ON a rainy evening in mid-September, a salesman for an Eastern chemical firm invited Amidon to join him in a game of billiards at the Whitcomb House. As Russell Kirby was one of the stars of the traveling fraternity, Jerry was greatly honored by this attention. Moreover, when he hung up his coat in the billiard room and rolled up the sleeves of his silk shirt, the traveler’s arms proved to be thoroughly tanned—and this impressed Jerry as indicating that Kirby indulged in the aristocratic game of golf and did not allow the cares of business to interfere with his lawful amusements. Kirby played very good billiards, and did not twist his cigar into the corner of his mouth when he made his shots, as most of Jerry’s friends did.
“The lid’s on a little looser in your town than it was last winter,” remarked the envied one, sipping a ricky. “I suppose by following our noses we could strike a pretty stiff game without going out into the wet.”
“Oh, there’s always more or less poker around here,” replied Jerry, unwilling to appear ignorant of the moral conditions of his own city.
He chalked his cue and watched Kirby achieve a difficult shot. Billiards afforded Jerry a fine exercise for his philosophic temper, steady hand, and calculating eye. He had developed a high degree of proficiency with the cue in the Criterion Billiard Parlors. It was a grief to him that in trying to live up to Eaton he had felt called upon to desert the Criterion, where the admiration of lesser lights had been dear to his soul.
“Big Rodney Sykes is here,” Kirby remarked carelessly. “They chased him out of Chicago that last time they had a moral upheaval.”
Jerry was chagrined that he knew nothing of Big Rodney Sykes, presumably a gambler of established reputation. To be a high-salaried traveler, with a flexible expense account, was to be in touch with the inner life of all great cities. Jerry’s envy deepened; it availed nothing that he could beat this sophisticated being at billiards.
“Rather tough about that boss of yours,” Kirby continued. “It’s fellows of his size that Big Rodney goes after. A gentleman’s game and no stopping payment of checks the next morning.”
“Oh, the boss is no squab; I guess he’s sat in with as keen sharps as Sykes and got out with carfare home,” replied Jerry.
“Of course; but on a hot night like this many a good man feels the need of a little relaxation. It just happened”—he prolonged the deliberation of his aim to intensify Jerry’s curiosity—“happened I saw Copeland wandering toward Sykes’s room as I was coming down.”
“I guess the boss knows a thing or two,” replied Jerry easily, in a tone that implied unlimited confidence in Copeland.
He was consumed with indignation that Kirby should be able to tell him anything about Copeland. It had been done, too, with a neatness of insinuation that was galling.
“Well, I guess,” persisted Kirby, “you miss old Uncle Tim at the store. I used to have many a jolly row with Uncle Tim; he was one man it never paid to fool with; but he was all right—just about as clean-cut and straight a man as I ever fought discounts with. Uncle Tim was a merchant,” he ended impressively as he bent over the table.
In calling Farley a merchant with this air of finality he implied very clearly that William B. Copeland was something quite different, and Jerry resented this imputation as a slur upon his house. Much as he admired Kirby’s clothes and metropolitan ways, he hated him cordially for thus speaking of Copeland, who was one of Kirby’s important customers. Mere defeat was no adequate punishment for Kirby; Jerry proceeded to make a “run” that attracted the admiring attention of players at neighboring tables and precluded further discussion of Copeland.
At midnight Kirby said he had had all the billiards he wanted and invited Jerry to his room.
“I always like to tell people about their own town and I’ll show you where they’re piling up the chips,” he remarked.
His room was opposite the elevator on the seventh floor, and having unlocked his door he piloted Jerry round a corner and indicated three rooms which he said were given over to gambling.
“If you give the right number of taps that first door will open,” said Kirby, “but as an old friend I warn you to keep out.”
As they were turning away a telephone tinkled faintly in one of the rooms and they heard voices raised excitedly, accompanied by the bang of over-turned furniture.
“They’ve got a tip the cops are coming or there’s a fight,” said Kirby. “Here’s where we fade!”
He led the way quickly back to his room, dragged Jerry in, and shut the door.
While the sounds of hasty flight continued, the elevator discharged half a dozen men and they heard the hotel manager protesting to the police that it was an outrage; that the rooms they were raiding had been taken by strangers, and that if there was anything wrong he wasn’t responsible.
A few minutes later the return of the prisoners to the elevator announced the success of the raid. Several of them were protesting loudly against riding to the police station in a patrol wagon; others were taking the whole matter as a joke. Above the confusion Copeland’s voice rose drunkenly in denunciation of his arrest.
Kirby, anxious not to be identified even remotely with the sinners who had been caught in their transgressions, had taken off his coat and was lighting a cigar.
“Try one of these, Amidon. We’d better sit tight until the cops get out of the building. Nice town this! Gambling in respectable hotels. No doubt all those fellows are leading citizens, including—”
At this instant the electric lights were extinguished. The darkness continued and Jerry opened the door and stuck his head out. Half the prisoners had been sent down and the remainder were waiting for the elevator to return. They growled dismally and somebody said it was a good chance to give the cops the slip.
One of the policemen struck a match and held it up to light the entrance to the car. Jerry’s eyes ran quickly over the group facing the shaft, but he recognized none of the men. As the match died out a prolonged, weary sigh near at hand caused him to start. Some one was leaning against the wall close beside him. He reached out, caught the man by the arm, drew him into the room and softly closed the door.
Kirby demanded to know what Amidon had done, and during the whispered explanation the globes began to brighten. Jerry jumped for the switch and snapped off the lights. He climbed on a chair and surveyed the hall through the transom. The last officer was stepping into the elevator, and some one demanded to know what had become of Billy Copeland.
“Oh, he went down in the first load,” replied another voice.
Then the door clanged and the hall was quiet.
“Turn on the lights,” commanded Kirby.
Copeland sat on the bed, staring at them foolishly.
“Wherenell am I?” he asked blinking. “Thiss jail or somebody’s parlor?”
“Your nerve, young man,” Kirby remarked to Jerry, “leaves nothing to be desired. I suppose it didn’t occur to you that this is my room?”
“Oh, that will be all right. If the cops ain’t back here in ten minutes, they’ll probably think he’s skipped; and they won’t waste time looking for him; they know they can pick him up to-morrow, easy enough.”
“Zhat you, Kirby, good old boy; right off Broadway! Kind of you, ’m sure. Good boy, Amidon; wouldn’t let your boss get hauled off in patrol wagon. Raise wages for that; ’preciate it; mos’ grateful!”
“All right; but please stop talking,” Jerry admonished. “We’ll all get pinched if the cops find out you’re here.”
“Los’ five thous; five thou-sand dollars; hons’ to God I did!”
Copeland’s face was aflame from drink and the heat, and unable to comprehend what had happened to him he tumbled over on the bed. Kirby eyed him contemptuously and turned upon Amidon angrily.
“This is a nice mess of cats! Would you mind telling me what you’re going to do with our fallen brother? Please remember that reputation’s my only asset, and if I get arrested my house might not pass it off as a little joke!”
“Oh, cheer up and be a good sport! I know the boys at the desk downstairs and I’m going to tell ’em you’ve cleared out to make way for an old comrade of the Army of the Potomac. I’ll have you moved, and then I’ll put the boss to bed.”
“Anything to please you,” said Kirby ironically, as Copeland began to snore. “Your boss is lying on my coat and I hope you’ll have the decency to pay for pressing it!”...
At ten the next morning Amidon called at the Whitcomb and found Copeland half dressed. He had telephoned to his house for toilet articles and clean linen and presented the fresh and chastened appearance with which he always emerged from his sprees.
“I thought I’d drop in,” said Jerry, seating himself in the window.
“Been to the store?” asked Copeland from before the mirror where he was sticking a gold safety pin through the ends of a silk collar.
“Yes; I took a look in.”
“Any genial policeman lying in wait for me?”
“Nothing doing! Everything’s all fixed.”
“Oh, I know the way around the pump at the police court, and I had a bum lawyer who hangs out there make the right sign to the judge. You owe me forty-seven dollars—that includes ten for the lawyer.”
“Cheap at the price,” remarked Copeland. He had taken a check book from the table and was frowningly inspecting the last stub.
“I didn’t come to collect,” said Jerry. “Any old time will do.”
“How did the rest of the boys come out?” asked Copeland, throwing the book down impatiently.
“Oh, the big sneeze from Chicago got a heavy soaking. The judge took it out on him for the rest of you. Wouldn’t do, of course, to send prominent business men to the work-house. All fined under assumed names.”
“Rather expensive evening for me. Much obliged to you just the same for saving me a ride in the wagon.”
“Oh, that was easy,” said Jerry. “By the way, I guess we’d better slip my lawyer friend another ten. He dug this up for you—no questions, no fuss; all on the dead quiet.”
He drew from his trousers pocket a crumpled bit of paper and handed it to Copeland.
Jerry was not without his sense of the dramatic. He rolled a cigarette and watched Copeland out of the corner of his eye.
“See here, Jerry,” said Copeland quickly, “I don’t know about this. If I gave that check, and I know I did, I’ve got to stand by it. It’s not square—”
“Oh, I wouldn’t burst out crying about that!” remarked Jerry easily. “Five thousand is some money, and the Chicago shark was glad enough to have the check disappear from the police safe. You were stewed when you wrote the check; and besides, it was a crooked game. Forget it; that’s all!” He stretched himself and yawned. “Can I do anything for you?”
“It seems to me,” said Copeland, “that you’ve done about enough for me for one day,—kept me out of jail and then saved me five thousand dollars!”
“We do what we can,” replied Jerry. “Keep us posted and when in doubt make the high sign. You’d better keep mum about the check. The deputy prosecutor’s a friend of mine and I don’t want to get him into trouble.”
“It makes me feel a little better about that check to know that it wasn’t good when I gave it,” remarked Copeland dryly. “I’ve only got about a hundred in bank according to my stubs.”
“I was just thinking,” said Jerry, playing with the curtain cord, “as I came down from the police court, that five thousand per night swells the overhead considerable. This isn’t a kick; I just mention it.”
Copeland paused in the act of drawing on his coat to bestow a searching glance upon his employee. He shook himself into the coat and rested his hand on the brass bedpost.
“What’s the odds?” he asked harshly. “I’m undoubtedly going to hell and a thousand or two, here and there—”
“Why are you going?” asked Jerry, tying a loop in the curtain cord.
Copeland was not prepared for this; he didn’t at once correlate Amidon’s question with his own remark that had inspired it.
“Oh, the devil!” he ejaculated impatiently; and then he smiled ruefully as he realized that there was a certain appositeness in his rejoinder.
The relations of employer and employee had been modified by the incidents of the night and morning. Copeland imagined that he was something of a hero to his employees, and that Jerry probably viewed the night’s escapade as one of the privileges enjoyed by the more favored social class. Possibly in his own way Amidon was guilty of reprehensible dissipations and therefore disposed to be tolerant of other men’s shortcomings. At any rate, the young fellow had got him out of a bad scrape, and he meant to do something for him to show his gratitude.
“Well, a man’s got to let loose occasionally,” he said, as he began collecting his toilet articles.
“I suppose he has,” Amidon admitted without enthusiasm.
“I guess I ought to cut out these midnight parties and get down to business,” said Copeland, as though recent history called for some such declaration of his intentions.
“Well, it’s up to you,” Jerry replied. “You can let ’er slide if you want to.”
“You mean that the house is sliding already?” Copeland asked.
“It’s almost worse than a slide, if you want to know. But I didn’t come here to talk about that. There’s plenty of others can tell you more about the business than I can.”
“But they don’t,” said Copeland, frowning; “I suppose—I suppose maybe they’re afraid to.”
“I guess that’s right, too,” Jerry affirmed.
“Well, you’re in a position to learn what’s going on. I want to push you ahead. I hope you understand that.”
“Oh, you treat me all right,” said Jerry, but in a tone that Copeland didn’t find cheering.
“I mean to treat everybody right at the store,” declared Copeland virtuously. “If any of the boys have a kick I want them to come straight to me with it.”
Jerry laid his hand on the door ready for flight and regarded Copeland soberly.
“The only kick’s on you, if you can bear to hear it. Everybody around the place knows you’re not on the job; every drayman in the district knows you’re out with a paintbrush every night, and the solid men around town are saying it’s only a matter of time till you go broke. And the men down at the store are sore about it; it means that one of these mornings there’ll be a new shift and they’re likely to be out of a job. Some of them have been there a long time, and they don’t like to see the old business breaking down. And some of them, I guess, sort o’ like you and hate to see you slipping over the edge.”
During this speech Copeland stood with his cigarette-case half opened in his hand, looking hard at the top button on Amidon’s coat.
“Well,” he said, thrusting a cigarette into his mouth and tilting it upwards with his lips while he felt for a match, “go on and hand me the rest of it.”
“I guess that’s about all from me,” replied Jerry, “except if you want to bounce me right now, go ahead, only—let’s don’t have any hard feeling.”
Copeland made no reply, and Jerry went out and closed the door. Then in a moment he opened it, saw Copeland staring out across the roofs in deep preoccupation, and remarked, deferentially:—
“I’ll carry your bag down, sir. Shall I order a taxi?”
“Never mind,” said Copeland, with affected carelessness; “I’ll attend to it. I’m going to the store.”