Torchy | Page 5

I, "seein' as how Coney's froze up, and Palm Beach don't agree with my health, I'd just as soon put them two weeks in storage until July."
"I see," says he; "but the fact is, Torchy, I've had a sudden call to go West."
"Out to the Glory Be mine?" says I.
"You've guessed it," says he. "And I am taking this opportunity for releasing Sweetwater and Miss Allen."
"They ain't much use, anyway," says I. "But you wouldn't shut up the shop for fair, would you? Don't you want some one on hand to answer fool questions, or steer cranks off like that post-office guy that's comin' to-morrow? Unless you think I'd hook the rolltop or pinch the letterpress, you'd better leave me sittin' on the lid."
Well, sir, he seemed to take to that notion, and the next thing I knows I'm tellin him about my scheme of wantin' to save up enough dough to pay for a little bunch of them Glory Be stocks.
"It's a shame to waste all that good money on people that don't know a cinch when it's passed out to 'em," says I, "and I've been thinkin' that if I hung to the business long enough maybe I'd have a show to buy in."
Say, you couldn't guess what Mr. Pepper up and does then. He opens the safe, counts out a hundred shares of Glory Be common, and fills out the transfer to me right on the spot.
"Now, Torchy," says he, "it will cost you five weeks' salary to pay for these; but if I raise you a dollar a week and take it out a little at a time you'll never miss it. Anyway, you're a shareholder from now on."
Did you ever get rich all of a sudden, like that! You feel it first up and down the small of your back, and then it goes to your knees. I couldn't say a blamed word that was sensible. I don't know just what I did say, and I never come to until after Mr. Pepper'd finished up and gone, leavin' me with two-weeks' pay in my pocket, and a big envelope full of them Glory Be shares, all printed in gold and purple ink, with a picture of Dakota Dan in the middle.
I couldn't eat a bite of supper that night, and I puts in the evenin' readin' over them pamphlets we'd been sendin' out until I knew every word of it by heart. I'll bet I got up and hid them stocks in a dozen diff'rent places before mornin', and an hour before bankin' time I was sittin' on the steps of the Treasury Trust concern, waitin' to hire one of them steel pigeon-holes down in the vaults. After I'd got the envelope stowed away and tied the key around my neck with a string, I goes back to the office. Sweetie and Miss Allen was there, with their hammers goin'. They'd found their blue tickets and their week's pay and was just clearin' out.
"I'd been planning to make a change for the last two weeks," says Miss Allen. "I was looking for something like this."
"Me too," says Sweetie. "It's rough on Torchy, though."
"Say, don't you waste any sympathy on me," says I, "and don't let off any more knocks at Mr. Pepper. I won't stand for it!"
With that they snickers and does a slow exit. That leaves me runnin' the gold minin' business single handed; but me bein' one of the firm, as you might say, it was all right. I'd always had a notion that I'd be a plute some day; but honest, I wa'n't expectin' it so sudden. I was just tryin' to get used to it, when the door opens and in drifts that guy from the Marshal's office.
"Where's Mr. Belmont Pepper?" says he.
"Well," says I, "the last time I saw him he was headed west."
"Skipped out!" says the gent, doin' the foiled villyun stunt with his face.
"Skipped nothin'," says I. "Mr. Pepper's gone out to look after the mine."
"Oh, he's gone to the mine, has he?" says the duck. "See here, kid, I'm a United States Deputy Marshal. Don't you try to tell me any fairy stories, or you'll pull down trouble. We want your Mr. Pepper, and we want him bad! He's a crook."
Well say, it was a hot argument we had. He tries to tell me that this minin' business is all a bunko game, and that there's a paper out for the boss. Then he camps down in the private office and says he'll wait until Mr. Pepper shows up. He makes a stab at it, too, and a nice long wait he has. I stuck it out for two weeks with him, tryin' to beat it into his head that the Glory Be mine was a real