Young Wallingford Part 17

YOUR OLD PAL.

Doc Turner's own fingers were trembling as he pa.s.sed this missive to Wallingford, whose expectant eyes had been furtively fixed upon the pile of letters for some time.

"Too bad, old man," said Turner, tremulously aghast. "Couldn't help reading it."

"My G.o.d!" exclaimed Wallingford most dramatically. "It has come at last, just as I had settled down to lead a quiet, decent, respectable life, with every prospect in my favor!" He sprang up and looked at his watch. "I'll have to move on again!" he dismally declared; "and I suppose they'll chase me from one cover to another until they finally get me; but I'll never give up! Please see what's coming to me, Mr.

Turner; you have the cash in the house to pay me, I know; and kindly get my stock certificates from the safe."

Slowly and thoughtfully Turner took from the safe Wallingford's four hundred and ninety-seven shares of stock, in four certificates of a hundred shares each, one of fifty and one of forty-seven. Wallingford hurried them into an envelope, sitting down to write the address upon it.

"What are you going to do with those?" asked Turner with a thoughtful frown.

"Send them to my friend in Boston and have him sell them for what he can get," replied Wallingford with a sigh. "If the purchasers send any one here to find out about the business, you'll, of course, give them every facility for investigation."

"To be sure; to be sure," returned Turner. "But, say--"

He paused a moment, and Wallingford, in the act of writing a hasty note to go with the stock certificates, hesitated, his pen poised just above the paper.

"What is it?" he asked.

"You'll probably have to sell those shares at a sacrifice, Wallingford."

"I have no doubt," he admitted.

Doc Turner's palms rubbed out a slow decision while Wallingford scratched away at his letter.

"Um-m-m-m-m-m-m--I say!" began Turner gropingly. "Rather than have those shares fall into the hands of strangers we might possibly make you an offer for them ourselves. Wait till I see Squinch."

He saw Squinch, he saw Tom Fester, he telephoned to Andy Grout, and the four of them gathered in solemn conclave. The consensus of the meeting was that if they could secure Wallingford's shares at a low enough figure it was a good thing. Not one man among them but had regretted deeply the necessity of sharing any portion of the earnings of the company with Wallingford, or with one another, for that matter.

Moreover, new stock-holders might "raise a rumpus" about their methods of conducting the business, as Wallingford had started to do. Gravely they called Wallingford in.

"Wallingford," said Mr. Squinch, showing in his very tone his disrespect for a criminal, "Mr. Turner has acquainted us with the fact that you are compelled to leave us, and though we already have about as large a burden as we can conveniently carry, we're willing to allow you five thousand dollars for your stock."

"For four hundred and ninety-seven shares! Nearly fifty thousand dollars' worth!" gasped Wallingford, "and worth par!"

"It is a debatable point," said Mr. Squinch, placing his finger-tips together, and speaking with cold severity, "as to whether that stock is worth par or not at the present moment. I should say that it is not, particularly the stock that _you_ hold."

"Even at a sacrifice," insisted Wallingford, "my friend ought to be able to get fifty dollars a share for me."

"You must remember, Mr. Wallingford," returned the severe voice, "that you are not so free to negotiate as you seemed to be an hour or so ago. In a word, you are a fugitive from justice, and I don't know, myself, but what our duty, anyhow, would be to give you up."

Not one man there but would have done it if it had been to his advantage.

"You wouldn't do that!" pleaded Wallingford, most piteously indeed.

"Why, gentlemen, the mere fact that I am in life-and-death need of every cent I can get ought to make you more liberal with me; particularly in view of the fact that I made this business, that I built it up, and that all its profits that you are to reap are due to me. Why, at twenty thousand the stock would be a fine bargain."

This they thoroughly believed--but business is business!

"Utterly impossible," said Mr. Squinch.

The slyly rubbing palms of Mr. Turner, the down-shot lines of Andy Grout's face, the compressed lips of Tom Fester, all affirmed Mr.

Squinch's decided negative.

"Give me fifteen," pleaded Wallingford. "Twelve--ten."

They would not. To each of these proposals they shook emphatic heads.

"Very well," said Wallingford, and quietly wrote an address on the envelope containing his certificates. He tossed the envelope on the postal scales, sealed it, took stamps from his drawer and pasted them on. "Then, gentlemen, good day."

"Wait a minute," hastily protested Mr. Squinch. "Gentlemen, suppose we confer a minute."

Heads bent together, they conferred.

"We'll give you eight thousand dollars," said Squinch as a result of the conference. "We'll go right down and draw it out of the bank in cash and give it to you."

There was not a trace of hesitation in Wallingford.

"I've made my lowest offer," he said. "Ten thousand or I'll drop these in the mail box."

They were quite certain that Wallingford meant business, as indeed he did. He had addressed the envelope to Blackie Daw and he was quite sure that he could make the shares worth at least ten thousand.

Once more they conferred.

"All right," agreed Mr. Squinch reluctantly. "We'll do it--out of charity."

"I don't care what it's out of, so long as I get the money," said Wallingford.

In New York, where Wallingford met Blackie Daw by appointment, the latter was eager to know the details.

"The letter did the business, I suppose, eh, Wallingford?"

"Fine and dandy," a.s.sented Wallingford. "A great piece of work, and timed to the hour. I saw the envelope in that batch of mail before I made my play."

"Manslaughter!" shrieked Blackie by and by. "On the level, J. Rufus, did you ever kill anything bigger than a mosquito?"

"I don't know. I think I made quite a sizable killing down in Doc Turner's little old town," he said complacently.

"I don't think so," disputed Blackie thoughtfully. "I may be a cheese-head, but I don't see why you sold your stock, anyhow. Seems to me you had a good graft there. Why didn't you hold on to it? It was a money-maker."

"No," denied Wallingford with decision. "It's an illegal business, Blackie, and I won't have anything to do with an illegal business. The first thing you know that lottery will be in trouble with the federal government, and I'm on record as never having conducted any part of it after it became a lottery. Another thing, in less than a year that bunch of crooks will be figuring on how to land the capital prize for themselves under cover. No, Blackie, a quick turn and legal safety for mine, every time. It pays better. Why, I cleaned up thirty thousand dollars net profit on this in three months! Isn't that good pay?"

"It makes a crook look like a fool," admitted Blackie Daw.

CHAPTER XIII

BEAUTY PHILLIPS STEPS INTO THE SPOT-LIGHT FOR HER GRAND SPECIALTY