"Can't make y'out," admitted Breede once more, as they parted before the
sanctuary he had indicated.
"Often puzzle myself," confessed the inscrutable one, as the little old
last year's car started on. Breede stood on the pavement looking after
it. For some reason the car puzzled him, too.
Bean was wondering if Julia herself wouldn't have been a little appeased
if she could have seen the Pitcher single him out of that throng. Some
day he might crush the woman by actually taking the Pitcher to call.
At his door he dismissed the car. He wanted quiet. He wanted to think it
all out. That morning it had seemed probable that by this time he would
have been occupying a felon's cell, inspecting the magazines and fruit
sent to him. Instead, he was not only free, but he was keeping a man
worth many millions from his own home, and perhaps he had caused that
man's wife to send over to White Plains for some more. It was Ram-tah.
All Ram-tah. If only every one could find his Ram-tah--
Cassidy was reading his favourite evening paper, the one that shrieked
to the extreme limits of its first page in scarlet headlines and mammoth
type. It was a paper that Bean never bought, because the red ink rubbed
off to the peril of one's eighteen-dollar suit.
Cassidy, who for thirty years had voted as the ward-boss directed, was
for the moment believing himself to be a rabid socialist.
"Wall Street crooks!" he began, in a fine orative frenzy. "Dur-r-rinkin'
their champagne whilst th' honest poor's lucky t' git a shell av hops!
Ruh-hobbin' th' tax-pay'r f'r' t' buy floozie gowns an' joold bresslets
f'r their fancy wives an' such. I know th' kind well; not wan cud do a
day's bakin' or windy-washin'!"
He held the noisy sheet before Bean and accusingly pointed a blunt
forefinger. "Burly Blonde Divorcée, Routed Society Burglar," across the
first two columns, but the proceeding was rather tamely typed and the
Burly Blonde's portrait in evening dress was inconspicuous beside the
headlines "Flurry in Federal Express! Wild Scenes on Stock Exchange.
Millions made by Gentlemen's Agreement."
"Gentlemin!" hissed Cassidy. "The sem agreemint that two gentlemin
porch-climbers has whin wan climbs whilst th' other watches t' see is
th' cop at th' upper ind av th' beat! Millions med whilst I'm wur-r-kin'
f'r twinty per month an' what's slipped me--th' sem not buyin' manny
jools ner private steamboats! Millions med! I know th' kind well!" Bean
felt his own indignation rise with Cassidy's. He was seeing why they had
feared to have him on the board of directors. Apparently they were bent
on wrecking the company by a campaign of extravagance. The substance of
what he gleaned from Cassidy's newspaper was that those directors had
declared a stock dividend of 200 per cent. and a cash dividend of 100
per cent.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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