Torchy As A Pa Part 28

Knew the game from A to Izzard--deep mining, open pit, low grade was.h.i.+ng, transportation, smelting. He lived with it. Never happier than when he was in his mining rig following a chief engineer through new cross-cuts on the twenty-sixth level trying to locate a fault in the deposit or testing some modern method of hoisting. Those were things he understood. Then he retired. Said he'd made money enough. And now look at him. Getting cracked over a sport that must have been invented by some Scotchman who had a grudge against the whole human race. As though any game could be a subst.i.tute for business. Bah!"

"Then you don't think, Mr. Ellins," says I, "that we ought to have the boy page Sir Oliver Lodge?"

"Eh?" says he.

"I mean," says I, "that you don't take any stock in that mantle of Sandy the Great yarn?"

"Tommyrot!" says he. "For once in his life the old fool played his head off, that's all. Nine holes in par. Huh! I'm liable to do that myself one of these days, and without the aid of any departed spirits. Yes, sir. The fact is, Torchy, I am practicing a new swing that ought to have me playing in the low 90's before the middle of the next season. You see, it all depends on taking an open stance and keeping a stiff right knee. Here' pa.s.s me that umbrella and I'll show you."

And for the next ten minutes he kept a bank president, two directors and a general manager waiting while he swats a ball of paper around the private office with me for an audience. Uh-huh. And being a high ace private sec. I aint even supposed to grin. Say, why don't some genius get up an anti-golf serum so that when one of these old plutes found himself slippin' he could rush to a clinic and get a shot in the arm?

CHAPTER XIV

TORCHY SHUNTS A WIZARD

I'd hardly noticed when Mr. Robert blew in late from lunch until I hears him chuckle. Then I glances over my shoulder and sees that he's lookin'

my way. Course, that gets me curious, for Mr. Robert ain't the kind of boss that goes around chucklin' casual, 'specially at a busy private sec.

"Yes, sir?" says I, shoving back a tray full of correspondence I'm sortin'.

"I heard something rather good, at luncheon, Torchy," says he.

"On red hair, I expect," says I.

"It wasn't quite so personal as that," says he. "Still, I think you'll be interested."

"It's part of my job to look so, anyway," says I, givin' him the grin.

"And another item on which you specialize, I believe," he goes on, "is the detection of book agents. At least, you used to do so when you were head office boy. Held a record, didn't you?"

"Oh, I don't know," says I tryin' to register modesty. "One got past the gate; one in five years. That was durin' my first month."

"Almost an unblemished career," says Mr. Robert. "What about your successor, Vincent?"

"Oh, he's doing fairly well," says I. "Gets stung now and then. Like last week when that flossy blonde with the Southern accent had him buffaloed with a tale about having met dear Mr. Ellins at French Lick and wantin' to show him something she knew he'd be just crazy about. She did, too. 'Lordly Homes of England,' four volumes, full morocco, at fifty a volume. And I must say she was nearly right. He wasn't far from being crazy for the next hour or so. Vincent got it, and then I got it, although I was downtown at the time it happened. But I'm coachin'

Vincent, and I don't think another one of 'em will get by very soon."

"You don't eh?" says Mr. Robert, indulgin' in another chuckle.

Then he spills what he overheard at lunch. Seems he was out with a friend who took him to the Papyrus Club, which is where a lot of these young hicks from the different book publis.h.i.+n' houses get together noon-times; not Mr. Harper, or Mr. Scribner, or Mr. Dutton, but the heads of departments, a.s.sistant editors, floor salesmen and so on.

And at the next table to Mr. Robert the guest of honor was a loud talkin' young gent who'd just come in from a tour of the Middle West with a bunch of orders big enough, if you let him tell it, to keep his firm's presses on night s.h.i.+fts for a year. He was some hero, I take it, and for the benefit of the rest of the bunch he was sketchin' out his methods.

"As I understood the young man," says Mr. Robert, "his plan was to go after the big ones; the difficult proposition, men of wealth and prominence whom other agents had either failed to reach or had not dared to approach. 'The bigger the better,' was his motto, and he referred to himself, I think, as 'the wizard of the dotted line.'"

"Not what you'd exactly call a shrinkin' violet, eh?" I suggests.

"Rather a shrieking sunflower," says Mr. Robert. "And he concluded by announcing that nothing would suit him better than to be told the name of the most difficult subject in the metropolitan district--'the hardest nut' was his phrase, I believe. He guaranteed to land the said person within a week. In fact, he was willing to bet $100 that he could."

"Huh," says I.

"Precisely the remark of one of his hearers," says Mr. Robert. "The wager was promptly made. And who do you suppose, Torchy, was named as the most aloof and difficult man in New York for a book agent to--"

"Mr. Ellins," says I.

Mr. Robert nods. "My respected governor, none other," says he. "I fancy he would be rather amused to know that he had achieved such a reputation, although he would undoubtedly give you most of the credit."

"Or the blame," says I.

"Yes," admits Mr. Robert, "if he happened to be in the blaming mood.

Anyway, young man, there you have a direct challenge. Within the next week the inner sanctum of the Corrugated Trust is to be a.s.sailed by one who claims that he can penetrate the impenetrable, know the unknowable, and unscrew the inscrutable."

"Well, that's cute of him," says I. "I'm bettin', though, he never gets to his man."

"That's the spirit!" says Mr. Robert. "As the French said at Verdun, 'Ils ne pa.s.seront pas.' Eh?"

"Meaning 'No Gangway', I expect!" says I.

"That's the idea," says he.

"But say, Mr. Robert, what's he look like, this king of the dotted line!" says I.

Mr. Robert shakes his head. "I was sitting back to him," says he.

"Besides, to give you his description would be taking rather an unfair advantage. That would tend to spoil what now stands as quite a neat sporting proposition. Of course, if you insist--"

"No," says I. "He don't know me and I don't know him. It's fifty-fifty.

Let him come."

I never have asked any odds of book agents, so why begin now? But, you can bet I didn't lose any time havin' a heart to heart talk with Vincent.

"Listen, son," says I, "from this on you want to watch this gate like you was a terrier standin' over a rat hole. It's up to you to see that no stranger gets through, no matter who he says he is; and that goes for anybody, from first cousins of the boss to the Angel Gabriel himself.

Also, it includes stray window cleaners, buildin' inspectors and parties who come to test the burglar alarm system. They might be in disguise. If their faces ain't as familiar to you as the back of your hand give 'em the sudden snub and tell 'em 'Boom boom, outside!' In case of doubt keep 'em there until you can send for me. Do you get it?"

Vincent says he does. "I shouldn't care to let in another book agent,"

says he.

"You might just as well resign your portfolio if you do," says I.

"Remember the callin' down, you got from Old Hickory last week."

Vincent shudders. "I'll do my best, sir," says he.

And he's a thorough goin', conscientious youth. Within the next few hours I had to rescue one of our directors, our first a.s.sistant Western manager, and a personal friend of Mr. Robert's, all of whom Vincent had parked on the bench in the anteroom and was eyein' cold, and suspicious.

He even holds up the Greek who came luggin' in the fresh towels, and Tony the spring water boy.

"I feel like old Horatius," says Vincent.