Taking Chances Part 16

"'Hammer-Jim-Conway. Punch-him-your-limit.

Don't-let-anything-scare-you-out. He's easy. _Bub_.'" the junior partner's wife read, slowly and distinctly, her eyes widening at each sentence. "This, then, is the Mr. Conway that you spoke of. Mr. Topknot, what is the meaning of this? What in the world is the"--

"You can search me," said the senior partner desperately. "Er-that is, it's all as mysterious to me as it apparently is to you. I've been bothering my head about it all the morning. I wouldn't have worried you by showing it to you, but as long as you asked to see it, why, of course"--

And the senior partner coughed behind his hand and looked dismal.

The junior partner's wife paced up and down the office with the telegram in her hand.

"Why, it looks as if Jack had an enemy named Jim Conway, and that he intended to fight him, doesn't it?" she exclaimed beseechingly to the senior partner. "I'd just like to know who this horrid, nasty ruffian who signs himself Bub is, that's all. My Jack fighting a man with such an awful, 'longsh.o.r.emanish name as Jim Conway! Why, that name sounds like the names of the roustabouts we read of in the papers who attack their poor wives with cotton hooks and throw burning lamps at them. And goodness gracious sakes alive! the very idea of Jack Barlock ever dreaming of lowering himself by getting into difficulties with such-oh, I don't know what to think of it all; indeed I don't!"

And she strode up and down the office again in great agitation.

"Now, now, now," put in the senior partner comfortingly. "We don't know anything about the contents of the message, and it may be that this Mr.

Conway is-er-why, the fact is, come to think of it, it may be a message in code. Jack's got a code of his own, you know, and maybe he"--

The wife of the junior partner was looking at him so suspiciously, however, that he couldn't go on. An expression just a trifle harder than was exactly becoming gradually stole into her face, and she walked over close to where the senior partner sat in his revolving chair.

"Ah," she said in a hard tone, "I begin to see. You are trying to cover up something-you men always stick together in these affairs. It may be that this Mr. Conway is married, and that Jack-great heavens! if I only thought it! If I even dreamed that such a thing could be-after all the sacrifices I've made for Jack-living away from mama all this time-and"--

Then she reduced her handkerchief to a wad about half an inch in diameter and began to dab at the corners of her eyes.

"My dear girl," said the senior partner, "I give you my solemn word that I know no more about that message, nor about Mr. Conway, than you do. I never heard of Mr. Conway in my life before I opened that telegram. My dear Mrs. Barlock, I am sure you are exaggerating the importance of this despatch. There is no reasonable ground whatsoever upon which you can base any-er-accusation against the boy, and, as I say, it is possible-in fact, it's more than probable-that this message is in Jack's private code, and that"--

"I-don't-believe-any-such-boo-hoo"--And the lovely young matron began to rock herself to and fro and to dab at her eyes unremittingly. "It's just as plain as day that Jack has done some wrong to this poor Mr. Conway, and this friend of Jack's in St. Louis, named Bub, has heard that Mr.

Conway is looking for Jack, and he has sent him this telegram to warn him to be on his guard-and-boo-hoo-who would ever dream that my Jack would get himself involved in such an awful"--

Her feelings overcame her again at this point, and she was unable to proceed.

"Mrs. Barlock," said her husband's senior partner, severely, rising and confronting her, "I am surprised at you-I am, indeed. I was certainly of the opinion that in a matter of this sort you would at least give your husband-a most considerate husband-the benefit of the doubt; that you would at any rate give him an opportunity to explain himself. How do we know what he is to Conway or Conway to him?" And the senior partner, growing eloquent, declaimed as if he were speaking of Hecuba instead of the mysterious Conway. "Is it not more than likely that you are doing him a grievous wrong by even so much as imagining for a moment that this extraordinary telegraphic communication from-er-this Bub-person has any reference whatsoever to-er-uh-domestic or family affairs? Wait until Jack returns, my dear Mrs. Barlock, and I've not the least doubt that he will explain everything to your entire satisfaction, and"--

"Oh, yes, explanations-explanations!" exclaimed the junior partner's wife, giving her eyes a final dab and rising. "You'll telegraph him on the train to have some sort of an explanation ready, and then he'll come in here with a deeply aggrieved countenance-just as if he had had no part at all in endeavoring to break up this poor Mr. Conway's home and tell me hypocritically that I've wronged him and all that. I know you horrid men and the way you stand by each other through thick and thin, no matter how wicked you know each other to be. I shall be back here at 4 o'clock, when Jack is due, Mr. Topknot, and notwithstanding the way he is treating me, if there is any possible way I can prevent him from meeting this Mr. Conway and having a disgraceful altercation with him, I shall do it. And I promise you that I shall be able to detect very easily whether he is telling me the truth or not when I demand him to explain this terrible business."

Saying which, the junior partner's wife pulled her veil down and swept out of the office with the general air of a deceived wife in a play.

"Huh! it'd naturally be thought I'd know enough not to make such an egregious a.s.s of myself as to show her that telegram!" growled the senior partner to himself. "There'll be all kinds of a bobbery around here this afternoon, I suppose, and if this Conway matter proves to be something that Barlock wouldn't want his wife to know about-and I've no doubt now that it will prove just that way, the young idiot!-why, he'll be sulky with me, and there'll be little or no work done on those new cases, and-oh, it's a devil of a mess all around, that's what it is!"

For all of which, however, the senior partner had his work to do, and he pitched in and was up to his ears in it until about half-past 3, when the junior partner's wife, with tightly pursed lips and an air of ominous calm, arrived at the office with her mother, a handsome, haughty, uncompromising-looking woman with a great ma.s.s of white pompadour hair and an expression of unyielding austerity. The junior partner's wife and her mother replied to the senior partner's courteous greetings with unusual stiffness, plainly indicating their joint belief that he was in league with the absent junior partner in his nefarious doings, or that he was at any rate attempting to shield the young man.

"Shall I turn on the electric fan, madam?" the senior partner politely asked the junior partner's wife's mother.

"I am quite cool enough, thank you," said the junior partner's wife's mother, snappily.

"Shall I fetch you a gla.s.s of iced water?" he asked the junior partner's wife.

"You are very kind, but I am not in the least thirsty," she replied in a tone which seemed to convey the idea as plainly as words that she feared he might put something in the water that wouldn't do her any good.

The senior partner turned to his work. Thus the three sat in unbroken silence for fully fifteen minutes, when the sound of a bl.u.s.tery, cheerful voice was heard in the office boy's anteroom, and a few seconds later a tall, broad-shouldered, frank-faced young man entered the office. When he saw his wife he made for her with both arms extended.

"Why, h.e.l.lo, there, Patsy!" he said. "I didn't know you'd be waiting for me, or I'd have come a-running-why, what's the matter here, anyhow?"

The junior partner's wife had shaken herself loose and averted her face when her husband had attempted to fold her in his arms. He stared at her for a moment, and then he stared at his mother-in-law.

"What's up, mom?" he asked his wife's mother. "What have I been and gone and done now, I'd like to know? Did I leave the water running in the bathroom before starting for Washington, or have you lost my bull-pup again, that you all look so queer-or what the deuce is it all about?"

Neither of the women vouchsafed him any reply, and he turned to his senior partner.

"I say, Topknot, look here; are you in on this?" he said to his senior partner, who was twiddling his thumbs and looking very much confused.

"Did I rob a bank in my sleep last week, or have the papers come out and accused me of being a member of the Ice Trust, or"--

"My boy," the senior partner interrupted, judiciously rising and taking the mysterious telegram from the inside pocket of his frock coat, "the telegraphic message which I have in my hand, and which, I regret to say, I opened this morning, knowing that you would not be back in New York until late in the afternoon, has been the occasion, owing to its somewhat mysterious contents, of the seeming"--

"Let's see it, Topknot," said the junior partner, reaching for the telegram.

He spread it out and glanced over its two lines. By the time he got through reading it he was in a frenzy of excitement. He jerked his watch out and looked at it.

"I've just got time," he muttered to himself, hastily. "I'll just about be able to make it. Patsy, you stay here with your mother until I get back. I'll be back in twenty minutes or half an hour. Tell you all about it when I get back," and he was out of the office door and down the steps like a boy breaking out of a little red schoolhouse for recess.

A vacant cab happened to be pa.s.sing just as he got outside, and he hailed the driver and darted into the vehicle.

"Drive like the devil to --'s!" he shouted to the driver, and in something under three minutes he had rushed into the upstairs poolroom about four blocks from his office.

The second line of betting was in on the second race at St. Louis, and the horse Jim Conway was the rank outsider at 60 to 1. The junior partner crowded his way up to the counter and laid down a ten-dollar note.

"Gimme Jim Conway," he said to the man behind the counter.

"Conway, $600 to $10," said the money taker, and he had no sooner finished the words than the instrument began to click.

"They're off at St. Loo!" sang out the operator. "Rushfields in the lead, Cathedral second." Pause. "Cathedral at the quarter by two lengths, Rushfields second." Pause. "Cathedral at the half by three lengths, Rushfields second." Pause. "Cathedral at the three-quarters by a length, Rushfields second." Pause. "Cathedral in the stretch by a neck, Rushfields second by a neck." Longer pause. "Jim Conway wins, easy, by three lengths!"

"Whoopee-wow!" The yell went up from the long-shot players in the room who had taken a chance on Jim Conway.

The junior partner stood around with a broad grin on his face while he waited for the race to be confirmed. Then he collected, bounded downstairs, hailed another cab, and in exactly seventeen minutes from the time he had left his office he was back there again. He was greeted with the same frigidity as characterized his original welcome. He still wore his broad grin, and he walked over to his desk, raised the lid, and began to dig into his pockets. He produced first one fat roll of bills and then another, and he slammed each roll down on his desk as if it were so much shavings. His wife and his wife's mother and his senior partner watched his performance with open mouths, as did the office boy who stood in the doorway. When the junior partner had made a pyramid of bills on his desk about as big as a fair-sized derby hat, he turned to his wife and asked her, still grinning:

"Did you read this telegram, my dear?" holding the message out in his hand.

"I certainly did," she replied, "and you would oblige me greatly if you would"--

"And who do you think this Jim Conway was, Patsy?" he interrupted.

"I hadn't the least idea in life," she replied, without any sign of relenting, "nor have I at the present moment. I intend, however, to find out who Mr. Conway is at the earliest possible mo"--

The junior partner fell into a revolving chair, stuck his legs out in front of him as far as they would reach, and roared so that he must have been heard all over the building. He roared so loud and long that the performance was infectious, and his wife and his wife's mother and his senior partner, notwithstanding the fact had begun to dawn upon them that they were in a foolish position, had to smile in spite of themselves. When the junior partner was able to splutter he managed to gasp his explanation in short sentences. Bub was a friend of his in St.

Louis who followed the races out there, and who had promised to tip him off on the first good thing at a long price that was to be put over the plate at the St. Louis meeting. Bub had kept his promise, and the junior partner was $600 to the good. That was all.

"And if you don't go out and corner the foulard dress goods market to-morrow, Patsy," the junior partner concluded, addressing his wife, "on the strength of what our four-footed pal, Jim Conway, has done for us, why"--

When they had gone, the office boy, in sweeping out the office, picked up the telegram, that had slipped to the floor while the junior partner was laughing.

"Now, w'y couldn't I ha' got a piece o' dat!" said the office boy, disgustedly as he read the telegram. "I bin pickin' dat skate ev'ry day f'r de las' two weeks, and I knowed dis mornin' w'en I seen de St. Loo entries dat he'd win in buck-jump."