Simultaneously with this there bounded into the room a large gentleman with a red face and a husky voice, who whipped a revolver from his pocket the minute he pa.s.sed the threshold and leveled it at the man with the badge, while all the others sprang from their chairs.
"Hands up!" said he, in a hurried but businesslike manner, himself apparently annoyed with and apprehensive of the adjoining disturbance and the clanging in the street. "This is a sure-enough pinch, but it ain"t for gambling, you can bet your sweet life! You"re all pulled for a bunch of cheap sure-thing experts, but this guy has got the lock-step comin" to him for impersonating an officer. You"ve played that gag too long, Dan Blazer. Give me that evidence!" and he s.n.a.t.c.hed the black bag from the hand of the man with the badge.
Short-Card Larry, standing near what was apparently a closet door, now took his cue and threw it open, and, grabbing Wallingford by the arm, suddenly pulled him forward. "This is the real thing," he said in a hoa.r.s.e whisper. "We"ve got to make a get-away or go up. They"re fierce on us here if the pinch once comes."
"h.e.l.lo, boys," broke in a third new voice, and then the real shock came. The third new voice was not in the play at all, and the consternation it wrought was more than ludicrous.
Wallingford, drawing back for a moment, was nearly knocked off his feet by fat Badger Billy"s dashing past him through that door to the back stairway, closely followed by Mr. Phelps, and Mr. Phelps was trailed almost as closely by the gaunt man of the badge. Glancing toward the door, Mr. Wallingford smiled beatifically. The cause of all this sudden exodus was huge Harvey Willis, in his blue suit and bra.s.s b.u.t.tons and helmet, with a club in his hand, who, making one dive for the husky red-faced man as he, too, was bent on disappearing, whanged him against the wall with a blow upon the head from his billy; and as the red-faced man fell over, Harvey grabbed the black bag. The crash of a breaking water-pitcher from the adjoining room, the shrill voice of a protesting and frightened landlady as she came tearing up the stairs, and the clamor of one of those lightning-collected mobs in front of the house around the patrol-wagon, created a diversion in the midst of which Harvey Willis started out into the hall, a circ.u.mstance which gave the dazed red-faced man an opportunity to stagger down the back stairway and out through the alley after his companions, whom Wallingford had already followed. They were not waiting for him, by any means, but this time were genuinely interested in getting away from the law, each man darkly suspicious of all the others, and Wallingford, alone, serene in mind.
In the hall, Willis, with a grin, thrust the black bag into his big pocket, and turned his attention to the terrified landlady and his brother officer of the wagon, who was just then mounting the stairs.
"Case of plain c.o.ke jag," he explained, and burst into the noisy room, from which the two presently emerged with the shrieking and inebriated man who had been brought up-stairs but a short while before.
In Wallingford"s room that night, Blackie Daw was just starting for Boston when Harvey Willis, now off duty, came up with the little black bag, which he dropped upon the table, sitting down in one of the big chairs and laughing hugely.
"Mr. Daw, shake hands with Mr. Willis, a friend of mine from Filmore," said Wallingford. "Order a drink, Daw."
As he spoke, he untied the bag, and, taking its lower corners, sifted the mixture of cards and greenbacks upon the table. Daw, in the act of shaking hands, stopped with gaping jaws.
"What in Moses is that?" he asked.
"Merely a little contribution from your Broadway friends," Wallingford explained with a chuckle. "Harvey, what do I owe out of this?"
"Well," said Harvey, sitting down again and naming over the cast of characters on his fingers, "there"s seven dollars for the room, and the tenner I gave Sawyer to go down on Park Row and hunt up a c.o.ke jag. Sawyer gets fifty. We ought to slip a twenty to the wagon-man.
Sawyer will have to pay about a ten-case note for broken furniture, and I suppose you"ll want to pay this poor c.o.ke dip"s fine. That"s all, except me."
"Ninety-seven dollars, besides the fine," said Wallingford, counting it up. "Suppose we say a hundred and fifty to cover all expenses, and about three hundred and fifty for you. How would that do?"
"Fine!" agreed Harvey. "Stay right here and keep me busy at the price."
"Not me," said Wallingford warmly. "I only did this because I was peevish. I don"t like this kind of money. It may not be honest money.
I don"t know how Phelps and Banting and Teller got this money."
Blackie Daw came solemnly over and shook hands with him.
"Stay amongst our midst, J. Rufus," he pleaded. "We need an infusion of live ones on Broadway. Our best workers have grown jaded and effete, and our reputation is suffering. Stay, oh, stay!"
"No," refused J. Rufus positively. "I don"t want to have anything more to do with crooks!"
CHAPTER IX
IN WHICH J. RUFUS HEARS OF SOME EGYPTIANS WORTH SPOILING
It was in a spirit of considerable loneliness that Wallingford came back from seeing Blackie Daw to the midnight train, for he had grown to like Blackie very well indeed. Moreover, his friend from Georgia was gone, and quite disconsolate, for him, he stood in front of the hotel wondering about his next move. Fate sent him a cab, from which popped a miniature edition of the man from Georgia. The new-comer, who had not waited for the cab door to be opened for him, immediately offered to bet his driver the price of the fare that the horse would eat bananas. He was a small, clean, elderly gentleman, of silvery-white hair and mustache, who must have been near sixty, but who possessed, temporarily at least, the youth and spirits of thirty; and he was one of that sort of looking men to whom one instinctively gives a t.i.tle.
"Can"t take a chance, Governor," said the driver, grinning. "I might as well go jump off the dock as go back to the stand without them four dollars. I"m in bad, anyhow."
"I"ll bet you the tip, then," offered the very-much-alive elderly gentleman, flourishing a five-dollar bill.
"All right," agreed the driver, eying the money. "Nothing or two dollars."
"No, you don"t! Not with Silas Fox, you don"t!" promptly disputed that gentleman. "First comes out of the dollar change two bits for bananas, and then the bet is nothing or a dollar and a half that your horse"ll eat "em. Why, any horse"ll eat bananas," he added, turning suddenly to Wallingford. With the habit of shrewdness he paused for a thorough inspection of J. Rufus, whose bigness and good grooming and jovial pinkness of countenance were so satisfactory that Mr. Fox promptly made up his mind the young man could safely be counted as one of the pleasures of existence.
"I"ll bet _you_ this horse"ll eat bananas," he offered.
"I"m not acquainted with the horse," objected Wallingford, with no more than reasonable caution. "I don"t even know its name. What do you want to bet?"
"Anything from a drink to a hundred dollars."
J. Rufus threw back his head and chuckled in a most infectious manner, his broad shoulders shaking and his big chest heaving.
"I"ll take you for the drink," he agreed.
Two strapping big fellows in regulation khaki came striding past the hotel, and Mr. Fox immediately hailed them.
"Here, you boys," he commanded, with a friendly a.s.surance born of the feeling that to-night all men were brothers; "you fellows walk across the street there and get me a quarter"s worth of real ripe bananas."
The soldiers stopped, perplexed, but only for an instant. The driver of the cab was grinning, the door-man of the hotel was grinning, the prosperous young man by the curb was grinning, and the well-dined and wined elderly gentleman quite evidently expected nothing in this world but friendly complaisance.
"All right, Senator," acquiesced the boys in khaki, themselves catching the grinning contagion; and quite cheerfully they accepted a quarter, wheeled abreast, marched over to the fruit stand, bought the ripest bananas on sale, wheeled, and marched back.
Selecting the choicest one with great gravity and care, Mr. Silas Fox peeled it and prepared for the great test. The driver leaned forward interestedly; the two in khaki gathered close behind; the large young man chuckled as he watched; the horse poked forward his nose gingerly, then sniffed--then turned slowly away!
Mr. Fox was shocked. He caught that horse gently by the opposite jaw, and drew the head toward him. This time the horse did not even sniff.
It shook its head, and, being further urged, jerked away so decidedly that it drew its tormentor off the curb, and he would have fallen had not Wallingford caught him by the arm.
"I win," declared the driver with relief, gathering up his lines.
"Not yet," denied Mr. Fox, and stepping forward he put his arm around the horse"s neck and tried to force the banana into its mouth.
This time the horse was so vigorous in its objection that the man came near being trampled underfoot, and it was only on the unanimous vote of the big man and the two in khaki that he profanely gave up the attempt.
"Not that I mind losing the bet," announced Mr. Fox in apology, "but I"m disappointed in the be d.a.m.ned horse. That horse loves bananas and I know it, but he"s just stubborn. Here"s your money," and he gave the driver his five-fifty; "and here"s the rest of the bananas. When you get back to the barn you try that horse and see if he won"t eat "em, after he"s cooled down and in his stall."
"All right," laughed the driver, and started away.
As he turned the corner he was peeling one of the bananas. The loser looked after the horse reluctantly, and sighed in finality.
"Come on, young man, let"s go get that drink," he said.
Delighted to have found company of happy spirit, Wallingford promptly turned with the colonel into the hotel bar.
"Can you beat it?" asked one big soldier of the other as both looked after the departing couple in pleased wonder.