Torchy | Page 4

map of the place, makin' him swear he'd never go near it. The boy stuck to it, too. He grew up and kept a grocery store, and it wa'n't until after he'd died of lockjaw from runnin' a rusty nail in his hand and the widow had sold out the store to a Swede that the map showed up. The Swede swapped the map to a soap drummer for half a dozen cakes of scented shaving sticks, and the drummer goes explorin'.
He had a soap drummer's luck. He didn't find any Injuns left. Most of 'em had died off and the rest had joined Wild West shows. The gold mine was there, though, with chunks of solid gold lyin' around as big as peach baskets. Mr. Drummer looks until his eyes ache, and then he hikes himself back East to get up a comp'ny to work the mine. He'd just made plans to build a solid gold mansion on Fifth-ave. and hire John D. Rockefeller for a butler, when he strays into one of these Gospel missions and gets religion so hard that he can't shake it. Then he sees how selfish it would be to keep all that gold for himself. "But how'll I divvy it?" says he. "And who with?"
Then he decides that he'll divide with ministers, because they'll use it best. So he gets up this Glory Be Mining Company, and hires Mr. Pepper to sell the stock at twenty-five cents a share to all the preachers in the country.
Blamed if it wa'n't straight goods! I looked on the letters we sent out, and every last one of 'em was to ministers. Talk about your easy money! This was like pickin' it off the bushes. Mr. Pepper shows 'em how they can put in fifty or a hundred dollars and in three or four years be pullin' out their thousands in dividends.
You'd thought they'd came a runnin' at a chance like that, wouldn't you? There we was givin' 'em a private hunch on a proposition that was all velvet. But say, only about one in ten ever hands us a comeback. It was enough to make a man turn the hose on his grandmother.
Course, a few of 'em did loosen up and send on real money. I used to stand around and pipe off the boss while he shucked the mail, and I could tell whether it was fat or lean by the time it took him to eat lunch. The days when I was sent out to cash five or six money orders, and soak away a bunch of checks, he'd call a cab at twelve-thirty and wouldn't come back until near four; but when there wa'n't much doin' he'd send out for a tray and put in the afternoon dictatin' names and addresses to Miss Allen.
Then there come a slack spell that lasted for a couple of weeks, and we didn't get hardly any mail at all, except from some crank out in Illinois that had splurged on a whole ten dollars' worth of shares, and wrote in about every other day wantin' to know when the dividends was goin' to begin comin' his way. I heard Miss Allen talkin' it over with Sweetie.
It was along about then that this duck from the post-office buildin' showed up. He comes gumshoein' around one noon hour, while I was all by my lonesome, and he asks a whole lot of questions that I'd forgot the answer to. I was tellin' the boss about him that night around closin' up time.
"I sized him up for one of them cheap skates from the Marshal's office," says I. "I didn't know what his game was and I wa'n't goin' to give up all I knew to him; so I tells him to call around to-morrow and you'll load him up with all the information his nut can hold. Was that right?"
Mr. Pepper seems to be mighty int'rested for awhile; but then he grins, pats me on the shoulder, and says: "That was just right, Torchy, exactly right. I couldn't have done it better myself."
But half an hour later, after Miss Allen has stuck her gum on the paperweight and skipped, and Sweetwater has slid out too, and just as I was gettin' ready to call it a day, Mr. Pepper calls me in on the rug.
"Torchy," says he, "during the brief period that we have been associated in business I have found your services very valuable and your society very cheering. In other words, Torchy, you're all right."
"There's a pair of us, then," says I. "You're as good as they make them, Mr. Pepper."
"Thanks, Torchy," says he, "thanks." Then he looks out of the window for a minute before he asks how I'd like a two-weeks' vacation with pay.
"Well," says