Tipster

“ Mrs. Tipping, scorning to reply, stood for some time gazing thoughtfully about her. Then, in compliance with her whispered instructions, her daughter crossed to the side and, brushing aside the outstretched hand of the watchman, reached the jetty and walked into the office. Two of the clerks were still working there, and she came back hastily to her mother with the story of the captain's death unmistakably confirmed.
Mrs. Tipping, loath to accept defeat, stood for some time in consideration. “What had Captain Flower to do with Mr. Robinson?” she asked at length, turning to Fraser. ”

“ Spitzer wasn't much to look at, neither was he of much account on the Hill Division. Some men rise to occasions, others don't; as for Spitzer—well, he was a snubby-nosed, peaked-faced, touzled-haired little fellow with washed-out blue eyes that always seemed to carry around an apology in their depths that their owner existed, and this idea was backed up a good bit by Spitzer's voice. ”

“ Spitzer and the man who broke his neck aren’t the only ones who’ve had their ups and downs that way, not by several. There isn’t any moral to this except that here and there you’ll find a man who isn’t as, modest about his own ability as he ought to be!
Spitzer’s nocturnal habits, that were a matter of so much unconcern and of which the railroad crowd at Big Cloud were so densely in ignorance, have a part in this. The truth is that between the lunch-counter and the station is the baggage and freight-shed, and behind the freight-shed it is very dark ”

“ Timmy Tiptoes sat out, enjoying the breeze; he whisked his tail and chuckled—"Little wife Goody, the nuts are ripe; we must lay up a store for winter and spring." Goody Tiptoes was busy pushing moss under the thatch—"The nest is so snug, we shall be sound asleep all winter." "Then we shall wake up all the thinner, when there is nothing to eat in spring- time," replied prudent Timothy. When Timmy and Goody Tiptoes came to the nut thicket, they found other squirrels were there already. Timmy took off his jacket and hung it on a twig; they worked away quietly by themselves. ”

“ The cars will stop at the broken bridge, and Tippy will come over here with his information; and all I have to do then will be to pounce on the escort, and pocket the greenbacks. What do you think of it?”
“It’s a tip-top idea, and I’m with you.”
“I expect Tippy will be here to-morrow.”
“All right; I can help you about this business.”
“You can; now, if you could step in and tell the pay-master you are a Yankee, and with that smooth tongue of yours prevent him from taking too much cavalry with him, you would earn your share of the money.”
“I will do it.”
“You can make a man believe anything.” ”

“ Tipping, “he'll be cute. There's one thing, Mr. Robinson: if you try to get away from those who love you and are looking after you, there'll be a fight first, then there'll be a police court fuss, and then we shall find out what the Government mean by it.”
Captain Flower sat down in an easy posture as though he intended a long stay, and in a voice broken with emotion murmured something about home, and rest, and freedom from danger.
“That's just it,” said Mrs. Tipping, “here you are, and here you'll stay. After you're married, it'll be Matilda's affair; and now let's have some tea.” ”

“ We must place the affair, in short, in the hands of some one with fewer scruples and more resources.”
“A private detective, perhaps?” suggested Pitman.
“There are times when you fill me with pity,” observed the lawyer. “By the way, Pitman,” he added in another key, “I have always regretted that you have no piano in this den of yours. Even if you don’t play yourself, your friends might like to entertain themselves with a little music while you were mudding.” ”

“ He made up his mind to compile such a record, himself, when he got back to New Belfast. It would be a big help to Carter Tipton, when it came time to settle his own estate, and a man on whom the Reaper has scored as many near-misses as on Jeff Rand should begin to think of such things. "And how about writing materials? And is there a typewriter available?"
There was: a cased portable was on the floor beside the workbench. Walters showed him which desk drawers contained paper and other things. ”

“ Fraser hesitated. “Well, I'll come with you, if you like,” he said, slowly.
“And suppose they go away and leave you, behind?” objected Mrs. Tipping.
“Oh, well, you'd better stay then,” said the mate, wearily, “unless we take a couple of the hands with us. How would that suit you? They can't sail with half a crew.”
Mrs. Tipping, who was by no means as anxious for a sea voyage as she tried to make out, carefully pondered the situation. “I'm going to take an arm of each of 'em and Matilda'll take yours,” she said, at length. ”

“ He was fingering the silk-coated wire. "This pipe's awful thin. A marble would never get down it."
"No, but the soup will twickle down all right," said Pipette, whose mind, busy with works of mercy, soared far above these utilitarian details. (In later years she was a confirmed bazaar organiser.)
"We'll ring and tell him first, shall we?" suggested Pip.
"Yes, let's!" murmured Pipette joyfully.
She turned the call-handle, and Pip held the receiver, just as he had seen Mr. Evans do. After a decent interval he remarked into the cup—
"Are you there, Mr. Pipes? This is us." ”

“ That’s the way it is with all of ‘em”—Regan waved his hand expansively.
“It’ll be all right. You’ll see. She won’t hold out on that line.”
Some men profit much by little experience, others profit little by much experience. Spitzer, possibly, had had little, very little, but the dejected droop of his shoulders, as he started back for the roundhouse, intimated that in the matter of knowledge as applied to the eternal feminine he was perhaps, in so far as it lay between himself and the master mechanic, the better qualified of the two to speak. ”

“ Pitkin, rising with dignity. "Since Uncle Oliver chooses to charge his own nephew with being a thief----"
"I beg pardon, Lavinia, I have not done so."
"You might just as well," said Lavinia Pitkin, tossing her head. "Come, Mr. Pitkin; come, my poor Lonny, we will go home. This is no place for you."
"Good-evening, Lavinia," said Mr. Carter calmly. "I shall be glad to see you whenever you feel like calling."
"When you have discharged that boy, I may call again," said Mrs. Pitkin spitefully.
"You will have to wait some time, then. I am quite capable of managing my own affairs." ”

“ To hold your tongue is bad enough, but to hold your breath as well, in competition with a small, silent boy with a solemn face, serious eyes, and lungs apparently of gutta-percha, who seems to suffer no inconvenience from feats of endurance that would exhaust a Red Indian, is more than a mere daughter of Eve can compass.
They were in the Consulting Room at the time, Father having gone out, as he always did between eleven and one; and the various unexplained mysteries of that delightful apartment, which were becoming a serious strain upon Pipette's feminine curiosity, once more lay before them. ”

“ Porson, speaking with much deliberation, “that is, if they can find 'em.”
“They want looking after, that's what they want,” said Dick Tipping, with a leer.
“It's all very well for you to make fun of it,” said Mrs. Tipping, raising her voice. “I like plain, straightforward dealing folk myself. I don't under-stand nothing about your secret services and Governments and all that sort of thing. Mr. Robinson, have you come back prepared to marry my daughter? Because, if you ain't, we want to know why not.”
“Of course I have,” said Flower, hotly. “It's the dearest wish of my life. ”

“ Tipping, calmly, “and not a moment before. We don't mind your getting in a temper, not a bit. You can't frighten us.”
The frenzied and reckless reply of the red-whiskered man was drowned in the violent slamming of the street-door, and he found himself alone with the ladies. There was a yell of triumph outside, and the sounds of a hurried scramble down the steps. Mrs. Tipping, fumbling wildly at the catch of the door, opened it just in time to see the cabman, in reply to the urgent entreaties of the mate, frantically lashing his horse up the road. ”

“ Spitzer, you run like hell to the roundhouse and——”
Burke stopped. Spitzer stopped him. There are moments in everybody’s life when they rise above themselves, above habit, above environment, above everything, if even for only a brief instant. A chance like this would never come again. If he could fire one trip maybe Regan would change his mind. Spitzer grasped at it frantically, despairingly. ”

“ Such a mind has Mr Eugene Wrayburn, whom Twemlow finds contemplating Tippins with the moodiest of visages, while that playful creature rallies him on being so long overdue at the woolsack. Skittish is Tippins with Mortimer Lightwood too, and has raps to give him with her fan for having been best man at the nuptials of these deceiving what's- their-names who have gone to pieces. Though, indeed, the fan is generally lively, and taps away at the men in all directions, with something of a grisly sound suggestive of the clattering of Lady Tippins's bones. ”

“ Spitzer’s demand was not exorbitant, and it wasn’t much to upset any man—that was just it—it was Spitzer, and Spitzer wasn’t much. Effect, psychological or otherwise, is by no manner of means to be measured by the mere magnitude of the cause, it is the phenomenal and unusual that is to be treated with wholesome respect, and for safe handling requires a double-tracked, block system with the cautionary signals up from start to finish—the master mechanic found it that way anyhow, and he ought to know. ”

“ He got us each a pair of smoked specs and some whiskers which makes us resemble a pair of owls.
“Your home town won’t recognize you now,” says he.
“No,” says Dirty, “but that won’t profit us much. Piperock may not penetrate our disguise, but that won’t stop ’em from pot-shooting a pair of freaks.”
“There’s one cinch,” says I. “They won’t never kill us in our own names.”
He takes us up to a hotel where all his stuff is and we sets down on the bed while he packs up.
“What kind of a sheriff have they got in Piperock?” he asks.
“He’s a wonder,” says Dirty, “and very fast with a gun.” ”

“ Near the Talking-Hole, on a small table, stood "The Terriphone." This, they gathered, was a sort of long-distance talking-hole. You turned a little handle, and, taking a queer, cup-shaped arrangement off a hook, conversed affably through it with unseen people, situated somewhere at the back of beyond. The children had seen Mr. Evans use it for sending messages to Father via Mr. Pipes. Mr. Pipes was a great friend of Pipette's. In the first place, he wore a uniform, which always appeals to the feminine mind. ”

“ This notion is confirmed by the fact, that the scarf was frequently called a tippet in Ireland within memory. And in a letter, discussing this very subject, in the Gentleman's Mag. (for 1818, part ii. p. 218. [7] ) , the testimony of one is given who had for upwards of fifty years considered the two words as identical, and had heard them in his youth used indiscriminately by aged clergymen. It is notorious that in Ireland, time out of mind, tippets have been more generally worn than hoods in parish churches there. ”

“ Piper. ‘I am too old to go out often, so I only go to very old friends. But if you and Mr. Piper like to come and take a cup of tea with me any Tuesday evening I shall be very happy to see you.’
‘After all, Lady Jane’s chestnut wig and violet-powdered complexion are not much loss,’ said Bella.
‘No, they ain’t, but I should like to have taken the old woman to dinner upon my arm, before the Porkmans and the Wigzells,’ remarked Mr. Piper. ‘I don’t believe they ever sat down to dinner with a title in the whole course of their natural lives. Wouldn’t old Timperley have stared! ”

“ After that Pipette became engaged, and the curtain fell upon Elsie's movements, for Pipette's letters now harped upon a single string, and Pip was far too shy to ask for information outright. So he hardened his heart, hoped for the best, and went on with his day's work, as many a man has had to do before him, and been all the better for it. ”

“ As they finished they heard the brougham drive up.
"It isn't nearly all gone," said Pip gloomily, peering into the receiver. "If we hang it up on its hook the stuff will all fall out. Let's leave it like it is. Father doesn't never use the Terriphone till after lunch, and it will be all gone by then. Come on, Pipette."
The two Samaritans turned their backs upon the telephone and stole out of the room, leaving that sorely tried instrument to digest its unaccustomed luncheon as best it might.
It was Mr. Evans who suffered most. ”

“ How much d’ye think he’ll fetch in the Virginias? I’s warrant me not fifteen guineas.”
“Why, Master Tipton,” said the agent, referring to a slip of paper which he held in his hand, “there you are mightily mistook. Maybe, like enough, that man is worth more than any of ‘em. He’s a skilled barber and leecher, and a good man he is, and knows his trade, to be sure, and that werry well. Just you think, Master Tipton, how much he might be worth as a vally or body-servant to one of them there Virginia planters.” ”

“ Do me the favor, when Philip calls next week, to hand him a check."
"You mean to retain him in your employ after this?" asked Mrs. Pitkin sharply.
"Yes, I do. Why shouldn't I?"
"You are very trustful," observed the lady, tossing her head. "If this had happened to Lonny here, we should never have heard the last of it."
"Perhaps not!" responded the old gentleman dryly. "When a young gentleman is trusted with a letter to mail containing money, and that letter never reaches its destination, it may at least be inferred that he is careless." ”