Ikey scanned the countenance of Mr. McGowan for the usual evidences of conflict, but found none.
Take your coat off, he ordered. I guess already that you have been stuck in the ribs with a knife. I have many times told you those Dagoes would do you up.
Mr. McGowan smiled. Not them, he said. Not any Dagoes. But youve located the diagnosis all right enough its under my coat, near the ribs. Say! Ikey Rosy and me are goin to run away and get married to-night.
Ikeys left forefinger was doubled over the edge of the mortar, holding it steady. He gave it a wild rap with the pestle, but felt it not. Meanwhile Mr. McGowans smile faded to a look of perplexed gloom.
That is, he continued, if she keeps in the notion until the time comes. Weve been layin pipes for the getaway for two weeks. One day she says she will; the same evenin she says nixy. Weve agreed on to-night, and Rosys stuck to the affirmative this time for two whole days. But its five hours yet till the time, and Im afraid shell stand me up when it comes to the scratch.
You said you wanted drugs, remarked Ikey.
Mr. McGowan looked ill at ease and harassed a condition opposed to his usual line of demeanour. He made a patent-medicine almanac into a roll and fitted it with unprofitable carefulness about his finger.
I wouldnt have this double handicap make a false start to-night for a million, he said. Ive got a little flat up in Harlem all ready, with chrysanthemums on the table and a kettle ready to boil. And Ive engaged a pulpit pounder to be ready at his house for us at 9.30. Its got to come off. And if Rosy dont change her mind again! Mr. McGowan ceased, a prey to his doubts.
I dont see then yet, said Ikey, shortly, what makes it that you talk of drugs, or what I can be doing about it.
Old man Riddle dont like me a little bit, went on the uneasy suitor, bent upon marshalling his arguments. For a week he hasnt let Rosy step outside the door with me. If it wasnt for losin a boarder theyd have bounced me long ago. Im makin $20 a week and shell never regret flyin the coop with Chunk McGowan.
You will excuse me, Chunk, said Ikey. I must make a prescription that is to be called for soon.
Say, said McGowan, looking up suddenly, say, Ikey, aint there a drug of some kind some kind of powders thatll make a girl like you better if you give em to her?
Ikeys lip beneath his nose curled with the scorn of superior enlightenment; but before he could answer, McGowan continued:
Tim Lacy told me he got some once from a croaker uptown and fed em to his girl in soda water. From the very first dose he was ace-high and everybody else looked like thirty cents to her. They was married in less than two weeks.
Strong and simple was Chunk McGowan. A better reader of men than Ikey was could have seen that his tough frame was strung upon fine wires. Like a good general who was about to invade the enemys territory he was seeking to guard every point against possible failure.
I thought, went on Chunk hopefully, that if I had one of them powders to give Rosy when I see her at supper to-night it might brace her up and keep her from reneging on the proposition to skip. I guess she dont need a mule team to drag her away, but women are better at coaching than they are at running bases. If the stuffll work just for a couple of hours itll do the trick.
When is this foolishness of running away to be happening? asked Ikey.
Nine oclock, said Mr. McGowan. Suppers at seven. At eight Rosy goes to bed with a headache. At nine old Parvenzano lets me through to his back yard, where theres a board off Riddles fence, next door. I go under her window and help her down the fire-escape. Weve got to make it early on the preachers account. Its all dead easy if Rosy dont balk when the flag drops. Can you fix me one of them powders, Ikey?
Ikey Schoenstein rubbed his nose slowly.
Chunk, said he, it is of drugs of that nature that pharmaceutists must have much carefulness. To you alone of my acquaintance would I intrust a powder like that. But for you I shall make it, and you shall see how it makes Rosy to think of you.
Ikey went behind the prescription desk. There he crushed to a powder two soluble tablets, each containing a quarter of a grain of morphia. To them he added a little sugar of milk to increase the bulk, and folded the mixture neatly in a white paper. Taken by an adult this powder would insure several hours of heavy slumber without danger to the sleeper. This he handed to Chunk McGowan, telling him to administer it in a liquid if possible, and received the hearty thanks of the backyard Lochinvar[122].
The subtlety of Ikeys action becomes apparent upon recital of his subsequent move. He sent a messenger for Mr. Riddle and disclosed the plans of Mr. McGowan for eloping with Rosy. Mr. Riddle was a stout man, brick-dusty of complexion and sudden in action.
Much obliged, he said, briefly, to Ikey. The lazy Irish loafer! My own rooms just above Rosys. Ill just go up there myself after supper and load the shot-gun and wait. If he comes in my back yard hell go away in a ambulance instead of a bridal chaise.
With Rosy held in the clutches of Morpheus[123] for a many-hours deep slumber, and the bloodthirsty parent waiting, armed and forewarned, Ikey felt that his rival was close, indeed, upon discomfiture.
All night in the Blue Light Drug Store he waited at his duties for chance news of the tragedy, but none came.
At eight oclock in the morning the day clerk arrived and Ikey started hurriedly for Mrs. Riddles to learn the outcome. And, lo! as he stepped out of the store who but Chunk McGowan sprang from a passing street car and grasped his hand Chunk McGowan with a victors smile and flushed with joy.
Pulled it off, said Chunk with Elysium[124] in his grin. Rosy hit the fire-escape on time to a second, and we was under the wire at the Reverends at 9.30 ¼. Shes up at the flat she cooked eggs this mornin in a blue kimono Lord! how lucky I am! You must pace up some day, Ikey, and feed with us. Ive got a job down near the bridge, and thats where Im heading for now.
The the powder? stammered Ikey.
Oh, that stuff you gave me! said Chunk, broadening his grin; well, it was this way. I sat down at the supper table last night at Riddles, and I looked at Rosy, and I says to myself, Chunk, if you get the girl get her on the square dont try any hocus-pocus with a thoroughbred like her. And I keeps the paper you give me in my pocket. And then my lamps fall on another party present, who, I says to myself, is failin in a proper affection toward his comin son-in-law, so I watches my chance and dumps that powder in old man Riddles coffee see?
Mammon[125] and the Archer
Old Anthony Rockwall, retired manufacturer and proprietor of Rockwalls Eureka Soap, looked out the library window of his Fifth Avenue mansion and grinned. His neighbour to the right the aristocratic clubman, G. Van Schuylight Suffolk-Jones came out to his waiting motor-car, wrinkling a contumelious nostril, as usual, at the Italian renaissance sculpture of the soap palaces front elevation.
Stuck-up old statuette of nothing doing! commented the ex-Soap King. The Eden Museell get that old frozen Nesselrode yet if he dont watch out. Ill have this house painted red, white, and blue next summer and see if thatll make his Dutch nose turn up any higher.
And then Anthony Rockwall, who never cared for bells, went to the door of his library and shouted Mike! in the same voice that had once chipped off pieces of the welkin on the Kansas prairies.
Tell my son, said Anthony to the answering menial, to come in here before he leaves the house.
When young Rockwall entered the library the old man laid aside his newspaper, looked at him with a kindly grimness on his big, smooth, ruddy countenance, rumpled his mop of white hair with one hand and rattled the keys in his pocket with the other.
Richard, said Anthony Rockwall, what do you pay for the soap that you use?
Richard, only six months home from college, was startled a little. He had not yet taken the measure of this sire of his, who was as full of unexpectednesses as a girl at her first party.
Six dollars a dozen, I think, dad.
And your clothes?
I suppose about sixty dollars, as a rule.
Youre a gentleman, said Anthony, decidedly. Ive heard of these young bloods spending $24 a dozen for soap, and going over the hundred mark for clothes. Youve got as much money to waste as any of em, and yet you stick to whats decent and moderate. Now I use the old Eureka[126] not only for sentiment, but its the purest soap made. Whenever you pay more than 10 cents a cake for soap you buy bad perfumes and labels. But 50 cents is doing very well for a young man in your generation, position and condition. As I said, youre a gentleman. They say it takes three generations to make one. Theyre off. Moneyll do it as slick as soap grease. Its made you one. By hokey! its almost made one of me. Im nearly as impolite and disagreeable and ill-mannered as these two old Knickerbocker gents on each side of me that cant sleep of nights because I bought in between em.
There are some things that money cant accomplish, remarked young Rockwall, rather gloomily.
Now, dont say that, said old Anthony, shocked. I bet my money on money every time. Ive been through the encyclopaedia down to Y looking for something you cant buy with it; and I expect to have to take up the appendix next week. Im for money against the field. Tell me something money wont buy.
For one thing, answered Richard, rankling a little, it wont buy one into the exclusive circles of society.
Oho! wont it? thundered the champion of the root of evil. You tell me where your exclusive circles would be if the first Astor hadnt had the money to pay for his steerage passage over?
Richard sighed.
And thats what I was coming to, said the old man, less boisterously. Thats why I asked you to come in. Theres something going wrong with you, boy. Ive been noticing it for two weeks. Out with it. I guess I could lay my hands on eleven millions within twenty-four hours, besides the real estate. If its your liver, theres the Rambler[127] down in the bay, coaled, and ready to steam down to the Bahamas[128] in two days.