CHAPTER VI
THE UNHAPPY MEDIUM
They may be such a thing as a ghost, but I don't believe it! At thesame time, I'm willin' to admit that my feelin's in the matter ain'tgonna prove the ruin of the haunted house promoters. They's a wholelot of things which I look on as plain and simple bunk, that theaverage guy studies at college. But the reason I say they _may_ be, isbecause when me and Kid Scanlan come back East this year we stopped offsomewheres in the hurrah for prohibition part of the country and wasshowed over what the advertisin' matter admitted to be the greatestbakery in the world.
I think them ad writers was modest fellers. That joint was not onlythe world's greatest bakery, it was the world's greatest _anything_!
I never really knowed a thing about bread, except that you put butteron it, until I give that place the up and down.
What I don't know about the staff of life now would never get youthrough Yale. I might go farther than that and come right out with thefact that I have become a abandoned bread fiend and got to have it or Ifoam at the mouth, since I seen how it was made at this dough foundry.
A accommodatin' little guy took hold of me and the Kid and showed usall over the different machine shops where this here bread was mixed,baked and what-notted for the trade. Our charmin' guide must have comefrom a family of auctioneers and circus barkers and he never heard ofno sums under ten or eleven thousand in his life. He knowed more aboutfigures than Joe Grady, who once filled in a summer with a Russianballet, and he had been wound up and set to deliver chatter at the rateof three words a second, provided the track was fast and he got off infront. He talked with his whole body, waggin' his head, movin' hisarms and shufflin' his feet. When he got warmed up and goin' good, hepushed forward at you with his hands like he was tryin' to insert hischatter right into you.
He leads us to a spot about half a mile from where we come in, holds uphis hands to Heaven, coughs, blows his nose and gives a little shiver.
"Over there!" he bellers, without no warnin'. "Over there is ourmarvelous, mastadon, mixin' shop. We use 284,651 pounds ofscrupulously sifted and freshly flavored flour, one million cakes ofelegant yeast and 156,390 pounds of bakin' powder each and every year!We employ 865 magnificent men there and they get munificent money. Wedon't permit the use of drugs, alcoholics, tobacco or unions! The menworks eight easy hours a delightful day, six days a week and they arehappy, hardy and healthy! Promotion is regular, rapid and regardless!Our employees is all loyal, likable and Lithuanians! They own theirown cottages, clothes and chickens, bein' thrifty, temperate and--"
"Tasty!" I yells. I couldn't, keep it in no longer!
"What?" snaps the little guy, kinda sore.
"Lay off, Stupid!" says the Kid to me, with a openly admirin' glance atthe runt. "Go on with your story," he nods to him. "Never mindSenseless, here, I'm gettin' every word of it!"
The little hick glares at me and points to a shack on the left.
"Over there," he pipes. "Over there is our shippin' plant where thefreshly finished and amazingly appetizin' loaves are carefully countedand accurately assembled! For this painstakin' performance we employ523 more men. None but the skilled, superiorand--and--eh--Scandinavian are allowed in that diligent department, andeach and every day a grand, glorious total of ten thousand lovelyloaves is let loose with nothin' missin' but the consumer's contentedcackle as he eagerly eats! We even garnish each loaf with a generousgob of Gazoopis--our own ingenuous invention--before they finallyflitter forth! Would you like to see the shop?"
"I certainly wish _I_ could sling chatter like that!" answers the Kidwith a sigh. "But I guess it's all in the way a guy was brung up.Gobs of generous Gazoopis!" he mutters, turnin' the words over in hismouth like they was sweet morsels. "Gobs of generous Gazoopis! Oh,boy!"
The little guy throws out his chest and bows with a "I-thank-you" lookall over his face. He got me sore just watchin' him. Y'know that runthated himself!
"Say!" I says to him. "If all that stuff you claim for this rollfoundry is on the level, it must take a lot of dough to run it, eh?"
"Are you tryin' to kid me?" he sneers.
"No!" I comes back. "But speakin' of bakeries, I'd sacrifice my sacredsilk socks for a flash at them skilled Scandinavians assemblin' thatbread, before I move on to nasty New York!"
The Kid slaps me on the back and grins.
"Go on, Foolish!" he says. "You got this bird on the ropes!" He turnsto the runt. "All I want," he goes on, "is one peep at them likableLithuanians--can I git that?"
"You guys is as funny as pneumonia to me!" snorts the little guy,gettin' red in the face. "That stuff may pass for comedy in Yonkers orwherever you hicks blowed in from, but it don't git no laugh outa me!D'ye wanna see this shop or don't you--yes or no?"
"Let's go!" I tells him. "You got me all worked up about it!"
"Same here!" says the Kid. "I only wish I could talk like you can, butI guess it's a gift, ain't it?"
The little guy grunts somethin' and nods for us to fall in behind him,and we lock step along till we come to another joint from which wasissuin' what I'll lay eight to five was all the noise in the world.How they ever gathered it up and got it in the buildin' I don't know,but I do know it was there! If you'd take a bowlin' alley onTurnverein night, a boiler factory workin' on a rush order and thebattle of Gettysburg, wind 'em up and set 'em all off at once, youmight get a faint idea of how the inmates of that buildin' was ruinin'the peace and quiet of the surroundin' country. A dynamite explosionin the next block would have attracted as much attention as a whisperin a steamfittin' shop.
"I thought the war was all over!" hollers the Kid, holdin' his ears."Has the police been tipped off about this?"
"What d'ye mean the police?" screams back the runt. "That there is themixin' and bakin' shop."
"Yeh?" I cuts in. "Well, I don't know what them skilled Scandinaviansof yours is at, but, believe me, they're _tryin'_ all right!"
The runt sneers at us.
"You must be a fine pair of hicks!" he says. "D'ye mean to say younever heard of the Eureka Mixin' and Bakin' machine?"
"I can hear it now, all right!" I tells him, noddin' to the buildin'where the boilermakers was havin' a field day, "but--"
"Sufferin' salmon, what boobs!" he interrupts me. Then he gives usboth the once over and starts his sneerer workin' again. "Say!" heasks me. "Who d'ye like to win the battle of Santiago and d'ye thinkLincoln will git elected again?"
"I don't know," I comes back. "I'm gonna vote for Jefferson myself!"I looks him right in the eye. "I think Washington is a sucker to hangaround Valley Forge all winter, don't you?" I asks him.
"Couple of small time cut-ups, eh?" he says, shakin' his head. "Whered'ye come from?"
"New York," the Kid tells him, "and listen--will you do me a favor andlet's hear some more about them likable Lithuanians and gobs ofgenerous Gazoopis?"
"I figured you come from some hick burg like New York," says the runt,ignorin' the Kid's request. "I can spot a guy from New York ten milesaway! He knocks Brooklyn, thinks walkin' up Broadway is seein' life,was born in Memphis and is the only thing that keeps the mail orderhouses in Oshkosh from goin' to the wall! New Yorkers, eh?" he windsup with another insultin' sneer. "I got you!"
"Gobs of generous Gazoopis!" mutters the Kid like he's in a trance."Sweet Papa!"
The runt looks at him.
"How does _that_ bird fool the almshouse?" he asks me.
I bent down so's I could whisper in the side of his little dome. Themskilled Scandinavians in the buildin' had gone crazy or else some ofthe night shift had come in with more boilers and things to hit 'emwith.
"That's Kid Scanlan, welterweight champion of the world!" I hisses inhis ear.
"Ha, ha!" laughs the runt. "That's who he'd _like_ to be, you mean!"
"Our employees is all hale, hearty and hilarious!" grins the Kid athim. "We pay 'em off in money, music and mush! Wow!"
"If that big stiff
is tryin' to kid me," begins the runt, gettin' redagain, "he--"
"All right, all right!" I butts in quickly. "Don't let's have noviolence. Show us what makes that shop go, and we'll grab the nextrattler for New York. Y'know the Kid fights Battlin' Edwards on thetwenty-first and--"
"Are you on the _level_ with that stuff?" interrupts the runt, stilllookin' at the Kid. "Is that really Kid Scanlan?"
I calls the Kid over.
"Kid," I says, "meet Mister--er--"
"Sapp," says the runt. "Joe Sapp!" He sticks out his hand. "Iremember you now," he tells the Kid. "I seen you fight some tramp inFort Wayne last year. I think you hit this guy with everything but thereferee and that's why I like your work. When _I_ send in three bucksfor a place to sit down at a box fight, I expect to see assault andbatter and not the Virginia Reel! Why--"
"Not to give you a short answer," I butts in, "but how about the insaneasylum over there?" I points to the buildin'. "Do we see that ordon't we?"
Right away he straightens up and sticks his finger at it.
"It takes exactly twelve, temptin' minutes to completely compose andaccurately assemble a loaf!" he shouts. "We never heard of waste, andefficiency was born in this factory. The only thing that loafs here isthe bread! Each eager employee has his own particular part to performand that accounts for the amazin' and awesome accuracy with which webake the beautiful bread. Step this way!"
"Believe me!" says the Kid, "I wish I had a line of patter like that!'Amazin' and awesome accuracy'!" he repeats. "Do you get that?"
Right then about a dozen dames and their consorts come breezin' in themain entrance. Offhand, they look like the hicks that gives the"Seein' New York" busses a play, and when the runt spots them he ducksand grabs my arm.
"C'mon!" he says. "Shake it up! If them boobs see me, I'll have toshow 'em all over the plant! That's a gang of them Snooks' Tourists,seein' the world for fourteen eighty-five a-piece, breakfast at hotelon third mornin' out and bus from train included! Most of them iswisenheimers from Succotash Crossin', Mo.; and they're out to see thatthey don't get cheated. They're gonna see everything like it says onthe ticket, and some of 'em is ready to sue Snooks because they gotsomethin' in their eye from lookin' out the train window and missedeight telegraph poles and a water tank on account of it. The rest ofthem sits around knockin' everything on general principles and claimin'the thing is a fake. Then there'll be one old guy in the party with atrick horn he holds to his ear, and, when I get all through tellin' 'emabout the mixin' shop, the deef guy will say, 'Hey? What was thatabout the airship again?' There will also be three veteranschool-teachers which will want samples of the bread and hide out acouple of rolls on the side. And then one young married couple whichstarted sayin' 'Wonderful!' when the train pulled out of the old hometown and which has said nothin' else but that since! No, sir! I'm offthem tourists--c'mon, sneak around here!"
He boldly walks into the buildin' where all the noise is comin' from,and not wantin' to act yellah before strangers we followed him in.They was a lot of things in there and if you ever make the town, JoeSapp will show 'em to you. He has to, in order to eat. But the onlything I remember was the way them lovely, luxurious loaves wasartistically assembled, and I'll remember that little item till theinsurance company pays off!
They was a great, big machine in the middle of the floor and that wasthe thing that was makin' the bread and noise. A half dozen of themskilled Scandinavians stood away up on a gallery at one end and theirjob was of a pourin' nature. They was all dressed in white and worelittle trick hats on which it said this, "No Human Hands Touch It." Ididn't know whether it meant the skilled Scandinavians or the beautifulbread.
"The most marvelous, magnificent, mammoth invention of the age!" bawlsthe runt so's we could hear him over the noise. "Here is where thebeautiful bread is blissfully baked by the wonderful workmen! Thismachine cost the sensational sum of half a million dollars, and itscapacity is a trifle over five hundred finely finished luscious loaveseach and every--"
That's all I heard because I went in a trance from watchin' the thing.I never seen nothin' like it before and I know darn well I never willagain. Listen! Them skilled Scandinavians poured in raw wheat at oneend of this here machine, and it come out the other end, steamin' hotbread! Some machine, eh? Not only that, but when it come out, it wasbaked, labelled, wrapped in oil paper and smellin' most heavenly fromthat generous gob of Gazoopis, as the runt said.
I dragged the Kid outside and we started for the railroad stationwithout comment. As we passed out the door, we heard the runtscreamin', probably thinkin' we was still there.
"One section reduces the wheat to flour, another mixes the dough, itpasses on to the steam ovens and then what happens? _Bread_! Overhere--"
The Kid stops all of a sudden, takes a hitch in his belt and looks backat the shop.
"Hell!" he says. "They _can't_ make no bread like that!"
"You seen 'em do it, didn't you?" I asks him, although I was thinkin'the same thing myself.
"Even at that," he comes back, "I don't believe it!"
We walks on a little ways, and the Kid stops again.
"I certainly wish I could talk like that little runt!" he shoots out."Take it from me, that bird is there forty ways. He's got Websterlookin' like a dummy!"
He keeps on mutterin' to himself as we breeze up to the station, and,when I lean over to get an earful I hear him sayin', "They're allsimple, sassy and suckers! We feed 'em oranges, oatmeal and olives!"
So, as I said before, they _may_ be such a thing as ghosts. Afterwatchin' that bread bakin' machine at play I'll go further than that.There may be _anything_!
One day at the trainin' camp, a couple of weeks after we hit New York,a handler comes to me and says they's two guys outside that wants tosee the Kid. I hopped out to take a flash at 'em, but the Kid has beenreached, and when I come on the scene he's shakin' hands with 'em. Oneof these guys was dressed the way the public thinks bookmakers and conmen doll up and he wore one of them sweet, trustin' innocent faces likeyou see on the villain in a dime novel. He looked to me like he'dsteal a sunflower seed from a blind parrot.
But it was the other guy that was the riot to me.
He was tall and lanky, dressed all in black like the pallbearer theundertaker furnishes, and the saddest-lookin' boob I ever seen in mylife! If he wasn't the original old Kid Kill-Joy, he was the bird thatrehearsed him, believe me! Y'know just from lookin' at this guy, a manwould get to thinkin' about his past life, the time he throwed the babydown the well when but a playful child, how old his parents was gettin'and the time Shorty Ellison run off with the red-headed dame that livedover the butcher's. You wished you had saved your money or somebodyelse's, suddenly findin' out that it was a tough world where a poor mandidn't have a Chinaman's chance, and you wondered if death by drownin'was painful or not.
That's the way it made you feel when you just looked at this guy. Eversee one of 'em?
He had a trick of sighin'. Not just ordinary heaves, but deep, darkand gloomy sighs that took all the life out of whoever he sighed at.If they had that bird over in Europe, they never would have been nowar, because when he started sighin', nobody would have had enoughambition left to fight. Every time he opened his mouth I thought hewas gonna say, "Merciful Heaven help us all!" or somethin' like that.But he didn't. He just sighed.
The Kid tells me the riot of color was Honest Dan Leduc, and that hewas the best behaved guy that ever spent a week end in Sing Sing, wherehe had gone every now and then to study jail conditions at the requestof thirteen men, the same bein' a judge and a jury. The sad-lookin'boob was Professor Pietro Parducci, the well known medium.
"Medium what?" I says, when the Kid pulls that one.
The Kid frowns at me and turns to his new found friends.
"Don't mind Foolish here," he tells 'em, "he's got the idea thateverything is crooked. He thinks the war was a frame-up for themovies, and the Kaiser got double-cro
ssed, but he ain't a bad guy atthat. He knows more about makin' money than a lathe hand at the mint."He jerks his thumb at Honest Dan and swings around on me. "This guyand me was brung up together," he explains, "and before I went into thefight game we was as close as ninety-nine and a hundred. He's been allover the world since then, he says so himself, but just now he's upagainst it. It seems he was runnin' a pool room on Twenty-EighthStreet and he give the wrong winner of the Kentucky Derby to theprecinct captain. The next mornin' the captain give every cop in thestation house a axe and Dan's address. His friend here is a now,whosthis and--"
Honest Dan pulls what I bet he thought was a pleasant smile. Itreminded me more of a laughin' hyena.
"One minute!" he butts in. "My friend, the world-renowed ProfessorParducci, is a medium, a mystic and a swami. He's the seventh son of aseventh son, born with a veil and spent two years in Indiana with theyogi. He can peer into the future or gaze back at the past. He is indirect communication with the spirits of the dear departed and as acrystal gazer and palmist he stands alone!"
"That's a great line of patter, Dan," says the Kid, "but we met a guyon the trip back that had the English language layin' down and rollin'over when he snapped his fingers. Generous gobs of Gazoopis andlikable, loyal Lithuanians! Can you tie that?"
I was still lookin' over the gloomy guy with the name that sounded likea brand of olive oil, and I decided he was the bunk. I asked him couldhe tell my fortune, and he draws himself up and claims he's not inharmony just now. That was the tip-off to me, and I figures he hascome out to take the Kid for his bankroll. I knowed he couldn't tellno fortunes the minute I seen him. He didn't look to me as if he couldtell his own name, and I bet all the spirits he ever communicated withwas called private stock. The end of his nose was as red as a fouralarm fire and the back of his collar was all wore off from where hehad kept throwin' back his head so's the saloon keepers could meetexpenses. Honest Dan said he couldn't speak much English, so I guesshe had stopped at "I'll have the same" and "Here's a go!"
Well, I had the right dope, because the next week the Kid goes down tothe bank and draws out five thousand bucks to set Honest Dan and theprofessor up in business with. They was gonna open a swellfortune-tellin' joint on Fifth Avenue. I said the thing soundedcrooked to me, and the Kid got sore and told me Honest Dan couldn't donothin' like that, it wasn't in him. He showed me where Dan had alwaysgot time off for good conduct, no matter what jail he was in.
The professor brightens up for a minute when the Kid hands over theroll, but after that he went right back into the gloom again.
Honest Dan gives the Kid a receipt for the sucker money and him and histrick medium goes on their way. After a while, I forgot about 'em.The Kid fights Edwards and a couple of more tramps and knocks 'em allkickin' and we're just gonna grab one of them "See America Firsts" forthe coast when some club promoter goes crazy and offers us ten thousandiron men to fight Joe Ryan. The Kid would have fought the Marines forhalf of that, so we run all the way to the club and signed articleswhiles the guy that hung up the purse was still wishin' he had stayedon the wagon.
The Kid had got Professor Parducci to fix him up with a few love charmsand owls' ears by which he was gonna make himself solid with MissVincent. In fact Scanlan fell so hard for the medium stuff that whenthe professor told him to get at all cost a lock of Miss Vincent's hairclipped at eighteen minutes after eleven on a rainy Sunday night, hewrites out to her and asks her to send him a lock cut just that way!
When he wasn't pesterin' the professor on how to win the movie queen,he was goin' around mutterin', "Loyal, likeable Lithuanians andgenerous gobs of Gazoopis!" until the newspaper guys wrote that KidScanlan would be a mark for the first good boy he fought, because likeeverybody else that was a sudden success, he had took to usin'stimulants which is only sold on a doctor's prescription. On thelevel, he'd git a wad of paper and sit around all night with adictionary, writin' down all the words that begin with the same letterand then he'd git up and repeat that stuff for a hour.
One afternoon we went downtown to look over this joint run by HonestDan and the professor. It was in one of them studio buildings on FifthAvenue near Twenty-Eighth Street, and the rent they was payin' for itwould have kept the army in rubber heels for six years. They's a longline of autos outside and the inmates was streamin' in and out of theplace like a crowd goin' to see the beloved rector laid out. Some ofthe dames would be familiar to you, if you've been readin' the boxscores in the latest divorce melees, or the lineup of the committee forthe aid of the Esquimaux victims of the war.
We get in a elevator, and, floatin' up to the roof, walk down whatwould have been a fire trap on the East Side, and here we are atProfessor Parducci's Temple of the Inner Star. A couple of West Indianhall boys, who's gag line was "Say-hib," lets us in. They was dressedin sheets and had towels twisted around their heads and smelledstrongly of gin. Pretty soon Honest Dan comes out and shakes hands allaround. Except for his face, you'd never know it was the same guy.His hair is brushed all the way back like the guys that poses for theunderwear ads and he's dressed in a black suit that fit him better thanmost of his skin. In his shirt front they's a diamond that looked likea young arc light, and he had enough gems on his hands to make J. P.Morgan gnash his teeth.
He told me that him and the professor wasn't doin' no more businessthan a guy would do in Hades with the ice water concession, and thatBarnum was wrong when he said they was a sucker born every minute.Honest Dan said _his_ figures showed there was about two born every_second_.
He leads us into a great big hall that was filled with statues,pictures, rugs, sofas, women and fatheads. The furnishings of thisjoint would make Buckingham Palace look like a stable. It must haveruined the Kid's five thousand just to lay in scenery for that one roomalone. The statues and pictures was nearly all devoted to one subject,and that was why should people wear clothes--especially women? Thevictims is all lollin' around on them plush sofas, drinkin' tea andlookin' like a ten-year-old kid at church or a guy waitin' in thedoctor's office to find out if he's got consumption or chilblains. Itwas as quiet as a Sunday in Philadelphia and they was also a verystrong smell of burnin' glue, which Honest Dan said was sacred incensethat always had to be used by the professor before he could work.
Among the decorations was a very large dame sittin' over in a cornerdressed within a inch of her life. I suppose she had ears, a neck andhands, but you couldn't tell right away whether she had or not, becausethem parts of her anatomy, as the feller says, was buried under acarload of diamonds. You could see by her face that at one time shehad probably been a swell-lookin' dame, but them days was all over.Still, she was makin' a game try at comin' back, and from hercomplexion she must have been kept busy day and night openin' bottlesand cans signed on the outside by Lillian Russell and etc.
This dame was havin' the best time of anybody in the joint. She wassittin' up very straight and solemn with both chins restin' in herglitterin' hands and from the look in her eyes some Sunday paper hadjust claimed she was the best lookin' woman in America and the like.
A guy wouldn't have to be no Sherlock Holmes to see that this was thebird that was bein' readied for the big killin' by Honest Dan and histrick professor. The rest of them was just what you might call thechorus.
Sittin' right beside the stout party was a kid that had just dropped infrom the cover of a magazine. She was the kind of female that couldcome down to breakfast with the mumps and her hair in curl papers, frythe egg on the wrong side and yet make the lucky guy across the tablego out whistlin' and pityin' his unwed friends. You know how themdames look when they have give some time to _dollin' up_, don't you?Well, this one had everything; take it from me, she was a knockout!She's tappin' the floor with a classy little foot and tryin' to see canshe pull a silk handkerchief apart with her bare hands, the whileregisterin' this,"This-medium-thing-is-the-bunk-and-I-wish-I-was-out-of-here!"
I doped her as the stout dame's daughter, hittin' .1
000 on the guess asI found out later.
"Well," whispers Honest Dan to the Kid, "what d'ye think of the place?"
"Some joint!" says the Kid. "Listen--I got a new one. The mostmagnificently, male mauler on earth! How's that--poor, eh?"
"What does it mean?" asks Honest Dan.
"It means _me_, Stupid!" pipes the Kid. "I'm havin' some cards made upwith that on it. The sagacious, sanguine and scandalous Scanlan,welterweight walloper of the world! Where's the professor?"
"Sssh!" whispers Honest Dan. "Lay off that _professor_ gag here.That's small town stuff--he's a mahatma now! He's in one of hissilences, but if you keep quiet I'll take you around and show you howhe works."
He takes us through a little door that leads into a dark room which wasa steal on the old chamber of horrors at the Eden Musee. It was fullof ghost pictures drawed by artists who had no use for prohibition, andthey was plenty of skulls and stuff like that layin' around where theywould do the most good. At the far end is a small wire gratin' with aMorris chair on the other side of it. Honest Dan explains that that'swhere the come-ons sit while the professor massages their soul. Theynever see him, Dan figurin' in that way it would be harder to pick theprofessor out at police headquarters when the district attorney gotaround to him. We hadn't been there a minute, when the curtain at theother end of the room opens and in blows the stout dame, floppin' downin the chair with a sigh as the professor pulls open the grate to feedher the oil. Dan pulls us back in the dark, and I notice she was soexcited that she shook all over like a ten cent portion of cornstarchor Instant Desserto and her breath was comin' in short little gasps.
Honest Dan is takin' a inventory of the couple of quarts of diamondsshe wore and figurin' the list price on his shirt cuffs. When he gotthrough, he dug me in the ribs and says it looks like a big winter.
The professor starts to talk with a strong Ellis Island dialect,tellin' the dame that he's just been in a trance, give the sacredcrystal the once over and took up her case with a few odd ghosts. Theresult was that a spirit which was in the know had just give him a tipthat she was no less than the tenth regular reincarnation of Cleopatra,who did a big time act in one with a guy called Marc Anthony which wasnow doin' a single or had jumped to the movies or somethin' like that.
The stout dame gets up off the chair and waves her handkerchief.
"Merciful Heavens!" she remarks loudly. "I knew it!"
Then she pulls a funny fall and faints!
The professor hisses at Dan to get him a cigarette, and the West Indianhall boys drag the stout dame into the chair from which she had slippedfollowin' the professor's sure-fire stuff about Cleopatra. He snatchesa few drags out of the cigarette before the dame comes to and when shedoes, he goes on and says yes she is Cleopatra, they ain't no doubtabout that part of it and she must have noticed the strange power shehad over men all her life, hadn't she? The stout dame sighs and nodsher head. The professor then tells her that she has been in wrong andunhappy all her life, because she had never met her mate. The samebein' a big, husky, red-blooded cave man which would club her senselessand carry her off to his lair. Had she ever met anybody like that?The stout dame says not lately, but when poor Henry and her had firstgot wed he was a Saturday night ale-hound and once or twice he had--butnever mind, she won't speak ill of the dead. The professor says he cansee that nobody of the real big-league calibre has crossed her path asyet and that her husband's spirit had told him in confidence only theother day that one night he got to thinkin' what a poor worm he was tobe married to Cleopatra, and it had been too much for his humble soulwhich bust.
The dame nods and starts to weep.
"Poor Hennerey!" she says. "He ain't stopped lyin' yet. I shouldnever have wed him, but how did I know that my fatal beauty would provehis undoing?"
"Ain't that rich?" pipes Honest Dan in my ear.
The professor has a coughin' spell, and when he calmed himself, he sayshe has just got in touch with Marc Anthony and he's pullin' the wiresto have him come back to earth so's their souls can be welded togetheragain and if she will come back in a week, he'll be able to tell hersome big news. He said it was bein' whispered around among the spiritsthat Marc Anthony was on earth now, eatin' his noble heart out becausehe couldn't find her.
Then he suddenly shuts the gate, and the dame staggers out, overcomewith joy and the smell of that incense which would have made a gluefactory quit. Honest Dan beats it around and opens the door for her.They wouldn't take a nickel off her then, because they was savin' herfor the big play.
About a week after our visit to the Temple of the Inner Star, the Kidcomes runnin' up to my room at the hotel one mornin' and busts in thedoor. He's got a newspaper in his hand and he slams it down on the bedand kicks a innocent chair over on its side.
"I hope they give him eighty years!" he hollers.
"Who's your friend?" I asks him.
"Friend!" he screams. "Why, the big psalm-singin' stiff, I'll murderhim!"
"They's just one thing I'd like to know, Kid," I says. "Who?"
"That cheap, pan-handlin' crook that Dan Leduc wished on me!" he yells."That rotten snake I kept from dyin' in the gutter, that baby-stealin'rat which claims he's a medium! Professor Bunko--that's who!"
I grabbed up the paper and all over the front page is a picture of MissVincent. Underneath it says this,
"Famous Film Star Rumored Engaged to Millionaire."
"Well," I says, "what has this here social note got to do with theProfessor?"
"What has a jockey got to do with horse-racin'?" bellers the Kid. "Whythe big hick, I'll go down there and strangle him right out loud beforethem high-brow simps of his! I'll have him pinched and I hope he getslife! I'll--"
He went on like that for half an hour, and when he finally cools off heexplains that the professor had guaranteed to dust off his charmers andcharm Miss Vincent so hard that she wouldn't even give a pleasant smileto nobody but the Kid. All Scanlan had to do was follow theprofessor's dope and they'd be nothin' to it but slippin' the ministerand payin' the railroad people for the honeymoon. The Kid had goneahead and done like the professor said, startin' off with the letterrequestin' a lock of her hair clipped at eleven eighteen on a rainySunday night. Then he telegraphed her to bathe her thumbs in hotoolong tea every Friday at noon and send him the leaves in a redenvelope. He followed that up with a note demandin' a ring that shehad first dipped in the juice of a stewed poppy, and then held in backof her while she said, "Alagazza, gazzopi, gazzami" thirteen times.
I guess the professor overplayed the thing a bit, because the onlyaction the Kid got was a short note from Miss Vincent in which she saidthat as long as he had started right in to drink the minute he hit NewYork, their friendship was all over. The next thing was that notice inthe paper.
The Kid's idea was to go right down and wreck the Temple of the InnerStar, windin' up by havin' Honest Dan and his bunk medium pinched. Ishowed him where it would do no good, because he had set 'em up inbusiness and if they was crooked the jury would figure that and put theKid's name on one of them indictments. He calmed off finally and saidhe'd be satisfied to let it go at half killin' 'em both and makin' abum out of the Temple of the Inner Star.
We got down there in a few minutes, and Honest Dan meets us at thedoor. He's all excited and says the time has come for the big hogkillin', after which they're gonna blow New York, because they beentipped off that the new police commissioner is about to startle thenatives with a raid. The Kid starts to bawl him out, when the bigstout dame is ushered into the room and Dan hustles us into theprofessor's shrine in the rear.
As soon as she gets inside, the professor tells her to prepare for ashock. She shivers all over, grabbin' the side of the chair and takin'a long whiff out of a little green bottle. Then she says she'll tryand be brave, and to let her have the works. The professor says he hasfinally dug up Marc Anthony, and all the spirits is in there tryin' forthem, so's they can be brought together. He told her to g
o right backto her rooms at the Fitz-Charlton and he would send out the old thoughtwaves for Marc. Just when he'd get him, he didn't know--it might be aday, a week or a month, but she was to sit there all dolled up toreceive him and wait. He said she would know Marc, because he wouldhave a snake tattooed on the third finger of his right hand in memoryof the way Cleopatra kissed off. That's all he was allowed to give outjust now, he winds up.
Well, the stout dame thanks him about six hundred times and waddles outdarn near hysterical. She grabs hold of her daughter and hisses in herear,
"Oh, Gladys, they've found him! My beloved Marc Anthony is coming toclaim me for his own. Then we will return to Egypt, and, sitting upona golden throne--"
Friend daughter pulls a weary smile and leads Cleopatra to the door.
"Oh, don't, mother!" she says. "Don't! If you only knew how all thissickens me! This man has hypnotized you! Why don't you listen to meand take that trip to California where--"
"What!" squeals the stout dame. "What? Be away when my Marc comes?How dare you think of such a thing! I did that once and if you haveread your ancient history, you must remember the terrible result!"
Daughter sighs, shakes her head and they go out.
Now the Kid has been takin' all this stuff in without lettin' a peepout of him and when the stout dame has left, I figured he'd tear rightin to the plotters, so I got ready to hold up my end and reached for achair. But what d'ye think the Kid did? He falls down on a sofa andstarts to laugh! On the level, I bet he snickered out loud for a goodfifteen minutes and then he gets up and walks to the door withoutsayin' a single word to either Dan or the professor, after all thatstuff he pulled on me at the hotel!
While we're goin' down in the elevator, Honest Dan tells us that theygot a handsome actor who just now is playin' in a show called "Standin'on the Corners, Waitin' for a Job," and they're gonna have him get asnake painted on the third finger of his right hand and shoo him up tothe stout dame the next day. After he has been welcome homed, MarcAnthony is gonna say that he's makin' out a check for the professorwhich throwed them together, and don't she think she ought to send insomethin' also? When she asks what he thinks would be about right,Marc Anthony is gonna say that he guesses she ought to keep the pen shewrote the check with as a souvenir, but that everything else she had,includin' anything a pawnbroker would give a ticket on, would do!
I didn't say nothin' to that, but I was doin' a piece of thinkin' andas soon as we got our feet on Fifth Avenue again, I let go. I told theKid what I thought of his friend Honest Dan in language that BillySunday could have been proud of. When I got through with Dan, I tookup the professor and give him a play. I said it was my belief that acouple of safety-first crooks, who would deliberate trim a simple oldstout dame out of her dough in that coarse manner, should be taken upto the Metropolitan tower and eased off.
The Kid just grins and starts hummin' under his breath.
By this time I had worked myself up to such a pitch that my goat waschasin' madly about the streets, and to have the Kid act that way wasabout all I needed. I carefully explained to him just how many kindsof a big, yellah tramp he was, to let the professor crab him with MissVincent and get away with it clean. I showed him where he should haveat least bent a chair over that guy's head, if he was a real gentlemanwhose honor had been trifled with and not a four flushin' false alarm.
"Gobs of generous Gazoopis!" he snickers at me when I get through."Our employees is all new, noisy and Norwegians!"
They was a queer look in his eye, and I figured he must have slippedout in the mornin' at that and dug up a place where prohibition hadn'tcarried. I stopped right in the middle of the traffic and told him Iwas goin' up to the Fritz-Charlton the next mornin' and tip the stoutdame off, if it was the last thing I did.
He just grins!
The next mornin' I beat it up to Cleopatra's hotel, and, after I havewaited an hour, she sends a maid down to see me. The maid tells me tospread my hands out flat on a little table that's standin' there andshe examines every finger like a sure enough mechanic looks over asecond-hand automobile he's gonna buy to hack with. Finally, shethrows my hands down with a disappointed look and her shoulders beginsone of them hula dances.
"_Viola_!" she remarks. "That leetle snake, he is not there! Madameshe is not at home--away wit' you!"
Well, I figures I did what _I_ could, so I breezed out and leftCleopatra flat.
Failin' to locate the Kid anywheres, I went on down to the studio andwalk right in on the professor and Honest Dan givin' Marc Anthony adress rehearsal. He was a handsome guy, all right, sickenin'ly so,with one of them soft, mushy faces and wavin' blonde hair. He's hadthe snake tattooed on his finger, like the part called for, and the wayhe carries on about how he's gonna give the stout dame the work makesme foam at the mouth. My once favorably known left had all it could doto keep from bouncin' off his chin! Finally, they start him away andHonest Dan tells me how they got it framed up for him to meetCleopatra. He was to go to the Fritz-Charlton and send up a card thatclaimed he was the editor of "Society Seethings," and when she comesdown to see him, he was to ask her what was her plans for the winterseason and a lot of bunk like that. In no way was he to make a crackabout bein' Marc Anthony--that would be too raw, but as he was leavin'he was to carelessly let her see that snake on his finger. That wasall!
They knowed Cleopatra would do the rest.
I couldn't stand no more, so I hustled back to our hotel, and theminute I get in, the clerk tells me the Kid has been chasin' aroundlookin' for me all morning so I beat it right up to our suite. The Kidis doin' his road work by canterin' around the room when I come in, andhe rushes over and grabs me by the arm.
"When are them yeggmen gonna send Marc Anthony up to Cleopatra?" hedemands, all excited.
"He just left a few minutes ago!" I tells him. "Why?"
The Kid gives a yell and jumps over to the door leadin' to oursittin'-room, yankin' it open with one jerk. I thought I'd pass awaywhen I got a flash at what was inside. They was about twenty of theroughest lookin' guys I ever seen in my life, all dolled up in newsuits, shoes and hats. Some of them I recognized as ex-heavy-weights,they was a few strikin' longshoremen, a fair sprinklin' of East Sidegunmen and here and there what had passed for a actor in the tanks.
"Some layout, eh?" pipes the Kid, rubbin' his hands together. "It tookme all mornin' and nearly three hundred bucks to rib them guys up, butthey're all desperate, darin' and dolled up!"
"What the--what's the big idea?" I gasps.
"Hold up your hands!" roars the Kid at his rough and readys.
They did--and I got it!
Each and every one of them guys had a snake tattooed on the thirdfinger of his right hand!
The Kid had probably put in the mornin' rehearsin' 'em, because all hehad to say now was, "Go to it!" and they beat it. He told me they wasall goin' up to the Fritz-Charlton and ask for the stout dame at threeminute intervals, show their right hand and claim they was Marc Anthony!
"If that don't show the stout dame that the professor is the bunk andif she don't let out a moan that'll be plainly heard at policeheadquarters, I'll make Dan a present of the five thousand he took mefor!" says the Kid.
In about a hour the telephone begins to ring and I answers it. Whenthe ravin' maniac on the other end of the wire got to where he couldcontrol the English language, I found out it was no less than HonestDan. The main thing he said was for us to come down to the Temple ofthe Inner Star right away, because him and the professor has got in aterrible jam. We hopped in a taxi and did like he said. Honest Dan iswaitin' in the elevator for us, and he looked like the loser in abattle royal. He says the stout dame has just left, and she's in aterrible state. I could believe that easy, because they is nothin'more vicious in the land of the free than a enraged come-on. I'drather face a nervous wildcat than face a angry boob!
"Somebody put the bee on us!" howls Honest Dan, wringin' his hands."And a truckload of guys went
up to the hotel claimin' they was MarcAnthony in voices that disturbed people in China. They throwed thereal Marc out on his lily white ear, and seven of 'em got pinched fordisorderly conduct. I understand they was a melee up there that wouldmake a football game look like chess and the papers is havin' a fieldday with the thing! We got to grab Cleopatra's gems and go away fromhere before the whole plant is uncovered."
"Why," I says, "how are you gonna take the stout dame now? She knowsit's a fake, don't she?"
"Fake, hell!" hollers Dan. "_She thinks it's on the level_! The onlything that bothers her is which one is the _right_ Marc Anthony. Shesays two of them had such patrician faces that she thinks some of theCaesars has got mixed up with the lot. She's gonna put it up to herlate husband, and she's comin' back here any minute to talk with hisspirit!" He begins walkin' the floor. "I never seen no dame likethat!" he busts out. "She _wants_ to be trimmed! The only thing sheseemed to be sore about was the fact that she couldn't pick out theright Marc Anthony. Now we git the chance of a lifetime to grab a rollwhen she comes back and we ain't got no ghost! If I could only get theguy that sent all them Marc Anthonys up there," he winds up with ayell, "I'd make a ghost out of him!"
He never seemed to think the Kid might have done it, because the Kidwas the boy that had set him and the professor up in business and whyshould he crab his own play?
A little electric buzzer makes good while Honest Dan is ravin' away,and Dan, gettin' white, grabs the Kid by the arm and begs him to cometo the rescue.
"Jump in that cabinet there!" he whispers to him. "And when this dameasks if you're Henry, say yes, and tell her the real Marc Anthony isthe guy with the blonde hair, and he's now at the City Hospital.That's all you got to say and--"
He shoves the Kid back of the cabinet and me back of a curtain just asCleopatra blows in with her daughter. Honest Dan tells them to beseated quick, because the professor has just got the spirit of herhusband where he's ready to talk to the reporters. The West Indianhall boys sneak around in the back, rattlin' chains and bangin' onpans. Then Dan reaches back and opens the mechanical bellows, and ablast of cold air comes into the room while a white light flashes overthe cabinet.
"Now!" whispers Dan to the stout dame, "speak quick!"
At that minute, Dan looked like a guy with a ticket on a hundred to oneshot, watchin' it breeze into the stretch leadin' by by a city block.
"Is--is that you Henery?" squeaks Cleopatra in a tremblin' voice.
They's a rustle in the cabinet and then _this_ comes out over the top.
"Generous gobs of Gazoopis! Our employees is ready, reckless andRussian. This guy is crooked, crazy and careless. He will take youfor your beautiful, bulgin' bankroll and--"
"Why, Henery!" squawks the dame, jumpin' up off the chair.
I heard the well known dull thud on the other side of the cabinet, andI guess it was Professor Parducci fallin' senseless on the floor. Ithought Honest Dan had dropped dead from the way he was hung over asofa.
"Each and every day," goes on the voice in the cabinet, "each and everyday we ship a million lovely loaves--"
"Merciful Heavens!" yells the dame. "A sign! Henery, shall I go back?"
"Back is right!" says the voice. "These guys is cheap crooks and theyain't no Marc Anthony!"
The lights go out and Honest Dan comes to, rushin' over to the stoutdame with a million alibis tryin' to be first out of his mouth. I beatit around to the back, but the professor has gone somewheres else whilethe goin' was fair to medium.
"You have deceived me, you wretch!" screams the stout dame. "Youhave--"
That's as far as she got, because right in the middle of it she pulls afaint, and daughter eases her to the floor. The Kid hops out of thecabinet and grabs Honest Dan.
"Beat it, you rat," bawls Scanlan, "before I commit mayhem!"
From the way Honest Dan went out of that room, he must have passedSamoa, the first hour!
Daughter reaches up and grabs the Kid's hand.
"I--I--want to thank you," she says, "for saving my mother. I--I don'tknow what might have happened, if you hadn't been here!"
"That's all right!" pipes the Kid. "D'ye want us to do anything else?"
"Yes," she says. "Will you tell me where you heard that--thatdescription of the--the million lovely loaves?"
"Sure," answers the Kid. "When we was comin' East, we stopped off at ahick burg somewheres and a guy took us over a bakery--"
Daughter claps her hands and laughs.
"Poetic justice!" she says. "That explains everything. My poor, dearfather founded that bakery, and those were the last advertisements forit he wrote!"