The Adventures of Sally Part 39

"Why, yes, I did sort of pinch it..."

"You fraud! You humbug! And you pretended to help me look for it." She gazed at him almost with respect. "I never knew you were so deep and snaky. I'm discovering all sorts of new things about you."

There was a brief silence. Ginger, confession over, seemed a trifle happier.

"I hope you're not frightfully sick about it?" he said at length. "It was lying about, you know, and I rather felt I must have it. Hadn't the cheek to ask you for it, so..."

"Don't apologize," said Sally cordially. "Great compliment. So I have caused your downfall again, have I? I'm certainly your evil genius, Ginger. I'm beginning to feel like a regular rag and a bone and a hank of hair. First I egged you on to insult your family--oh, by the way, I want to thank you about that. Now that I've met your Uncle Donald I can see how public-spirited you were. I ruined your prospects there, and now my fatal beauty--cabinet size--has led to your destruction once more.

It's certainly up to me to find you another job, I can see that."

"No, really, I say, you mustn't bother. I shall be all right."

"It's my duty. Now what is there that you really can do? Burglary, of course, but it's not respectable. You've tried being a waiter and a prize-fighter and a right-hand man, and none of those seems to be just right. Can't you suggest anything?"

Ginger shook his head.

"I shall w.a.n.gle something, I expect."'

"Yes, but what? It must be something good this time. I don't want to be walking along Broadway and come on you suddenly as a street-cleaner. I don't want to send for an express-man and find you popping up. My idea would be to go to my bank to arrange an overdraft and be told the president could give me two minutes and crawl in humbly and find you prezzing away to beat the band in a big chair. Isn't there anything in the world that you can do that's solid and substantial and will keep you out of the poor-house in your old age? Think!"

"Of course, if I had a bit of capital..."

"Ah! The business man! And what," inquired Sally, "would you do, Mr.

Morgan, if you had a bit of capital?"

"Run a dog-thingummy," said Ginger promptly.

"What's a dog-thingummy?"

"Why, a thingamajig. For dogs, you know."

Sally nodded.

"Oh, a thingamajig for dogs? Now I understand. You will put things so obscurely at first. Ginger, you poor fish, what are you raving about?

What on earth is a thingamajig for dogs?"

"I mean a sort of place like fellows have. Breeding dogs, you know, and selling them and winning prizes and all that. There are lots of them about."

"Oh, a kennels?"

"Yes, a kennels."

"What a weird mind you have, Ginger. You couldn't say kennels at first, could you? That wouldn't have made it difficult enough. I suppose, if anyone asked you where you had your lunch, you would say, 'Oh, at a thingamajig for mutton chops'... Ginger, my lad, there is something in this. I believe for the first time in our acquaintance you have spoken something very nearly resembling a mouthful. You're wonderful with dogs, aren't you?"

"I'm dashed keen on them, and I've studied them a bit. As a matter of fact, though it seems rather like sw.a.n.king, there isn't much about dogs that I don't know."

"Of course. I believe you're a sort of honorary dog yourself. I could tell it by the way you stopped that fight at Roville. You plunged into a howling ma.s.s of about a million hounds of all species and just whispered in their ears and they stopped at once. Why, the more one examines this, the better it looks. I do believe it's the one thing you couldn't help making a success of. It's very paying, isn't it?"

"Works out at about a hundred per cent on the original outlay, I've been told."

"A hundred per cent? That sounds too much like something of Fillmore's for comfort. Let's say ninety-nine and be conservative. Ginger, you have hit it. Say no more. You shall be the Dog King, the biggest thingamajigger for dogs in the country. But how do you start?"

"Well, as a matter of fact, while I was up at White Plains, I ran into a cove who had a place of the sort and wanted to sell out. That was what made me think of it."

"You must start to-day. Or early to-morrow."

"Yes," said Ginger doubtfully. "Of course, there's the catch, you know."

"What catch?"

"The capital. You've got to have that. This fellow wouldn't sell out under five thousand dollars."

"I'll lend you five thousand dollars."

"No!" said Ginger.

Sally looked at him with exasperation. "Ginger, I'd like to slap you,"

she said. It was maddening, this intrusion of sentiment into business affairs. Why, simply because he was a man and she was a woman, should she be restrained from investing money in a sound commercial undertaking? If Columbus had taken up this bone-headed stand towards Queen Isabella, America would never have been discovered.

"I can't take five thousand dollars off you," said Ginger firmly.

"Who's talking of taking it off me, as you call it?" stormed Sally.

"Can't you forget your burglarious career for a second? This isn't the same thing as going about stealing defenceless girls' photographs. This is business. I think you would make an enormous success of a dog-place, and you admit you're good, so why make frivolous objections? Why shouldn't I put money into a good thing? Don't you want me to get rich, or what is it?"

Ginger was becoming confused. Argument had never been his strong point.

"But it's such a lot of money."

"To you, perhaps. Not to me. I'm a plutocrat. Five thousand dollars!

What's five thousand dollars? I feed it to the birds."

Ginger pondered woodenly for a while. His was a literal mind, and he knew nothing of Sally's finances beyond the fact that when he had first met her she had come into a legacy of some kind. Moreover, he had been hugely impressed by Fillmore's magnificence. It seemed plain enough that the Nicholases were a wealthy family.

"I don't like it, you know," he said.

"You don't have to like it," said Sally. "You just do it."

A consoling thought flashed upon Ginger.

"You'd have to let me pay you interest."

"Let you? My lad, you'll have to pay me interest. What do you think this is--a round game? It's a cold business deal."

"Topping!" said Ginger relieved. "How about twenty-five per cent."

"Don't be silly," said Sally quickly. "I want three."

"No, that's all rot," protested Ginger. "I mean to say--three. I don't,"

he went on, making a concession, "mind saying twenty."