The evening world. Newspaper, December 3, 1921, Page 14

“a 3 CHE EVENING WORLD'S FICTION SECTION, SATURDAY, DF.CEMBER 3, 1921. OO ered cutaway weighing him. down like a Goat of mall, Squinty staggered foot- sore into Long Island Ctiy—with an hour in which to catch his train at the Grand Central Station. Just before him across the way, clean, cool, refreshing, a :ow of lights ‘was alluringly reflected in pinte-glass mirrors and shining mahogany, Through the windows he cou'd see a ‘white-jacketed barkeoper busily filling heer glasses from the woud, and slid- ing them across the counter ‘co thirsty .soule ike himself. .To Squinty it was the most beautiful vision he had ever We make no excuses for Squinty. He had promised not “to touch alcohol while-in the city, and he bad intend- ea to keep his word The promise © Played no gart in the mattcr. At that instant there was for him no such thing.as Sing Sing, a- warden, or & Welfare League; promises and paroles ~ ¢i@ not exist. He was th.raty and he drank—again and again.. : He drank alone and he drank with cothers—he drank up his §%, and then, mysteriously absenting himscif for a few moments in the company of a new and sympathetic friead, he -re- turned without the warden’s cutaway and drank. some more, But when te woke up it was the next day and he was in a 1$-oent lodging house on East Houston Street. In place of the cut- away he was wearing a blue jumper. “ Tim Anders had proved right and the warden wrong. Squicty had broken his parole. The curse was upon Lim, e ° ® e ° e EAN THORNTON was younger than Squinty by ten years and everything had been in his fa- vor from the start\-including the fact that he-did not have any money. He had a whimsical, cadaver- ous face, out of which a pair of soft gray eyes shot straight at you; a lanky, muscular body; had been welter-weight champion and stroked the crew at col- lege; and, because he had been a regu- Jar fellow although he came from an unknown region infested by coyotes and timber wolves, had effectually demonstrated the error of supposing that Harvard University is snobbish in insisting upon the right to select her own heroes by being one of those he- roes—perhaps the biggest-one of them, himself, ae cmtl This loose-jointed ochinvar had comg out of the West and made a clean sweep of Boston's Metropolitan District, incliiding the Back Bay, Milton and the Norfolk Hunt. Yet he had never seen a dinner suit or a red coat until 1905. He had been brought up to regard women as semi-spiritual creatures to be worshipped afar off; and the aggressive jove-making, of Cambridge so bored him that he escaped marrying into one of the old families and remained heart whole until he had become President and principal stockholder of the Weed- Jackson Tool & Hardware Company at thirty-five and saved $100,000, which is doing pretty well for a sage-brush Now Yorker even in these days. Then, hav- , ing transplanted his old mother from Nebraska and set her up quite well enough in a comfortable house on a lesser avenue, Thornton allowed his thoughts to turn to the next duty of good citizenship. ‘ When Thornton proceeded to fal! in love with Jessica Winthrop, one of the very Boston banker's daughters he might have married fifteen years before but hadn't, he did not pause to reason why but took the midnight train and, after a hearty breakfast at the Parker House, bearded her father in his finan- cial den on State Street. “Mr. Winthrop,” he began without further elaboration, “I want to marry your daughter. You don’t know me but"—— “Well who the hell are you?’ de- manded his prospective father-in-law laconically. “Thornton, '05.” Even the famous banker had heard of the even more famous oar. Winthrop, '80, gazed searchingly at Thornton, ‘06, and saw that he was good, Both had stroked an eight and pumched the puissant pugs of the ‘Port in the eye. ery | “Can you support her?” conclu.ted Mr. Winthrop. “When my giris marry they go ‘aé is'—without a cent.” “You can look me up in Bradstreet,” answered Thornton confidently, “and I've got $100,000." “With you?” Thornton removed from his inside pocket an envelope containing an as- sortment of stock certificates. Winthrop . Slanced through them and nodded: “I see you've got quité a lot of our stuff there. I guess you're all right. Go to it!—Hello, what's this? Pujo Limited!: What on earth put you into that?. It’s absolutely rotten!” “1 know it,” admitted Thornton read- fly. “It was just a flyer. I haven't counted that in the hundred thousand.” “But hew_pn earth did you get it?” Thornton laughed reminiscently. “You know Scanion tho promoter? yuWelly Isdidn’t. But I used ‘to be -a Deputp Police Commissioner, ‘and ‘one’ day I. was watching a jsarade from™ the grandstand—and he happened ‘pe alongside me, Some one in the crowd .who didn’t like him threw a brick and.I—well, I.managéd to catch . it before it hit him. He was naturally grateful and gave mean inside-tip to buy Pujo at sixteen. So I did.” “He's nothing but a crook!” snort- ed.Mr, Winthrop. “So I found out afterward. But at had been fixed, the bridcsma ds’ cos- tumes chosen, and Jessica ws in New York visiting Dean's mother and buy- ‘ing her trousseau when the bomb ex- ~ vloded. .The two women were sitting m._ the cosy drawing-room wa'ting for Thornton to come home. A key rat- tled and the gin flew to the door. Thornton, apparently in the gayest of spirits, carried her back laughing in Lie arms, “Well, this has been a day!” he cried, d “What's up?” she demand*d suspi- clously, - “Fold fast!" he returned. ‘I’ve one erand little joke for you. Are you ready?” We're busted—wiped cut!” Jessica drew back her head and looked “intently up into his face while 14 Mra. Thornton laid down her knit- ting resignedly. “I knew there was meficthing!” she sighed, : “Well, we're just busted. Flard luck! ‘That's all. “Have to start.over and all -that. Call it. a misfortune perhaps, “but to real. calamity. I've still my good right armt"” ; “QO Dean,” murmured the girl, cov- ering her éyes, ““‘What has happened!” “Durham, our treasurer, has disap- peared with every cent of our money, ‘The accountants say he’s been jockey- ihg with the books for au Ikast two AS HE NEARED PARK AVENUE A MAN ZIGZAGGED ACROSS THE SIDEWALK AND INTERCEPTED HIM. that time Pujo “was supposscd to be a big thing.” “O Lord!" groaned the banker. “And you want to marry my daugh- ter!” “Excuse me!” apologised ‘Thornton. But may I ask whether or not you cver bought any Pujo yourcelf!"” The banker’s eyes twinl led in spite cf himeelf, “Yes, I did,” he .admitied sheep- ishly. “And I bought mine at 31." HE course of true !ove cannot be permitted to ru. smooth, The wallop Fate hod in store for Dean Thornton was deliv- ered within a month, The wedding day years. Collecting the accounts and pocketing the receipts, you know, He's got away, first and last, with about two hundred thousand. Heaven knows what he’s done with it. Saited it away very likely in Chili or Pera. He's left a wife and five children stvanéed with- out a dime. The company -owes nearly a hundred thousand over ‘ts assets.” “© Dean!" cried Jessica, putting his hand to her cheek. “Poo: Dean!” “But he hasn't taken any of your anoney!"" remarked Mrs. Thornton ga- gaciously, “Even if the company is bankrupt you can start in egain on your own capital, can't you?” “I won't have any capicnl after I've } paid off the corporation's creditors,” he retorted rather grimly. “The best 1 can do is to keep the si.p afloat and begin a. new cruise.” A proud look came into iis mother’s wrinkled face. “Billy!” she emuttered protestingly. “But your father would have Jone the kame thing!” Jessica lifted Dean’s hand, turned it upward and kissed his palm. “I don't mind! If we have to we can wait!" she said heroicaliy. Then she suddenly threw her arms about hie neck. and burst into t-afs. e e e e e e HE Weed -Jackson failure turned out to be worse than | the accountants hid prophe- - sied, But 1 symputhetic cred- itors’ committee and a capable tempo- isry receiver saved the c.-poration from actual shipwreck. Nevertheless the statement presented a‘ ile meet- ing, held as it happened upon the Sat- ..urday afternoon of Squinty Phelan's visit to New York to attend _ his grandmother’s funeral, showed past due indebtedness of $97,000. ‘Thornton, cogged but cheerful, asked for a week's delay before they sh:uld apply for a trustee in bankruptcy. His ac- cumulated savings would ‘:ve en- abled him to go ahead and marry Jessica, and there was no reason but it perhaps Quixotic sense of hcnor why ‘he should not let the corporation he ‘issolved or settle with its creditors on the usual percentage basis. But that was not Thornton's way. He had it cut with Jessica before slie boarded the train for Boston to sec her father, who she protested would not think of letting them postpone thy ceremony, Her father was foolishly rich, she said, and she and Dean could live with her family until he could get a fresh start, But he was obdurate. Her father had insisted on taking her “as is”—well, she must take him the sane way. He would never live with her or on any- .kody—even his wife's p.-unts. The wedding would have to be put off until he was able to offer her at least a makeshift for a jhome of her own. In ten days or so he’ would j*'n her in Boston and tell her how much could be saved out of the wreck. During the next week can finished Lis investigation of the corporation's financial condition, liquidatcd his pri- vate holdings and on the secsnd Mon- day after the collapse invited the creditors to dinner at his club, where each guest found under his plate a certified check for the full amount of his claim. Dean. made a little speech “in which he explained that a friend of the company who had perhaps unwar- ranted faith in its future and his own, had opportunely come foiward to re- lieve the situation, There is nothing like an unexpected dividend to stimulate geniality, and the dinner resolved itself into a finan- cial love feast. It was half after 11 before the first creditor had departed rejoicing and Thornton, having slipped his last five-dollar bil! to» the club waiter, put on his overcoat snd start- ed toward home—the home tnat had already been sold to meet the Weed- Jackson Company's debts. He was cleaned out, all except his hundred shares on Pujo Limited which, efter five years of dejection, had within the last month worked up from the dig- its to around 15. It wou'd keep his mother and himself going f.r a few months—if he sold it, und it had seemed a good time to seli. So he had taken the certificate out of the vault and put it in his pocket, intending to deliver it to his broker the next morn- ing. HE club was only a s.wort dis- T tance from his houses and or- dinarily, since it was raining, he would have jumped into a taxi; but taxis, he told himself, were no longer for him, and s* be turned up his collar and started forth on foot, As he neared Park Avenu? a man gig- zagged across the sidewalk aud inter- cepted him. In the dim light of the arc lamps he presented a grotesque, al- most laughable, appearance, for the old jumper which enwrapped the upper part of his figure hung heevity about bis knees and his flat-topped derby _ A Complete Story Every Saturday