by Talbot Mundy
“Oh, Walter!” she exclaimed. “How could you! You a thief? And to think that I loved you and trusted you! Go away! I never want to see you again! I sent you a telegram saying that everything was over between us!”
“Yes,” said Walter grimly; “that’s why I came! I can’t see any reason for calling the engagement off just because the money was stolen. I’m just as fond of you, and I don’t see how you could have helped it. Besides, why call me a thief? I didn’t steal the money!”
“Oh, but Walter, you did! You said so in your letter!”
“Did I? I’d like to see the letter! I must have been dr — I mean I think you must have read it wrong!”
“Oh!” Her eyes lit up like jewels, lighted from behind by the joy that was new- born in her. “You mean that, Walter? You mean—”
“I mean exactly what I say, and you’re a little goose! Come, let’s go sit somewhere where it’s quiet, and I’ll tell you all about it and we can compare notes. But tell me first, is the engagement still off?”
Her answer was inaudible, but its purport must have been absolutely clear to him, for he took her in his arms and kissed her right there and then in the street, to the awful disgust of two elderly ladies who were passing and the horrid envy of a patrolman. But patrolmen don’t count, anyhow. Then they walked into the park, having nowhere else to go, and sat down on one of the benches.
“Of course,” said Walter, “it’ll be awfully awkward now that we haven’t got that money; but I must ask for my job back again, and you’ll have to come with me to Frisco and try to make both ends meet on my pay. Say, though! I’d give something to lay my hands on that burglar!”
“The burglar wasn’t a bad man at all he brought me the money back again!”
“Wha-a-a-at?”
“It’s a fact, Walter!”
“Then you’ve got it after all?”
“No, indeed I haven’t. You see, Walter, I thought — I thought you’d stolen it; so when the burglar gave it back to me I put it in an envelope and posted it straight to the president of the trust company, with a little note inside asking him to forgive the thief.”
“Well, I’m—” Walter Bavin didn’t finish the sentence. He just stretched his legs out in front of him and threw his head back, and laughed for about five minutes without stopping.
“Look here, little woman,” he said when he had got his breath back again, “listen, and I’ll tell you all about it. That money of mine was out on mortgage. I’d lent it to a fellow named Newman on the security of his house. Newman is receiving teller, and I was paying teller in the same office. Newman had to repay me the loan by a certain date, but he hadn?t arranged for a new mortgage to replace the old one, and he hadn’t the cash; so he stole it from the safe, meaning, of course, to pay the whole lot back before anybody found it out. I didn’t know about it at the time naturally; but I discovered it almost directly after I’d sent you the money, and as luck would have it the general manager missed the money from the safe on the same day.
“Now, Newman’s a life-long friend of mine, and I wouldn’t give him away for worlds; but in common honesty, if I didn’t give him away, and especially seeing that I had had the money, I’d got to take the loss on my own shoulders — I mean it was up to me to repay the bank or else expose Newman. Then I got your letter saying that the money was stolen, so I couldn’t get it back from you. But I’d got to do something pretty quickly, so I went to my uncle in Los Angeles and told him I needed five thousand dollars at once. I wouldn’t tell him why, but I suppose he knew I wouldn’t have come to him unless I’d simply got to have it; at all events, he gave me five thousand dollars in bills, and I put them in a registered envelope and arranged for another fellow to post them to the bank from Los Angeles. I did it, of course, to save Newman; but it seems the bank’s been paid back twice over.”
“Did you tell that horrid man Newman what you’d done?”
“Why, no. I didn’t get the chance. When I returned from Los Angeles he was away from the office on some business or other; and before he came back I got your telegram saying that it was all over between us, so I caught the next train to find out why.”
“Well, what can you do about it, Walter?
“Dunno, I’m sure. I’ve got a few hundred dollars with me — enough for a week’s hotel bill and our two fares to Frisco. I vote we get married first and talk about ways and means afterward.”
And they did, too, that very day, and went and stayed at the Kickerdocker Hotel, and she wore the hat and dress at her wedding after all! What do you know about that?
She tried to persuade him to stay somewhere that was a little bit less expensive, but Walter wouldn’t hear of it. Walter was wise. He thought he would be more likely to meet people there who were worth meeting, and so he did. He met the president of the San Francisco, Los Angeles and Sacramento Trust Company.
The president walked in one fine morning and began opening letters and telegrams in the foyer, and Walter, who was loafing in the foyer, walked straight up to him.
“Glad to see you, sir!” said Walter.
“Are you?” said the president.
“I want my job back.”
“Oh. Well, I’ll talk to you about that in half a minute. Wait while I open this telegram.”
The president tore it open with his thumb and scowled over it.
“Thought so!” he muttered. “That accounts for one of them! Read that!” he ordered, handing the telegram to Bavin, “and tell me what you know about it!”
The message was from Brown in San Francisco, and it ran:
Newman has confessed to taking money. Also claims that registered envelope bearing San Francisco postmark and containing five thousand is his. Has post- office receipt to prove it. Have suspended him pending receipt of your instructions.
“Now!” snapped the president. “No beating about the bush! Come up to my room and tell me every word you know about it!”
So Walter Bavin told him, omitting no single detail.
“And d’you mean to tell me that you actually borrowed money and sent it to the firm anonymously rather than expose your friend or see the firm robbed?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And the lady you’ve since married did the same thing, eh? Sent the money straight back because she thought you’d stolen it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’d like to meet her.”
“I’m sure she’d be delighted, sir.”
So Mrs. Bavin was produced, and blushed becomingly, and told her version of the story, while the president leaned back in his chair and wondered if the days of miracles had come again.
“So you want your job back again?” he asked, turning to Bavin. “Well, you can’t support a wife properly on the salary you’ve been getting. If you’ll catch the next train back I’ll slate you for a thousand a year increase, and I’ll send a wire on ahead confirming it. I like a man who can be loyal to the firm and his friends at the same time. That settles that.”
“And about Newman, sir? I don’t think he—”
“I’ll deal with Newman when I get back!” snapped the president. “And now. Mrs. Bavin, would you mind telling me about that burglar all over again from the beginning?”
CHAPTER IX. — Which Is Short, And Treats Of Ikey
IKEY was out on bail; his wife had managed that. His address was quite well known to the police, and the president of the San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Sacramento Trust Company, being a very important person with a pull, had no difficulty whatever in obtaining it.
He refused to say why he wanted it, and he refused for the time being to commit himself with reference to the hundred-dollar bills that had been found on Ikey’s person. He had grown rich by holding his tongue on suitable occasions, and like Ikey, it took more than a policeman to make him talk when he didn’t want to.
Ikey was sitting one afternoon in the front parlor, looking very forlorn indeed, with his head between his hands and his elbows resting on his knee
s - not at all like the same Ikey of the race-course or the Ikey who had paid the money back.
He looked like a querulous and half-drowned Ikey, and Mrs. Ikey sat in the next chair and tried to comfort him.
?It’s all very fine you talkin’, missus,” said Ikey; “but what you say’s rot! There’s nothin’ to it! The minute a guy like me tries to act white he gets pinched, an’ there y’ are! Look at me! Have I been took once before since me an’ you got spliced? No. An’ have I been livin’ on the square all that time? Not so’s you’d notice it, I haven’t! I’ve took what I wanted, an’ kep’ it, an’ held my tongue. Any harm come of it? Not as I can remember! Then I goes an’ listens you, an’ tries to act white, an’ gives back five thousand wads o’ good gov’ment coin what I’d took, an’ up comes a cop an’ pinches me! There’s a lesson for yer!”
“Never mind, Ikey dear!” said his better half. “You did it to please me, and because you couldn’t be mean, and I know good will come of it.”
“You bet it will!” said Ikey. “I’ll get a nice long rest up the river! That’s what’ll come of it!”
A ring came at the bell, and Mrs. Ikey rose to answer the door.
“That’ll be one o’ them sheriff’s deputys,” said Ikey, hopefully. “He’ll be come to tell me my bail’s been raised an’ I’ve got to go to jug till I can get a new bondsman. You see if it ain’t!”
But it was not the sheriff’s deputy. It was the president of the San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Sacramento Trust Company.
“And what can I do for you?” asked Ikey, with just a hint of venom in his voice.
“I’ve come to see what I can do for you!” said the president, laughing.
“Now you’re talking!” said Ikey. Fetch the gentleman a cigar, missus — no, not those, the good ones — that’s right. Take a seat, mister, an’ go ahead — I’m listenin’.”
“Well,” said the president, coughing a little awkwardly, “I understand that you’re in trouble — under arrest — out on bail — that right?” Ikey nodded.
“Well, I happen to know the lady whose money you — er — took, and to whom you returned it; she told me all about it. There’s one thing I don’t quite follow yet, though. Why didn’t you give her back the same bills? Why bills of different denominations? Had you by any chance as much as ten thousand dollars in your possession?”
“Not at first I hadn’t,” said Ikey. “It come about this way. I gave the lady a sportin’ chance. I played the five thousand all on one horse at Aqueduct races, an’ the horse won at even money; I’d got ten then, hadn’t I? Well, I gave the lady back her five, seein’ as I’d had good luck myself, an’ I kep’ the hundred dollar bills partly because they’d brought me luck, an’ partly because they was easier to get rid of. There y’ are!”
“So that’s it!” laughed the president. “Well, I’ve known worse crooks than you - a lot worse! Now my proposal to you is this. I’ve got a crook in my office who also stole money and who also paid it back, and I’ve decided to give him another chance; but it wouldn’t be exactly ethical to do that and let you go to jail, would it? So I’m going to offer you another chance, too. There’s a sum of five thousand dollars going begging at the present moment; the police have got it, but it doesn’t actually belong to anybody; my firm has been repaid the money that was stolen, so I can’t claim it, but I’m the only person who can dispose of it all the same. Now I’ll sign an order releasing that money to you on one condition — that you give me your word of honor you’ll go straight from now on. You won the money on the race-course, and though the stake wasn’t yours to begin with, still you have more claim on the proceeds of the bet than anybody else I can think of; and I’m assuming that you have a sense of honor simply because you wouldn’t have paid the lady back her five thousand otherwise. At all events, I prefer to look at it in that light. Now, do you accept my terms? Yes or no?”
“Yes, sir!” burst in Mrs. Ikey, on her knees between Ikey and the president. “You leave him to me, sir, and I’ll make him promise! Go away, sir, now, and leave him to me! I’ll answer for it. The answer’s yes! yes!! yes!!!”
Did Ikey promise? He did. And did he keep it? I can’t tell you, for he’s a secretive little cuss, is Ikey.
But he took the five thousand dollars sure enough and sold up the flat in Eighty-First Street, and shortly afterward disappeared along with Mrs. Ikey and little Ikey with the tooth, and nobody in New York has ever seen them since.
But there is a man over in Los Angeles who very much resembles Ikey. He says his name is Cole — Isaac Cole. He has a wife who is copper-haired and tailor- made, and one son; and he also has a nose that is pliable and restless and immense. But this Mr. Isaac Cole is a reputable merchant.
His ways of doing business are well known throughout the whole of California, and though they say you must get up very early in the morning if you want to catch him napping, they all admit that his methods are at least legal; and some say he is absolutely honest.
He smokes no cigarettes and never goes to a race meeting, and he may possibly be the same Ikey. But, on the other hand, he may not; and there is no possible means of finding out.
THE END
TOLD IN THE EAST
CONTENTS
HOOKUM HAI
FOR THE SALT HE HAD EATEN
MACHASSAN AH
The magazine in which this tale originally appeared
HOOKUM HAI
I.
A Blood-red sun rested its huge disk upon a low mud wall that crested a rise to westward, and flattened at the bottom from its own weight apparently. A dozen dried-out false-acacia-trees shivered as the faintest puff in all the world of stifling wind moved through them; and a hundred thousand tiny squirrels kept up their aimless scampering in search of food that was not there.
A coppersmith was about the only living thing that seemed to care whether the sun went down or not. He seemed in a hurry to get a job done, and his reiterated “Bong-bong-bong!” — that had never ceased since sunrise, and had driven nearly mad the few humans who were there to hear it — quickened and grew louder. At last Brown came out of a square mud house, to see about the sunset.
He was nobody but plain Bill Brown — or Sergeant William Brown, to give him his full name and entitlements — and the price of him was two rupees per day.
He stared straight at the dull red disk of the sun, and spat with eloquence. Then he wiped the sweat from his forehead, and scratched a place where the prickly heat was bothering him. Next, he buttoned up his tunic, and brushed it down neatly and precisely. There was official business to be done, and a man did that with due formality, heat or no heat.
“Guard, turn out!” he ordered.
Twelve men filed out, one behind the other, from the hut that he had left. They seemed to feel the heat more than Brown did, as they fell in line before Brown’s sword. There was no flag, and no flag-pole in that nameless health-resort, so the sword, without its scabbard, was doing duty, point downward in the ground, as a totem-pole of Empire. Brown had stuck it there, like Boanerges’ boots, and there it stayed from sunrise until sunset, to be displaced by whoever dared to do it, at his peril.
They had no clock. They had nothing, except the uniforms and arms of the Honorable East India Company, as issued in this year of Our Lord, 1857 — a cooking-pot or two, a kettle, a little money and a butcher-knife. Their supper bleated miserably some twenty yards away, tied to a tree, and a lean. Punjabi squatted near it in readiness to buy the skin. It was a big goat, but it was mangy, so he held only two annas in his hand. The other anna (in case that Brown should prove adamant) was twisted in the folds of his pugree, but he was prepared to perjure himself a dozen times, and take the names of all his female ancestors in vain, before he produced it.
The sun flattened a little more at the bottom, and began to move quickly, as it does in India — anxious apparently to get away from the day’s ill deeds.
“Shoulder umms!” commanded Brown. “General salute! Pres
ent-umms!”
The red sun slid below the sky-line, and the night was on them, as though somebody had shut the lid. Brown stepped to the sword, jerked it out of the ground and returned it to his scabbard in three motions.
“Shoulder-umms! Order-umms! Dismiss!” The men filed back into the hut again, disconsolately, without swearing and without mirth. They had put the sun to bed with proper military decency. They would have seen humor — perhaps — or an excuse for blasphemy in the omission of such a detail, but it was much too hot to swear at the execution of it.
Besides, Brown was a strange individual who detested swearing, and it was a very useful thing, and wise, to humor him. He had a way of his own, and usually got it.
Brown posted a sentry at the hut-door, and another at the crossroads which he was to guard, then went round behind the but to bargain with the goatskin-merchant. But he stopped before he reached the tree.
“Boy!” he called, and a low-caste native servant came toward him at a run.
“Is that fakir there still?”
“Ha, sahib!”
“Ha? Can’t you learn to say ‘yes,’ like a human being?”
“Yes, sahib!”
“All right. I’m going to have a talk with him. Kill the goat, and tell the Punjabi to wait, if he wants to buy the skin.”
“Ha, sahib!”
Brown spun round on his heel, and the servant wilted.
“Yes, sahib!” he corrected.
Brown left him then, with a nod that conveyed remission of cardinal sin, and a warning not to repeat the offence. As the native ran off to get the butcher-knife and sharpen it, it was noticeable that he wore a chastened look.
