The reason why the clerk didn"t continue his running was a very good one. One of the German"s big hands encircled the clerk"s thin arm like a bracelet of steel. The clerk struggled, but he might as well have tried to break out of irons.
"You vant me to bractise running, so dot I gan catch you, eh?"
grunted the German. "You vant me to eat breakfast sawdust for a dyspepsia vot I ain"t got, huh? You vant me to dake breathing eggsercises ven I can dake more air into my lungs, alretty, dan your whole body gan disblace? You vant me to do monkey-tricks mit a dumb-pell, yen I gan do things like dis?"
Suiting the action to the word, Herr Schimmelpodt grasped the clerk by one shoulder and one thigh. Up over his head the German raised the unhappy young man. Herr Schimmelpodt"s arms fell and rose as he "exercised" with the young man for a wand.
Everything in the gym. had stopped. All eyes were on this novel performance. Roars of laughter greeted some new stunts that Herr Schimmelpodt performed with his human wand. The great German was the only one who seemed unconscious of the hurricane of laughter that he was causing.
At last the German put his victim back on the floor.
"Yah, young mans, I am much oblige dot you show me how I need eggsercise. I feel much better alretty."
Red-faced, the clerk fled to the other side of the room, followed by the laughter of the other gymnasts.
Yet Herr Schimmelpodt"s good-natured performance had great value.
It taught many of the young men present how far this generation has fallen behind in matters of personal strength. Mr. Morton had easier sailing after that.
CHAPTER XI
The "King Deed" of Daring
"Yes; that performance helped a lot."
Herr Schimmelpodt was prevailed upon, by Mr. Morton, to come around on another evening to show some further feats with his great strength.
Around the waist-line the German was flabby; the fat rolled in heavy ridges. Feeling aware of this defect in personal appearance Herr Schimmelpodt determined to devote some of his abundant leisure to getting his belt line into smaller compa.s.s. But the German would not do this before all eyes in the public, gym. So he and some other well-to-do business men who were conscious that the years had dealt too generously by them in the matter of flesh, hired a small hall and converted it into a private gym.
It was all the doings of d.i.c.k & Co., just the same.
The town was ripe, now, for performances in extraordinary athletics.
Fate willed it that there should be a chance.
Once a year an opera company of considerable prominence appeared at Gridley for one evening.
Whenever this evening came around, it was made the occasion for a big time in local society. The women of the well-to-do families turned out in their most dazzling finery.
This year "Lohengrin" was to be sung at the local opera house.
d.i.c.k could have obtained, at "The Blade" office, free seats for Dave and himself for this Friday night. But they were still in close training, and there was a game on for the afternoon of the day following. For that reason nine o"clock found both of the young men in bed and asleep.
Near the opera house the street was thronged with carriages.
Carriage after carriage drove up and discharged its load of handsomely dressed women and their more severely attired escorts. All of Gridley that could attend the opera were in evening dress.
During the evening a half gale of wind sprang up. While all was light and warmth inside, outside the wind howled harder and harder.
By the time that the music lovers began to pour out, the blast was furious.
Leaning on the arm of her escort, as her carriage drove up to the door, one beautifully gowned woman stepped out. Over her hair was thrown a black, filmy scarf in which nestled a number of handsome diamonds.
Just as she reached the curb, but before she could step into the waiting carriage, this woman gave a shriek of dismay.
The gale had caught at her diamond-strewn head-covering. Like a flash that costly creation was caught up from her hair and borne on the wind.
Others standing by saw the costly thing whisked obliquely up into the air. It was still ascending on the blast when it pa.s.sed out of the range of vision.
"O-o-o-oh! My beautiful jeweled scarf!" sobbed the woman hysterically.
The crowd quickly formed about her. She was recognized as Mrs.
Macey, the wife of a wealthy real estate operator.
"It was careless not to have it fastened more securely, but it"s no use to cry over what can"t be helped now, my dear," replied her husband. "Get into the carriage and I"ll see if any trace can be found of the scarf."
Still sobbing, Mrs. Macey was helped into the carriage. Then Mr. Macey enlisted the help of the bystanders.
In every direction the street was searched. The fronts of the buildings opposite were examined; the gratings in the sidewalk were peered through. But there was no trace, anywhere, of the jeweled scarf.
"It will be worth two hundred and fifty dollars for anyone to find it and return it to me," shouted Mr. Macey. That scattered the searchers more widely still. Presently a woman friend drove home with Mrs. Macey, while her husband remained to push the search.
He kept at it until two o"clock in the morning, half a hundred men and boys remaining in the search.
Then Mr. Macey gave it up. The gaudy, foolish trifle was worth about five thousand dollars. As the night wore on Mr. Macey began to have a pessimistic notion that perhaps some one had found the scarf but had been too "thrifty" to turn in such a precious article for so small a reward.
"I guess it may as well be given up," sighed Mr. Macey, after two in the morning. "I"m going home, anyway."
The readers of "The Blade" that crisp October morning knew of Mrs. Macey"s loss.
There was much talk about the matter around the town. People who walked downtown early that morning peered into gutters and down through sidewalk gratings. Then, at about seven o"clock a sensation started, and swiftly grew.
One man, glancing skyward, had his attention attracted to something fluttering at the top of the spire of the Methodist church, more than half a block away from the opera house. It was fabric of some sort, and one end fluttered in the breeze, though most of the black material appeared to be wrapped around the tip of the weather vane in which the spire staff terminated.
"That"s the jeweled scarf, I"ll bet a month"s pay!" gasped the discoverer. Then, mindful of the reward, he dashed to the nearest telephone office, asking "central" to ring insistently until an answer came over the Macey wire.
"Hullo, is that you, Mr. Macey?" called the discoverer, a teamster.
"Then come straight up to the Methodist church. I"ll be there.
I"ve discovered the jeweled scarf."
"How---how many jewels are left on it?" demanded Mr. Macey.
"Come right up! I"ll tell you all about it when you get here."
Then the teamster rang off, after giving his name. The real estate man came in a hurry, in a runabout. His wife, pallid and hollow-cheeked, rode in the car with him. To Mr. Macey the teamster pointed out the barely visible bit of black fluttering a hundred and sixty feet above the pavement.
"Now how about the reward, Mr. Macey?" demanded the teamster.
"That will be paid you, if you return the scarf to Mrs. Macey,"
replied the real estate man dryly.
The teamster"s jaw dropped. For the uppermost eighteen feet of the spire consisted of a stout flagpole. Below this was the sloping slate roof of the top of the steeple proper. Only a monkey or a "steeplejack" could get up there, and on a day like this, with a half gale still blowing, a steeplejack might be pardoned for declining the task.