CHAPTER III
A BUSINESS CALL
Frank watched Dorsett dismount from the gig and tie his horse. Herealized that he would be up into the insurance man’s office in a fewminutes.
“I must do something, and quickly,” thought Frank. “The second that mansees me he will suspect my mission here. He is a person of substance,and will carry weight. I shall be left if he gets into action first.”
Frank reflected rapidly. The old clerk, as he had already found out, wasunapproachable. Frank was seized with a wild impulse to leap over thewire railing and rush past the clerk to the door of Mr. Pryor’s privateoffice.
“Maybe it’s locked, though,” said Frank. “No, I won’t do that. I don’tsee that I can do much of anything, except to wait and take my chanceof getting the check into Mr. Pryor’s hands before Mr. Dorsett guesseswhat’s up.”
Frank glanced at the clock. It showed ten minutes to eleven. He wentout into the hall and drew back into the shelter of a big fuel boxthere.
Dorsett came up the stairs, buggy whip in hand. He bustled into theoffice in his usual self-important way. Frank noticed that the oldclerk sat down on him promptly. He was not one bit impressed with thebombastic visitor from Greenville.
Dorsett scowled as the clerk pointed to the clock, and impatientlyfumbling the whip, sat down with the others in the office to await theroyal pleasure of its closeted proprietor.
Frank did a lot of thinking. He planned all kinds of wild dashes whenthe door of that private office should open. Then, happening to strolldown the hall, a new idea was suggested to him.
“Would it win?” Frank breathlessly asked himself.
He had come out on a little landing. This was that platform of stairsrunning down into the rear of the lot that the bank and the insuranceoffice occupied.
Six feet away from it to the left were two windows. They were both open.The low hum of voices reached Frank’s ears. Judging from the situation ofthe apartment beyond, Frank was sure that he had located the insuranceman’s private room.
“I wonder if I dare?” he challenged himself. “I wonder if it wouldwork?”
His eyes snapped and his fingers tingled. Then Frank studied the outlookmore carefully. He calculated first his chances of getting to the firstwindow. He also planned just what he would say in the way of explanationand apology once he reached it.
Two feet away from the platform a lightning rod ran straight up thebuilding. Frank seized this. He fearlessly swung himself free of theplatform, bracing his toes on a protending joint of the rod.
At the side of the nearest window, top and bottom, were two hingestandards. They had been imbedded in the solid masonry when the placewas built to hold iron shutters, if such were ever needed. The bankfloor below was guarded with these, but none had been put in place onthe upper story.
Frank swung one hand free, and bending to a rather risky angle hooked aforefinger around the upper one of these standards. At the same time hegave his body a swing clear of his footing.
He aimed to land his feet on the sill of the nearest window. In thisFrank succeeded. There was no time, however, to chance losing thefoothold thus gained. He promptly slid his free hand down under theframe of the raised window. He got a firm clutch. Relaxing his hold ofthe hinge standard, he stooped.
The next moment, on a decidedly reckless and awkward balance, Franktumbled rather than dropped inside of the room that was his objectivepoint of assault.
“Hello! what’s this?” instantly hailed him.
Frank nimbly gained an upright position. He faced two men who, seatedat a table covered with papers, began to push back their chairs in asomewhat startled way. They stared hard at the intruder.
Frank promptly doffed his cap. He made his most courteous bow.
“Excuse me, gentlemen,” he said in a rather flustrated way, “but whichis Mr. Pryor, please?”
“I am Pryor,” answered one of the twain, and Frank saw from the gatheringfrown on the speaker’s face that a storm was brewing unless he headed itoff summarily.
“I must beg your pardon, Mr. Pryor,” said Frank, “but it is a matter ofsome business importance. I have been waiting for over an hour to seeyou. It won’t take but a moment, sir,” and Frank swiftly produced thecheck and the receipt entrusted to him by Mr. Buckner. Before Pryorrealized it, they were thrust into his hands and he was looking at them.
“Oh, this can wait,” he said pettishly. “I don’t like this kind of anintrusion, young man.”
“I am very sorry, Mr. Pryor,” interrupted Frank in a gentle, politetone, “but I am only a paid messenger, and I promised Mr. Buckner to beback with that receipt at a certain time.”
“So you seized the bull by the horns,” broke in Pryor’s companion with agreat chuckle. “And outwitted old Grumper, the clerk, ha! ha! Pryor,nail the boy on a year’s contract. He’s got the making in him of afirst-class insurance solicitor, in his originality, daring and--”
“Cheek,” muttered Pryor. “Well, well--here’s your receipt.”
Frank seized the paper that Pryor signed with a swift scrawl of the pen,with an eagerness that was a kind of delighted rapture.
“Oh, thank you, sir,” he said, “and a thousand apologies for my rudeintrusion.”
“Hold on,” ordered Pryor, as Frank returned towards the window.
“Yes, unless you carry extra accident insurance,” put in Pryor’scompanion. “You might not find it so easy getting out of that window asyou did getting in, young fellow.”
Mr. Pryor had gone to the clouded glass door, which Frank knew openedinto the main office. He slipped its catch and opened it. Frankunderstood that he was to pass out that way. He started forward, makinga deferential bow to his host.
“Hi, I say, Pryor--one minute!” sounded a voice in the outer office, andFrank wondered what was about to happen as he recognized the tones asbelonging to Dorsett.
“In a few minutes,” responded Pryor, with an impatient wave of his hand.
“All right. It’s about the salvage business, you know,” went on Dorsettfrom behind the wire grating. “Want to pay you the money and close upthe deal.”
“Oh, that?” spoke Pryor, with a sudden glance at Frank and a grimtwinkle in his eyes. “You young schemer!” he said to Frank in anundertone, with a slight chuckle. “I understand your peculiar tactics,now. You’ll do, decidedly, young man!”
Frank tried to look all due humility, but he could not entirely suppressa satisfied smile. As he passed out Pryor said to Dorsett: “You are toolate on that matter. I have just closed the salvage business withBuckner of Greenville.”
“You’ve what?” howled Dorsett, with a violent start. “Why, I’m herefirst. No one passed me on the road. I--er, hum”--Dorsett turned whiteas his eye fell on Frank. He glared and shook his driving whip.
The animated and interested friend of Pryor stuck his head past the opendoorway.
“I say, youngster,” he asked guardedly, his face all a-grin, “how didyou circumvent the old chap?”
“Well, I nearly swam part of the way,” explained Frank. “Thank you, Mr.Pryor,” he added, as the latter opened the wire gate for him to passout.
The old clerk had sprung to his feet, gaping in consternation at him.Pryor’s friend was convulsed with internal mirth. Pryor himself did notlook altogether displeased at the situation.
Frank thought that Dorsett would actually leap upon him and strike himwith the whip. The latter, however, with a hoarse growl in his throat,allowed Frank to proceed on his way unhindered.
“We shall hear from this of course--my mother and I,” said the youth tohimself as he gained the street. “Mr. Dorsett will store this up againstme, hard. All right--I’ve done my simple duty and I’ll stand by theresults.”
A minute later, looking back the way he had come, Frank saw Dorsettcome threshing out into the street. He kicked a dog out of his path,rudely jostled a pedestrian, jumped into the gig and went tearing downthe homeward road plying the whip and venting his cru
el rage on the pooranimal in the shafts.
Frank started back towards Greenville the way he had come. He wasgreatly pleased at his success, and cheeringly anticipated the good thefive dollars would do his mother and himself.
As Frank passed the spot where he had noticed the barefooted,mud-bespattered urchin lying asleep by the side of the ditch, he couldfind no trace of the lad.
A little farther on Frank came in sight of the high board fence he hadso curiously observed on his way to Riverton.
The wind was his way, and as he approached the queer barrier he wassomewhat astonished at a great babel of canine barking and howls thatgreeted his ears.
“Sounds like a kennel,” he reflected, “but’s a big one. Why, if thereisn’t the little fellow with the package of meat.”
Frank wonderingly regarded a tattered, forlorn figure at a distanceseeming to be glued right up face forward against the fence.
The boy had piled two or three big boulders on top of one another. Thesehe had surmounted, and was peering through a high up crack or knot holein the fence.
On one arm he carried the newspaper package Frank had noticed. Bit bybit he poised its contents, hurling them over the fence.
A loud clamor of yelps and barkings would greet this shower of food.Frank drew nearer, mightily interested.
The little fellow would throw over a bone and peer inside the enclosure.
“Get it, Fido!” Frank heard him shout. “They won’t let him--those bigones,” he wailed. “Oh, you dear, big fellow, help him, help him. No,they won’t let him. Fido, Fido, Oh, my! oh my!”
The little fellow slipped down to a seat on the boulders now and beganto cry as if his heart would break. Frank approached and pulled at hisarm.
“Hi, youngster,” he challenged, “what in the world are you up to,anyhow?”