CHAPTER XV
THE CASE OF THE TISCOTTS
What I had on the slate for this part’cular afternoon was a brisk walk up Broadway as far as the gasoline district and a little soothin’ conversation with Mr. Cecil Slattery about the new roadster he’s tryin’ to Paladino me into placin’ my order for. I’d just washed up and was in the gym. giving my coat a few licks with the whisk broom, when Swifty Joe comes tiptoein’ in, taps me on the shoulder, and points solemn into the front office.
“That’s right,” says I, “break it to me gentle.”
“Get into it quick!” says he, grabbin’ the coat.
“Eh?” says I. “Fire, police, or what?”
“S-s-sh!” says he. “Lady to see you.”
“What kind,” says I, “perfect, or just plain lady? And what’s her name?”
“Ahr-r-r chee!” he whispers, hoarse and stagy. “Didn’t I tell you it was a lady? Get a move on!” and he lifts me into the sleeves and yanks away the whisk broom.
“See here, Swifty,” says I, “if this is another of them hot air demonstrators, or a book agent, there’ll be trouble comin’ your way in bunches! Remember, now!”
Here was once, though, when Swifty hadn’t made any mistake. Not that he shows such wonderful intelligence in this case. With her wearin’ all them expensive furs, and the cute little English footman standin’ up straight in his yellow topped boots over by the door, who wouldn’t have known she was a real lady?
She’s got up all in black, not exactly a mournin’ costume, but one of these real broadcloth regalias, plain but classy. She’s a tall, slim party, and from the three-quarters’ view I gets against the light I should guess she was goin’ on thirty or a little past it. All she’s armed with is a roll of paper, and as I steps in she’s drummin’ with it on the window sill.
Course, we has all kinds driftin’ into the studio here, by mistake and otherwise, and I gen’rally makes a guess on ’em right; but this one don’t suggest anything at all. Even that rat faced tiger of hers could have told her this wa’n’t any French millinery parlor, and she didn’t look like one who’d get off the trail anyway. So I plays a safety by coughin’ polite behind my hand and lettin’ her make the break. She ain’t backward about it, either.
“Why, there you are, Professor McCabe!” says she, in that gushy, up and down tone, like she was usin’ language as some sort of throat gargle. “How perfectly dear of you to be here, too!”
“Yes, ain’t it?” says I. “I’ve kind of got into the habit of bein’ here.”
“Really, now!” says she, smilin’ just as though we was carryin’ on a sensible conversation. And it’s a swagger stunt too, this talkin’ without sayin’ anything. When you get so you can keep it up for an hour you’re qualified either for the afternoon tea class or the batty ward. But the lady ain’t here just to pay a social call. She makes a quick shift and announces that she’s Miss Colliver, also hoping that I remember her.
“Why, sure,” says I. “Miss Ann, ain’t it?”
As a matter of fact, the only time we was ever within speakin’ distance was once at the Purdy-Pells’ when she blew in for a minute just at dinner time, lifted a bunch of American Beauties off the table with the excuse that they was just what she wanted to send to the Blind Asylum, and blew out again.
But of course I couldn’t help knowin’ who she was and all about her. Ain’t the papers always full of her charity doin’s, her funds for this and that, and her new discoveries of shockin’ things about the poor? Ain’t she built up a rep as a lady philanthropist that’s too busy doing good to ever get married? Maybe Mrs. Russell Sage and Helen Gould has gained a few laps on her lately; but when it comes to startin’ things for the Tattered Tenth there ain’t many others that’s got much on her.
“Gee!” thinks I. “Wonder what she’s going to do for me?”
I ain’t left long in doubt. She backs me up against the desk and cuts loose with the straight talk. “I came in to tell you about my new enterprise, Piny Crest Court,” says she.
“Apartment house, is it?” says I.
“No, no!” says she. “Haven’t you read about it? It’s to be a white plague station for working girls.”
“A white – white – Oh! For lungers, eh?”
“We never speak of them in that way, you know,” says she, handin’ me the reprovin’ look. “Piny Crest Court is the name I’ve given to the site. Rather sweet, is it not? Really there are no pines on it, you know; but I shall have a few set out. The buildings are to be perfectly lovely. I’ve just seen the architect’s plans, – four open front cottages grouped around an administration infirmary, the superintendent’s office to be finished in white mahogany and gold, and the directors’ room in Circassian walnut, with a stucco frieze after della Robbia. Don’t you simply love those Robbia bambinos?”
“Great!” says I, lyin’ as easy and genteel as if I had lots of practice.
“I am simply crazy to have the work started,” she goes on; “so I am spending three afternoons a week in filling up my lists. Everyone responds so heartily, too. Now, let me see, I believe I have put you down for a life membership.”
“Eh?” says I, gaspin’ some; for it ain’t often I’m elected to things.
“You will have the privilege of voting for board members and of recommending two applicants a year. A life membership is two hundred and fifty dollars.”
“You mean I get two-fifty,” says I, “for – for just – ”
Then I came to. And, say, did you ever know such a bonehead? Honest, though, from all I’d heard of the way she spreads her money around, and the patronizin’ style she has of puttin’ this proposition up to me, I couldn’t tell for a minute how she meant it. And when I suddenly surrounds the idea that it’s me gives up the two-fifty, I’m so fussed that I drops back into the chair and begins to hunt through the desk for my checkbook. And then I feels myself growin’ a little warm behind the ears.
“So you just put me down offhand for two hundred and fifty, did you?” says I.
“If you wish,” says she, “you may take out a life certificate for each member of your family. Several have done that. Let me show you my list of subscribers. See, here are some of the prominent merchants and manufacturing firms. I haven’t begun on the brokers and bankers yet; but you will be in good company.”
“Ye-e-es?” says I, runnin’ my eye over the firm names. “But I don’t know much about this scheme of yours, Miss Colliver.”
“Why, it is for working girls,” says she, “who are victims of the white plague. We take them up to Piny Crest and cure them.”
“Of working?” says I.
“Of the plague,” says she. “It is going to be the grandest thing I’ve done yet. And I have the names of such a lot of the most interesting cases; poor creatures, you know, who are suffering in the most wretched quarters. I do hope they will last until the station is finished. It means finding a new lot, if they don’t, and the public organizations are becoming so active in that sort of thing, don’t you see?”
Somehow, I don’t catch it all, she puts over her ideas so fast; but I gather that she’d like to have me come up prompt with my little old two-fifty so she can get busy givin’ out the contracts. Seein’ me still hangin’ back, though, she’s willin’ to spend a few minutes more in describin’ some of the worst cases, which she proceeds to do.
“We estimate,” says Miss Ann as a final clincher, “that the average cost is about fifty dollars per patient. Now,” and she sticks the subscription list into my fist, “here is an opportunity! Do you wish to save five human lives?”
Ever had it thrown into you like that? The sensation is a good deal like bein’ tied to a post and havin’ your pockets frisked by a holdup gang. Anyway, that’s the way I felt, and then the next minute I’m ashamed of havin’ any such feelings at all; for there’s no denyin’ that dozens of cases like she mentions can be dug up in any crowded block. Seems kind of inhuman, too, not to want chip in and help save ’em. And yet there I was gettin’ grouchy over it, without knowin’ why!
“Well,” says I, squirmin’ in the chair, “I’d like to save five hundred, if I could. How many do you say you’re going to take care of up at this new place?”
“Sixty,” says she. “I select the most pitiful cases. I am taking some things to one of them now. I wish you could see the awful misery in that home! I could take you down there, you know, and show you what a squalid existence they lead, these Tiscotts.”
“Tiscotts!” says I, prickin’ up my ears. “What Tiscotts? What’s his first name?”
“I never heard the husband mentioned,” says Miss Ann. “I doubt if there is one. The woman’s name, I think, is Mrs. Anthony Tiscott. Of course, unless you are really interested – ”
“I am,” says I. “I’m ready to go when you are.”
That seems to jar Miss Colliver some, and she tries a little shifty sidestepping; but I puts it up to her as flat as she had handed it to me about savin’ the five lives. It was either make good or welsh, and she comes to the scratch cheerful.
“Very well, then,” says she, “we will drive down there at once.”
So it’s me into the Victoria alongside of Miss Ann, with the fat coachman pilotin’ us down Fifth-ave. to 14th, then across to Third-ave., and again down and over to the far East Side.
I forget the exact block; but it’s one of the old style double-deckers, with rusty fire escapes decorated with beddin’ hung out to air, dark hallways that has a perfume a garbage cart would be ashamed of, rickety stairs, plasterin’ all gone off the halls, and other usual signs of real estate that the agents squeeze fifteen per cent. out of. You know how it’s done, by fixin’ the Buildin’ and Board of Health inspectors, jammin’ from six to ten fam’lies in on a floor, never makin’ any repairs, and collectin’ weekly rents or servin’ dispossess notices prompt when they don’t pay up.
Lovely place to hang up one of the “Home, Sweet Home” mottoes! There’s a water tap in every hall, so all the tenants can have as much as they want, stove holes in most of the rooms, and you buy your coal by the bucket at the rate of about fourteen dollars a ton. Only three a week for a room, twelve dollars a month. Course, that’s more per room than you’d pay on the upper West Side with steam heat, elevator service, and a Tennessee marble entrance hall thrown in; but the luxury of stowin’ a whole fam’ly into one room comes high. Or maybe the landlords are doin’ it to discourage poverty.
“This is where the Tiscotts hang out, is it?” says I. “Shall I lug the basket for you, Miss Colliver?”
“Dear no!” says she. “I never go into such places. I always send the things in by Hutchins. He will bring Mrs. Tiscott down and she will tell us about her troubles.”
“Let Hutchins sit on the box this time,” says I, grabbin’ up the basket. “Besides, I don’t want any second hand report.”
“But surely,” puts in Miss Ann, “you are not going into such a – ”
“Why not?” says I. “I begun livin’ in one just like it.”
At that Miss Ann settles back under the robe, shrugs her shoulders into her furs, and waves for me to go ahead.
Half a dozen kids on the doorstep told me in chorus where I’d find the Tiscotts, and after I’ve climbed up through four layers of stale cabbage and fried onion smells and felt my way along to the third door left from the top of the stairs, I makes my entrance as the special messenger of the ministerin’ angel.
It’s the usual fam’ly-room tenement scene, such as the slum writers are so fond of describin’ with the agony pedal down hard, only there ain’t quite so much dirt and rags in evidence as they’d like. There’s plenty, though. Also there’s a lot of industry on view. Over by the light shaft window is Mrs. Tiscott, pumpin’ a sewin’ machine like she was entered in a twenty-four-hour endurance race, with a big bundle of raw materials at one side. In front of her is the oldest girl, sewin’ buttons onto white goods; while the three younger kids, includin’ the four-year-old boy, are spread out around the table in the middle of the room, pickin’ nut meat into the dishpan.
What’s the use of tellin’ how Mrs. Tiscott’s stringy hair was bobbed up, or the kind of wrapper she had on? You wouldn’t expect her to be sportin’ a Sixth-ave. built pompadour, or a lingerie reception gown, would you? And where they don’t have Swedish nursery governesses and porcelain tubs, the youngsters are apt not to be so – But maybe you’ll relish your nut candy and walnut cake better if we skip some details about the state of the kids’ hands. What’s the odds where the contractors gets such work done, so long as they can shave their estimates?
The really int’restin’ exhibit in this fam’ly group, of course, is the bent shouldered, peaked faced girl who has humped herself almost double and is slappin’ little pearl buttons on white goods at the rate of twenty a minute. And there’s no deception about her being a fine case for Piny Crest. You don’t even have to hear that bark of hers to know it.
I stands there lookin’ ’em over for a whole minute before anybody pays any attention to me. Then Mrs. Tiscott glances up and stops her machine.
“Who’s that?” she sings out. “What do you – Why! Well, of all things, Shorty McCabe, what brings you here?”
“I’m playin’ errand boy for the kind Miss Colliver,” says I, holdin’ up the basket.
Is there a grand rush my way, and glad cries, and tears of joy? Nothing doing in the thankful hysterics line.
“Oh!” says Mrs. Tiscott. “Well, let’s see what it is this time.” And she proceeds to dump out Miss Ann’s contribution. There’s a glass of gooseb’ry bar le duc, another of guava jelly, a little can of pâté de foie gras, and half a dozen lady fingers.
“Huh!” says she, shovin’ the truck over on the window sill. As she’s expressed my sentiments too, I lets it go at that.
“Looks like one of your busy days,” says I.
“One of ’em!” says she with a snort, yankin’ some more pieces out of the bundle and slippin’ a fresh spool of cotton onto the machine.
“What’s the job?” says I.
“Baby dresses,” says she.
“Good money in it?” says I.
“Oh, sure!” says she. “Forty cents a dozen is good, ain’t it?”
“What noble merchant prince is so generous to you as all that?” says I.
Mrs. Tiscott, she shoves over the sweater’s shop tag so I can read for myself. Curious, – wa’n’t it? – but it’s the same firm whose name heads the Piny Crest subscription list. It’s time to change the subject.
“How’s Annie?” says I, lookin’ over at her.
“Her cough don’t seem to get any better,” says Mrs. Tiscott. “She’s had it since she had to quit work in the gas mantle shop. That’s where she got it. The dust, you know.”
Yes, I knew. “How about Tony?” says I.
“Tony!” says she, hard and bitter. “How do I know? He ain’t been near us for a month past.”
“Sends in something of a Saturday, don’t he?” says I.
“Would I be lettin’ the likes of her – that Miss Colliver – come here if he did,” says she, “or workin’ my eyes out like this?”
“I thought Lizzie was in a store?” says I, noddin’ towards the twelve-year-old girl at the nut pickin’ table.
“They always lays off half the bundle girls after Christmas,” says Mrs. Tiscott. “That’s why we don’t see Tony regular every payday any more. He had the nerve to claim most of Lizzie’s envelope.”
Then it was my turn to say “Huh!”
“Why don’t you have him up?” says I.
“I’m a-scared,” says she. “He’s promised to break my head.”
“Think he would?” says I.
“Yes,” says she. “He’s changed for the worse lately. He’d do it, all right, if I took him to court.”
“What if I stood ready to break his, eh?” says I. “Would that hold him?”
Say, it wa’n’t an elevatin’ or cheerful conversation me and Mrs. Tiscott indulged in; but it was more or less to the point. She’s some int’rested in the last proposition of mine, and when I adds a few frills about givin’ a butcher’s order and standin’ for a sack of potatoes, she agrees to swear out the summons for Tony, providin’ I’ll hand it to him and be in court to scare the liver out of him when she talks to the Justice.
“I hate to do it too,” says she.
“I know,” says I; “but no meat or potatoes from me unless you do!”
Sounds kind of harsh, don’t it? You’d think I had a special grudge against Tony Tiscott too. But say, it’s only because I know him and his kind so well. Nothing so peculiar about his case. Lots of them swell coachmen go that way, and in his day Tony has driven for some big people. Him and me got acquainted when he was wearin’ the Twombley-Crane livery and drawin’ down his sixty-five a month. That wa’n’t so long ago, either.
But it’s hard waitin’ hours on the box in cold weather, and they get to boozin’. When they hit it up too free they lose their places. After they’ve lost too many places they don’t get any more. Meantime they’ve accumulated rheumatism and a fam’ly of kids. They’ve got lazy habits too, and new jobs don’t come easy at forty. The next degree is loafin’ around home permanent; but they ain’t apt to find that so pleasant unless the wife is a good hustler. Most likely she rows it. So they chuck the fam’ly and drift off by themselves.
That’s the sort of chaps you’ll find on the bread lines. But Tony hadn’t quite got to that yet. I knew the corner beer joint where he did odd jobs as free lunch carver and window cleaner. Also I knew the line of talk I meant to hand out to him when I got my fingers on his collar.
“Well?” says Miss Ann, when I comes back with the empty basket. “Did you find it an interesting case?”
“Maybe that’s the word,” says I.
“You saw the young woman, did you?” says she, “the one who – ”
“Sure,” says I. “She’s got it – bad.”
“Ah!” says Miss Ann, brightenin’ up. “And now about that life membership!”
“Well,” says I, “the Piny Crest proposition is all right, and I’d like to see it started; but the fact is, Miss Colliver, if I should put my name down with all them big people I’d be runnin’ out of my class.”
“You would be – er – Beg pardon,” says she, “but I don’t think I quite get you?”
I’d suspected she wouldn’t. But how was I going to dope out to her clear and straight what’s so muddled up in my own head? You know, all about how Annie got her cough, and my feelin’s towards the firms that’s sweatin’ the Tiscotts, from the baby up, and a lot of other things that I can’t state.
“As I said,” goes on Miss Colliver, “I hardly think I understand.”
“Me either,” says I. “My head’s just a merry go round of whys and whatfors. But, as far as that fund of yours goes, I don’t come in.”
“Humph!” says she. “That, at least, is quite definite. Home, Hutchins!”
And there I am left on the curb lookin’ foolish. Me, I don’t ride back to the studio on any broadcloth cushions! Serves me right too, I expect. I feels mean and low down all the rest of the day, until I gets some satisfaction by huntin’ up Tony and throwin’ such a scare into him that he goes out and finds a porter’s job and swears by all that’s holy he’ll take up with the fam’ly again.
But think of the chance I passed up of breakin’ into the high toned philanthropy class!
CHAPTER XVI
CLASSING TUTWATER RIGHT
Maybe that brass plate had been up in the lower hall of our buildin’ a month or so before I takes any partic’lar notice of it. Even when I did get my eye on it one mornin’ it only gets me mildly curious. “Tutwater, Director of Enterprises, Room 37, Fourth Floor,” is all it says on it.
“Huh!” thinks I. “That’s goin’ some for a nine by ten coop under the skylight.”
And with that I should have let it drop, I expect. But what’s the use? Where’s the fun of livin’, if you can’t mix in now and then. And you know how I am.
Well, I comes pikin’ up the stairs one day not long after discoverin’ the sign, and here on my landin’, right in front of the studio door, I finds this Greek that runs the towel supply wagon usin’ up his entire United States vocabulary on a strange gent that he’s backed into a corner.
“Easy, there, easy, Mr. Poulykopolis!” says I. “This ain’t any golf links, where you can smoke up the atmosphere with language like that. What’s the row, anyway?”
“No pay for five week; always nex’ time, he tells, nex’ time. Gr-r-r-r! I am strong to slap his life out, me!” says Pouly, thumpin’ his chest and shakin’ his black curls. They sure are fierce actin’ citizens when they’re excited, these Marathoners.
“Yes, you would!” says I. “Slap his life out? G’wan! If he handed you one jolt you wouldn’t stop runnin’ for a week. How big is this national debt you say he owes you! How much?”
“Five week!” says Pouly. “One dollar twenty-five.”
“Sufferin’ Shylocks! All of that? Well, neighbor,” says I to the strange gent, “has he stated it correct?”
“Perfectly, sir, perfectly,” says the party of the second part. “I do not deny the indebtedness in the least. I was merely trying to explain to this agent of cleanliness that, having been unable to get to the bank this morning, I should be obliged to – ”
“Why, of course,” says I. “And in that case allow me to stake you to the price of peace. Here you are, Pouly. Now go out in the sun and cool off.”
“My dear sir,” says the stranger, followin’ me into the front office, “permit me to – ”
“Ah, never mind the resolutions!” says I, “It was worth riskin’ that much for the sake of stoppin’ the riot. Yes, I know you’ll pay it back. Let’s see, which is your floor?”
“Top, sir,” says he, “room 37.”
“Oh ho!” says I. “Then you’re the enterprise director, Tutwater?”
“And your very humble servant, sir,” says he, bringin’ his yellow Panama lid off with a full arm sweep, and throwin’ one leg graceful over the back of a chair.
At that I takes a closer look at him, and before I’ve got half through the inspection I’ve waved a sad farewell to that one twenty-five. From the frayed necktie down to the runover shoes, Tutwater is a walkin’ example of the poor debtor’s oath. The shiny seams of the black frock coat shouts of home pressin’, and the limp way his white vest fits him suggests that he does his own laundry work in the washbowl. But he’s clean shaved and clean brushed, and you can guess he’s seen the time when he had such things done for him in style.
Yet there ain’t anything about the way Tutwater carries himself that signifies he’s down and out. Not much! He’s got the easy, confident swing to his shoulders that you might expect from a sport who’d just picked three winners runnin’.
Rather a tall, fairly well built gent he is, with a good chest on him, and he has one of these eager, earnest faces that shows he’s alive all the time. You wouldn’t call him a handsome man, though, on account of the deep furrows down each side of his cheeks and the prominent jut to his eyebrows; but, somehow, when he gets to talkin’, them eyes of his lights up so you forget the rest of his features.
You’ve seen chaps like that. Gen’rally they’re cranks of some kind or other, and when they ain’t they’re topliners. So I puts Tutwater down as belongin’ to the crank class, and it wa’n’t long before he begun livin’ up to the description.
“Director of enterprises, eh?” says I. “That’s a new one on me.”
“Naturally,” says he, wavin’ his hand, “considering that I am first in the field. It is a profession I am creating.”
“So?” says I. “Well, how are you comin’ on?”
“Excellently, sir, excellently,” says he. “I have found, for the first time in my somewhat varied career, full scope for what I am pleased to call my talents. Of course, the work of preparing the ground is a slow process, and the – er – ahem – the results have not as yet begun to materialize; but when Opportunity comes my way, sir – Aha! Ha, ha! Ho, ho! Well, then we shall see if Tutwater is not ready for her!”
“I see,” says I. “You with your hand on the knob, eh? It’s an easy way of passin’ the time too; that is, providin’ such things as visits from the landlord and the towel collector don’t worry you.”
“Not at all,” says he. “Merely petty annoyances, thorns and pebbles in the pathways that lead to each high emprise.”
Say, it was almost like hearin’ some one read po’try, listenin’ to Tutwater talk; didn’t mean much of anything, and sounded kind of good. At the end of half an hour I didn’t know any more about his game than at the beginning. I gathered, though, that up to date it hadn’t produced any ready cash, and that Tutwater had been on his uppers for some time.
He was no grafter, though. That dollar twenty-five weighed heavier on his mind than it did on mine. He’d come in and talk about not bein’ able to pay it back real regretful, without even hintin’ at another touch. And little by little I got more light on Tutwater, includin’ some details of what he called his career.
There was a lot to it, so far as variety went. He’d been a hist’ry professor in some one-horse Western college, had tried his luck once up at Nome, had canvassed for a patent dishwasher through Michigan, done a ballyhoo trick outside a travelin’ tent show, and had given bump lectures on the schoolhouse circuit.
But his prize stunt was when he broke into the real estate business and laid out Eucalyptus City. That was out in Iowa somewhere, and he’d have cleaned up a cool million in money if the blamed trolley company hadn’t built their line seven miles off in the other direction.
It was gettin’ this raw deal that convinces him the seed district wa’n’t any place for a gent of his abilities. So he sold out his options on the site of Eucalyptus to a brick makin’ concern, and beat it for 42d-st. with a capital of eighty-nine dollars cash and this great director scheme in his head. The brass plate had cost him four dollars and fifty cents, one month’s rent of the upstairs coop had set him back thirty more, and he’d been livin’ on the rest.
“But look here, Tutty,” says I, “just what sort of enterprise do you think you can direct?”
“Any sort,” says he, “anything, from running an international exposition, to putting an icecream parlor on a paying basis.”
“Don’t you find your modesty something of a handicap?” says I.
“Oh, I’m modest enough,” he goes on. “For instance, I don’t claim to invent new methods. I just adapt, pick out lines of proved success, and develop. Now, your business here – why, I could take hold of it, and in six months’ time I’d have you occupying this entire building, with classes on every floor, a solarium on the roof, a corps of assistants working day and night shifts, and – ”
“Yes,” I breaks in, “and then the Sheriff tackin’ a foreclosure notice on the front door. I know how them boom methods work out, Tutty.”
But talk like that don’t discourage Tutwater at all. He hangs onto his great scheme, keepin’ his eyes and ears open, writin’ letters when he can scare up money for postage, and insistin’ that sooner or later he’ll get his chance.
“Here is the place for such chances to occur,” says he, “and I know what I can do.”
“All right,” says I; “but if I was you I’d trail down some pavin’ job before the paper inner soles wore clean through.”
Course, how soon he hit the bread line wa’n’t any funeral of mine exactly, and he was a hopeless case anyway; but somehow I got to likin’ Tutwater more or less, and wishin’ there was some plan of applyin’ all that hot air of his in useful ways. I know of lots of stiffs with not half his brains that makes enough to ride around in taxis and order custom made shirts. He was gettin’ seedier every week, though, and I had it straight from the agent that it was only a question of a few days before that brass plate would have to come down.
And then, one noon as we was chinnin’ here in the front office, in blows a portly, red faced, stary eyed old party who seems kind of dazed and uncertain as to where he’s goin’. He looks first at Tutwater, and then at me.
“Same to you and many of ’em,” says I. “What’ll it be?”
“McCabe was the name,” says he; “Professor McCabe, I think. I had it written down somewhere; but – ”
“Never mind,” says I. “This is the shop and I’m the right party. What then?”
“Perhaps you don’t know me?” says he, explorin’ his vest pockets sort of aimless with his fingers.
“That’s another good guess,” says I; “but there’s lots of time ahead of us.”
“I – I am – well, never mind the name,” says he, brushin’ one hand over his eyes. “I – I’ve mislaid it.”
“Eh?” says I.
“It’s no matter,” says he, beginnin’ to ramble on again. “But I own a great deal of property in the city, and my head has been troubling me lately, and I heard you could help me. I’ll pay you well, you know. I – I’ll give you the Brooklyn Bridge.”
“Wha-a-at’s that?” I gasps. “Say, couldn’t you make it Madison Square Garden? I could get rent out of that.”
“Well, if you prefer,” says he, without crackin’ a smile.
“And this is Mr. Tutwater,” says I. “He ought to be in on this. What’ll yours be, Tutty?”
Say, for a minute or so I couldn’t make out whether the old party was really off his chump or what. He’s a well dressed, prosperous lookin’ gent, a good deal on the retired broker type, and I didn’t know but he might be some friend of Pyramid Gordon’s who’d strayed in here to hand me a josh before signin’ on for a course of lessons.
Next thing we knew, though, he slumps down in my desk chair, leans back comf’table, sighs sort of contented, smiles a batty, foolish smile at us, and then closes his eyes. Another second and he’s snorin’ away as peaceful as you please.
“Well, say!” says I to Tutwater. “What do you think of that, now? Does he take this for a free lodgin’ house, or Central Park? Looks like it was up to me to ring for the wagon.”
“Don’t,” says Tutwater. “The police handle these cases so stupidly. His mind has been affected, possibly from some shock, and he is physically exhausted.”
“He’s all in, sure enough,” says I; “but I can’t have him sawin’ wood here. Come, come, old scout,” I hollers in his ear, “you’ll have to camp somewhere else for this act!” I might as well have shouted into the safe, though. He never stirs.
“The thing to do,” says Tutwater, “is to discover his name, if we can, and then communicate with his friends or family.”
“Maybe you’re right, Tutwater,” says I. “And there’s a bunch of letters in his inside pocket. Have a look.”
“They all seem to be addressed to J. T. Fargo, Esq.,” says Tutwater.
“What!” says I. “Say, you don’t suppose our sleepin’ friend here is old Jerry Fargo, do you? Look at the tailor’s label inside the pocket. Eh? Jeremiah T. Fargo! Well, say, Tutty, that wa’n’t such an idle dream of his, about givin’ me the garden. Guess he could if he wanted to. Why, this old party owns more business blocks in this town than anybody I know of except the Astors. And I was for havin’ him carted off to the station! Lemme see that ’phone directory.”