The Story Thus Far:

 

VII

MR. FRISBY buzzed the buzzer, and his private secretary came gamboling into the room like a lamb in springtime. The remarkable happenings of the previous night had had the effect of raising Berry Conway’s spirits to the loftiest heights. He felt as if he were walking on pink clouds above a smiling world.

“You rang, sir?” he said affectionately.

“Of course I rang. You heard me, didn’t you? Don’t ask damn-fool questions. Get Mr. Robbins on the phone.”

“Mr. Who, sir?” asked Berry. There was nothing he desired more than to assist and oblige his employer, to smooth his employer’s path and gratify his lightest whim, but the name was strange to him. Mr. Frisby had a habit, which Berry deplored, of being obscure. His construction was bad. He would suddenly introduce into his remarks something like this Robbins motive—vital, apparently, to the narrative—without any preliminary planting or preparation. “Mr. Who, sir?” asked Berry.

“Mr. gosh-darn-it-are-you-deaf-I-should-have-thought-I-spoke-plainly-enough-why-don’t-you-buy-an-ear-trumpet Robbins. My lawyer. Chancery 9632. Get him at once.”

“Certainly, sir,” said Berry soothingly.

He was concerned about his employer. It was plain that nothing jolly had been happening to him overnight. He was sitting hunched up in his swivel chair as if he had received a shock of some kind. His equine face was drawn, and the lines about his mouth had deepened. Berry would have liked to ask what was the matter, how bad the pain was and where it caught him. A long, sympathetic discussion of Mr. Frisby’s symptoms would just have suited his mood of loving kindness.

Prudence, however, whispered that it would be wiser to refrain. He contented himself with getting the number and presently found himself in communication with Mr. Frisby’s legal adviser.

“Mr. Robbins is on the wire, sir,” he said in his best bedside manner, handing the instrument to the sufferer.

“Right,” said Mr. Frisby. “Get out.”

 

BERRY did so, casting, as he went, a languishing glance at his overlord. It was meant to convey to Mr. Frisby the message that, no matter how black the skies might be, John Beresford Conway was near him, to help and encourage, and it was extremely fortunate that Mr. Frisby did not see it.

“Robbins!” he was barking into the telephone, as the door shut.

A low, grave voice replied—a voice suggestive of foreclosed mortgages and lovers parting in the twilight.

“Yes, Mr. Frisby?”

“Robbins, come round here at once. Immediately.”

“Is something the matter, Mr. Frisby?”

“Oh, no!” the financier yapped bitterly. “Nothing’s the matter. Everything’s fine. I’ve only been swindled and double-crossed by a hellhound.”

“Tut!” said the twilight voice.

“I can’t tell you over the wire. Come round. Hurry.”

“I will start immediately, Mr. Frisby.”

Mr. Frisby replaced the receiver and, rising, began to pace the room. He returned to the desk, picked up a letter, read it once more (making the tenth time), uttered a stifled howl (his fifteenth), threw it down, and resumed his pacing. He was plainly overwrought, and Berry Conway, if he had been present, would have laid a brotherly hand on his shoulder and patted him on the back and said, “Come, old man, what is it?” It was lucky, therefore, that instead of being present he was in his own little room, dreaming happy dreams.

These were interrupted almost immediately by the sound of the buzzer.

Mr. Frisby, when Berry answered the summons, was waltzing about his office. He looked like one of those millionaires who are found stabbed with paper knives in libraries.

“Sir?” said Berry tenderly.

“Hasn’t Mr. Robbins come yet?”

“Not yet, sir,” sighed Berry.

“Hell’s bells!”

“Very good, sir.”

Mr. Frisby resumed his waltzing. He had just paused to give the letter on the desk an eleventh perusal when the door opened again.

This time it was the office boy.

“Mr. Robbins, sir,” said the office boy.

Mr. Robbins, of Robbins, Robbins, Robbins and Robbins, Solicitors and Commissioners for Oaths, was just the sort of man you would have expected him to be after hearing his voice on the telephone. He looked and behaved as if he were a mute at some particularly distinguished funeral. He laid his top hat on the desk as if it had been a wreath.

“Good morning, Mr. Frisby,” he said, and you could see the mortgages foreclosing and the lovers parting all over the place.

“Robbins,” cried the financier, “I’ve been hornswoggled.”

The lawyer tightened his lips another fraction of an inch, as if to say that something of this kind was only to be expected in a world in which all flesh was as grass and where at any moment the most harmless and innocent person might suddenly find himself legally debarred from being a feoffee of any fee, fiduciary or in fee simple.

“What are the facts, Mr. Frisby?”

Mr. Frisby made a noise extraordinarily like a sea lion at the zoo asking for fish.

“I’ll tell you what the facts are. Listen. You know I’m interested in copper. I practically own the Horned Toad mine.”

“Quite.”

“Well, the other day they struck a new vein on the Horned Toad. One of the richest on record, it looked like.”

“Excellent.”

“Not so darned excellent,” corrected Mr. Frisby. “It was on the edge of the Horned Toad, and it suddenly disappeared into the claim next door—a damned, derelict dusthole called the Dream Come True, which nobody had bothered to pay any attention to for years. It had just been lying there. That’s where that vein went.”

“Most disappointing.”

“Yes,” said Mr. Frisby, eyeing this word-painter strangely, “I was a little cross about it.”

“This would, of course,” said Mr. Robbins, who had a good head and could figure things out, “considerably enhance the value of this neighboring property.”

“You’ve guessed it,” said Mr. Frisby. “And naturally I wanted to buy it quietly. I made inquiries, and found that the original owner had sold it to a woman named Mrs. Jervis.”

“And you approached her?”

 

“SHE was dead. But one morning, out of a blue sky, I’m darned if my secretary didn’t come in and inform me that he was her nephew and had been left this mine.”

“Your secretary? Young Parkinson?”

“No. Parkinson’s gone. This is a new one. A fellow named Conway. You’ve never seen him. He came in and asked my advice about selling the mine. He said it had never produced any copper, and did I think there was any chance of getting rid of it for a few hundred pounds. I tell you, when I heard him say those words, Robbins, I believed in miracles—a thing I haven’t done since I quit attending Sunday school at Carcassone, Illinois, thirty-nine years ago. Can you tie it? A fellow right in my office, and without a notion that the thing was of any value. I nearly broke my fountain pen.”

“Remarkable.”

Mr. Frisby took a turn about the room.

“Well, I hadn’t much time to think, and I see now that I did the wrong thing. The way it seemed to me was that if I made a bid for the mine myself he might suspect something. So I told him I knew of a man named J. B. Hoke, who sometimes speculated in derelict mines, and I would mention the matter to him. This Hoke is a hydrophobia skunk who has been useful to me once or twice in affairs where I didn’t care to appear myself. A red-faced crook who makes a living by hanging around on the edge of the financial world and yessing everybody. He’s yessed me for years. I never liked him, but he was a man I thought you could rely on. So I told him to go to Conway and offer him five hundred pounds.”

“For a property worth millions?” said Mr. Robbins, dryly.

“Business is business,” said Mr. Frisby.

“Quite,” said Mr. Robbins. “And did the young man accept the offer?”

“He jumped at it.”

“Then surely . . . ?”

“Wait!” said Mr. Frisby. “Do you know what happened? I’ll tell you. That double-crossing scoundrel Hoke bought the mine for himself. I might have guessed, if I’d had any sense, that he would suspect something when I told him to go around buying up no-good mines. Maybe he has had private information from somewhere. He’s a man with friends in Arizona. Probably there was a leak. Anyway, he went to Conway, gave him his check, got his receipt, and now he claims to own the Dream Come True.”

“Tut,” said Mr. Robbins.

Mr. Frisby performed a few more waltz steps, rather pretty to watch. Finding himself pirouetting in the neighborhood of the desk, he picked up the letter and handed it to the lawyer.

“Read that,” he said.

 

MR. ROBBINS did so, and emitted two “H’m’s” and a “ ’Tchk.” Mr. Frisby watched him anxiously.

“Can he get away with it?” he asked, pleadingly. “He can’t get away with it, can he? Don’t tell me he can get away with it. Raw work like that. Why, it’s highway robbery.”

Mr. Robbins shook his head. His manner was not encouraging.

“Have you anything in writing—any letter—or document—to prove that this man was acting as your agent?”

“Of course I haven’t. It never occurred to me . . .”

“Then I fear, Mr. Frisby, I greatly fear . . .”

“He can get away with it?”

“I fear so.”

“Hell!” said Mr. Frisby.

A thoughtful expression came into the lawyer’s face. He seemed to be testing this oath, assaying it, to see if it was one of the variety for which he was supposed to be a commissioner.

“But it’s murder in the first degree!” cried Mr. Frisby.

“I note that in his letter,” said Mr. Robbins, “this Mr. Hoke says that he is calling here this morning with his lawyer, Mr. Bellamy. I know Bellamy well. I am afraid that if Bellamy has endorsed the legality of his action we have little to hope. A very shrewd man. I have the greatest respect for Bellamy.”

“But look what he says on the second page. Look how he proposes to hold me up.”

“I see. He suggests that the Dream Come True be merged or amalgamated with your property, the Horned Toad, the whole hereinafter to be called Horned Toad Copper, Incorporated. . . .”

“And he wants a half interest in the combination!”

 

“IF BELLAMY is behind him, Mr. Frisby, a half interest is, I fear, precisely what he will get.”

“But it’s a gold mine!”

“A copper mine, I understood.”

“I mean, I’m parting with a fortune.”

“Most annoying,” said Mr. Robbins.

“What did you say?” asked Mr. Frisby in a low voice.

“I said it was most annoying.”

“So it is,” said Mr. Frisby. “So it is. You’re a great describer.”

Mr. Robbins regarded his hat sadly but affectionately.

“If it is necessary for your purposes to acquire this Dream Come True property,” he said, “I can see no other course but to accept Mr. Hoke’s proposals. He undoubtedly owns and controls the property in question. If you would care for me to be present at the conference, I shall be delighted to attend, but I fear there is nothing that I can do.”

“Yes, there is,” said Mr. Frisby. “You can stop me beaning the fellow with a chair and getting hung for murder.”

The door opened. The office boy appeared. He was a lad whose voice was passing through the breaking stage.

“Mr. Hoke,” he announced in a rumbling bass.

And then, in a penetrating treble like a squeaking slate pencil:

“And Mr. Bellamy.”

The Hoke-Bellamy combination then entered, both breezy. A very different person now, this J. B. Hoke, from the respectful underling who had yessed Mr. Frisby for so many years.

“ ’Morning, Pat,” said Mr. Hoke.

“Good morning, Mr. Frisby,” said his companion.

“Well, well, well, well!” said Mr. Hoke. “You’re looking fine.”

“How are you, Bellamy?” said Mr. Robbins.

“Fine. And you?”

“In capital health, thank you.”

“Splendid,” said Mr. Bellamy.

He took a chair. J. B. Hoke took a chair. Mr. Robbins took a chair. Mr. Frisby had a chair already.

The conference was on.

 

WHEN the public reads in its morning paper that a merger has been formed between two financial enterprises, it is probably a little vague as to what exactly are the preliminaries that have to be gone through in order to bring this union about. A description of what took place on the present occasion, therefore, can scarcely fail to be of interest.

J. B. Hoke began by asking Mr. Frisby how his golf game was coming along. Mr. Frisby’s only reply being to bare his teeth like a trapped jackal, he went on to say that he himself, while noticeably improved off the tee, still found difficulty in laying his short mashie approaches up to the pin. Whether it was too much right hand or too little left hand, Mr. Hoke could not say, but he doubted if he put one shot in seven just where he meant to. He was also dissatisfied with his putting.

“Well, take the other day, for instance, at Oxhey,” said Mr. Hoke.

Business men learn to marshal their thoughts clearly. J. B. Hoke left his hearers in no doubt at all as to what had happened the other day at Oxhey. They might have been there in person.

When he had finished, Mr. Bellamy mentioned a similar experience he himself had had the Sunday before last down at Chislehurst.

“It’s a funny game,” said Mr. Bellamy.

“You bet it’s a funny game,” said Mr. Hoke.

“You never can tell about golf,” said Mr. Bellamy.

“That’s right,” said Mr. Hoke. “It’s funny. It’s a game you never can tell about.”

At this point Mr. Frisby said something under his breath and broke a pencil in half.

There followed a short pause.

Mr. Hoke, resuming, asked the meeting to stop him if they had heard it before, but did they know the story of the two Irishmen?

He proceeded to relate their adventures at considerable length, supplying dialogue, where the narrative called for it, in a strong Swedish accent.

Mr. Frisby did not chuckle. Nor did Mr. Robbins. Mr. Robbins took up his top hat, brushed it, eyed it expectantly for a moment, as if weighing the chances of a rabbit coming out of it, and then put it back on the desk again—reverently, as one feeling that there is a home beyond the skies. Mr. Frisby, after directing at Mr. Hoke a look of extraordinary sourness, picked up one of his cuffs and inscribed on it the words:

J. B. Hoke is a red-faced thug

Hoke said, “I heard a good one yesterday about two Jews.”

Bellamy said, “What was that, J. B.?”

Hoke said, “Well, stop me if you’ve heard it before.”

It was at this point that Mr. Robbins, of Robbins, Robbins, Robbins and Robbins, removing his gaze reluctantly from the hat, coughed in a suggestive sort of way like a distant sheep clearing its throat, and said, “Er—gentlemen.”

“Yes,” said J. B. Hoke with alacrity, realizing that the second stage in the formalities had now been reached, “let’s get down to brass tacks.”

There was a silence for some moments.

Mr. Frisby was the first to break it.

“I been wondering,” said Mr. Frisby in a meditative voice.

“Yeah?” said J. B. Hoke. “What about?”

“Oh, nothing,” said Mr. Frisby. “Just your initials. I was wondering what the B. stood for.”

“Bernard,” said Mr. Hoke, a little proudly.

“Oh?” said Mr. Frisby. “I thought it might be Barabbas.”

“Hey!” said Mr. Hoke.

“Gentlemen, gentlemen!” said Mr. Robbins.

“Really, really!” said Mr. Bellamy.

“Is that actionable?” inquired Mr. Hoke of his legal adviser.

Mr. Bellamy shook his head.

“To constitute a tort, the words should have been accompanied by a blow or buffet.”

“Is that so?” said Mr. Frisby, rising. “I didn’t know. Well, here she comes.”

“Gentlemen, gentlemen, gentlemen, gentlemen!” said Mr. Robbins, as if he were all four Robbinses speaking consecutively.

There was another silence.

“This sort of thing isn’t going to get you anywheres,” said Mr. Hoke reprovingly.

“Quite,” said Mr. Robbins, gazing at his principal as at a favorite but erring son.

“Do please, gentlemen,” said Mr. Bellamy, “let us try and endeavor and—er—attempt to steer clear of what you might call—er . . .”

“Cracks,” said Mr. Hoke.

“Snacks,” emended Mr. Bellamy.

“Verbal attacks,” said Mr. Robbins. “Personal animadversions. Vituperation, as Mr. Hoke has remarked, will get us nowhere.”

 

“NOT that we’re trying to get anywhere,” said Mr. Hoke, speaking now with a return of his former cheeriness. “Mean to say, we’re here already. See what I mean? I mean there’s nothing to chew the rag about. The thing’s clear. I own the Dream Come True, don’t I? Well, say, don’t I? What I mean, if any poor fish present wants to argue otherwise, let him explain why. Let him tell this meeting what he thinks is eating him. Let him inform this meeting just where he imagines . . . Well, say, listen,” he said, directing his fire immediately upon Mr. Frisby, “I take it you aren’t disputing my title? Of course you aren’t. Well, then, let’s get down to it. Let’s talk turkey.”

“Turkey?” said Mr. Robbins.

“An American colloquialism,” said Mr. Bellamy, “meaning, Let us concentrate on the—ah—res.”

“Characteristically quaint,” said Mr. Robbins.

Mr. Frisby, gallant in defeat, put a point.

“You may own the Dream Come True,” he said, “just the same as Captain Kidd and Jesse James . . .”

“Please!” said Mr. Robbins.

“You may own the Dream Come True, but you can’t get the stuff out of it. Not without using my spur line. You’ll have to carry the stuff over the mountain on the backs of mules.”

“My principal,” said Mr. Bellamy, “is cognizant of that fact. Fully cognizant. It is for that reason that he has suggested this merger.”

“Amalgamation,” said Mr. Robbins.

“This amalgamation or merger,” said Mr. Bellamy.

“And I think I may as well say frankly, my dear Frisby,” said Mr. Robbins, “that in my opinion, my carefully considered opinion, there seems to be no other alternative before you but to accept the proposition on the lines laid down by Mr. Hoke.”

 

A SHARP sound broke the silence which followed this observation. It was Mr. Frisby snorting. And with that snort ended what may be called the picturesque part of the proceedings. After that they became dull and technical, with the two lawyers taking matters in hand and doing all the talking.

Mr. Bellamy jotted down a rough memorandum, and handed it to Mr. Robbins, saying he hoped it covered everything. Mr. Robbins, producing a special pair of spectacles in honor of the importance of the moment, scanned it and said it seemed to cover everything. Mr. Bellamy then read it aloud, and Mr. Hoke said yes, that covered everything. Mr. Frisby just sat and suffered.

The two lawyers then left, chatting amiably about double burgage, heirs taken in socage, and the other subjects which always crop up when lawyers get together; and Mr. Hoke, having seen that the door was closed, approached Mr. Frisby’s desk in a cautious and conspiratorial manner.

“Hey!” said Mr. Hoke.

Mr. Frisby looked up wanly.

“Haven’t you gone?” he asked.

“No,” said Mr. Hoke.

“Why not?” said Mr. Frisby inhospitably.

Mr. Hoke leaned over the desk.

“Say, listen,” he said. “Now that those two have left, you and I can have a little friendly powwow.”

Mr. Frisby’s reply to this was to inform Mr. Hoke that in his opinion he, Mr. Hoke, was a robber, a despicable thief, a pickpocket and a body-snatcher. Once, said Mr. Frisby, when out in Mexico, he had seen a rattlesnake. He had not liked the rattlesnake—indeed, he had formed a very low opinion of its charm and integrity—but, nevertheless, if it came to friendly powwows, he would choose the serpent every time in preference to Mr. Hoke. Rather than pow with Mr. Hoke, he would wow with a hundred rattlesnakes. This, he explained, was because he considered Mr. Hoke a hound, a worm, a skunk, a ghoul and a low-down, black-hearted hijacker.

“Yes, but all kidding aside,” said Mr. Hoke amiably; “listen. Now that we’re partners, you and me, here’s something we got to make up our minds about. How do you feel about the shareholders? What I mean, what’s your reaction to the idea of the shareholders getting money that we could both of us use quite nicely ourselves? What I mean, when do we spill the news of this new reef on the Dream Come True? Before we’ve bought in all the stock, or after?”

Mr. Frisby said nothing.

“It’s going to mean a difference of fifty points on the share when the thing comes out. Fifty? It might be a hundred. You never can tell where she’ll stop, once they start buying. And if you say you’d like to be loaded up with Horned Toad at four and watch her shooting into the eighties and nineties, you’ll only be saying the same as me.”

Mr. Frisby chewed his fountain pen reflectively.

“You know what copper’s like,” urged Mr. Hoke. “It’s one thing or the other with copper. Either it’s down in the cellar, or else it’s up singing with the angels. One of the first stocks I ever bought was Green Cananea at twenty-five. I sold at fifty, and kicked myself every morning till it hit two hundred. Today, you could buy up all the Horned Toad shares you wanted and still have plenty over for a good meal and a couple of cigars. And a week after this information about the Dream Come True gets out Threadneedle Street will have to hock its undervest if it wants to blow itself to more than about half a dozen. That’s how good that stock is going to be. I’m telling you. What we want to do, you and me, is to get together and have a little gentlemen’s agreement.”

“Who are the gentlemen?” asked Mr. Frisby, interested.

“You and me.”

“Ah!” said Mr. Frisby.

Mr. Hoke proceeded:

“It wouldn’t take us long to corner that stock at rock-bottom prices. It would be pie. What I mean, it isn’t as if the Horned Toad was a Kennecott or an Anaconda. It’s always been halfway between a may-be and a never-waser. If you start selling shares a couple of thousand at a time, folks’ll soon begin to sit up and take notice.”

Mr. Frisby bridled a little. He shifted irritably in his chair. It offended his amour propre that his companion should imagine it necessary to instruct him in the a-b-c’s of market-rigging.

“You go to your broker and start selling,” proceeded Mr. Hoke, not observing these signs of impatience, “and you can bet he’ll do something about it. He’ll notify his clients that the president of Horned Toad is getting out from under and that things look fishy. They’ll tumble over themselves to unload.”

“Naturally,” said Mr. Frisby.

“You go to him on ’Change and whisper in his ear that you want him to sell a couple of blocks of two or three thousand . . .”

“I know,” said Mr. Frisby. “I know. I know.”

“And all the while we’ll be buying the stuff up in Paris or Amsterdam. Well, what about it?”

 

MR. FRISBY brooded darkly. On moral grounds he had no objection to the scheme whatever. He heartily approved of it. What was distressing him was the fact that, in enriching himself, he would be compelled also to enrich Mr. Hoke.

“Is it a go?” asked that gentleman.

“Yes,” said Mr. Frisby.

“Oke,” said Hoke. “Then that’s settled.” A pretty enthusiasm lighted up his face. “I knew it was a lucky day for me when I went into partnership with you, Pat,” he said, handsomely.

“Don’t call me Pat,” said Mr. Frisby morosely.

“Well, what’s your first name?”

“Never mind,” said Mr. Frisby.

It was a point on which he was sensitive. Much time had passed since then, but he could never quite forget the day when the leading wag of his school had discovered his secret.

“Well, I must be getting along,” said Mr. Hoke.

“Do,” said Mr. Frisby cordially. “The air in this office won’t be fit to breathe till you’ve gone and I’ve had the windows opened.”

“By the way, ever hear the story of the two . . . ?”

“Yes,” said Mr. Frisby.

“Well, I’ll be getting along.”

“Start now,” said Mr. Frisby.

J. B. Hoke pranced out jubilantly, treading on air, and immediately outside the door cannoned into a substantial body.

“Can’t you look where you’re going?” he demanded, aggrieved.

“Why, hullo, Mr. Hoke,” said the body amiably.

J. B. Hoke recognized the young man who might have been described, without stretching the facts, as the founder of his fortunes. It was to this young man that he owed the delightful experience of sitting in T. Paterson Frisby’s office and telling T. Paterson Frisby just where he got off. This pleasing reflection assuaged the pain in the toe on which Berry had trodden.

 

“WHY, hello, Mr. Conway,” he said genially. “Have a good cigar.”

“Thanks.”

“And how’s every little thing with Mr. Conway?”

“I’m fine. How are you?”

“I’m fine.”

“Both fine. Fine!” said Berry.

“Got any more mines to sell?” asked Mr. Hoke.

“No. That was the only one. I can sell you five thousand shares of Federal Dye, if you like.”

“Not for me, thanks.”

“No,” said Berry. “I suppose you’re satisfied with the Dream Come True.”

Mr. Hoke looked grave.

“You stung me good over that,” he said. “Two thousand five hundred dollars for a patch of sand covered with barrelhead cactus. Well, well, well. You’re a business man, all right.”

It seemed to Berry—being, as he was, in a mood of universal benevolence and wishing to see nothing but smiling faces around him—that he ought to say something to indicate a possible silver lining. He, too, considered that Mr. Hoke had allowed his native generosity to lead him into a bad bargain.

“Oh, come!” he protested heartily. “You never know. I shouldn’t be at all surprised if there weren’t millions to be made out of the Dream Come True.”

The joviality had returned to Mr. Hoke’s face. It now faded again as if it had been wiped off with a sponge. For the first time it occurred to him how very near the door Berry had been standing at the moment of their impact.

Could he have overheard that last little conference?

Pallidly, Mr. Hoke ran over in his mind the more recent of his companion’s remarks. He was horrified to discover that, read in the light of these new suspicions, they had a sickeningly sinister ring. “I suppose you’re satisfied with the Dream Come True,” he had said. And, after that, this shattering speech about the possibility of there being millions in the thing. He stared at Berry with eyes like apprehensive poached eggs.

“What makes you say that?” he quavered.

“Oh, it just struck me as a possibility,” said Berry, with a pleasant smile.

A smile, that is to say, which would have seemed pleasant to anyone else. To J. B. Hoke it suggested a furtive gloating.

“What were you doing, standing outside that door?” he asked.

“I thought I heard a buzzer.”

“Oh?” said Mr. Hoke slowly. “Well, nobody touched the buzzer.”

“False alarm,” said Berry genially. “I’ll get back to my basket.”

Mr. Hoke watched him out of sight. Then he burst into the office and, tottering to the desk, placed his lips to Mr. Frisby’s ear.

“S-s-s-say!” he hissed.

Mr. Frisby withdrew his ear austerely and began to dry it.

“Haven’t you gone yet?” he asked. “Do you want me to put a bed in here? What time do you like to be called in the morning?”

Sarcastic, of course. Bitter, undoubtedly. But there are times when a man may legitimately be sarcastic and bitter.

“Say, listen,” said Mr. Hoke urgently. “Just outside the door I ran into that secretary of yours. He was standing there.”

“What of it?”

“Well, do you think he could have heard what we were saying? I was talking pretty loud.”

“You always do. It’s one of the things that get you so disliked.”

“And he said something—darned significantly, I thought—about wasn’t it possible that there might be millions made out of the Dream Come True.”

“He did?”

“He certainly did. Say, listen. If advance information of our little arrangement gets out before we’re ready, we’re sunk. Years ago, when I was with Mostyn and Kohn in Detroit, the time they were working that A. and C. ramp, there was a bad leakage in the office.”

“There would be, if you were there,” said Mr. Frisby.

“I had nothing to do with it,” protested Mr. Hoke, and in his voice there was the pain of what-might-have-been. “I never knew a thing that was going on. But somebody got advance information, and what they did to Mostyn and Kohn was nobody’s business. The stock kited sixty points the first day, and Mostyn and Kohn out in the cold, wondering what was happening to them and each of them accusing the other of double-crossing him. Mostyn hit Kohn on the beezer, I remember, and God knows there was plenty of it to hit. Well, that’s what’s going to happen here if we don’t watch out. You ought to fire that fellow, Pat.”

“Don’t call me Pat,” said Mr. Frisby. “And where’s the sense of firing him?”

“Well, we ought to do something.”

“Why did he say he was standing out there?”

“He put up some story about thinking he had heard the buzzer.”

“H’m!” said Mr. Frisby. “Well, good-by.”

“Don’t you want me to wait?”

“Is it likely that anyone would ever want you to wait? Get out of this, and don’t keep coming running in again all the time.”

“Well, I’ll tell you: My mind’s not easy.”

“A mind like yours,” said Mr. Frisby, “couldn’t be.”

 

FOR some moments after the door had closed, T. Paterson Frisby sat rocking meditatively in his chair. He was not thinking about Berry. His partner’s panic had aroused no responsive thrill in his heart. What did disturb him was the thought that, in a world which they said they were going to make fit for heroes to live in, nobody had started the millennium by lynching J. B. Hoke. It looked like negligence somewhere.

He spent nearly twenty minutes thinking about Mr. Hoke. At the end of that period, crystallizing his thoughts, as was his custom, into the telling phrase, he reached for a cuff and wrote on it as follows:

J. B. Hoke is a ——

In moments of strong emotion the handwriting tends to deteriorate. Mr. Frisby’s did. So what that last word was we shall never know.

(To be continued next week)

 

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