something else than business! Maybe you’ll think that I’m
pretty sudden, but I tell you that I never met any one like you
before, and I never will again. And I want you to listen, because—”
And Alice Ferguson listened.
(The end.)
[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the November 2, 1918
issue of All-Story Weekly magazine.]