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IN AND OUT
BY EDGAR FRANKLIN
Frontispiece by PAUL STAHR
New YorkW. J. Watt & CompanyPUBLISHERS
Copyright, 1917, byW. J. WATT & COMPANY
PRESS OFBRAUNWORTH & CO.BOOK MANUFACTURERSBROOKLYN, N. Y.
The girl weighed, perhaps, one hundred and twenty pounds,and handling that amount of weight was a mere joke to Wilkins]
CONTENTS
I. THE GREAT UNRECOGNIZED
II. THEORY'S VICTIM
III. OPPORTUNITY
IV. THE RELUCTANT ONE
V. THE WEE SMA' HOURS
VI. JOHNSON BOLLER PROPOSES
VII. THE BUTTERFLY
VIII. SCORNED
IX. CRIME?
X. THE WEB
XI. THE OTHER LADY
XII. THE CRASH
XIII. IN THE BOX
XIV. CONCERNING THREE GROUPS
XV. THICK AND FAST
XVI. THE LIE
IN AND OUT
CHAPTER I
The Great Unrecognized
Up in the ring, the long-nosed person who had been announced as KidHorrigan was having things much his own way with the smaller personbilled as the Bronx Tornado.
It was the wont of Kid Horrigan to step forward lightly, to rap theTornado smartly on the bridge of the nose, and thereafter to step backas lightly and wait until the few wild blows had fanned the air and theTornado had returned to his meaningless and somewhat bewildered crouch.
Thereupon, in almost preoccupied fashion, the Kid stepped forward oncemore--and when he had done it again and again the performance began togrow monotonous and, down in Box B at the ringside, Johnson Bolleryawned aloud.
The yawn finished, he leaned over wearily and addressed Anthony Fry.
"If that little wheeze had the pep of a dead mosquito," said JohnsonBoller disgustedly, "he'd take that big stiff when his hands are up likethat and slip him an uppercut that would freeze him solid!"
Anthony Fry's intellectual features relaxed in a faint smile.
"He's had several chances, hasn't he?" he mused.
"Several? He's had fifty! He gets three a minute and--well, look atthat!"
"Yes, he missed another opportunity then, didn't he?" said Anthony."Curious!"
Johnson Boller's cigar rolled to the other side of his mouth and hehunched down farther in his chair.
"And nine more rounds of it to go!" he sighed.
Anthony Fry merely smiled more pensively and nodded, removing hisnose-glasses and tapping his teeth reflectively--and, among otherthings, causing the red-faced, partially alcoholized trio behind them inBox B to wonder what he was doing at a prize fight anyway.
As externals go, there was some ground for the wonder. Anthony Fry atforty-five was very tall, very lean in his aristocratic way, and very,very dignified, from the crown of his high-held head to the tips of histoes. In dress he was utterly beyond criticism; in feature he was thin,austere, and impressive. At first glance one might have fancied him aworld-famous surgeon or the inscrutable head of the Steel Trust, but thefact of the matter was that Anthony, these fifteen years gone, hadinherited Fry's Imperial Liniment, with all that that implied.
It implied a good deal in the way of income, yet even among his friendsAnthony did not care to have the liniment phase of his quietly elegantexistence dwelt upon too insistently. Not that he regarded thebusiness--run by a perfect manager and rarely visited--as a secret shameexactly, but unquestionably Anthony would have preferred that his latefather and his two dead uncles, when starting their original pursuit ofwealth, had corraled the world's diamond supply or purchased ManhattanIsland at a bargain.
Just now, perhaps, Anthony's more striking features were emphasized bythe nearness of Johnson Boller, one of his few really intimate friends.
Johnson Boller's age was just about the same, but there the similaritybetween them stopped short.
Johnson Boller was plump, one might almost say coarse. Where Anthonywalked with slow dignity, Johnson swaggered. Where Anthony spoke in ameasured undertone and smiled frigidly, Johnson thumped out the wordsand laughed with a bark. About most things except food he was inclinedto be gloomy and pessimistic, and this evening the gloom within was eventhicker than usual, because Johnson Boller's wife had left him.
She was a new wife and his first--a beautiful and spirited wife, all offifteen years younger than Johnson Boller. She was in love with him andhe with her, tremendously--and now she was gone. After only six monthsof unalloyed happiness in the five-thousand-dollar apartment onRiverside Drive, Mrs. Johnson Boller had left for her annual visit ofone month to the sister whose accursed husband owned great chunks ofMontreal, Quebec, and insisted on living on one of them.
One vast hour Johnson Boller had roamed the vacuum that had been theirideal home; then he had packed his grip and gone to stay with AnthonyFry, in that utter ultimate of everything impeccable and expensive inthe way of bachelor apartments, the Hotel Lasande--and even the sight ofthe fight tickets, when Anthony's invaluable Wilkins had returned withthem, had failed to bring more than a flitting smile to Johnson Boller.
Now they were watching the second preliminary bout, and could he buthave traded one thousand of these bouts for a single hour with hisbeloved Beatrice, Johnson Boller would have gladly.
"In the main," said Anthony Fry, "that absurd little chap up theretypifies my whole conception of opportunity."
"Huh?" Johnson Boller said.
"The chance for that fatal uppercut is there--it was there a minute agoand it will be there a minute hence, and probably two minutes hence. OurTornado hasn't seen it yet; he may go to the end of the ten rounds andnever see it, and yet, unless this Horrigan chap changes his tactics, itwill be repeated again and again. Would he see it if the bout ran twentyrounds?"
"How the dickens should I know?" Johnson Boller muttered.
"I'd be quite willing to wager," Anthony smiled thoughtfully, "that he_would_ see it!"
Johnson Boller surveyed his friend narrowly. It was obvious thatAnthony's attention had strayed from the alleged battle--and smallwonder! It was equally obvious that Anthony's mind was wandering offinto the abstract; and not infrequently these little journeys--providedthey went not too far--were quite entertaining.
Johnson Boller, therefore, with an impulse he was to regret bitterly inthe very near future, gave a prod to discussion by smiling in his ownunhappy way and saying:
"What's the idea, Anthony? You're wrong, but--what is it?"
"My idea," said the proprietor of Fry's Imperial Liniment slowly, "ismerely this, Johnson: that the whole proposition of the man who is adire failure, the man who is a tremendous success, is vastlyexaggerated."
"Meaning?"
"That failure does not of necessity imply incapacity or ineptitude--orsuccess any tremendous capability, in many cases, for that matter. Takenby and large, we are all made of much the same stuff, you know. Thetrouble lies in the failure of the plain, average, reasonably stupidcitizen to recognize opportunity's one solitary knock!" Anthony smiled,growing himself more interested by the second. "Now, if opportunity werebut decent enough to knock twice, at least double the number of strivinghumans would recognize her nearness and grasp her. If she could bringherself to knock three times, say, our successes would be tripled.If----"
"And if she knocked a thousand times in succession, everybody'd be amillionaire," Johnson Boller suggested.
"Something l
ike that," smiled Anthony. "The chap who does knowopportunity, recognizes her mainly by accident, I honestly believe. Now,if we could but take each man and place opportunity before him and holdher there until he fully understood that she was present, the wordfailure would be omitted from the dictionaries a generation hence."
Anthony Fry winked rapidly, which in itself was rather a bad signbecause it indicated that the theorizing portion of his cultured brainwas growing quite rapt. At another time, very likely, Johnson Bollerwould have heeded the warning and turned Anthony's attention gently backto the fight; but to-night Boller sought refuge from the hauntingloneliness that Beatrice had left behind.
"I don't agree with you!" he said flatly.
"Eh?"
"Nix!" said Johnson Boller. "Any guy who can come face to face with aregular honest-to-goodness opportunity, Anthony, and not know her insideof one second, could have her tied to his right leg for two hundredyears and never know she was there."
"You really believe that?"
"Oh, I know it!" said Johnson Boller. "I have several millions of yearsof human experience to prove that I'm right."
Anthony leaned closer, causing the largest of the red-faced trio behindto growl senselessly as he was forced to shift for a view of the ring.
"Let us assume, Johnson, the individual A," said Anthony. "A wished tobecome a lawyer; he had his chance and missed it. We will assume him tobe peculiarly stupid; we will say that he had opportunity for the secondtime--and again failed to grasp her. Can you think that, deliberatelyled up to his third opportunity of becoming a lawyer, A will turn hisback for the third time?"
"Certainly," said Johnson Boller, without thought and solely becauseAnthony's precise driveling interested him a little more than the affairof the ring.
"Pah!" Mr. Fry said angrily.
Just here Mr. Horrigan slipped while making his --nth jab at theTornado's nose--slipped and fell upon the Tornado's fist and thereafterreeled about for a few seconds. Johnson Boller emitted his first reallaugh of the evening; Anthony Fry, who had not seen the incident, failedeven to smile.
"It would be interesting," he said crisply, "to select a subject,Johnson, and try the experiment."
"What experiment?"
"That of learning just how many times opportunity must be presented tothe average individual to secure full recognition of her presence andher beauties."
"Wouldn't it?" mused Johnson Boller absently.
"I mean, to reach haphazard into the six millions that go to make up NewYork, to pick just one individual and segregate him, and then showhim--_opportunity_! To take him aside, where there is nothing else todistract him, and thrust opportunity in his very face--the opportunity,whatever it might be, that he has always desired. It seems to me,Johnson, that watching that experiment might be distinctly worth while!"
"Aha!" yawned Johnson Boller.
"So, therefore," Anthony said placidly, "we will find our subject andmake the experiment."
This time, and with a considerable jar, Johnson Boller awoke to the factthat danger was at his elbow!
He sat bolt upright and stared at Anthony Fry, and in the queerest wayhis flesh crawled for a moment and his hands turned cold, for he knewthat expression of Anthony's all too well. Intent, wholly absorbed, thatexpression indicated that, however ridiculous the proposition might be,its fangs had fastened in Anthony's very soul!
This was the expression which recalled--oh, so clearly--the dread timewhen Anthony Fry had become obsessed with the idea that crime is amatter of diet and external impression, when he had secured the twoyeggmen and established them where he could watch and feed them; when,eventually, he had been forced to pay for their crowning crime or go tojail as an accomplice!
This was the expression that brought back the period in which Anthonyhad cherished the theory that music's true germ lay in the negro race,properly guided and separated from all outside influences and--well,this was the expression, fast enough, and Boller's throat tightened. Hehad not even found words of protest when Anthony pursued:
"And upon my soul! See how the thing has been prearranged for us!"
"What?"
"Look here, Johnson," the owner of Fry's Liniment hurried on, quiteexcitedly. "Have you noticed how packed the house is to-night?"
"What? Yes, and----"
"Every seat in the place is sold--_except this one seat in our box_!"
"What of it?"
"It's fate!" chuckled Mr. Fry. "It is fate and nothing else, Johnson.Out of all the millions in New York, one man--absolutely unknown to,unsuspected by, either you or me--is coming to take this seat, doubtlessfor the star bout."
"But----"
"To that man," said Anthony, "I shall offer opportunity!"
"What d'ye mean? Money?" Johnson Boller asked incredulously.
"It will involve money, doubtless; I can afford a little."
"Well, you go and poke a handful of bills into a man's face and allyou're going to prove is that----"
"I have no idea of doing anything of the sort," Anthony saidimpatiently. "What I purpose doing is simply this: I shall----"
Johnson Boller had recovered from the first shock. He drew a long, deepbreath, and, leaning over to his old friend, placed a firm, strong handon his knee and looked soothingly into his kindled eye.
"Listen, Anthony!" said he. "_Don't!_"
"Eh? You've no notion of what I mean to do," Anthony said briefly.
"No, but I can guess enough to dope it out pretty well, and--don't doit!" Johnson Boller said earnestly. "This theory stuff is all right,Anthony; I like to sit and chatter about it as much as you do. On thelevel, I do! I like to talk with you about these things, and wonder whatwould happen if this was thus and the other thing was otherwise. Butwhen you come to pulling it on a perfect stranger at a prize fight,Anthony, try to remember that everybody may not understand you as wellas I do."
"My dear chap!" Anthony laughed.
"Don't laugh; I know what I'm talking about," Mr. Boller went on,feverishly almost. "You wait till we get home, Anthony, and we'll talkover all this about opportunity and get it settled. For the matter ofthat, I can see now that you're dead right!" Johnson Boller said, andthere was something almost pathetic in his voice. "You're dead right,Anthony! All you have to do is to stick opportunity before a man longenough and he's bound to chuck a hammerlock into her and slam her downto the mat for keeps! So that's settled, and we don't have to do anyexperimenting with human subjects. Or if you do have to have a live oneto work on, wait till we get home and we'll take Wilkins, Anthony!That'd be better, anyway."
He paused, eying his old friend with deep anxiety. Anthony Fry, havingthrown back his head, laughed heartily.
"Johnson," said he, "the whole trouble with that poor old head of yoursis that it is absolutely without the power of visualization! It knowsthe wool business; it makes thousands and thousands of dollars out ofthe wool business; but to save its very life it cannot reach out intothe abstract!"
"It doesn't want to reach into the abstract!"
"Well, it should, because it will grow more and more stodgy if itdoesn't," Mr. Fry said complacently. "Good gracious, Johnson! Coming tolife! Just consider what may be coming to this seat!"
"I don't dare!" Johnson Boller said honestly.
"An old man, perhaps--one who fancies his opportunities all past anddone for. What more vitally interesting than thrusting opportunity uponsuch a man, Johnson?"
"So far as I'm concerned, anything under the sun and----"
"Or perhaps a middle-aged failure," Anthony rambled on. "A man just pastthe age when hope is richest--a man who has seen his chances come andgo. I don't know, Johnson, but I rather believe that I'm hoping for amiddle-aged man."
"Yes, one that's weak enough to gag before he can yell for the police,"Johnson Boller grunted. "Now, Anthony, before you----"
"Or best of all, perhaps, an average young man," smiled theexperimenter. "That would really be the most interesting sort ofsubject, Johnson--just a p
lain chap, not fully matured, not soured bydisappointment nor rendered too sophisticated by contact with the world.On the whole, I really hope that a young man is coming!"
And now, for a time, Johnson Boller said nothing at all. There wasalways the chance that Anthony might work it out of his system intalk--there was the other chance, growing rosier and rosier by theminute, that the odd chair had not been sold at all.
It was rather queer, when one considered that seats for this particularstar bout had been at a premium for a week, but it was nevertheless thefact that the preliminary arguments were over and the announcer spinninghis megaphoned tale for the big battle, and the seat still unoccupied.To Johnson Boller it even hinted at the existence of a specialProvidence designed to watch the doings of such as Anthony Fry.
The minutes were wearing along, too. The cheering was done with and themegaphone had left the ring. Seconds and trainers were climbing downthrough the ropes, and the principals were listening boredly to thefinal words of instruction. And now the gong had struck and they were atit--and still the odd chair in Box B remained unoccupied.
"Opportunity!" mused Anthony Fry. "The Great Unrecognized!"
"Eh?"
"The Great Unrecognized," Anthony repeated complacently. "Not a bad termfor her, eh?"
Johnson Boller made a last survey of the neighborhood, permitted himselfa sigh of relief, and grinned broadly at his old friend.
"Great term, Anthony!" he agreed genially. "He isn't coming!"
"He'll be here yet," Anthony smiled.
"Not now," Boller chuckled. "No man gives up ten or fifteen dollars forone of these seats and then stays away for any reason save death. Yourvictim was hit by a motor-truck on the way here--and at that he may begetting off easier than if you'd caught him and tried some psychologicalexperiments on him."
And here Mr. Boller stretched and removed his cigar, so that his grinmight spread from ear to ear.
"It only goes to show you, Anthony, that there's some power watchingover people like you and governing their affairs, that is past ourunderstanding. Now, if that poor unknown devil had ever turned upand----"
He stopped short.
In Anthony Fry's eye the blue-white fire of enthusiasm glinted outsuddenly. Half rising, Mr. Fry gazed down the vast place, and then, witha smile, sat back again and eyed his friend.
"Something's wrong with your power, Johnson," said he. "Here he comesnow!"