Shorty McCabe | Page 2

wearing the kind of hair that he did. It was a sort of lemon
yellow, and he had a lip decoration about two shades lighter, taggin'
him as plain as an "inspected" label on a tin trunk.
"I'm a mitt juggler," says I, "and they call me Shorty McCabe. What's
your line?"
"I've heard of you," he says. "Permit me," and he hands out a
pasteboard that read:
LEONIDAS MACKLIN DODGE Commissioner-at-Large
"For what?" says I.
"It all depends," says Mr. Dodge. "Sometimes I call it a brass polisher,
then again it's a tooth-paste. It works well either way. Also it cleans
silver, removes grease spots, and can be used for a shaving soap. It is a
product of my own lab'ratory, none genuine without the signature."
"How does it go as a substitute for beef and?" says I.
"I've never quite come to that," says he, "but I'm as close now as it's
comfortable to be. My gold reserve counts up about a dollar
thirty-nine."
"You've got me beat by a whole dollar," says I.
"Then," says he, "you'd better let me underwrite your next issue."
"There's a friend of mine up to Forty-second Street that ought to be
good for fifty," says I.
"I've had lots of friendships, off and on," says he, "but never one that I

could cash in at a pinch. I'll stay by until you try your touch."
Well, the Forty-second Street man had been gone a month. There was
others I might have tried, but I didn't like to risk gettin' my fingers
frost-bitten. So I hooks up with Leonidas and we goes out with a grip
full of Electro-Polisho, hittin' the places where they had nickel-plated
signs and brass hand rails. And say! I could starve to death doing that.
Give me a week and two pairs of shoes and I might sell a box or so; but
Dodge, he takes an hour to work his side of the block and shakes out a
fist full of quarters.
"It's an art," says he, "which one must be born to. After this you carry
the grip."
That's the part I was playin' when we strikes the Tuscarora. Sounds like
a parlor car, don't it? But it was just one of those swell bachelor
joints--fourteen stories, electric elevators, suites of two and three rooms,
for gents only. Course, we hadn't no more call to go there than to the
Stock Exchange, but Leonidas Macklin, he's one of the kind that don't
wait for cards. Seein' the front door open and a crowd of men in the hall,
he blazes right in, silk hat on the back of his head, hands in his pockets,
and me close behind with the bag.
"What's up; auction, row or accident?" says he to one of the mob.
Now if it had been me that butted in like that I'd had a row on my hands
in about two minutes, but in less time than that Leonidas knows the
whole story and is right to home. Taking me behind a hand-made palm,
he puts me next. Seems that some one had advertised in a mornin' paper
for a refined, high-browed person to help one of the same kind kill time
at a big salary.
"And look what he gets," says Leonidas, wavin' his hand at the push.
"There's more'n a hundred of 'em, and not more'n a dozen that you
couldn't trace back to a Mills hotel. They've been jawing away for an
hour, trying to settle who gets the cinch. The chap who did the
advertising is inside there, in the middle of that bunch, and I reckon he
wishes he hadn't. As an act of charity, Shorty, I'm going to straighten

things out for him. Come on."
"Better call up the reserves," says I.
But that wa'n't Mr. Dodge's style. Side-steppin' around to the off edge
of the crowd, just as if he'd come down from the elevator, he calls out
good and loud: "Now then, gentlemen; one side, please, one side! Ah,
thank you! In a moment, now, gentlemen, we'll get down to business."
And say, they opened up for us like it was pay day and he had the cash
box. We brought up before the saddest-lookin' cuss I ever saw out of
bed. I couldn't make out whether he was sick, or scared, or both. He
had flopped in a big leather chair and was tryin' to wave 'em away with
both hands, while about two dozen, lookin' like ex-bath rubbers or men
nurses, were telling him how good they were and shovin' references at
him. The rest of the gang was trying to push in for their whack. It was a
bad mess, but Leonidas wasn't feazed a bit.
"Attention, gentlemen!" says he. "If you