Arthur Train

“ Too bad; it ain't worth savin'."
"Nonsense," retored Thornton. "Any life is worth saving."
"Mine ain't!" muttered Squinty. "I'm done. It ain't no use for me to try to pull anything on you. I'm a gun. Doin' time up the river. The warden he let me come down to bury my grandmother, but I fell for the booze and broke my parole. I'm scared to go back, 'cause beside the six months I owe yet I'm under a ten-year suspended sentence for another job, and I'll forfeit my good behavior. That makes eleven and eight. Life—for me—boss! Yes—life! I'll not live through it!"
Thornton looked at him curiously. ”

“ Thornton slammed down the receiver. Instantly he received a fresh incoming call, Hawksley speaking from the floor of the exchange.
"Look here, old man," he panted. "Pujo has climbed up to eighty-nine. There's terrific dealings in it. Looks like a real corner. Market may break at any moment. For God's sake, let me sell your stock. Why, man, it's near nine thousand dollars!"
"Dammit!" roared back Thornton. "I can't sell. I haven't got any stock!" ”

“ The Boss was all right—had a big heart and all that—but he was taking a big chance in letting a convicted professional safe-cracker go off by himself to New York to his grandmother's funeral. If Squinty shouldn't turn up, then they would all be in bad, their privileges would be cut off, and, to use his own mental expression, the whole damn league be put on the bum. ”

“ His accumulated savings would have enabled him to go ahead and marry Jessica, and there was no reason but a perhaps Quixotic sense of honor why he should not let the corporation be dissolved or settle with its creditors on the usual percentage basis. But that was not Thornton's way. He had it out with Jessica before she boarded the train for Boston to see her father, who, she protested, would not think of letting them postpone the ceremony. Her father was foolishly rich, she said, and she and Dean could live with her family until he could get a fresh start. ”

“ Without more ado he got Hawksley's office on the telephone, asked for the broker and, finding that he had already gone upon the floor, sent word through his partner to cancel the order to sell. The partner protested politely. There had been private dealings in Pujo and already before the opening there were outside bids of 60 for the stock. Sixty! Thornton turned faint at the risk he had run: then sick at the thought of the profit he was losing.
Six thousand dollars! If he could only locate Squinty and get back that wretched certificate wholly useless to the thief! ”

“ Thornton dropped him and leaped for the telephone, ringing wildly for Hawksley. It seemed hours before he heard the banker's voice.
"Hello, old man!" it said, mockingly. "Pity you haven't got that certificate of yours. Pujo sold a moment ago at 995."
"But I have got it!" bellowed Thornton. "Sell me a hundred at the market! I'll hold the wire until you report the sale."
"All right!" Hawksley reported, presently. "You caught nearly the high mark. I sold your hundred for 975. Just in time. Market's turned weak all of a sudden. Ninety-seven thousand dollars for what cost you sixteen hundred! ”

“ He had been brought up to regard women as semi-spiritual creatures to be worshiped afar off; and the aggressive love-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 a hundred thousand dollars, which is doing pretty well for a sagebrush New Yorker even in these days. ”

“ When Thornton proceeded to fall 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 financial den on State street.
"Mr. Winthrop," he began without further elaboration. "I want to marry your daughter. ”

“ Then the Boss closed the door and left the convict a free man outside—free for six hours on his own parole. Squinty fitted on the derby hat he had borrowed from one of the keepers and took a tentative step along the macadam. In the warden's enormous black cutaway he looked curiously like a crow. A half minute later Squinty, a grotesque figure, was hurrying along the road to the railroad station. ”

“ But a sympathetic creditor's committee and a capable temporary receiver saved the corporation from actual shipwreck. Nevertheless, the statement presented at the meeting, held as it happened upon the Saturday afternoon of Squinty Phelan's visit to New York to attend his grandmother's funeral, showed past due indebtedness of $97,000. Thornton, dogged but cheerful, asked for a week's delay before they should apply for a trustee in bankruptcy. ”

“ And he's only got six months more to serve. He'd be crazy to beat it and forfeit all his time off for good behavior. He's earned a year and two months, besides making himself liable for another ten-year term on that suspended sentence of his. ”