The Popular Magazine/Volume 72/Number 1/The Strength of the Meek

by C. S. Montanye

 

The Strength of the Meek

By C. S. Montanye
Author of “Glorified Golf,” “So This Is Paris,” Etc.

 

Ottie Scandrel enters the business of health for
wealth and runs into an epidemic of trouble.

 

ONCE upon a time, as they say when they're broadcasting the cute little bedtime stories via the radio, a big tramp called “Uncle Ottie” Scandrel, with more money 'than brains and more leisure time than a convict, bought a big, beautiful health farm called Five Acres, located in a place known as Wellington, New York. Now, Uncle Ottie, my dear girls and boys, thought he would pull a Muldoon, make the wealthy healthy and rent out rooms to any of the cast-iron leather pushers getting conditioned up for a mill. And so Uncle Ottie, who had more brass than a twelve-thousand-dollar motor boat, shot his roll to make Five Acres just the grandest place that ever was.

With an ex-welterweight known to the trade as “Tin Ear” O'Brien playing assistant manager, assistant trainer, assistant social secretary and with everything shaped up as nice as the “Follies,” he flung open the front door to the public and sat down to wait for the flies to walk in and onto his parlor flypaper.

Put on your rubber ear muffs and listen to what happened.

From what I gathered, the former owners of Five Acres, after a tough scuffle with Kid Mortgage, had thrown in a towel and stepped aside to wait for the count. Scandrel misguided optimist and all-around numskull, had heard a whisper about the place somewhere and had called around to do the counting out himself—from a bank roll that would have caused consternation in any livery stable where there was an epidemic of choking. The deed was done and hidden away in a safe-deposit vault along with his diamond cuff buttons, his first false teeth and other valuables.

After that Ottie blew up to the Bronx to break the news. Twenty minutes after stopping in the gym he had made arrangements with Looie Pitz, a fight manager and antique enemy, to condition “Dangerous Dave” McFinn, one of Pitz's light-heavyweights, at Five Acres.

The agreement arrived at and Pitz smiling a way out, Scandrel threw some tobacco wrapped in paper in a mouth that was big though small, thrust out his chest, dragged down his cuffs and smirked at me.

“That's business, Joe. Right away the customers. If I don't click off a fortune in my first twelve months in this back yard I'm willing to admit I've got a personality like a handful of stewed prunes. Let me shove you up there for a couple of weeks and I'll show you the way to handle an up-to-date health factory. You'll be surprised!”

“I've read of Wellington in histories,” I said, “but never in geographies. Just about where is it hidden?”

Ottie admired the latest trick in light-blue shirts and collars in an opposite mirror and curled a lip.

“Don't you know nothing? I've got the best location in the world—if you don't count Cuba. Wellington is convenient to White Plains, Albany, Staten Island and Lake Erie. It might be farther away from Crimes Square and nearer than it is. But you can bet your sour life it's planted just right for me. It's on the main road and I'll have the dollar boys dropping in to get improved if I have to go out and trap them with nets. Wait and see.”

Blithely pivoting the conversation around, he went on to tell me all about how quickly he expected to be entertaining the upper Fifth Avenue clique and a few other millionaires listed in both the telephone and the “Blue” books.

According to Scandrel the big grift came in the weekly rent handed over by those clients who were suffering from too much Wall Street, a deep friendship with bootleggers and an overabundance of Broadway. From the gab I gathered Ottie expected to rent his Indian clubs out at a dollar fifty a swing and the other instruments to increase the muscles and decrease the bank balance at rates that were equally as usurious. To diminish a long story, his patter was of such interest that when he turned the nose of his latest horseless carriage north the next day I was in the front seat beside him.

With only a mere half dozen warnings from traffic officials who failed to take to my boy friend's driving, we hit White Plains in the main boulevard, went this way, that way and forty minutes later were in that part of Westchester that was more country than the country itself.

There were hills and rills, high spots and low spots, farmhouses and charm houses on every hand and along every foot.

“This here Wellington trap is eight minutes ahead,” Ottie informed me at length, “Listen. It's apt to tear the shirt off your back with laughter but don't smile when we steam through. The jobbies who hang out there are terrible sensitive. Honest, the bunch of them are so narrow-minded that you could button their ears at the back of their necks. I gave the post office a snicker the first day I come up to look the property over, the sheriff heard about it and it cost me three dollars and a pint of Brooklyn rye to keep out of the box. That's the kind of a slab it is.”

And it was.

Wellington, once we gassed in, proved to be rural to the extreme. It's principal thoroughfare had been left unpaved for the benefit of the six or eight chickens that escaped disaster by inches. There were two stores on one side of the way and one and a half on the other, to say nothing of a photo-drama shop that advertised “The Four Horsemen of the Covered Wagon.”

Groups of village loungers stood here and there and gaped as we went past. During the ordeal Ottie's face was as severe as a boarding-house gas bill.

“Get on to them yicks, Joe,” he mumbled. “Look at that big clown who's resting his feet by the laundry and slant his clothes. For a fact, a fashion plate like him belongs in a dinner set. I'll bet he thinks musical comedy is something you spread on crackers!”

Accompanied by as many stares as the average immigrant gives Ellis Island, we shot up a hill, turned to the right and running under a big new sign that read “Five Acres,” pulled up to the porch of a rambling, white colonial homestead that had enough pillars for a couple of dozen twin beds.

“This is it!” Ottie exclaimed with no small degree of pride. “And if it ain't the kitten's cookies then George Washington never buckled on a sword. Wait until I turn this car out to pasture and then I'll show you around the premises.”

He had hardly finished speaking before Looie Pitz rode up on a bicycle. followed closely by Dangerous Dave McFinn, a big set-up in a white sweater who would have given any toad a run for first honors in a contest for frightful faces. Pitz steered the front wheel of the bicycle into Ottie's leg, fell off, picked himself up and arranged his cravat.

“Five miles up the dales and down the hills. How are you feeling, kid? You seemed to be lagging on the last mile.”

“What do you mean—lagging?” McFinn growled. 'How could I go faster when I was running up on the back wheel of your bike? Hey, ride that and don't ride me. I guess I didn't have to come up here to learn how to move my feet. I'm a New York boy and——”

“Put a circuit breaker on that noise!” Pitz interrupted. “If conceit was consumption you'd be coughing your head off. I'm your manager—not no six-day bicycle rider. To-morrow you'll do your roadwork on the Tarrytown boulevard.”

“Like fun!” McFinn snapped. “I seen a Sunbonnet Sue doing some garden exercises down the road a piece and she looked pretty nifty. I like this route fine. If you don't, I'll ride the wheel and you do the running!”

With that he tottered away, leaving Ottie to snicker.

“Quite the comedian, eh, Looie? Where are you going to spring that baby—at the Palace?”

Pitz looked at his watch and then asked me the time.

“The Palace me eye—he's got too many queens on his mind as it is. He thinks he has Al Jolson tied for the laughs but a couple of good slappings will change his tunes. Really, I think I'll be able to cash in on this party. He punches like a slot machine, packs a kick like a guy looking for a raise in wages, never whines about punishment and has a greyhound looking slow when it comes to speed. I've got him on the docket for a prelim at College Point on the nineteenth of the month with a run-around who signs himself 'Nitric Acid' O'Neal. I look for him to go far.”

“He undoubtedly will,” Scandrel barked. “About six feet—down to kiss the canvas. I may be wrong but he don't look to me as if he could alarm a clock. And I know for a fact that most of those big gimicks haven't hardly any appetite for the ring refreshments.”

“How do you mean—ring refreshments?”

“Punch!” Ottie grinned. “Come on, bring your shoes inside, Joe, and I'll show you around.”

“You won't see much, O'Grady,” Pitz cut in. “The only health you'll get up here will come from not being able to overeat!”

Ottie's gym in the rear of the place was quite a landmark with its brand-new secondhand fixtures that ran from rings and swings to rowing, chest and weighing machines. I was presented to Master Tin Ear O'Brien, who held the portfolio of all-around assistant and to six or eight hard eggs who handled the rub-down end of it on a weekly salary that consisted of board and whatever pockets they could pick. O'Brien was a tall Scandinavian with one of those pans that made the visitor wonder how any one could be so ugly and still exist. He had formerly been in the belt business but had retired when some customer of his own weight had accidentally dropped a couple of gloves on the end of his chin.

After we watched Dangerous Dave McFinn cool out we gave the orchard a glance, counted the apples and took a look at the barns and outbuildings before returning to the main pavilion again.

We reached it as Tin Ear O'Brien shuffled out and spoke to Scandrel.

“Listen, boss. I disremembered to tell you, but between nine o'clock this morning they was a party looking for you on the telephone—now—the name sort of skips my mind, but he says for me to tell you that he's riding up here at five this afternoon. So you had better stick around.”

“It's a good thing ankles don't unhook,” Ottie snarled. “If they did you'd never be able to take a walk. How many times have I told you to write down the names of all the people who buzz me on the chicory? Honest, you'd make a false tooth ache. Get alone with yourself somewhere and think up the name before I slap the taste out of your mouth!”

Brain strain on O'Brien's part was unnecessary for at five o'clock promptly fifteen thousand dollars' worth of motor car rushed up to the front porch, a chauffeur and a footman in livery had a fist fight to see who would open the door first and out of the big truck alighted a stout gentleman who resembled money from the top of his high silk hat to the tips of his low, patent-leather scows.

He carried weight for age, a complexion that would have stopped a train and a walking stick with a platinum knob.

“I presume,” he puffed, once he had dropped anchor in the front parlor, “I am expected.”

Ottie dusted off a chair, passed a box of Corona—Long Island—cigars and snapped a speck of dust from his sleeve.

“Er—now—my secretary is a little deef. We're having his ears repaired next week. He didn't get your name off the wire this morning.”

“I'm Channing Lamont,” the other explained, taking the hint. “I want to speak with you on a confidential matter,” he added with a look in my direction.

“Talk freely,” Ottie invited. “This here is Joe O'Grady, a pal of mine. Joe wouldn't think no more of opening his mouth to pass a secret than I would of trying to catch a sardine in the middle of the Atlantic with my bare hands. From looking at you,” he rushed on, “I won't make no positive guarantee, but if I won't boil off ten or fifteen pounds of that excess baggage you're carrying around——”

“One minute!” Lamont interrupted in a voice that matched his complexion. “You're evidently laboring under a false impression. I didn't come up here to reduce my avoirdupois, young man!”

“Ha-ha!” Scandrel guffawed. “Pardon my social error, er—what did you come up for?”

Lamont helped himself from his cigar case but neglected to pass it around.

“I'll explain as briefly as possible. First of all, have you ever heard of Tarkington van Riker?”

I had the bulge on Ottie there.

Any one whose literary education had not been neglected when it came to the daily newspapers had heard of Tarkington van Riker. The young man mentioned had been a sensation in Wall Street where, as a bucket-shop plunger, he had made and lost fortunes with the nonchalant ease of a colored hall boy matching pennies with the janitor. From what I remembered reading, Van Riker had been a clerk in a Stock Exchange house and had started his career by a three-dollar stock purchase that hadn't stopped growing until his winnings ran to the four-figure mark and the bottom had fallen out of the market.

Being busted meant as much to Tarkington van Riker as a run in a silk stocking to the wife of a hosiery manufacturer. After his first financial flop he sold a couple of dress suits and with the proceeds went back to take another tumble out of the ticker. From then on it was a case of him having it or not having it. A scenic railway was straight compared with Van Riker's ups and downs.

Channing Lamont acquainted Scandrel with these facts.

“Yeah? So this Van Riker's in Wall Street, is he? What do you want me to do—buy some of his stocks?”

Lamont glared.

“This Van Riker buccaneer is in love with my daughter Alice. Do you get that?—he's in love with my daughter Alice!”

“Well, what does that make me?” Ottie snickered.

“And my daughter Alice,” Lamont roared, “is in love with him!”

Scandrel looked at me and winked.

“I hear them tell how these things do happen now and then. What else?”

Lamont jammed his cigar back in his face.

“From information my daughter Alice dropped the other night at dinner I have learned that Van Riker is coming up here next week. After his last fiasco in the Street, his physician has advised a complete rest and change.”

“He'll get the change all right if he comes across with it!”

“My daughter Alice,” Lamont went on, “is also coming up here next week, ostensibly to visit her aunt who has a bungalow over at Rosewood. Do you grasp the plot?”

“Certainly. What do you think I am—thick? Er—I get it all. You want me to see that your daughter Alice and the Van Riker party don't lose no time in getting together for a fling at this pastime known as matrimony. Am I right or wrong?”

Channing Lamont climbed out of his chair. He threw the cigar away, bit the end from a fresh one and broke that in half.

“That's the very thing I don't want you to do! My daughter might be a silly, irresponsible girl but I don't intend to stand back and let her marry a common gambler like this Van Riker. I want you to do everything in your power to head them off. I want you to keep tabs on Van Riker and make certain that while he's here he isn't with her. I don't want him to see her. Nip this romance in the bud, keep them apart and I'll be willing to double the amount Van Riker pays you for the period of his rest cure!”

Ottie rubbed his hands like a secondhand clothes dealer at the sight of a bargain in a fur-lined coat.

“Fair enough! I'll step on love's young scheme like a grape! Just leave this to me, Mr.—now—Lamont. Knocking the man out of romance is my salad suit-—the clothes I wear for the mayonnaise. I'll fix this bim so he'll look at matrimony the same as double pneumonia; I will for a positive fact!”

With his color close to normal again, Lamont collected cane and tipper.

“Then I'll rely on you. Before I go, tell me this. Is there anything else you would like to know?”

“Yes—your weight!” Scandrel yelped. “Listen. For two hundred and fifty cash I'll take the sill off that bay window you're carrying around. I'll iron out a couple of those unnecessary chins and I'll have you romping around like a two year old crying to go.”

Before Channing Lamont was allowed to get away he had promised to come up in the late summer for a couple of weeks!

“It's a gift,” I said when we were alone. “Anybody else would have been pinched for slander—making remarks like that.”

Ottie chuckled.

“Give me credit, Joe. If I could make a date with the King of Italy, it's dollar bills to doughnuts, I could talk him out of his crown!”

A day or two later Tarkington van Riker wrote for reservations for himself and valet. Ottie dashed off an answer that Tin Ear O'Brien beat out on the typewriter, hurled it into an envelope and, stepping on the gas, rushed down to Wellington's ludicrous post office where business was falling off on account of the price of stamps. The missive registered, we took a new road and started back to Five Acres. Halfway between the village and the farm we were given a dash of comic opera.

Turning from one road into another the motor shied at the sight of a girl in a sunbonnet who, with a hoe in one graceful hand, was busy in a garden that appeared to grow everything with the possible exception of bananas. One look was enough for Scandrel who immediately threw on all of the four-wheel brakes that were working and nudged me.

“One of the cabbage queens, Joe. Ain't that sunbonnet becoming? I'll park here until she turns around if it takes from now until Sunday-night supper. I want to see what kind of a face she's wearing with that handsome blond hair of hers.”

“You're a nut for the years!” I snapped. “This girl is probably the same one McFinn was speaking about the other day. Drive on and don't annoy her. Vegetables are high priced enough as it is.”

“Get out and walk if you don't want to sit here and wait! What wren ever got annoyed by any one looking at her? I like her sunbonnet and I like her sunburn. I like a——”

The girl turned and Ottie stopped speaking as quickly as if some one had stolen his watch.

There was a reason, for if either of us expected to see a great big blond mamma who was a panic in the line of looks, neither of us was doomed to disappointment.

The Maude Muller on the other side of the garden fence was comely, blue-eyed, crimson-lipped and the owner of a complexion that she might have picked from one of the peach trees in the rear of the place. And to make the bargain fair all around she had a smile that made the celebrated sunshine look like an inch of blown-out candle.

She was beauty plus!

“We—I beg your pardon,” Ottie mumbled. “Er—have you got a match to spare?”

Mistress Looker rested dimpled arms on the fence and smiled over it.

“No, I'm sorry but I haven't. I left my cigarettes, holder and match box up at the house. Tell me—how does my garden look from your side of the road?”

Ottie buttoned his jacket, grinning like a foundling at the sight of a nursery full of toys.

“Baby, I'll tell the neighbors you certainly grow a delightful lettuce. We all eat vegetables, so we ought to get acquainted. The names over here are Scandrel and O'Grady. Stay just where you are for a minute and give us the low-down on the beans and parsley.”

She did.

Still featuring the delightful smile she informed us that her name was Amabel Biggs, that she was interesting nineteen, ran down to Manhattan every so often, hadn't missed the Ziegfeld “Follies” since she had quit the little red school on the hill for good, and only lived at Wellington because New York was so full of hicks.

Scandrel took all of this with the greatest of interest and immediately gave her a helping of his own autobiography. Any one listening in on the conversation would have gone away with the idea that he was as well known as Forty-second Street, as popular as light wines and beer, as free with his money as Monte Carlo and a bigger sport than either baseball or horse racing.

“Now that we're all friends,” he wound up, “be through with the dishes at eight o'clock punctual. I'm coming to take you buggy riding if you can stand this bus.”

Miss Biggs registered enthusiasm.

“Won't that be fun! I'd love to go. And that reminds me. Who's that big boy in the white sweater I see passing along here every day?”

Ottie looked at me.

“Grab that one while it's hot, Joe. Who's the big boy in the white sweater? Listen, Delicious,” he said to the girl, “that party is only a goofy box fighter who'll be on crutches any time after the nineteenth. He's so rough that he uses a rake as a side comb and he's got a personality as thrilling as a hangnail. Not only that but he's so mean that his knees are the only thing that give. Dismiss the idea instantly.”

“I was just wondering,” the girl giggled. “For the last few days he's been chasing a man on a bicycle and he hasn't caught him yet.”

Equal that!

A week later Tarkington van Riker, with valet, motor and more luggage than a musical show, reached the Scandrel layout and caused some eye widening.

The Captain Kidd of Wall Street turned out to be everything we hadn't expected him to be. Van Riker was short, plump and smug—a quiet, taciturn individual with a round, moon face, a habit of coughing and a pair of feet that could have been used for transporting freight if they had been floated.

“I am Tarkington van Riker,” he said the minute he alighted, waving a hand at a young man who began throwing valises out of the car. “And this is Jepson, my faithful valet.”

“One of the Westchester valleys, hey?” Ottie snickered. “Break out all the luggage, Jep, and get it up to Suite 13. Make it fast!”

“Yes, sir. Directly, sir,” the valet answered, picking up four bags and turning so we had a look at him.

Sweet lavender!

Jepson, in his way, was as good looking as the fair Miss Biggs of the cabbage patch. He was young, he was well built, he looked like the best part of Park Avenue and he had a face that any movie director would have been glad to put on the screen.

In fact he was so handsome that Scandrel stared with open mouth until he and the luggage had vanished together.

“What male chorus did he use to work in, Van?”

The terror of the Stock Exchange coughed and turned his eyes from the doorway.

“Oh, Jepson, you mean? Yes, he was formerly a haberdashery salesman on Fifth Avenue. I rather liked his looks and so I took him on. He's very meek and he's proved very satisfactory. If you'll pardon me I'll go upstairs and see if he's getting things to rights.”

A half hour after that I wandered into the gym and found the loungers talking Van Riker and valet over.

“Lovely roses!” Dangerous Dave McFinn was sneering. “The ticker tramp looks halfway human but his man servant girl is twice as sweet as candy. When I seen him I couldn't figure out if I ought to slap him on the wrist or the jaw. He's one of them sweet young things that always makes it a case of hate at first sight. I only wish he would touch my necktie. I'd knock him so hard that he'd wake up with a French accent!”

“Yes, you would,” Tin Ear O'Brien cut in quickly. “Lay a finger on any of the boss' boarders and we'll ship you out to College Point in pine. Leave me hear you open that thing you call a mouth and I'll break you in half!”

“Like heck you will!” McFinn shrieked. “You couldn't punch the icing off a layer cake! Come on—make good!”

Without waiting for a second invitation O'Brien shot over a couple of fast ones which the other blocked. What bore all the earmarks of exciting fisticuffs was ended by the appearance of Looie Pitz who, taking a couple of stray punches in the ear, got in between them.

“You witless half-wit, you!” Pitz screamed at his protégé. “Is this where you leave your fight with O'Neal—after me spending my money and losing fourteen pounds riding the bicycle? I ought to have left you stoking the boiler in that apartment house——”

“Speak to him!” McFinn mumbled, giving O'Brien a look as sharp as cutlery. “Sure, he should give me a black eye! What do you care? You ain't got a date with a gal that you just met yesterday for the first time——”

“What girl?”

The light-heavyweight reached in a pocket, took out a carrot, gazed at it fondly and sighed.

“A sweet little skirt by the name of Biggs. But don't be asking no more personal questions. I'm going down the road a piece now to see her. Try to stop me and you'll find my contract upstairs under the mattress!”

Pitz was diplomatic if nothing else. Putting everything he had into a smile he patted the big boy on the shoulder.

“That's all right, kid. If there's anything I like to see it's a boy and a gal going down the fork of the road to spoon. But keep your hat on in the sun.”

“What do you think I am—refined like that Jepson joke—taking my lid off the minute a dame comes along?” was McFinn's retort. “So long—I'll be back for dinner.”

“You tell 'em, you will!” Tin Ear O'Brien murmured in a voice that sounded like bottles breaking.

Starting the next day, Tarkington van Riker became Scandrel's willing victim. Ottie put him over the jumps in the Steeplechase for Health and though the wizard of Wall Street grumbled frequently, he fell off the pad at six o'clock for the mile sprint that was his eye opener, did his gym work and all the rest of it as faithfully as could be expected with Scandrel never letting him out of his sight.

If the patient, perspiring Van Riker led a strenuous existence, the meek, mild and handsome Jepson enjoyed the popular life of Riley. The good-looking valet never arose before ten o'clock, took breakfast, wandered away and didn't show up again until dinner time. Like his master, Jepson said little and if the pointed remarks of Dangerous Dave McFinn and the gym rubbers were overheard by the beautiful youth they were disregarded entirely.

When it came to quiet, the faithful Jepson had a henpecked husband looking like a victrola playing jazz with the doors wide open.

“So good, so far,” Ottie said at breakfast a week later. “I had Channing Lamont on the long distance last night and I gave him the dirt. When I told him that Van hasn't been three feet away from me and the farm, Lamont was as tickled as if I had used a feather. Believe me, I'll get an attractive dime for this trouble.”

Before I could answer Tin Ear O'Brien shuffled in.

“Hey, listen, boss. Didn't you not tell me that if any frail come around here asking for Mr. van Riker I should give you a tip off?”

“I said those very words. What about it?”

“She's outside now!” the ex-welterweight hollered.

Scandrel pushed aside a couple of eggs that were so fresh they were impertinent and pulled on his coat.

“Come on, Joe. You beat it back to the gym,” he instructed O'Brien. “You might scare the chicken, Radio.”

“What's the idea of calling me Radio?”

“Because you're such a loud speaker!” Ottie yelped. “Take the air!”

When we reached the front porch it was to find a snappy little roadster drawn up at the front doorstep. In it was seated a girl with dark-brown hair, soulful eyes, but an expression that seemed to suggest the fact that while she was long on looks she was short on brains. She wore some wise scenery that had probably been snatched out of the latest fashion periodicals, a hat with a feather in it, and was listening intently to something Dangerous Dave McFinn, who stood with one foot on the running board, was saying.

One look was enough to ignite Ottie.

“You've got a nerve!” he bawled at Pitz's marvel. “Who told you to dock here and get friendly? And ain't you got manners enough to remove your hat when you're talking to a lady? Take it off! Put it on! Beat it before I break your back!”

McFinn mumbled something and slouched away. Ottie buttoned his coat and toyed with an introduction. The girl, a dangerous worker with the eyes, gave him a lovely smile.

“I'm Alice Lamont. I wonder if I can see Tarkie van Riker for a minute or two. I've got something I want to ask him.”

Ottie sighed and shook his head.

“Not a chance in the world, Cutey. It's against the rules. I couldn't let you in if you were Cleopatra willing to give me a piece of the Nile for the favor. That's that!”

Miss Lamont pouted demurely.

“I didn't think such a nice-looking man could be so mean. Please let me speak with Tarkie. If you don't, I'll—I'll cry!”

Scandrel looked at me.

“Listen, Bright Eyes, don't be like that. Er—give me the message and I'll see that Van Riker gets it as fast as special delivery.”

The young lady drew a breath.

“This is the way it is. The ladies of the Wellington Knitting Guild are giving a fair and bazaar next Monday night at the Town Hall. I came over to ask Tarkie if he wouldn't loan us Jepson, his valet, to help with the decorations. That Mr. McFinn I was talking with has volunteered to come over and help and——”

“Don't say another word!” Ottie barked. “Jep is yours if I have to take him out in the back yard and beat him like an Oriental rug. I'll get him right away.”

He disappeared, leaving the girl to look me over. She had just finished when Scandrel returned, followed meekly by the quiet Jepson.

“Here he is, Cunning. Use him all you want but be sure and give him his lunch. And Looie Pitz says he'll let McFinn crash in around two bells to lend a hand. Er—if I ain't got a date to-night I might run in and take a look around. I used to be in the decorating business myself.”

“Really! Houses?” Miss Lamont lisped.

“No—faces! Get in, Stupid!” Scandrel hissed at Jepson. “So long, honey. Don't be sore because I wouldn't let you go inside. Remember—people who live in paper houses shouldn't throw scissors!”

The snappy little roadster purred away.

“I thought you were friendly with the blond Miss Biggs?” I said. “You're as fickle as a bigamist.”

Ottie curled a lip.

“Yeah? That's what you think. Can't I be polite without cracking a proposal? Picture me moving furniture around for a fair when I can take a walk with Amabel and not lift a finger. Beauty is beauty but hard work is labor. Anyhow, that doll seemed sort of dumb to me and look at blondie. She swings a fascinating hoe and already she tells me I'm a stylish dresser. I'll bet regular money she hasn't told McFinn and Jepson that yet.”

I stuck out an ear.

“Who?”

“Yes, McFinn has been buzzing around and she's been out with Jep a few times but that worries me like a burning barrel in a vacant lot does a fireman. How can either of them figure when they've got competition like me? And that reminds me, Joe. You stick around and watch Van this afternoon while I go up and see Amabel. She's promised me a couple of cabbages and some celery. That's the kind of a rib to be friendly with, eh?”

Dangerous Dave McFinn, as more time elapsed, eased off on the heavy work. Outside of his morning gambol along the highways, and little light gym duties, he spent most of his time up at the cabbage patch. McFinn looked fit and ready for the College Point glove bouncing and Pitz, who had worked over him like a sweatshop operator on a pair of serge trousers, was as pleased with his results as a girl using a lip stick for the first time. The light-heavy continued to sneer at both the perfect Jepson and Tin Ear O'Brien, but hostilities were quickly suppressed by Scandrel or Pitz himself. Even the taciturn Van Riker took a hand when Ottie's assistant and the big bruiser almost came to blows on one occasion over a pair of Indian clubs.

In such fashion Monday approached with the fair and bazaar at the Town Hall and Wednesday with the battle on the boards in that dear East River resort.

At seven o'clock Monday morning, Ottie rushed off in the car with Van Riker galloping along at the rear axle. They had hardly disappeared before Pitz, game but melancholy, threw a leg over his favorite bicycle for the last stretch of road work his meal ticket was scheduled to rip off before leaving Tuesday morning.

“This bicycle riding has knocked me for a twist,” Looie moaned. “Between the wheel and the kid chasing around with the blondes and brunettes I'm on the verge of a breakdown. All set, Dave? Come on—pursue me!”

McFinn opened his sweater.

“Hey, Looie,” Tin Ear O'Brien yelled when both were ready to breeze. “Why don't you turn the wheel in and buy a motor cycle?”

“Who asked you to speak, Foolish?” McFinn growled. “Don't be putting ideas like that in my manager's head. I've a good mind to chuck a stone at you for butting in. All right, boss. Move the pedals!”

“I'll get that gil yet!” O'Brien fumed when we were alone. “Ottie says I'll lose the portfolio of assistant manager if I start anything, but I'll get him if I have to poison his oatmeal and use an iron bar!”

That was a vow.

There was no sign of Ottie until early in the afternoon when he locked Tarkie van Riker in his room and came down on the porch to give me a nudge and one of the handbills advertising the fair at the Town Hall the same night.

“Read this, Joe. Quite the event, what? Er—I've been trying to get Amabel on the telephone and invite her to blow down there with me to-night but so far the wire hasn't answered and she's not around the garden. I'd like to lay bets that she and Jep have gone over to Tarrytown in a hired hack. Honest, for a valet that boy spends money like an intoxicated spendthrift. I don't know what wages Van pays him, but they're a mistake, no matter how much.”

At four o'clock Ottie phoned the Biggs household again. There was no answer. At five he did the same thing over again with the same results. The big beautiful blonde was not home at six and the wire didn't respond at half past six, seven o'clock or twenty minutes after seven. When there was still nothing stirring at eight Scandrel, with three nails left on his right hand, was willing to acknowledge defeat.

“Mebbe the hack broke down somewhere, Joe. But that's neither here nor there. I'll give this Jepson a fast line when I see him. It's better to have loved and lost than to have gotten a broken nose. Come on, let's me and you run down to the Town Hall ourselves and look these knitting freaks over. Er—if you'll wait a minute I'll slip upstairs and slip on my cocktail suit. I might not be the best-known person there but I'll be the best dressed, I really will!”

When we reached the scene of carnival it was to find the entire population of Wellington present. The Town Hall was lighted up like a frost-bitten beak. There were at least twenty flivvers parked at the curb. We purchased a pair of admission tickets from a cross-eyed young man in a hard-boiled shirt and a cutaway coat.

“One dollar ninety each,” he informed us when my boy friend laid down a quarter.

“So you know we're from New York?” Ottie hissed. “What do you mean—one dollar and ninety cents?”

“The ninety cents is the war tax, mister.”

This statement made Scandrel sneer.

“War tax, is it? You silly mock turtle, haven't you heard the war is over? Step out here a minute and let me tell you a secret.”

The ticket seller came out of his booth, licking his lips.

“Yes, mister. What kind of a secret?”

“This!” Ottie bellowed, planting a right uppercut directly on the unfortunate pasteboard passer's chin. “The next time you want to have some more fun make an appointment with me by mail.”

We went up a flight of stairs and into the hall. There, the first thing we saw was the youth and beauty of Wellington tripping around from booth to booth, dressed like a burlesque show. We hardly had an eyeful before a stout lady in pink satin rushed up to the startled Ottie and pinned a lily on his lapel.

“Isn't that just adorable?” she gushed. “Two dollars please.”

She snatched a bank note from him, rushed away and was replaced by one of the village belles who carried a notebook and a pencil.

“Handsome stranger,” this girl lisped, “I'll just know you're going to take a chance on a diamond ring to help the benefit. You are, aren't you?”

Ottie gave me a helpless look.

“I'll need a benefit myself after this. Two fish for a pansy that don't smell so good as it is. A diamond ring, you say? That's different. I'll take all the chances you've got left. Who can tell? I might get engaged any time—to a blonde.”

“A short wife and a merry one!” the pride of Main Street cooed, taking another chunk out of Scandrel's bank roll.

From then until the time we reached the rear of the layout Ottie impersonated a sailor with a shore leave and a pocketful of rupees. He took chances on a half dozen pairs of knitted wristlets, a cream separator, an incubator, a red-flannel shirt and a pair of rubber boots. He put a dent in four different layer cakes at seventy-five cents a cut and tanked up on lemonade at a dime a sip. Further disaster was only prevented when we encountered Looie Pitz outside of a fortune teller's tent, sobbing in his handkerchief.

“Say you!” Ottie barked. “What's the matter—did somebody crook your bicycle?”

“You boys here?” Pitz moaned. “I just got an awful pushing around from a dame in a dunce cap. Her name is Lady Mysteria and she told my fortune three ways. She give me terrible news. She says I'm in for a big disappointment, that everything I counted on is going to flop and that I should beware of a dark woman. I suppose that means the colored girl who called. for the laundry yesterday. What'll I do?”

“Did she read your palm?” I inquired.

Pitz put his handkerchief away.

“I never thought of that. “I'll go back and get her to look at it. Maybe I've got some good news on my hands after all!”

He vanished into the tent like a sheik while Ottie and I did a turn into the refreshment section. Here was a soda-water fountain with the customers hanging on three deep, looking for the cracked ice and automatically feeling for the brass rail with their brogans. The first thing we saw after the fizz counter was Miss Lamont making merry over a nut sundae with Master McFinn, who wore a suit that looked as if it had been cut from a livery-stable blanket.

We had hardly lamped the two before we saw Tin Ear O'Brien and the rub-down crew singing their college songs and lifting steins of root beer at a table in a corner. After that the next thing on the ledger was Ottie's heel on my instep.

“Here they come now, Joe! Watch me dish this Jepson baby like Eyetalian spaghetti. He's got more crust than pie—keeping my sweetie out as late as this!”

I looked in the same direction he was staring and perceived the charming Miss Amabel Biggs hanging on the arm of the quiet Jepson, whose smile was that of a puss after a supper of catnip. With hardly a glance in any direction they took the next table to the one held down by a person we recognized immediately as being no less than Tarkington van Riker himself. Miss Biggs slid into a chair but as luck would have it Jepson failed to make the hook above him for his hat and the dicer, slipping out of his hand, hit the wall, bounced off and landed accurately on the head of Dangerous Dave McFinn.

Like lightning McFinn sprang out of his chair, tore the brim from the hat and threw it in the astonished face of the valet.

“You big mockie!” he roared. “You did that on purpose! You can't insult me when I'm with a lady! I never did like you and now I hate you! Put up your dukes. I'm going to give you the cuffing of a lifetime!”

Before any one, Scandrel least of all, could interfere, Tin Ear O'Brien, tearing himself away from his. merry comrades, reached Jepson's side in oue spring and two bounds.

“Sit down, you big stiff!” the ex-welterweight snarled. “When you talk of battling with this boy you're talking about a fight with me! I've got a little hate myself on board! Get back there to your table or I'll knock you cold!”

Wham!

Snapping over a beautiful right hook that would have surely meant curtains if it had landed, McFinn threw himself at O'Brien and quicker than instantly an interesting exhibition of the manly art was in progress.

Screams of alarm mingled with confused cries and a few feminine shrieks, as the two went at it hammer and tongs.

“As the shoemaker said when the boat was sinking—every man to the pumps!” Scandrel bellowed. “Pardon me a minute, Joe. I think I'm needed elsewhere!”

Hurling a dozen or more spectators roughly aside he reached the scene of conflict, tore off his coat and sprang into the heart of it. There were too many people in the way for me to get a robin's-eye view of exactly what transpired. When I got to the front of the crowd it was to find McFinn, Scandrel and Tin Ear O'Brien in a tangle on the floor—one or two of them completely out!

The light-heavyweight, in a sudden silence so profound that the fall of an acorn would have deafened a squirrel, staggered to his feet and reeled over to Jepson, who had been an interested bystander.

“You goofy cake eater!” McFinn mumbled. “I'm going to get you after all!”

The quiet valet removed both hands from his pockets and smiled.

“After,” he corrected amiably, “I get you first!”

Allowing a left-handed sock to glide harmlessly past his handsome head, the young man stepped forward and swung himself—with both hands. The duet of punches might have been helped along by luck and accident combined but both landed and both registered. Without bothering to say good-by to any one present Dangerous Dave McFinn did a somersault over a chair and crumpled up under a table!

“My word!” I heard Tarkington van Riker gasp.

The next climax in the festival of fight and fright was the appearance of the stout Mr. Channing Lamont who took the center of the stage at the same minute that Scandrel used his feet to stand on again. Lamont swept the place with his glance and looked at Ottie, his face two shades redder than scarlet.

“So this is the manner in which you told me I could rely on you!” Lamont thundered. “You scoundrel, my sister in Rosewood wrote me to say my daughter Alice has been seeing Van Riker every day! Is this the way——”

“The summer weather has affected your intelligence!” Ottie croaked. “He ain't been out of my sight for two minutes in two weeks. Look at him over there. Does he look as though he's been carrying on the love affairs?”

Lamont wheeled around and glared in the direction Ottie indicated. Then his mouth opened slightly and his eyes widened.

“You imbecile, that isn't Van Riker—that's Jepson, his valet!”

At this the young man who had knocked McFinn for a goal took off the brass knuckles he had been wearing, dropped them carelessly back in his pocket, and laughed.

“Perhaps I had better explain,” he said to Lamont and Scandrel jointly. “When I told Alice I intended to come up here she told me about the characters in a magazine story she had been reading. It sounded good. So I decided that I'd be Jepson, the valet, and that Jepson would be Tarkington van Riker temporarily. Get the point? The idea worked splendidly but it had one flaw in it. That is, Alice and I discovered we did not care for each other as much as we had imagined and so you haven't any cause for further worry, Mr. Lamont. Eh—as a matter of fact a Miss Biggs and myself ran over to Tarrytown this afternoon and were married there.”

He turned to the blushing Amabel as Alice Lamont giggled.

“And oh, dad,” she cooed, using her soulful eyes, “I know you are going to be frightfully angry with me but I suppose I might as well tell you now and have it over with. I'm engaged, too. It was simply a case of love at first sight with us both. You always objected to handsome men but now you won't have any cause for complaint. He's so sweet but so homely and——”

“Stop right there!” Channing Lamont roared. “Who is this man? Where is he?”

The brown-haired Alice nodded at the motionless figure of Dangerous Dave McFinn.

“Over there—under that table, dad!” she giggled again. “No, I'm not a bit worried either. He's the strongest thing. And he told me a knock-out is part of his business!”

Smile that one away!

Fifteen minutes more or less later, as Scandrel and myself passed the tent of the fortune teller in the main room, Looie Pitz, wearing an expression like that of a bride-to-be on her wedding morn, came out, rubbing his hands.

“You boys back again?” he chuckled. “Say, listen. I just now got my palm read and the news couldn't be better. Lady Mysteria tells me that I'm going to get the surprise of my life right away. And that ain't all. Guess what else she said?”

“What else did she say?” Ottie mumbled.

Pitz pulled down his cuffs.

“That somebody is going to steal my bicycle! Ain't it true—it never rains but it gets wet!”

What's your wave length?

Another Montanye story in an early issue.