The Best Short Stories of 1920 Part 61

"Sure, I am," he said hotly; "that old boy is there. He's got the stuff.

Him and me are pals." He was hurrying me along the street toward the office of the doctor he sought. I asked where Evans was. "In my room,"

he told me. "I found him on the street. Last night. He was crazy. The D.

T.'s. I ain't been able to get away from him till now. He's asleep.

Wait. Here's where the doc hangs out."

Five minutes later the doctor and Sheener and I were retracing our steps toward Sheener's lodging, and presently we crowded into the small room where Evans lay on Sheener's bed. The man's muddy garments were on the floor; he himself tossed and twisted feverishly under Sheener's blankets. Sheener and the doctor bent over him, while I stood by. Evans waked, under the touch of their hands, and waked to sanity. He was cold sober and desperately sick.

When the doctor had done what could be done and gone on his way, Sheener sat down on the edge of the bed and rubbed the old man's head with a tenderness of which I could not have believed the newsboy capable.

Evans's eyes were open; he watched the other, and at last he said huskily:

"I say, you know, I'm a bit knocked up."

Sheener rea.s.sured him. "That's all right, bo," he said. "You hit the hay. Sleep's the dose for you. I ain't going away."

Evans moved his head on the pillow, as though lie were nodding. "A bit tight, wasn't it, what?" he asked.

"Say," Sheener agreed. "You said something, b.u.m. I thought you'd kick off, sure."

The old man considered for a little, his lips twitching and shaking. "I say, you know," he murmured at last. "Can't have that. Potter's Field, and all that sort of business. Won't do. Sheener, when I do take the jump, you write home for me. Pa.s.s the good word. You'll hear from them."

Sheener said: "Sure I will. Who'll I write to, b.u.m?"

Evans, I think, was unconscious of my presence. He gave Sheener a name; his name. Also, he told him the name of his lawyer, in one of the Midland cities of England, and added certain instructions....

When he had drifted into uneasy sleep Sheener came out into the hall to see me off. I asked him what he meant to do.

"What am I going to do?" he repeated. "I'm going to write to this guy's lawyer. Let them send for him. This ain't no place for him."

"You'll have your trouble for your pains," I told him. "The old soak is a plain liar; that's all."

Sheener laughed at me. "That's all right, bo," he told me. "I know. This guy's the real cheese. You'll see."

I asked him to let me know if he heard anything, and he said he would.

But within a day or two I forgot the matter, and would hardly have remembered it if Sheener had not telephoned me a month later.

"Say, you're a wise guy, ain't you?" he derided when I answered the phone. I admitted it. "I got a letter from that lawyer in England," he told me. "This Evans is the stuff, just like I said. His wife run away with another man, and he went to the devil fifteen years ago. They've been looking for him ever since his son grew up."

"Son?" I asked.

"Son. Sure! Raising wheat out in Canada somewhere. They give me his address. He's made a pile. I'm going to write to him."

"What does b.u.m say?"

"Him? I ain't told him. I won't till I'm sure the kid's coming after him." He said again that I was a wise guy; and I apologized for my wisdom and asked for a share in what was to come. He promised to keep me posted.

Ten days later he telephoned me while I was at supper to ask if I could come to his room. I said: "What's up?"

"The old guy's boy is coming after him," Sheener said. "He's got the shakes waiting. I want you to come and help me take care of him."

"When's the boy coming?"

"Gets in at midnight to-night," said Sheener.

I promised to make haste; and half an hour later I joined them in Sheener's room. Sheener let me in. Evans himself sat in something like a stupor, on a chair by the bed. He was dressed in a cheap suit of ready-made clothes, to which he lent a certain dignity. His cheeks were shaven clean, his mustache was trimmed, his thin hair was plastered down on his bony skull. The man stared straight before him, trembling and quivering. He did not look toward me when I came in; and Sheener and I sat down by the table and talked together in undertones.

"The boy's really coming?" I asked.

Sheener said proudly: "I'm telling you."

"You heard from him?"

"Got a wire the day he got my letter."

"You've told b.u.m?"

"I told him right away. I had to do it. The old boy was sober by then, and crazy for a shot of booze. That was Monday. He wanted to go out and get pied; but when I told him about his boy, he begun to cry. And he ain't touched a drop since then."

"You haven't let him?"

"Sure I'd let him. But he wouldn't. I always told you the cla.s.s was there. He says to me: 'I can't let my boy see me in this state, you know. Have to straighten up a bit. I'll need new clothes.'"

"I noticed his new suit."

"Sure," Sheener agreed. "I bought it for him."

"Out of his savings?"

"He ain't been saving much lately."

"Sheener," I asked, "how much does he owe you? For money loaned and spent for him."

Sheener said hotly: "He don't owe me a cent."

"I know. But how much have you spent on him?"

"If I hadn't have give it to him, I'd have blowed it somehow. He needed it."

I guessed at a hundred dollars, at two hundred. Sheener would not tell me. "I'm telling you, he's my pal," he said. "I'm not looking for anything out of this."

"If this millionaire son of his has any decency, he'll make it up to you."

"He don't know a thing about me," said Sheener, "except my name. I've just wrote as though I knowed the old guy, here in the house, see. Said he was sick, and all."

"And the boy gets in to-night?"

"Midnight," said Sheener, and Evans, from his chair, echoed: "Midnight!"

Then asked with a certain stiff anxiety: "Do I look all right, Sheener?

Look all right to see my boy?"