"Gave me the same thing," said Markham.
"Leak in the office," announced the elderly advanced dresser. "Fifty shares!" he added, twirling the gla.s.ses on their silk ribbon. "h.e.l.l!
Going to let him get away with it?"
"Got to be careful," suggested a quiet director who had listened. "Can"t tell who"s back of him."
"Call him in," ordered the advanced dresser, fixing the gla.s.ses firmly on his purple nose. "Call him in! Bluff him in a minute!"
"Buzz! Buzz! Buzz!" smote fatefully on Bean"s ears. He had expected it.
If they didn"t let him alone, he would tell them all that he could imagine nothing of less consequence.
He entered the room. He hardly dared scan the faces of those directors in the flesh, but they were all scanning him. He stood at the end of the table and fastened his eyes on a railway map that bedecked the opposite wall, one of those mendacious maps showing a trans-continental line of unbroken tangent; three thousand miles of railway without a curve, the opposition lines being mere spirals.
"Here, boy!" It was the advanced dresser of the white parted beard and the constant indignation. Bean looked at him. He had known from the first that he must clash with this man.
"That sort of thing"ll never do with _us_, you know," continued the old gentleman, when he had diverted Bean"s attention from the interesting map. "Never do at all; not at all; _not-tat-tall_. Preposterous! My word! What rot!"
The last was, phonetically, "Wha" _trawt_!"
Bean was studying the old gentleman"s faultless garments. He wore a particularly effective waistcoat of white pique striped with narrow black lines, and there was a pink carnation in the lapel of the superbly tailored frock coat.
"Wha" trawt!" repeated the ornate director. Bean looked again at the map.
"Here, boy, your last chance. We happen to need those shares in a little matter of voting. I"ll draw you a check for the full amount."
He produced the daintiest of check-books and a fountain pen of a chaste design in gold. Bean"s look was the look of those who see visions.
"Now then, _now_ then!" spluttered the old gentleman, the pen poised.
"Don"t keep me waiting; don"t keep me, I say! What amount? Wha"
_tamount_?"
Bean"s eyes were withdrawn from the wall. He came briskly to life.
"I"ll tell you in a moment. I"ll get the shares."
"Shrimp!" said the old gentleman triumphantly, when Bean had gone.
"He told _me_," began Tully. But the advanced dresser wanted no more of that.
"Shrimp!" he repeated.
Bean reentered with the certificates. The old gentleman glanced angrily over them.
"Bean!" he exclaimed humorously. "Vegetable after all; not a fish! Funny name that! Bunker Bean! Boston, by gad! Not bad that, I _say_! Come, come, _come_! Want par, of course--all do! There y"are, boy!"
He blotted the check, tore it from the book and waved it toward Bean as he turned to the director of the cigarette.
"About that proposition before us to-day, Mr. Chairman--" but Bean had gone. Observing this, the old gentleman looked about him.
"Shrimp!" he said contemptuously, with the convinced air of an expert in marine biology.
Bean, outside, once more addressed himself to typewriting. He wondered if he should be seized with a toothache or a fainting spell. Toothache was good, but perhaps Bulger had used that too often. Still Tully would "fall" for a toothache. It gave him a chance to say that if people would only go to a dentist once every three months--Then he remembered that Tully was inside. He wouldn"t make any excuse at all.
"Going out a few minutes," he explained to old Metzeger as he swiftly changed from his office coat and adjusted the new straw hat.
Bulger glanced up from his machine, winked at him and shaped a word with his able mouth. An adept in lip-reading could have seen it to be "Chubbins." Bean in response leered confession at him.
The broker"s office was in the adjoining block.
"I"ve just made a little deal," explained Bean to the person who inquired his business. "Here"s the check. You know I"ve got a sort of an idea I"d like a little more of that Federal Express stuff. Just buy me some the same as you did before, as much as you can get on ten margins, er--I mean on ten points."
"Nothing much doing in that stock," suggested the expert. "Why don"t you get down on some the live ones. Now there"s Union Pacific--"
"I know, but I want Federal Express. That is, you see, I want it merely for a technical purpose." He felt happy at recalling Markham"s phrase.
"All right," said the expert resignedly. "We"ll do what we can. May take three or four days."
Bean started for the door.
"Say," called the expert, as if on second thought, "you"re up at Breede"s office, ain"t you--old J.B."s?"
"Oh, I"m there for a few days yet," said Bean.
"Ah, ha!" said the expert. "Have a cigar!"
Bean aimlessly accepted the proffer.
"Sit down and gas a while," urged the expert genially. "Things looking up any over your way?"
"Oh, so-so, only," said Bean. "But I can"t stop, thanks! Got to hurry back to see a man."
"Drop in again any time," said the expert. "We try to make this little den a home for our customers."
"Thanks!" said Bean. "I"ll be sure to."
"Ah ha, and ah ha!" said the expert to himself. "Now I wonder."
On his way back to the office Bean suddenly discovered that he was chewing an unlighted cigar. He stopped to observe in a polished window its effect on his face. He rather liked it. He pulled the front of his hat down a bit and held the cigar at a confident angle. He thought it made him look forceful. He wished he might pa.s.s the purple-faced old gentleman--the whole Breede gang, for that matter--and chew the cigar at them.
"I"ll show them," he muttered, over and around the impeding cigar. "I"ll show them they can"t keep _me_ off that board. I knew what to do in a minute. Napoleon of Finance, eh? I"ll show them who"s who!"
He was back at his desk finishing the last of Breede"s letters for the day. Tully had not discovered his absence. He winked at Bulger to a.s.sure him that the worst interpretation could be put upon that absence. He wondered if anything else could happen before the day ended.
"Telephone for Boston Bean," called the wag of an office boy.
This time he closed the double door of the booth, letting Bulger think what he pleased.
"I forgot to ask what you take, mornings," pealed the flapper.