The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, July 24, 1904, Page 3

THE SAN at worked for d even bring real rd to ugh re enough p They're h El t cred } t he didn’t speak. Mr. O.; hink- land nyway, » keep t 1 don’t look out nd he ut never cklisting I'm s just been in that seasc she And You're N ver se and decide if it course. upted then up. d of half as his t meet his h Ve do you no g g v to get it a lot Mr. ver to er existed f the desk. £ glimps: f his face It ugh for me. 1 I the And hy there’s no gt t nd of the though he Then all of a s chair, leaned No augh Mag. n, s0 awe rlast- and 1 predict a— 1 might even ating Tausig per. eve N ain chance. T needn’t estion arms; submission is Don’t worry about ittle babe In the His own wordl nk I began a bit 1 T've been!" e 1 fight cranks that get can upset the fel- said cor- the push, g to do is to find if you're a er fellow, down n, enlist un- What's the use life? You in for the stay outside and and plot and d your life 2 r while the The acate them. sheep out in the asylum; of he inter- mly fault T gue is that meaning nlightén good-by." n- you. W shak X = pen. His face was t as he looked at me suppose, T am a bit un- minute he said s hit and—and §don’t at I haven't xpe of you 1, you poor little f but mine, »h r God's sake ie me alone with me to the t pleasant. with open me Got tired of sta) grinned ing out in the cold— dev me ' 1 answered. a chance in a . ain't yqu?” has a play all ready for or me. He'd star me fast d the chance.” But he’ll never get the chance.” “Oh, 1 don’t know.” But I 4 He'’s on the toboggan; that's they all get, my dear, when th get big-headed enough to fight us “But Obermuller’s not like the others. He's not 50 easy. And he is so clever; why, the plot of that comedy is the jest thiag—" “You've reed it—you remember it “Oh, 1 know it by heart—-my part of it. You he from me while he was thinking of it. see, wouldn’t keep away He kept consulting me about eve thing in it. In a way, we worked it together.” The little man looked at me, siowly closing one eve. It is a habit of when he’s going to do something par- i ly . ver a way, as you say, it is “Hardly! Imagine Nance Olden writ- ing a line of a pla ill you—collaborated: that's the word I say, my dear, if I could read that omedy, and it was—half wh you say it I might—I don't promise, mind—but I might let you- have the part that was written for you, eh? He was the best stage manager we ever had before he got the rotion of managing for himself—and ruining himself.” “Well, he’s all that yet. Of course, he has told me, and we agreed how the thing should be done. As he'd write, you know, he'd read the thing over to me, and I “Fine—fine! A reading from the fool Obermuller would be enough to open the eyes of a clever woman. I'd like to read that comedy—yes?” “But Obermuller would never—" “But Olden might—" “What ?” “Dictate the plot to my secretary, Mason, in there,” he nodded his head back toward the inner room. ‘“She could give him the plot and as much of her own part in full as she could remember. You know Mason. Used to be a nmewspaper man. Smart fellow. that, when he’s sober. He could piece out the holes—yes?” 1 looked at him. The little beast sat there, slowly closing one eye and open- ing it again. He looked like an un- healthy little frog, with his bald head, his thin-lipped mouth that laughed, while the wrinkles rayed away from his cold, sneering eyes that had no smile in them. 1—1 wouldn't like to make an enemy of a man like Obermuller, Mr. Tausig.” “Bah! Ain’t I told you he's on the toboggan?” “But you never can tell with a man like that. Suppose he got into that combine with Heffelfinger and Dixon and Weinstock?” “What're you talking about?” “Well, it's what I've heard.” “But Heffelfinger and Dixon and Weinstock are all in with us; who told you that fairy story?” “Obermuller himself.” The little fellow laughed. His is a creaky, almost silent little laugh; if a spider could laugh he'd laugh that way. “They're fooling him a bunch or two. Never you mind Obermuller. dead one.” “Oh, he said that you thought they were in with you, but that nothing but a written agreement would hold men like that. And that you hadn’t got.” mart fellow, that Obermuller. He'd have been a good man to have in the business if it hadn’t been for those in- dependent ideas he’'s got. He's right; it takes—" “So there is an agreement!” I shouted, in spite of myself, as I leaned forward. He sat back in his chair, or, rather, he let it swallow him again. “What business is that of yours? Stick to the business on hand. Get to work on that play with Mason inside. If it’s good, and we decide to put it on, we’ll pay you $500 down in addition to your salary. If it’s rot, you'll have your salary weekly all the time you're at it, just the same as if you were working, till T can place you. In the meantime, keep your ears and eyes open and watch things, and your mouth shut. I'll speak to Mason and he'll be ready for you to-morrow morn- ing. Come round in the morning; He's a L zrron. there’s nobody about then, and we want to keep this thing dark till it's done. Obermuller mustn't get idea what we're up to. don’t love you—no—for shaking him?” “He's furious; wouldn't even say good-by. I'm done for with him, any- way, I guess. But what could I do?" “Nothing, my dear; nothing. You're a smart little girl;” he chuckled. “Ta- tal” XIIIL. Just what I'd been hoping for I don't know, but I knew that my chance had come that morning. For a week I had been taiking Ober- muller's comedy to Mason, the secre- tary. In the evenings I stood about in the wings and watched the Van Twil- ler company in “Brambles.” There was one fat role in it that I just ached for, but I lost all that ache and found another, when I overheard two of the women talking about Obermuller and me one night. “He found her and made her,” one of 'em said; “just dug her out of the ground. See what he’s done for her; taught her every blessed thing she A LTADE 1T 1744 GO BUITERG LINE A CRAET 2 OV E4A COBBLES. knows; wrote her rimicking mono- logues for her; gave her her chance, and—and now— Well, Tausig don't pay salaries for nothing, and she gets hers as regularly as I draw mine. ‘What more I don’t know. But she hasn’t set foot on the stage yet under Tausig, and they say Obermuller—" I didn’t get the rest of it, so I don’t know what they say about Obermuller. I only know what they’ve said to him about me. 'Tisn‘t hard to make men believe those things. But I had to stand it. What could I do? I couldn’t tell Fred Obermuller that I was mak- ing over his play, soul and as much body as I could remember, to Tausig's secretary. He'd have found that hard- er to believe than the other thing. It hasn’t been a very happy week for me, I can tell you, Maggie. But I for- got it all, every shiver and ache of it, when I came into the office that morn- ing, as usual, and found Mason alone. Not altogether alone—he had his bottle. And he had had it and others of the same family all the night before. The poor drunken wretch hadn't been home at all. He was worse than he'd been that morning three days before, Pl when I had stood facing him and talk- ing to him, while with my hands be- hind my back I was taking a wax im- pression of the lock of the desk; and he as unconscious cf it all as Tausig himself. The last page I had dictated the day before, which he'd been transcribing from his notes, lay in front of him; the gas was still burning directly above him, ard a shade he wore over his weak eyes had been knocked awry as his poor old bald head went bumping down on the type-writer before him. The thing that favored me was Tau- sig's distrust of everybody connected with him. He hates his partners only a bit less than he hates the men out- side the tryst. The bigger and sicher the syndicate grows the more power and prosperity it has, the more he be- grudges them their share of it; the more he wants it all for himself. He is madly suspicious of his clerks, and hires others to watch them, to spy up- on them. He is continually moving his valuables from place to place, partly because he trusts no man; partly be- cause he’s so deathly afraid his right R THAT Vo5 hand will find out what his left is do- ing. He Is a full partner. of Braun and Lowenthal—with mental reservations. He has no confidence in either of them. Half his schemes he keeps from them; the other half he tells them—part of. He's forever afraid that the syndicate of which he's the head will fall to pleces and become another syndicate of which he won't be head. It all makes him an unhappy, rest- less little beast; but it helped me to- day. If it'd been any question of safe combinations and tangled things like that, the game would have been all up for Nancy O. But in his official safe Tausig keeps only such papers as he wants -Braun and Lowenthal to see. And in his private desk in his private office he keeps— I stole past Mason, sleeping with his forehead on the typewriter keys—he'll be lettered like the obelisk when he wakes up—and crept into the next room to seée just what Tausig keeps in that private desk of his. Oh, yes, it was locked. But hadn't I been carrying the key to it every min- ute for the last forty-eight hours? There must be a mine of stuff in that desk of Tausig’s, Mag. The touch of every paper in ft is slimy with some dirty trick, some bad secret, some mean action. It's a pity that I hadn’t time to go through ’'em all; it would have been interesting; but under a bungle of women’s letters, which that old fox keeps for no good reason, I'll bet, I lit on a paper that made my heart go bumping like a cart over cobbles. Yes, there it was, just as Obermuller had vowed it with Tausig's cramped little signature followed by Heffelfinger's, Dixon's and Wein- stock’s; a scheme to crush the business life out of men by the cleverest, up-to- date trust deviltry; a thing that our Uncle Sammy just won't stand for. And neither will Nancy Olden, Miss Monahan. was, She grabbed that preclous paper with a grasp of delight and closed the desk But she bungled a bit there, for Ma- son lifted his head and blinked dazedly at her for a moment, recognized her and shook his head. “No—work to-day,” he said. “No—I know. I'll'just look what we've done, Mr. Mason,” she an- over swered cheerfully. His poor head went down again with a bob, and she caught up the type- written sheets of Obermuller's play She waited a minute longer; half be- fcause she wanted to make sure Mason was asleep again before She sheets across and erammed them down into the waste basket; half because she pitied the old fellow and was sorry to take advantage of his condition. But she knew a cure for this last sorry—a way she’d help him later; and when she danced out into the hall she was the very happiest burglar in a world chock full of opportunities. Oh, she was in such a twitter as she did it! All that old delight in doing somebody else up, a vague somebody whose meannesses she didn’'t know, was as nothing to the joy of Tausig up. She was dancing on a vol- cano again, that incorrigible Oh, but such a volcano,. Maggie! It atoned for a year of days when there was nothing doing; no execitement, risk, nothing to keep a girl interested and alive. And, Maggie, darlin’, it was a derful volcano, that ane, that last one, for it worked both ways. It paid up for what I haven't done this past year and what I'll again in the years to come. It made up to me for and all 'm going to a reward of demerit for tore the doing Nance! no won- never do all I've missed miss. It was not being respectable, and a preventive of further sins. Oh, it was such a vol- cano as never was. It w drink and a blue ribbon in one. It was a bang- up end and a bully beginning. It w - It was, Tausig coming in as I was going cut. Suddenly I realized that, but I was in such .a nmad whirl of ex- citement that I almost ran over the tle fellow before I could stop myself “Phew! What a whirlwind you are!"” he cried. ‘“Where are you going?” “Oh, good morning, Mr. Tausig,” I said sweetly. “I never dreamed you'd be down so early in the morning.” “&Vhat're you doing with the paper?” he demanded suspiciously. My eye followed his. I could have beaten Nancy Olden in that minute for not having sense enough to hide that precious agreement, instead of carry- ing it rolled up in her hand. “Just taking it home to go over it,” I said carelessly, trying to pass him. But he barred my way. “Where's 'Mason™" he asked. “Poor Maso: I said. “He's—he's asleep.” “Drunk again?” I nodded. How to get away! “That settles his hash. Out he goes to-day. It seems to me you're in a deuce of a hurry,” he added, as I tried to get out again. “Come in; I want to talk something over with you.” “Not this morning,” I said saucily. I wanted to cry. “I've got an engage- ment to lunch, and I want to go over this stuff for Mason before one.” it- “Hm! An engagement. Who with, now?” My chin shot up in the air. He laughed, that cold, noiseless little laugh of his. “But suppose I want you to come to lunch with me?” “Oh, thank you, Mr. Tausig. how could I break my with—" “With Braun?” ¢ “How did you guess it?” I laughed. “There’'s no keeping anything from you.” He was immensely satisfied with his little self. “I know him—that old ras- But engagement cal,” he said slowly. “I say, Olden, just do break that engagement with Braun.” “I oughtn’t—really."” “But do—eh? Finish your work here and we’ll go off together, us two, at 12:30, and leave him cooling his heels here when he comes.” He rubbed his hands gleefully. “But I'm not dressed.” “You'll do for me.” “But not for me. Listen; let me hurry home now and I'll throw Braun over and be back here to meet vou at 12:30. He pursed up his thin little lips and shook his head. But I slipped past him in that minute and got out into the street. “At 12:30,” I called back as I hurried off. I got around the corner in a jiffy. Oh, 1 could hardly walk, Mag! I wanted to fly and dance and skip. I wanted to kick up my heels as the children were doing in the square, while the organ ground out, “Ain’t It a Shame?” I ac- tually did a step or two with them, to their delight, and the first thing I knew I feit a bit of a hand in mine like a cool pink snowflake and— Oh, a baby, Mag! A girl baby more than a year old and less than two years young; too little to talk; too big not to walk; facing the world with a winning smile and jabbering things in her soft little lingo, knowing that every woman she meets will understand. 1 did, all right. She was saying to * had me as she kicked out her soft, heelless little boot: “Nancy Olden, I choose you. Nancy Olden, I love you. Naney Olden, I dare you to love me. ney Oldefi, 1 defy you to laugh back me!” Where in the world s opped from heavens knows. picked up the shafts organ-grinder s wagon and trundled it away. melted like magi But t flirt, about a year and held on to my finger poetry. I didn't realize just then that she was a lost, strayed stolen. I ex- pected every moment some nurse or ited mamma to appear and drag ay from me. And I looked down i h of soft stuff; was a gigs dimple g round hat that had fall from her chicke bionde head; and her white dress, w the blue ribbons at the shr»u;{»:';g was just a little bit dirty. I like "em a little bit dirty. Why? Perhaps because I can imagine having a little coquette of my own a bit dirty like that, and can't just see Nance Olden with a spick-and-span clean baby, all feathers and lace, like a bored little grown-up. “You're a mot I gurgled down at her. “You're a sweetheart. You're a And suddenly I heard a ery and a rush behind m alarm; just a long- the cor- i T8 eant for me, of the second when I had remem- bered that precious paper and Tausig’s rage when he should miss it, I had pulled my hand that bit ‘ourse, but in baby’s and started to run. The poor little tot! There isn't any reason in the world for the fancies they take ore than for our own; eh, “Mas should she have been attracted to t because I was so undignified aninnies? as to da e with the pick- But do you know what that little thing did? She thought I was playing with her. She ga and came bowling afte That finished me picked her ur y arms, th her up in the feel her come « “Mouse,” 1 little trip t lose yeu d body lik hoat a on your arm, just the eocky little way it up, chirg and ¢ nt; just the light touch of a bit of a hand on ur - collar; that is enough to push down b tures of brt that end juries are healed; to scatte that even I— I, Nancy Older t believe and lieve, too, ther w n have car- ried their babies, as I did some other woman's baby, 2 -ross the square. On the other side.I s her down. I didn’t want to. I was greedy of every But T wanted ady before climb- up the steps to the L-station. there a minute in a perfectly frresisti- ble way. I know now why men marry baby-women; it’s to feel that delicious, helpless clutch of weak fingers: ent that I had he m -t some change r dress as we stood the clutch of dependence, of trust, of ap- peal. I looked down at her with that same silly adoration I've seen on Moily's face for her poor, lacking, twisted boy. At Jeast, I did in the beginning. But gradually the expression of my face must have changed; for all at once I discovered what had been done to me. My purse was gone. Yes, Maggie Monahan, clean gone! My pocket had been as neatly picked as I m —well, never mind, as what. I threw back my head and laughed aloud. Nance Olden, the great doer-up, had been done up so cleverly, so sure! so prettily, that she hadn’t had an Ink- ling of it. I wished I could get a glimpse of the clever girl that did it A girl—of course, it was! Do you think any boy's fingers could do a job like that and me not even know? But I didn't stop to wish very long. Here was I with the thing I valued most in the world still clutched in my hand, and not a nickel to my name to get me, the paper, and the baby on orn way. It was the baby, of course, that de- cided me. 1 can’t be very enter- prising whend you're carrying a pink lump of sweétness that's all a-smile at the moment, but may get all a-tear the next. “It's you for the nearest police sta- tion, you young tough!” I said, squeez- ing her. “I can’t take you home now and show you to Mag.” But she giggled and gurgled back at me, the abandoned thing, as though the police station was just the proper- est place for a young lady of her years. It was not so very near, either, that station. My arm ached when I got there from carrying her, but my heart ached; too, to leave her. I told the matron how and where the little thing picked me up. At first she wouldn't leave me, but—the fickle little thing—a glass of milk transferred all her smiles and wiles to the matron Then we both went over her clothes to find a name or an initial or a laundry mark. But we found nothing. The matron offered me a glass of milk, too, but I was in a hurry to be gone. She was a nice matron; so nice that I was just about to ask her for the loan of car fare when— When I heard a voice, Maggie, in the office adjoining. 1 knew that voice all right, and T knew that I had to make a decision quick. I did. I threw the whole thing into the lap of fate. And when I opened the door and faced him I was smiling. Oh, yes, it was Tausig. (Concluded Next Sunday.)