The Argosy, April 1916 — page 91: what you’re looking at

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

THE HEIR TO THREE MILLIONS. Tom had closed his eyes and was evi- dently fatigued already by the interview, but he opened them at the last statement. “Say, you know I didn’t pull that stunt just to get a piece o’ money out of it!” he protested. “I don’t want no reward, nor nothing like that.” “Please regard it as a small gift from your uncle,” said the old man suavely. ‘What use will you put the money to, is no affair of mine. I hope it will give you pleasure.” ‘“‘“A thousand would pretty near set me up in the butcher business, but I ain’t look- in’ for that kind of a hand-out,” muttered Tom. Ellery Pender smiled. ‘You are not able to talk any more to- day, I see,” he said softly. “I wanted to find out for myself what kind of a man my nephew was, and I shall probably call on you again some day. The doctors say that you will be out of the hospital in two or three weeks. I iwill say goodby for the time being, Thomas.” “Same to you, sir,” responded Tom feebly. “Glad to meet you, and glad you came out o’ the smash all right.” The promised thousand came to Tom at the hospital two days later, and he gave it into the keeping of his employer and friend, Mr. Joyce, the butcher. He accepted the money reluctantly, having, as he told Joyce, ‘no kind o’ use for easy money from rich relations.” He accepted it chiefly because he could think of no way of sending it back without appearing to be a “chump with a grouch.”’ “T s’pose the old feller would think I was sore because he didn’t come across With more o’ the stuff,” he told Joyce, and the latter agreed that the reasoning was sound. Tom’s splintered rib, twisted shoulder and numerous contusions were restored to normal condition and he was discharged from the hospital in a little over a fort- night. In order to show himself and his friends that he was neither spendthrift nor miser, he broke into the thousand to the extent of buying new clothes and a service- able gold watch. Nine hundred dollars of the gift he de- posited in a savings bank, and he informed Joyce that it would remain there until he saw a gilt-edged opportunity for using it to the betterment of his condition. A short, strongly-built, bull-necked young man slouched into the butcher shop one 6A 8I morning and nodded to Tom Pender. He wore a new-looking suit of loud pattern, a gaily-striped “sport” shirt and a plaid cap pulled low on his forehead. 3 “Come on outside, Tom; I wantér speak to yer a minute,” said the newcomer in a surly, guttural voice. Tom laid down the knife he had just picked up for a delicate bit of poultry dis- section, dried his hands and followed the visitor out of the shop to the sidewalk. “Come ’round the corner and have a drink,” suggested the flashily garbed young man. | ‘You know I don’t drink,” replied Tom. “There ain’t no one hangin’ ’round here listening; you can say what you’ve got to say right here.” «~-~ Tod Meagher, a prominent member of a Tenth Avenue gang known as The Bull Pups, hunched his shoulders and assumed an air of patronizing intimacy. “T heard from some o’ the guys in the gang,” he said, “‘that ye’d had a small piece o’ change handed yer.” ‘That so?” returned Tom coldly. “Yes, that’s so!” snapped the gangster. “T heard you had a thousand slipped to yer.. That ain’t so much, at that; but it’s enough to let a feller show whether he’s a good guy or just a low-down tightwad. I said to the fellers that you was all right, as fur as I knew, but perhaps yer didn’t know how to loosen up. So I said I’d drop around an’ tell yer, : “The gang’s goin’ to have @ supper an’ dance down to Mulligan’s Casino next week Sat’day, an’ I’m one of a committee that’s: collectin’ for it. You’re got a chance, now, Tom, to come across with a little subscrip- tion of about a hundred bucks. Ye’ll never miss it an’ you won’t lose no friends by it.” Tom Pender did not conceal a feeling of astonishment at the frankness of the other’s proposal, and he voiced his disapprobation and incredulity at once in language that lacked nothing in strength of conviction. Tod Meagher quailed slightly before the torrent of vitriolic rhetoric, but rallied quickly, with jaw set and fists clenched. “Say! d’you think you can live on the Wes’ Side an’ get away with that kind o’ stiffneck stuff?” he growled. ‘I know you ain’t a member o’ the gang—you couldn’t be if you wanted to—but what the gang says goes! You make off you’re great pals with some of the fellers, an’ you swell around like a reg’lar guy. comiclooolx C@