Sir:--I'm through being a fool actor. The money's all right if I needed it, which I doant, but I doant like makin' a fool of myself twict a day to please a lot of citty foalks I doant give a dam about annie way, I doant like livin' in a blamed hotel either, for there aint annie wheres to set and smoak and see the sun come up. I'd ruther be on my old bote, and that's whare I'm goin'. You needn't try to find me and git me to come back for I wont. You couldn't git me to act on that staige agin, ever.

It's foolish.

Yours, TODD SPILLER.

"Now what in the name of all that's woolly," says Chunk, "would you say to a thing like that?"

"Me?" says I. "I don't know. Maybe I'd start in by admittin' that to card index the minds of the whole human race was a good deal of a job for one party to tackle, even with a mighty intellect like yours. Also, if it was put up to me flat, I might agree with Spiller."

CHAPTER IX

HANDING BOBBY A BLANK

Say, what do you make out of this plute huntin' business, anyway? Has the big money bunch got us down on the mat with our wind shut off and our pockets inside out; or is it just campaign piffle? Are we ghost dancin', or waltz dreamin', or what? It sure has me twisted up for fair, and I don't know whether I stand with the criminal rich or the predatory poor.

That's all on account of a little mix-up I was rung into at the hotel Perzazzer the other day. No, we ain't livin' there reg'lar again. This was just a little fall vacation we was takin' in town, so Sadie can catch up with her shoppin', and of course the Perzazzer seems more or less like home to us.

But it ain't often I've ever run against anything like this there. I've been thinkin' it over since, and it's left me with my feet in the air.

No, you didn't read anything about it in the papers. But say, there's more goes on in one of them big joints every week than would fill a whole issue.

Look at the population the Perzazzer's got,--over two thousand, countin'

the help! Why, drop us down somewhere out in Iowa, and spread us around in separate houses, and there'd be enough to call for a third-class postmaster, a police force, and a board of trade. Bunched the way we are, all up and down seventeen stories, with every cubic foot accounted for, we don't cut much of a figure except on the checkbooks. You hear about the Perzazzer only when some swell gives a fancy blow-out, or a guest gets frisky in the public dining room.

And anything in the shape of noise soon has the muffler put on it. We've got a whole squad of husky, two-handed, soft spoken gents who don't have anything else to do, and our champeen ruction extinguisher is Danny Reardon. To see him strollin' through the cafe, you might think he was a corporation lawyer studyin' how to spend his next fee; but let some ambitious wine opener put on the loud pedal, or have Danny get his eye on some Bridgeport dressmaker drawin' designs of the latest Paris fashions in the tea room, and you'll see him wake up. Nothing seems to get by him.

So I was some surprised to find him havin' an argument with a couple of parties away up on our floor. Anyone could see with one eye that they was a pair of butt-ins. The tall, smooth faced gent in the black frock coat and the white tie had sky pilot wrote all over him; and the Perzazzer ain't just the place an out of town minister would pick out to stop at, unless he wanted to blow a year's salary into a week's board.

Anyway, his runnin' mate was a dead give away. He looked like he might have just left a bench in the Oriental lodgin' house down at Chatham Square. He's a thin, gawky, pale haired youth, with tired eyes and a limp lower jaw that leaves his mouth half open all the time; and his costume looks like it had been made up from back door contributions,--a faded coat three sizes too small, a forty fat vest, and a pair of shiny black whipcord pants that someone had been married in about twenty years back.

What gets me is why such a specimen should be trailin' around with a clean, decent lookin' chap like this minister. Maybe that's why I come to take any notice of their little debate. There's some men, though, that you always give a second look at, and this minister gent was one of that kind. It wa'n't until I see how he tops Danny by a head that I notices how well built he is; and I figures that if he was only in condition, and knew how to handle himself, he could put up a good lively scrap.

Something about his jaw hints that to me; but of course, him bein' a Bible pounder, I don't expect anything of the kind.

"Yes, I understand all that," Danny was tellin' him; "but you'd better come down to the office, just the same."

"My dear man," says the minister, "I have been to the office, as I told you before, and I could get no satisfaction there. The person I wish to see is on the ninth floor. They say he is out. I doubt it, and, as I have come six hundred miles just to have a word with him, I insist on a chance to----"

"Sure!" says Danny. "You'll get your chance, only it's against the rules to allow strangers above the ground floor. Now, you come along with me and you'll be all right." With that Danny gets a grip on the gent's arm and starts to walk him to the elevator. But he don't go far. The next thing Danny knows he's been sent spinnin' against the other wall. Course, he wa'n't lookin' for any such move; but it was done slick and prompt.

"Sorry," says the minister, shovin' his cuffs back in place; "but I must ask you to keep your hands off."

I see what Danny was up to then. He looks as cool as a soda fountain; but he's red behind his ears, and he's fishin' the chain nippers out of his side pocket. I knows that in about a minute the gent in the frock coat will have both hands out of business. Even at that, it looks like an even bet, with somebody gettin' hurt more or less. And blamed if I didn't hate to see that spunky minister get mussed up, just for objectin' to takin'

the quiet run out. So I pushes to the front.

"Well, well!" says I, shovin' out a hand to the parson, as though he was someone I'd been lookin' for. "So you showed up, eh?"

"Why," says he,--"why--er----"

"Yes, I know," says I, headin' him off. "You can tell me about that later. Bring your friend right in; this is my door. It's all right, Danny; mistakes will happen."

And before any of 'em knows what's up, Danny is left outside with his mouth open, while I've towed the pair of strays into our sittin' room, and shooed Sadie out of the way. The minister looks kind of dazed; but he keeps his head well.

"Really," says he, gazin' around, "I am sure there must be some misunderstanding."

"You bet," says I, "and it was gettin' worse every minute. About two shakes more, and you'd been the center of a local disturbance that would have landed you before the police sergeant."

"Do you mean," says he, "that I cannot communicate with a guest in this hotel without being liable to arrest?"

"That's the size of it," says I. "Danny had the bracelets all out. The conundrum is, though, Why I should do the goat act, instead of lettin'

you two mix it up? But that's what happened, and now I guess it's up to you to give an account."

"H'm!" says he. "It isn't quite clear; but I infer that you have, in a way, made yourself responsible for me. May I ask whom I have to thank for----"

"I'm Shorty McCabe," says I.

"Oh!" says he. "It seems to me I've heard----"

"Nothing like bein' well advertised," says I. "Now, how about you--and this?" With that I points to the specimen in the cast offs, that was givin' an imitation of a flytrap. It was a little crisp, I admit; but I'm gettin' anxious to know where I stand.

The minister lifts his eyebrows some, but proceeds to hand out the information. "My name is Hooker," says he,--"Samuel Hooker."

"Preacher?" says I.

"Ye-es, a poor one," says he. "Where? Well, in the neighborhood of Mossy Dell, Pennsylvania."

"Out in the celluloid collar belt, eh?" says I. "This ain't a deacon, is it?" and I jerks my thumb at the fish eyed one.

"This unfortunate fellow," says he, droppin' a hand on the object's shoulder, "is one of our industrial products. His name is Kronacher, commonly called Dummy."

"I can guess why," says I. "But now let's get down to how you two happen to be loose on the seventh floor of the Perzazzer and so far from Mossy Dell."

The Reverend Sam says there ain't any great mystery about that. He come on here special to have a talk with a party by the name of Rankin, that he understood was stoppin' here.

"You don't mean Bobby Brut, do you?" says I.

"Robert K. Rankin is the young man's name, I believe," says he,--"son of the late Loring Rankin, president of the Consolidated----"

"That's Bobby Brut," says I. "Don't catch onto the Brut, eh? You would if you read the champagne labels. Friend of yours, is he?"

But right there the Rev. Mr. Hooker turns balky. He hints that his business with Bobby is private and personal, and he ain't anxious to lay it before a third party. He'd told 'em the same at the desk, when someone from Bobbie's rooms had 'phoned for details about the card, and then he'd got the turn down. But he wa'n't the kind that stayed down. He's goin' to see Mr. Rankin or bu'st. Not wantin' to ask for the elevator, he blazes ahead up the stairs; and Danny, it seems, hadn't got on his track until he was well started.

"All I ask," says he, "is five minutes of Mr. Rankin's time. That is not an unreasonable request, I hope?"

"Excuse me," says I; "but you're missin' the point by a mile. It ain't how long you want to stay, but what you're here for. You got to remember that things is run different on Fifth-ave. from what they are on Penrose-st., Mossy Dell. You might be a book agent, or a bomb thrower, for all the folks at the desk know. So the only way to get next to anyone here is to show your hand and take the decision. Now if you want to try runnin' the outside guard again, I'll call Danny back. But you'll make a mess of it."

He thinks that over for a minute, lookin' me square in the eye all the time, and all of a sudden he puts out his hand. "You're right," says he.

"I was hot headed, and let my zeal get the better of my commonsense.