Adventure, November 1915 — page 132: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

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As an ex-ship’s engineer there were few machinery problems that could even make him knit his brows. But he, too, felt in the great enthusiastic Irish heart of him that there was something lacking. The business seemed a little humdrum. The returns appeared inadequate, com- pared to all that toil and thinking. And the social end of things, that meant so much to Billy’s wife, seemed just as difficult to wrestle with as it had been when the pugilis- tic stigma overlaid them all. The grade above them seemed to care as little for a mechanic’s pretensions as for those of a suc- cessful “pug.” | He began, scarcely knowing it, to look around for other, more exciting business— something with less certainty attached to it, perhaps, but more possible reward. When a man named Casey cultivated his acquaintance and took him motor-riding, he fell by quick and easy stages into think- ing motors. He began to study them and, next, to realize that there was room in that part of the Bronx for a well conducted agency and repair shop combined. His dreams of a garage grew, and Casey said nothing to discourage him. Casey even took him on the car to prosperous re- pair shops, where Terence had a chance to talk to men in whom success had bred confi- dence and sometimes enthusiasm. “Go to it!” they all told him. “The skin of the business isn’t more than scratched yet. There’s any amount of room.” So, Terence—priding himself on new- won caution, but already privately con- vinced—made more inquiries, and dropped incessant hints to Billy and his wife that were intended to start them thinking too. But Casey, just as Irish, quite as resource- ful, and much less honest, did not leave all the hinting to O’Hanlon. He went and in- — terviewed Mike Connolly, and that gentle- man, too, began to drop in on the Blains of evenings. It was pleasant enough to have the pres- ent champion of the welterweight division Adventure to discuss the fight game with. Mrs. Billy never asked him to the house, for that would have been beneath her social dignity; but she did not object to sitting with him by the big machine-shop door when the day’s work was over and the hired men had gone; nor did she mind listening to the champion’s boasts. It helped her realize how big her husband once had been, and made her gloat because he had left the ring unbeaten. Mike Connolly’s conversation was mainly about money, and he took very little pains to hide an undertone of scorn for Billy. “T’ve cleaned up fifty thousand since you left the ring,” he told Billy, and he told the truth to some extent, for he and his manager had divided that amount between them. He had had an easy time of it. Leaving the ring unbeaten, Billy had left the championship an open question, and there had been easy pickings for the shrewdly managed Mike, dealing one after another with the would-bes. “Things are getting slack though,” he continued. ‘“The public don’t storm the ticket office like they did. I need advertis- ing and I’m out to get it. I’m going to buy - an auto—a big yellow one, that’ll make ’em stare; get arrested a few times for speedin’ up Broadway—headlines in the papers— you know—‘Mike Connolly, champion of the welters, arrested for the tenth time for speedin’.’ Nothin’ like it to set’’em talkin’.” “Decided on the car yet?” wondered Billy, more for the sake of making conversa- tion than because of any interest. “T was thinking of a Blennerhasset. Not made up my mind yet though. There’s a heap o’ different cars, and a feller has to watch points. Wish I knew some feller I could trust who sold ’em, and ’ud talk sense.” Terence O’Hanlon, looming big and bearded in the shadow of the door, nudged Billy in a way intended to convey discre- tion and diplomacy, and half a hundred other things. Billy looked up at him sharp- ly, but O’Hanlon frowned. “Fess-t! Ye little runt. Keep on lis- tenin’!” si SO BILLY listened and said very : little, as his manner was, while Mrs. Billy sat quite still and dreamed of other days, when Billy came home bleeding a little now and then, but always with the bacon. They had been more exciting, she COMIC OOOKS