The House of Torchy Part 25

At the Warsaw I finds Anton smokin' placid in his little office.

"Seen Anna?" I asks.

"Anna!" says he. "She should be selling tickets at the----"

"She was," says I; "but just now she's upstairs in the hall."

"At the meetin'?" gasps Anton. "Anna? Oh, no!"

"Come, take a look," says I.

And, for once in his life, Anton got a quick move on. He don't ask me to follow, but I trails along; and just as we strikes the top stair we hears a rousin' cheer go up. I suppose any other time we'd been barred out, but there's n.o.body to hold us up as we pushes through, for everyone has their eyes glued on the little stage at the far end of the hall.

No wonder. For there, standin' up before more than three hundred yellin'

men, is this high-colored young woman.

Course, I couldn't get a word of it, my Polish education havin' been sadly neglected when I was young. But Anna seems to be tellin' some sort of story. My guess was that it's the one she'd hinted at to me--about her father and brothers and sister. But this time she seems to be throwin' in all the details.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Quick as a flash, Anna turns and points to Stukey. I caught his name as she hisses it out. Stukey, turnin' a sickly yellow, slumps in his chair."]

There was nothin' frivolous about Anna's eyes now. It almost gave me a creepy feelin' to watch 'em--as if she was seein' things again that she'd like to forget--awful things. And she was makin' those three hundred men see the same things.

All of a sudden she breaks off, covers her face with her hands, and shivers. Then, quick as a flash, she turns and points to Stukey. I caught his name as she hisses it out. Stukey, turnin' a sickly yellow, slumps in his chair. Another second, and she's turned back to the men out front. She is puttin' something up to them--a question, straight from the shoulder.

The first to make a move is a squatty, thick-necked gent with one eye walled out. He jumps on a chair, shouts a few excited words, waves his long arms, and starts for the stage businesslike. The next thing I knew the riot was on, with Mortimer J. Stukey playin' the heavy lead and bein' tossed around like a rat.

It must have been Anton that switched off the lights and sent for the police. I didn't stop to ask. Bein' near the door, I felt my way downstairs and made a quick exit. Course, the ceremonies promised to continue interestin', but somehow this struck me as a swell time for me to quit. So I strolls back to the hotel and goes to bed.

Yes, I was some curious to know how the muss ended, but I didn't hurry around next mornin'. As a matter of fact, I'd enjoyed the society of the Sobowskis quite a lot durin' the past two days, and I thought I'd better stay away for a while. They're a strenuous bunch when they're stirred up--even a kittenish young thing like Anna.

About noon I 'phoned the works, and found that all was serene there, with no signs of a strike yet.

"No, and I got a hunch there won't be any, either," says I.

I was plannin' to linger in Bridgeport another day or so; but when the afternoon paper came out I changed my mind. Accordin' to the police-court reporter's account, there'd been some little disturbance in Warsaw Hall the night before. Seems a stranger by the name of Stukey had b.u.t.ted into a meetin' of the Pulaski Social Club, and had proceeded to get so messy that it had been found necessary to throw him out. Half a dozen witnesses told how rude he'd been, includin' the well-known citizen, Mr. Anton Sobowski, who owned the premises. The said Stukey had been a bit damaged; but after he'd been patched up at the City Hospital he'd been promised a nice long rest--thirty days, to be exact.

So I jumps the next train back to Broadway.

"Ah, Lieutenant!" says Mr. Ellins, glancin' up from his desk. "Find anything up there?"

"Uh-huh," says I. "His name was Stukey. Another case of drawin' his pay from Berlin."

"Hah!" grunts Old Hickory, bitin' into his cigar. "The long arm again.

But can't you recommend something?"

"Sure!" says I. "If we could find a pair of gold boots about eighteen b.u.t.tons high, we ought to send 'em to Anna Sobowski."

CHAPTER XI

AT THE TURN WITH WILFRED

I expect Mr. Robert overstated the case a bit. He was more or less hectic back of the ears about then, havin' just broken away after a half-hour session with Mrs. Stanton Bliss.

"That woman," says he, slumpin' into a chair and moppin' his brow, "has the mental equipment of a pet rabbit and the disposition of a setting hen. Good Lord!"

I looks over at Vee and grins. Had to. It ain't often you see Mr. Robert like that. And him bein' all dolled up in his nifty navy uniform made it seem just that much funnier. But Vee don't grin back. She'd sympathize with 'most anybody. At that exact minute, I'll bet she was bein' sorry for both of 'em all in the same breath, as you might say.

"But can't something be done--somehow?" she asks.

"Not by me," says Mr. Robert, decided. "Great marlinspikes! I'm not the war department, am I? I'm only a first-grade lieutenant in command of a blessed, smelly old menhaden trawler that's posing as a mine-sweeper. I am supposed to be enjoying a twenty-four hour sh.o.r.e leave in the peace and quiet of my home, and I get--this."

He waves his hand toward the other room, where the afore-mentioned Mrs.

Stanton Bliss is sobbin, sniffin', and otherwise registerin' deep emotion by clawin' Mrs. Robert about the shoulders and wavin' away the smellin' salts.

"If it was the first time," growls Mr. Robert. "But it isn't."

That was true, too. You see, we'd heard somethin' about the other spasms. They'd begun along in July, when the awful news came out that Wilfred's red ink number had been plucked from the jar. Now you get it, don't you? Nothing unique. The same little old tragedy that was bein'

staged in a million homes, includin' four-room flats, double-decker tenements, and boardin'-houses.

Only this happened to hit the forty-room country house of the Stanton Blisses. Course, it was different. Look who was bein' stirred up by it.

So mother had begun throwin' cat-fits. She'd tackled everyone she knew, demandin' to know what was to be done to keep Wilfred out of it. Among others, of course, she'd held up Mr. Robert. Wasn't he their nearest neighbor, and hadn't the Blisses entertained the Ellinses a lot? Not that she put it that way, exactly. But when she came with this hunch about gettin' sonny a snap job on some sort of naval construction work, why, of course, Mr. Robert couldn't duck. Yes, he thought he could place Wilfred. And he did--time-keeper, six-hour shift, and near enough so he could run back and forth every day in his machine.

That might have been good enough for some folks. It meant dodgin' the draft for Wilfred, dead sure. But mother didn't stay satisfied long. She went investigatin' around the plant. She found the office stuffy, Wilfred's desk had no electric fan on it, she wasn't sure of the drinkin' water, and the foreman was quite an impossible sort of person who always sneered when he had anything to say to Wilfred. Couldn't Mr.

Robert attend to some of these things? Mr. Robert said he'd try--if he had time. He didn't get the time. More visits from mother.

Then this latest catastrophe. The Stanton Blisses had been away from home for three weeks or more, house-partyin' and motorin' through the mountains. Poor Wilfred had had to stay behind. What a stupidly distressin' thing war was, wasn't it? But he had been asked to spend his nights and Sundays with a college chum whose home was several miles nearer the works.

And then they had come back to find this scribbled note. Things had been gettin' worse and worse, Wilfred wrote. Some young hoodlums around the plant had shouted after him as he drove off in his car. Even young girls. The men had been surly to him, and that beastly foreman---- Well, he wasn't goin' to stand for it, that was all. He didn't know just what he was goin' to do, but he was clearin' out. They'd hear from him later.

They had. This six-word message from Philadelphia, dated nearly two weeks ago, was also waitin'. It said that he'd enlisted, was all right, and for them not to worry. Nothin' more.

You couldn't blame mother for bein' stirred up. Her Wilfred had gone.

Somewhere in some army camp or other, or at some naval trainin' station, the son and heir of the house of Bliss was minglin' with the coa.r.s.e sons of the common people, was eatin' common food, was wearin' common clothes, was goin' up against the common thing generally. And that wasn't the worst of it. Where? Why didn't Mr. Robert tell her where? And couldn't he get him away at once? Mr. Robert had almost gone hoa.r.s.e tryin' to explain why he couldn't. But after every try she'd come back with this wail:

"Oh, but you don't understand what it is to be a mother!"

"Thank the stars I don't!" says he, as he marches out of the room.

I was for clearin' out so he'd be free to shoo her in any style he wanted to. We'd been havin' dinner with the Ellinses, Vee and I, and it was time to go home anyway. But there's no budgin' Vee.

"Don't you think Torchy might find out where he is?" she suggests.

"Bein' in the army himself, you know, and so clever at that sort of thing, I should think----"

"Why, to be sure," breaks in Mr. Robert, perkin' up all of a sudden and starin' at me. "Lieutenant Torchy to the rescue, of course. He's the very one."