CHAPTER VI

J. RUFUS PROVES A SAD, SAD DISAPPOINTMENT TO SOME CLEVER PEOPLE

They were glad to see Blackie Daw back on Broadway--that is, in the way that Broadway is glad; for they of the Great White Way have no sentiments and no emotions, and but scant memories. About Blackie's companion, however, they were professionally curious.

"Who is this large, pink Wallingford person, and where did you get it?" asked Mr. Phelps, whose more familiar name was Green-Goods Harry.

Mr. Daw, standing for the moment with Mr. Phelps at the famous old cheese-and-crackers end of the Fifth Avenue bar, grinned.

"He's an educated Hick," he responded, "and I got him out of the heart of the hay-fever district, right after he'd turned a cla.s.sy little trick on the easy producers of his childhood home. Sold 'em a bankrupt bucket-shop for eight thousand, which is going _some_!"

Mr. Phelps, natty and jaunty and curly-haired, though shifty of eye, through long habit of trying to watch front and back doors both at once, looked with a shade more interest across at the imposing white vest of young J. Rufus where he stood at the bar with fat and somber Badger Billy. There was a c.o.c.ksure touch to the joviality of young Wallingford which was particularly aggravating to an expert like Mr.

Phelps. Young Wallingford was so big, so impressive, so sure of pleasing, so certain the world was his oyster, that it seemed a shame not to give his pride a tumble--for his own sake, of course.

"Has he got the eight thousand on him, do you think?" asked the green-goods one, his interest rapidly increasing.

"Not so you could notice it," replied Daw with conviction. "He's a wise prop, I tell you. He's probably lugging about five hundred in his kick, just for running expenses, and has a time-lock on the rest."

"We might tinker with the lock," concluded Harry, running his fingers through his hair to settle the curls; "it's worth a try, anyhow."

"You'll bounce right off," declared Mr. Daw. "I tried to put a sweet one over in his home town, and he jolted the game so quick he made its teeth rattle."

"Then you owe him one," persisted Mr. Phelps, whom it pained to see other people have money. "Do you mean to say that any pumpkin husker can't be trimmed?"

"Enjoy yourself," invited Mr. Daw with a retrospective smile, "but count me out. I'm going to Boston next week, anyhow. I'm going to open a mine investment office there. It's a nice easy money mining district."

"For pocket mining," agreed his friend dryly.

Young Wallingford, in his desire for everybody to be happy, looked around for them at this juncture, and further conversation was out of the question. The quartet lounged out of the Fifth Avenue bar and across Broadway in that dull way peculiar to their kind. At the Hoffman House bar they were joined by a cadaverous gentleman known to the police as Short-Card Larry, whose face was as that of a corpse, but whose lithe, slender fingers were reputed to have brains of their own, and the five of them sat down for a dull half-hour. Later they had dull dinner together, strolled dully into four theaters, and, still dull, wound up in the apartments of Daw and J. Rufus.

"What do you think of them?" asked Blackie in their first aside moment.

"They give me the pip," announced J. Rufus frankly. "Why do they hate themselves so? Why do they sit in the darkest corners and bark at themselves? Can't they ever drink enough to get oiled happy?"

"Not and do business with strangers on Broadway," Daw explained.

"Phelps has been shy about thin gla.s.sware for five years, ever since he let an Indiana come-on outdrink him and steal his own money back; Billy Banting stops after the third gla.s.s of anything, on account of his fat; the only time Larry Teller ever got pinched was for getting spifflicated and telling a reporter what police protection cost him."

"If I wasn't waiting to see one of them bite himself and die of poison I'd cut 'em out," returned Mr. Wallingford in the utmost disgust. "Any one of them would slung-shot the others for the price of a cigarette.

Don't they ever get interested in anything?"

"Nothing but easy marks," replied Mr. Daw with a grin. "The way they're treating you is a compliment. They're letting you just be one of them."

"One of them! Take it back, Blackie!" protested Wallingford. "Why, they're a bunch of crooks!"

In deep dejection young Wallingford, rejoining his guests, ordered three lemonades and a quart of champagne. There was a trifle more of animation among them now, however, since they had been left alone for a few moments. They told three or four very hilarious stories, in each of which the nub of the joke hinged on an utter disregard of every human decency. Then, quite casually and after a lull, Badger Billy smoothed down his smart vest and cleared his throat.

"What do you fellows say to a little game of stud?" he proposed.

"Sure!" agreed Wallingford with alacrity. "That's the first live noise I've heard to-day," and he went to the 'phone at once to order up some cards and chips.

With his back turned, the three lemonade drinkers exchanged pleased smiles. It was too easy! Mr. Daw let them smile, and reposed calmly upon the couch, entirely disinterested. Professional ethics forbade Mr. Daw to interfere with the "tr.i.m.m.i.n.g" of the jovial Mr.

Wallingford, and the instincts of a gentleman, with which, of course, they were all perfectly provided, prevented him from taking any part in that agreeable operation. To his keen amus.e.m.e.nt the game was very brief--scarcely more than twenty minutes.

It was Short-Card Larry who, with a yawn, discovered suddenly how late it was and stopped the game. As he rose to go, young Wallingford, chuckling, was adding a few additional bills to the plethoric roll in his pocket.

"What made you chop the game, Larry?" asked Green-Goods Harry in impatient wonder. "We'd ought to strung it along a while. What made you let him have that hundred and fifty so quick?"

"Let him!" retorted Larry savagely. "He took it! Twice I gave him aces back to back on my deal, and he turned them down without a bet. On his own deal he bet his head off on a pair of deuces, with not one of us three able to draw out on him; and right there he cops that hundred and fifty himself. He's too fresh!"

"Well," said Badger Billy philosophically, "he'll come for more."

"Not of mine, he won't," snorted the dexterous one. "I can't do any business against a man that's next. I hope he chokes."

"There you go again, letting your temper get the best of you,"

protested Mr. Phelps, himself none too pleased. "This fresh lollop has coin, and it ought to be ours."

"Ought to be? It _is_ ours," growled Larry. "We'll get it if we have to mace him, at noon, on Madison Square."

In the meantime J. Rufus was chuckling himself to sleep. He rose at eleven, breakfasted at one, and was dressing and planning to besiege New York upon his own account, when the telephone advised him that Mr.

Phelps was down-stairs with a parched throat, and on the way up to get a drink!

"Fine business!" exclaimed J. Rufus with a cordiality which had nothing whatever to do with the puzzled expression on his brow.

"What'll you have? I'll order it while you're on your way up."

"Nothing stronger than a Scotch highball," was the reply, whereupon young Wallingford, as soon as the telephone was clear, ordered the materials therefor.

"Fine business," he repeated to himself musingly as he stood with his hand still on the receiver after he had hung it up; "also rough work.

This thirst is too sudden."

He was still most thoughtful when Mr. Phelps knocked at the door, and had yet more food for contemplation when the caller began talking with great enthusiasm about his thirst, explaining the height and breadth and thickness thereof, its atomic weight, its color and the excellent style of its finish.

"If I just had that thirst outside of me where I could get at it, I could make an airship of it," he imaginatively concluded.

"Gas or hot air?" inquired young Mr. Wallingford, entirely unmoved, as he poured the highb.a.l.l.s and dosed both quite liberally with the Scotch, whereat Mr. Phelps almost visibly winced, though gamely planning to drink with every appearance of enjoyment.

"Where's Daw?" he asked, after two sips which he tried to make seem like gulps.

"Gone out to a print-shop to locate a couple of gold mines," announced Wallingford dryly, holding his own opinion as to the folly of Mr.

Daw's methods. They were so unsanctioned of law.

"Sorry for that," said Mr. Phelps, who was nevertheless relieved to hear it, for Mr. Daw was rather in the way. "We've got a great game on; a Reuben right from Reubensville, with five thousand of pa's money in his jeans. I wanted you fellows to come and look him over."

"What's the use?" returned Wallingford. "Come down to the lobby and I'll show you a whole procession of them."

"No, but they're not so liberal as this boy," protested Phelps laughing. "He just naturally hones and hones and hones to hand us this nice little bundle of kale, and we're going to accommodate him. You can get in on the split-up if you want to. Daw would have first choice, of course, if he was here, but since he isn't you might as well come in. Five thousand iron men are hardly worth bending to pick up, I guess."

"Oh, I don't know," objected Wallingford condescendingly. "It would make cigarette money, anyhow, if there are not too many to tear it apart."