Arthur Somers Roche

“ Prices had gone up, but, as Finisterre Joe's bartender informed him, there was more kick in a glass of the stuff that cost sixty cents to-day than there had been in a barrel of the old juice. And, for a good customer, Finisterre Joe's bartender would shade the price a trifle. The dummy-chucker received two portions of the crudely blended poison that passed for whisky in exchange for his round silver dollar. It was with less of a shuffle and more of a stride that he retraced his steps toward Broadway. ”

“ The dummy-chucker idly blew a smoke ring.
“Murder of faith in a woman's heart,” he said slowly. “Look at me! Do I look the sort who'd play your dirty game?”
The young man stood over him.
“Bannon,” he called. The valet entered the room. “Take the clothes off this—this bum!” snapped the host. “Give him his rags.”
He clenched his fists, but the dummy-chucker merely shrugged. The young man drew back while his guest followed the valet into another room.
Ten minutes later, the host seized the dummy-chucker by the tattered sleeve of his grimy jacket. He drew him before the mirror. ”

“ Suppose, while she's there, Jones should come in. Suppose that he should come in reeling, noisy, drunk! She'd marry me to-morrow.”
“I'll take your word for it,” said the dummy-chucker. “Only, when she's learned that Jones had died two months ago in Brazil——”
“She'll be married to me then,” responded the other fiercely. “What I get, I can hold. If she were Jones' wife, I'd tell her of his death. I'd know that, sooner or later, I'd win her. But if she learns now that he died while struggling to make himself worthy of her, she'll never give to another man what she withheld from him.” ”

“ Movie tickets cost fractions of a dollar. There is always some stray silver in the bead bag of a movie patron. Into the dummy-chucker's outstretched palm fell pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters. There was present to-day no big-hearted Westerner with silver dollars, but here was comparative wealth. Already the dummy-chucker saw himself again at Finisterre Joe's, this time to purchase no bottled courage but to buy decantered ease. ”

“ And,” he added, “if it should occur to you at the hotel that you might pawn these studs, or the flask, or the clothing for more than a hundred, let me remind you that my chauffeur will be watching one entrance, my valet another, and my chef another.”
The dummy-chucker returned his gaze scornfully.
“Do I look,” he asked, “like the sort of man who'd steal?” ”

“ I'm a bum.”
“Doesn't seem to bother you,” said his host.
“It don't,” asserted the dummy-chucker. “Except when the police butt into my game. I just got off Blackwell's Island this morning.”
“And almost went back this afternoon.”
The dummy-chucker nodded.
“Almost,” he said. His eyes wandered around the room. “Some dump!” he stated. Then his manner became business-like. “You mentioned a hundred dollars—what for?”
The young man shrugged.
“Not hard work. You merely have to look like a gentleman, and act like——”
“Like a bum?” asked the dummy-chucker. ”

“ Drunkenness was the last thing people suspected of a hard-working man nowadays. He slipped his hand in his pocket. They were coming now—the fat women with the babies at home, their handkerchiefs still at their eyes. ”

“ There'll be a table by the door in the main dining-room engaged in Jones' name. You'll walk in there at a quarter to eight. You'll wear Jones' dinner clothes. I have them here. You'll wear the studs that he wore, his cuff-links. Afore than that, you'll set down upon the table, with a flourish, his monogrammed flask. ”