The Boy Scout | Page 5

next to his wife nearest his heart was the younger brother.
* * * * *
The younger brother and Grace were sitting on the stoop of the
boardinghouse. On the upper steps, in their shirt-sleeves, were the other
boarders; so the bride and bridegroom spoke in whispers. The air of the
cross street was stale and stagnant; from it rose exhalations of rotting
fruit, the gases of an open subway, the smoke of passing taxicabs. But
between the street and the hall bedroom, with its odors of a gas-stove
and a kitchen, the choice was difficult.
"We've got to cool off somehow," the young husband was saying, "or
you won't sleep. Shall we treat ourselves to ice-cream sodas or a trip on
the Weehawken ferry-boat?"
"The ferry-boat!" begged the girl, "where we can get away from all
these people."
A taxicab with a trunk in front whirled into the street, kicked itself to a
stop, and the head clerk and Millie spilled out upon the pavement. They
talked so fast, and the younger brother and Grace talked so fast, that the
boarders, although they listened intently, could make nothing of it.
They distinguished only the concluding sentences:
"Why don't you drive down to the wharf with us," they heard the elder
brother ask, "and see our royal suite?"
But the younger brother laughed him to scorn.

"What's your royal suite," he mocked, "to our royal palace?"
An hour later, had the boarders listened outside the flat of the head
clerk, they would have heard issuing from his bathroom the cooling
murmur of running water and from his gramophone the jubilant notes
of "Alexander's Ragtime Band."
When in his private office Carroll was making a present of the royal
suite to the head clerk, in the main office Hastings, the junior partner,
was addressing "Champ" Thorne, the bond clerk. He addressed him
familiarly and affectionately as "Champ." This was due partly to the
fact that twenty-six years before Thorne had been christened
Champneys and to the coincidence that he had captained the football
eleven of one of the Big Three to the championship.
"Champ," said Mr. Hastings, "last month, when you asked me to raise
your salary, the reason I didn't do it was not because you didn't deserve
it, but because I believed if we gave you a raise you'd immediately get
married."
The shoulders of the ex-football captain rose aggressively; he snorted
with indignation.
"And why should I not get married?" he demanded. "You're a fine one
to talk! You're the most offensively happy married man I ever met."
"Perhaps I know I am happy better than you do," reproved the junior
partner; "but I know also that it takes money to support a wife."
"You raise me to a hundred a week," urged Champ, "and I'll make it
support a wife whether it supports me or not."
"A month ago," continued Hastings, "we could have promised you a
hundred, but we didn't know how long we could pay it. We didn't want
you to rush off and marry some fine girl----"
"Some fine girl!" muttered Mr. Thorne. "The Finest Girl!"

"The finer the girl," Hastings pointed out, "the harder it would have
been for you if we had failed and you had lost your job."
The eyes of the young man opened with sympathy and concern.
"Is it as bad as that?" he murmured.
Hastings sighed happily.
"It was," he said, "but this morning the Young Man of Wall Street did
us a good turn--saved us--saved our creditors, saved our homes, saved
our honor. We're going to start fresh and pay our debts, and we agreed
the first debt we paid would be the small one we owe you. You've
brought us more than we've given, and if you'll stay with us we're going
to 'see' your fifty and raise it a hundred. What do you say?"
Young Mr. Thorne leaped to his feet. What he said was: "Where'n hell's
my hat?"
But by the time he had found the hat and the door he mended his
manners.
"I say, 'thank you a thousand times,'" he shouted over his shoulder.
"Excuse me, but I've got to go. I've got to break the news to----"
He did not explain to whom he was going to break the news; but
Hastings must have guessed, for again he sighed happily and then, a
little hysterically, laughed aloud. Several months had passed since he
had laughed aloud.
In his anxiety to break the news Champ Thorne almost broke his neck.
In his excitement he could not remember whether the red flash meant
the elevator was going down or coming up, and sooner than wait to find
out he started to race down eighteen flights of stairs when fortunately
the elevator-door swung open.
"You