The Adventures of Mr. Clackworthy. Christopher B. Booth
when old J. K. wants anything he pays the price for it—if he has to.”
“You are entirely misleading yourself, Mr. Prindivale,” declared Mr. Clackworthy with a frankness which the suburban banker little suspected. “J. K. Easterday has nothing to do with this matter.”
“Hasn’t, eh?” cried Mr. Prindivale exultantly, pointing his finger at a mass of papers which littered the big mahogany conference table. “Then maybe you can explain that.”
He gestured toward the exposed edge of one of the closely typewritten pages; there, penned in scrawling but entirely legible characters, were the somewhat cryptic letters:
“OKEH JK.”
“Don’t tell me!” he shouted, now thoroughly excited by the importance of his discovery. “That’s J. K. Easterday’s O. K. mark—Okeh, the Indian mark of approval; there are only two men in America who write it that way, one is the President of the United States and the other is J. K. Easterday.”
“Bosh!” retorted Mr. Clackworthy; but, nevertheless, showing considerable chagrin. “I wrote that down there myself—you are jumping at conclusions.” Mr. Clackworthy was showing a most remarkable tenacity for the strict letter of truth.
“Lay the cards down on the table and I’ll talk turkey,” bantered Mr. Prindivale.
“Really, Mr. Prindivale, you are getting rather needlessly excited; I wish to play a game of golf this afternoon and I want to get this business over with. Suppose we say fifteen dollars a share.”
“It cost me more than that; I made up my mind that I’d hold onto that stock until I came out whole on it or let the paper rot.”
“Well, Mr. Prindivale, if you really feel that way about it, possibly we could pay you a price that would permit you to recover your original investment; you did not, I am reliably informed, pay the par value.”
“Ha!” exulted Mr. Prindivale. “I trapped you that time; so it’s worth something after all, eh? How much is it worth? Come across; remember you are not dealing with a grammar-school student, but a business man.”
Mr. Clackworthy stroked his Vandyke beard meditatively; at the same time his foot slid under the desk and touched the tip of the electric button which was secreted there. It connected with a faint-voiced alarm on The Early Bird’s desk, and James Early, in turn, touched a button which connected directly with the telephone on Mr. Clackworthy’s desk. The bell tinkled.
In the act of lifting the receiver from the book, Mr. Clackworthy turned to the suburban banker.
“Granting, for the sake of reaching an agreement, that you paid the par value of one hundred dollars a share and, taking cognizance of your determination to come out whole on it, I am empowered to offer you—”
The bell rang insistently.
“Hello,” said Mr. Clackworthy into the transmitter. “Yes, this is Mr. Clackworthy; yes, Aubuchon—uh-huh—yes, I understand. He’s here now.”
Mr. Prindivale, sensing a personal reference, looked up quickly; he saw that Mr. Clackworthy’s gaze had grown hard and cold; the air of eagerness as he had jockeyed for the best possible price was gone. The banker, with a sinking heart, realized that something had gone wrong.
“Mr. Prindivale,” said Mr. Clackworthy curtly, hanging up the receiver, “there is no need to discuss this matter further. I find that I shall not need to buy the stock from you, after all.”
“But—but—I don’t understand,” stammered Mr. Prindivale.
“Oh, yes, I think you do,” returned Mr. Clackworthy icily. “One of my men has reported to me just now that you sold your Monotrack holdings some months ago—to some woman; we shall, of course, deal directly with the holder of the stock. You almost hooked me, eh?”
Mr. Prindivale grabbed his hat and fled.
VII.
There was a reason for Mr. Prindivale’s precipitate departure. He cursed because the elevators were so slow and bolted out of the entrance to the drug store at the corner where he knew there was a telephone pay station.
His fingers, fumbling with eager haste, turned the leaves of the directory until he found the name of Mrs. Clara Cartwright. It was, of course, a suburban call and he muttered trenchant maledictions for the operator who seemed to deliberately delay his connection. After five anguished and perspiring minutes Mrs. Cartwright’s soft voice identified itself from the other end of the wire.
“Mrs. Cartwright,” gulped Mr. Prindivale, striving to make his tone normal, “about the Monotrack stock which I sold you—er—I have been thinking it over and I realize that it was—er—entirely upon your faith in my advice that you purchased it. I—I could not, in all—er—fairness, expect you to pay for the burden of my—ah—sincere but mistaken judgment, so I have decided to take the stock off your hands without a cent of loss to you and pocket it myself.”
“Oh, Mr. Prindivale! How lovely of you!” exclaimed Mrs. Cartwright, who had been carefully tutored by her cousin’s husband, Mr. Clackworthy, for this identical situation.
“Yes,” went on Mr. Prindivale, “so I will be right out and give you a check.”
“Oh, there is no hurry, Mr. Prindivale, so long as you promise.”
“But there is a hur—I mean that I am in a hurry to get it off my mind. I know you will feel better with things fixed up; I—Well, I might die tonight, you know. There has been no one out to see you about buying the stock, I suppose?”
“Oh, no; who would want to buy it?”
“Oh, of course not; of course not,” assented the banker, “but—um—in case some one did talk to you about it, I would advise you to do nothing until you talk to me.”
“Oh, Mr. Prindivale!” gurgled Mrs. Cartwright. “You are so excited and everything; I do believe that the stock is going up.”
The banker swore under his breath; he was walking on dangerously thin ice.
“Certainly not; that was just—just a little joke,” he amended.
A taxicab driver, bribed with a twenty-dollar bill, broke all the speed records in getting Mr. Prindivale out to the suburb. The banker found Mrs. Cartwright in the sitting room of her modest little home, evidently waiting for him; she had the stock certificates in her hand.
“I’ll just write a check, Mrs. Cartwright,” he said with hardly the ceremony of a greeting.
“Why, Mr. Prindivale!” the widow exclaimed. “You act so excited. I do believe that something has happened to the Monotrack business.”
Mentally the banker reviled woman for her intuitive powers, as he wrote his check.
“Here you are,” he said, unable to keep the eagerness from his voice; “I will take the stock back now—you see I have not allowed you to lose a cent.”
Mrs. Cartwright tilted her chin and firmly put her hand which held the certificates behind her back.
“I’ve got—what do you men call it—a hunch?” she said. “I have decided not to sell for thirty dollars a share!”
Mr. Prindivale tried a bluff; with an anger which was not entirely assumed, he snapped his check book shut and pocketed his pen.
“Just as you will,” he said coldly; “I try to play good Samaritan and am at once suspected of some underhand scheme to cheat you.”
“I—I am sorry if I have misjudged you,” she returned with a show of penitence. “Of course, if you are sincere in your offer, I suppose—” She paused in sudden thought. “But I can’t get rid of that—that hunch; something seems to tell that I should not sell my stock for thirty dollars a share.”
“And I presume,” said Mr. Prindivale with