Torchy, Private Sec. Part 3

"Well," says I, "tell him I need those--no, better ask him to step in here a minute."

Honest, I wa'n't plannin' to rub it in, either. Course, I'd done a good deal of trottin' for Piddie, and a lot of it wa'n't for anything else than to let him show his authority; but I didn't hold any grudge. I'd squared the account in my own way. How he was goin' to take it now I was the one to send for him, I didn't know; but there wa'n't any use dodgin' the issue.

And you should have seen Piddie make his first official entrance! You know how stiff and wooden he is as a rule? Well, as he marches in over the rug and comes to a parade rest by the desk, he's about as limber as a length of gas pipe. And solemn? That long face of his would have soured condensed milk!

"Yes, Sir?" says he. And to me, mind you! It come out a little husky, like it was bein' filtered through strong emotions; but there it is.

Piddie has sirred me his first "Sir."

He knows a roll-top when he sees one, Piddie does, and he ain't omittin'

any deference due. You know the type? He's one of the kind that was born to be "our Mr. Piddie"; the sort that takes off his hat to a vice-president, and holds his breath in the presence of the big wheeze.

But, say, I don't want any joss-sticks burned for me.

"Ditch it, Piddie," says I, "ditch it!"

"I--er--I beg pardon?" says he.

"The Sir stuff," says I. "Just because I'm behind the ground gla.s.s instead of the bra.s.s rail don't make me a sacred being, or you a lobbygow, does it? I guess we've known each other too long for that, eh?" And I holds out the friendly mitt.

Honest, he's got a human streak in him, Piddie has, if you know where to strike it. The cast-iron effect comes out of his shoulders, the wooden look from his face. He almost smiles.

"Thank you, Torchy," says he. "I--er--my congratulations on your new----"

"We'll spread 'em on the minutes," says I, "and proceed to show the Corrugated some teamwork that mere salaries can't buy. Are you on?"

He was. Inside of three minutes he'd chucked that stiff-necked, flunky pose and was coachin' me like a big brother, and by the time he'd beat into my head all he knew about the Fundin' Comp'ny we was as chummy as two survivors of the same steamer wreck. Simple, I know; but this little experience made me feel like I'd signed a gen'ral peace treaty with the world at large.

I hadn't, though. An hour later I runs up against Willis G. Briscoe.

He's kind of an outside development manager, who makes preliminary reports on new deals. One of these cold-eyed, chesty parties, Willis G.

is; tall and thin, and with a big, bowwow voice that has a rasp to it.

"Huh!" says he, as he discovers me busy at the desk. "I heard of this out in Chicago three days ago; but I thought it must be a joke."

"Them reporters do get things straight now and then, don't they?" says I.

"Reporters!" he snorts. "Philip wrote me about it."

"Oh!" says I. "Cousin Philip, eh?"

And that gave me the whole plot of the piece. Cousin Phil was a cigarette-consumin' college discard that Willis G. had been nursin'

along in the bondroom, waitin' for a better openin'; and this jump of mine had filled a snap job that he'd had his eyes on for Cousin.

"I suppose you're only temporary, though," says he.

"That's all," says I. "Mr. Ellins will be resignin' in eight or ten years, I expect, and then they'll want me in his chair. Nice mornin', ain't it?"

"Bah!" says he, registerin' deep disgust, as they say in the movie scripts. "You'll do well if you last eight or ten days."

"How cheerin'!" says I, and as he swings off with a final glare I tips him the humorous wink.

Why not? No young-man-afraid-of-his-job part for me! Briscoe might get it away from me, or he might not; but I wa'n't goin' to get panicky over it. Let him do his worst!

He didn't need any urgin'. With a little scoutin' around he discovers that about the only a.s.signment on my hook so far is this Rowley matter: you know, the old inventor guy with the mill-tailings scheme. And the first hint I had that he was wise to that was when Mr. Robert calls me over after lunch and explains how this Rowley business sort of comes in Mr. Briscoe's department.

"So I suppose you'd better turn it over to him," says he.

"Just as you say," says I. "The old gent is due at two-fifteen, and I'll shunt him onto Briscoe."

Which I did. And at two-thirty-five Briscoe breezes in with his report.

"Nothing to it," says he. "This Rowley person has a lot of half-baked ideas about briquets and retort recoveries, and talks vaguely of big profits; but he's got nothing practical. I s.h.i.+pped him off."

"But," says Mr. Robert, "I think he was promised that his schemes should have a consideration by the board."

"Very well," says Willis G. jaunty. "I'll give 'em a report next meeting. Wednesday, isn't it? Hardly worth wasting their time over, though."

And here I'd been boostin' the Rowley proposition to Mr. Robert good and hard, almost gettin' him enthusiastic over it! I was smeared, that's all! My first stab at makin' myself useful in my new swing-chair job has been brushed aside as a beginner's bungle; and there sits Mr. Robert, prob'ly wonderin' if he hadn't made a mistake in takin' me off the gate!

I stares at a row of empty pigeonholes for a solid hour after that, not doin' a blamed thing but race my thinkin' gears tryin' to find out where I was at. This dummy act that I'd been let in for might be all right for some; but it didn't suit me. I've got to have action in mine.

So, long before quittin' time, I slams the desk cover down and pikes out on Rowley's trail. He might be a dead duck; but I wanted to know how and why. I had his address all right, and it didn't take me long to locate him in a fifth-story loft down on lower Sixth-ave. It's an odd joint too, with a cot bed in one corner, a work bench along the avenue side, a cook-stove in the middle, and a kitchen table where the coffeepot was crowded on each side by a rack of test tubes. Old Rowley himself, with his sleeves rolled up, is sittin' in a rickety arm chair peelin'

potatoes. He's grouchy too.

"Oh, it's you, is it?" says he. "Well, you might just as well trot right back to the Corrugated Trust and tell 'em that Old Hen Rowley don't give two hoots for their whole outfit."

"I take it you didn't get on so well with Mr. Briscoe?" says I.

"Briscoe!" he grunts savage. "Who could talk business to a smart Alec like that! He knew it all before I'd begun. You'd think I was trying to sell him a gold brick. All right! We'll see what the Bethlehem people have to say."

"What?" says I. "Before you get the final word from us?"

"I've had it," says he. "Briscoe is final enough for me."

"You're easy satisfied," says I, "or else you're easy beat. I didn't take you for a quitter, either."

Say, that got to him. "Quitter, eh!" says he. "See here, Son, how long do you think I've been plugging at this thing? Nine years. And for the last four I've been giving it all my time, day in and day out, and many a night as well. I've been living with it, in this loft here, like a blessed hermit; testing and perfecting, trying out my processes, and fighting the Patent Office sharks between times. Nine years--the best of my life! Call that quitting, do you?"

"Well, that is sticking around some," says I. "Think you've got your schemes so they'll work?"

"I don't think," says he; "I know."

"But what's the good," I goes on, "if you can't make other folks see you've got a good thing?"

"I can, though," he says. "Why, any person with even ordinary intelligence can----"

"That's me," says I. "My nut is just about a stock pattern size, six and seven-eighths, or maybe seven. Come, try it on me, if it's so simple. Now what about this retort business?"

That got him goin'. Rowley drops the potatoes, and in another minute we're neck-deep in the science of makin' an ore puddin', doin' stunts with the steam, skimmin' dividends off the pot, and coinin' the slag into dollars.