Argosy and Railroad Man's Magazine — page 130: what you’re looking at

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

AT2 ARGOSY AND RAILROAD MAN’S MAGAZINE. next morning, while Lemp was busy at his * desk down-town, came a second telegram from Osgood: Syracuse, 9 A.M. Message received. Thanks, old man, for old-time’s sake. Am on way. Arrive New York 5 P.M. Oscoop. Lemp’s eyes contracted and _ his lips pursed in a low whistle as he read the yellow sheet. “Haunted the telegraph-office at Ro- chester till my reply got through!” ran his thought. ‘“ Must have been up all night, for he caught the earliest train this morn- ing and sent this message en route. ““There’s enterprise for you! By George, if everybody showed as much enterprise holding a job as in getting another when it is gone, office forces would stay put con- siderably more than they do!” He studied the telegram again, his criti- cal, cool, business sense concerned with its phrasing. It was waily, whiney, almost hysterical in tone. It was the communica- tion of a man whose courage was unequal to “ swinging a bluff.” That it required real courage, in the vi- cissitudes of life, to thus-‘muster one’s nerve- to at least a seeming of assurance, Lemp well knew from observation—and from ex- perience. Poor old Tom! Somehow Lemp ap- plied the adjective now as he had done in the far past, when he had been twenty- five and Osgood twenty-three. Tom had always carried upon his shoulders the re- sponsibilities of a heavy if timorous ego. He was apparently still doing it. He was evidently in frightful luck now; perhaps near his last dollar and approach- ing the meridian of life which brings either the promise of ultimate success or the en- croaching shadows of failure. Lemp must do what he could. He telephoned his wife that Osgood would arrive at five o’clock and that he would meet him and bring him up for dinner, then turned to the accumulated work upon his desk. As office manager of the Peerless Agricultural Implement Company, with factories up-State and business headquar- ters in New York, his days were well filled. Five o’clock found Lemp at the Grand Central Terminal. He had postponed an important late conference to render the courtesy to his old friend. At six o’clock he sighed with relief as the belated train began to discharge its quota of passengers. From his position near the end of the rope behind which stood folk awaiting friends, he scanned the faces of passing passengers. He saw Osgood first, though the little man’s anxious eyes were boring like gimlets, this way and that, in search of him. Tom had requisitioned the services of no “red cap.”. He was carrying his own bag. Lemp stepped afound the end of the line. “ Hello, Tom, old boy!” he greeted. “ How are you? Here, give me your bag! Come on, let’s get a taxi. Your train was late.” He strode across the concourse toward Forty-Second Street, the little gray man trotting at his side with swift, nervous steps. Gray he was from head to heel. His fedora was gray, likewise his hair and the flesh of his face, that was webbed and spun with wrinkles of lifelong worry. He wore a business suit of dingy gray and a gray overcoat. There was a sprinkling of gray dust on his shoes, for he had inhabited the smoker all the way from Rochester. Finally, from his thin gray lips poured a torrent of nervous, gray phrases. ““T don’t know when I’ve been so glad to see any one, Ed! Coming along the line just now, looking for you, I didn’t see you, and I wondered if anything had happened. For a minute, Ed, I felt as if I didn’t have a friend left in the world! I tell you, I was glad to get your message! When a fellow’s down and out, it’s a thing like that puts heart in him, the feeling that some- where there’s a friend he can rely on!” ‘Here we are, Tom!” amiably growled Lemp, hailing a taxi driver-and giving him the address. ‘Climb in! We'll be having some dinner before you know it. You've had a long trip.” . ““T didn’t sleep last night,” confessed Osgood, as the vehicle began spinning over the asphalt up-town. “I hung around till I got your message. Then I went home and smoked a while and packed to get the first train. How glad my wife was at the ConmiclooolkS.conn