Torchy. Ford Sewell
"Say, where do you think I've been!" says I. "Why, I did that trick for six months, shuntin' dopes away from the Sunday editor's door, and there was times when nothin' but a club would keep some of 'em out. Back to the bridge, Piddie! When I'm on the gate it's just as good as though you'd set the time lock."
Well, I'd been there over one payday and halfway to the next, when one mornin' about ten-thirty the door comes open with a bang, and in steps a husky young gent, swingin' one of these dinky, leather-covered canes, and lookin' like money from the mint. He didn't make any play to draw a card, same's they generally does; but steers straight for the brass gate, full tilt. I never says a word; but just as he reaches over to spring the catch and break in, I shoves my foot out and blocks it at the bottom, bringin' him up all standin'.
"Say, this ain't no ferryhouse," says I.
"Hello!" says he. "A new one, eh?"
"I ain't any Fourth-ave. antique," says I; "but I'm over seven. Was you wantin' to see anyone special?"
He seems to think that's a joke. "Why," says he, "I am Mr. Ellins."
"G'wan!" says I. "You ain't half of him."
That reaches his funnybone, too. "You're perfectly right, young man," says he; "but I happen to be his son. Now are you satisfied?"
"Nope," says I. "That bluff don't go either. If you was Mr. Robert I'd have been struck by lightnin' long 'fore this. You've got one more guess."
Just then I hears a gurgle, like some one's bein' choked with a chicken bone, and I squints around behind. There was Piddie, lookin' like the buildin' was fallin' down and tryin' to uncork some remarks.
"Ah, Piddie!" says the gent. "Perhaps you will introduce me to your new sentry and give me the password."
Well, Piddie did. He almost got on his hands and knees doin' it. And say, blamed if the duck wa'n't Mr. Robert, after all!
"Gee!" says I, "that was a bad break."
That didn't soothe Piddie, though. He used up the best part of an hour tryin' to tell me what an awful thing I'd gone and done.
"This ends you, young man!" he says. "You're as good as discharged this very moment."
"Is that all?" says I. "Why, by the way you've been takin' on I figured on nothin' less than sudden death. But if it's only bein' fired, don't you worry. I've had that happen to me so often that I get uneasy without it. If I should wear a stripe for every time the can's been tied to me, my sleeves would look like a couple of barber's poles. Cheer up, Piddie! Maybe they'll let you pick out somethin' that suits you better next time."
He couldn't get over it, though. Along about lunch time he comes out to me, as solemn as though he's servin' a warrant for homicide, and says that Mr. Robert will attend to my case now.
"Piddie," says I, givin' him the partin' grip, "you've been a true friend of mine. When you hear me hit the asphalt, send out for a chocolate ice cream soda and drown your sorrow."
Then I turns down a page in "Old Sleuth's Revenge" and goes to the slaughter.
Mr. Robert has just talked about three cylinders full of answers to the letters that's piled up while he's been gone, and as the girl goes out with the records he whirls around in the mahogany easy-chair and takes a good long look at me.
"If it comes as hard as all that," says I, "I'll write out my resignation."
"Mr. Piddie's been talking to you, I suppose?" says he.
"He's done everything but say mass over me," says I.
"Piddie is a good deal of an——" then he pulls up. "Where the deuce did he find you?"
"It wasn't him found me," says I; "it was a case of me findin' him; but if it hadn't been for your old man's buttin' in, that's all the good it would have done me."
"Ah!" says he. "That explains the mystery. By the way, son, what do they call you?"
"Guess," says I, and runs me fingers through it. "Just Torchy, and it suits me as well as Percival or Montgomery."
"Torchy is certainly descriptive," says he. "How long have you been doing office work?"
"Ever since I could lift a waste basket," says I.
"Are you ambitious?" says he.
"Sure!" says I. "I'm waitin' for some bank president to adopt me."
"You came in here expecting to be discharged, I presume?" says he.
"What, me?" says I. "Nah! I thought you was goin' to ask me over to the Caffy Martang for lunch."
For a minute or so after that he looks me straight in the eye, and I gives him the same. And say, for the kind, he ain't so worse. Course, I wouldn't swap him for Mr. Belmont Pepper, who's the only boss I ever had that I calls the real thing; but Mr. Robert would get a ratin' anywhere.
"Torchy," says he after a bit, "I'm inclined to think that you'll do. Have a chair."
"Don't I get the blue ticket, then?" says I.
"No," says he, "not until you do something worse than obey orders. Besides you're the cheekiest youth that has ever graced the offices of the Corrugated Trust, and once in awhile we have use for just such a quality. For instance, I am tempted to send you on a very important errand of my own. Wait a moment while I think it over."
"Time out!" says I.
Well say, I didn't know what was comin', he took so long makin' up his mind. But Mr. Robert ain't one of the kind to go off half cocked. He's got somethin' on his shoulders besides tailor's paddin', and when he sets the wheels to movin' you can gamble that he's gettin' somewhere. After awhile he slaps his knee and says:
"No, there isn't another person around the place who would know how to go about it. Torchy, I'm going to try you out!"
It wasn't anything like I'd ever been up against before. He hands me an express receipt and says he wants me to go over to Jersey City and get what that calls for without landin' in jail.
"You'll see a bundle done up in burlap somewhere around the express office," says he, "a big bundle. It looks like a side of veal; but it isn't. It's a deer, one that I shot four days ago up north. Torchy, did you know that it was illegal to shoot deer during certain months of the year?"
"You can be pinched for shootin' craps any time," says I.
"Really?" says he.
Then he goes on with his tale, givin' me all the partic'lars, so I wouldn't make any batty moves. And say, they can think up some queer stunts, hangin' around the club of an afternoon and lookin' out at Fifth-ave. through the small end of a glass. This was one of them real clubby dreams. It started by Mr. Robert countin' himself in on a debate that he didn't know the beginning of.
"When they asked me if I could do it, I said, 'Of course I can,'" says he, "and then I asked what it was."
The bunch had been gassin' about an old gun hangin' over the fireplace. It was one of these old-timers, like they tell about Daniel Boone's havin', in the Nickel Libr'ies, the kind you load with a stove poker. Flintlocks—that's it! They was wonderin' if there was anyone left that could take a relic like that out in the woods and hit anything besides the atmosphere. And the first thing Mr. Robert knows he has been joshed into bettin' a hatful of yellowbacks that he can take old Injun killer out and bring back enough deer meat to feed the crowd—and him knowin' no more about that sort of act than a one-legged man does about skatin'! They gives him two weeks to do it in.
That wa'n't the worst of it, though, accordin' to him. They passes the word around until everyone that knows him is on the broad grin. The joke is handed across billiard tables between shots, and is circulated around the boxes at the opera. It's the best ever; for Mr. Robert has never hunted anything livelier than a Welsh rabbit, after the show.
He's a boy that likes to make good, though. He never makes a