Kitabı oku: «Bound to Succeed: or, Mail Order Frank's Chances», sayfa 7

CHAPTER XVII
A NEST EGG

“Quick, grab the pole!” shouted Frank.

As he spoke he thrust a long scantling down into the cistern.

“Reach for my hand – grab it. You’ll be drowned,” continued Frank.

“Don’t bother – I’m all safe,” came up Markham’s hollow tones. “There’s only about three feet of water here.”

“How did you ever come to slip in?” asked Frank.

“Say,” spoke Markham, not replying to the direct inquiry, “while I’m in here I may as well see if everything is sound and straight with the cistern.”

Frank saw him flare a match. Some curious thoughts were running through Frank’s mind as to the strange actions of his companion and helper.

Before he could analyze them, however, Frank saw Bob Haven turn in at the gate. He had a package under his arm. Bob stood still for a moment to gaze after the person who had just preceded him.

This latter was a young man, dressed loudly in brand new clothes, waving a slender cane with a dandified air, his whole bearing suggesting a person trying to look important and attract attention. This was the fellow the sight of whom had apparently induced Markham to plunge out of sight into the cistern.

Bob Haven stared hard after the receding figure of the stranger.

“Well, well!” he was saying as he approached Frank.

“What’s the matter, Bob?” inquired Frank.

“Did you see that fellow just passed by?”

“Yes, do you know him?”

“I did once – thoroughly. Heard he was in town. The nerve, now!”

“Who is he?”

“He’s bad all through. Name is Dale Wacker. When Bart Stirling first took his father’s place as express agent here, that fellow’s uncle plotted to down him. Worse than that, he stole a lot of stuff from the express people. The police were after him. Dale, his nephew, was mixed up in it, and had to leave town. Heard he was in jail somewhere for some new exploits. Came back yesterday, I learned. Seemed to have plenty of money and tried to cut a figure showing it. Says he’s a travelling man now, and earning untold wealth. Guess he’s on the way to the depot now, to find new victims to swindle where he isn’t so well known as he is here. I say, who’s in there, anyhow?”

As Bob spoke, Markham came climbing up the scantling out of the cistern. He was wet to the knees and looked troubled of face.

Frank noticed that he glanced anxiously in the direction of the street.

“Better go and get on dry clothes,” suggested Frank.

“Oh, this job won’t take us long to finish, now,” answered Markham.

“Well, I’ve got some printing to deliver,” said Bob. “Come over to the house after supper, fellows.”

“All right,” acquiesced Frank, but Markham said nothing. He acted subdued and worried until the cistern was finished. He stuck closely to the house after the work was done, and made some excuse for not going over to visit Bob and Darry after supper.

Frank was slightly disturbed at these actions – secretly he feared that a sight of the fellow Bob had called Dale Wacker had caused Markham to get out of sight. Frank wished he knew why.

Frank found his mother and Markham both reading when he came home, about nine o’clock. He kept his eye on the latter as he remarked to his mother that Darry had read to him a little news item he had gathered in for the Herald late that afternoon.

It was about a fellow named Dale Wacker, Frank narrated. It seemed he was on his way to the railroad depot, when an old German peddler to whom he had owed money for over two years recognized and hailed him.

The peddler gave Wacker a great scoring and demanded his money. A crowd gathered, and Wacker started on his way at a fast walk. The peddler whipped up his horse to keep pace with him, whilst administering a continuous tongue-lashing.

The sorry nag did not keep up with the procession as Wacker broke into a run. Seizing a basket of eggs, the peddler jumped down from the wagon. He was a big, fat, unwieldly person, but he pursued the fugitive vigorously.

The crowd hooted and yelled as the German began to pelt the eggs after the fugitive. Two eggs struck Wacker in the middle of the back. One shied off his hat and broke on the back of his head. Bespattered and hatless, the fellow reached the depot just in time to grab the platform rail of the last car on a departing train.

“Oh, got out of town, did he?” asked Markham quite eagerly.

“Yes, it seems so – faster than he had calculated on,” responded Frank.

“Won’t be likely to come back again after that reception, eh?” said Markham.

“I should think not. He’ll be afraid of something worse.”

Markham brightened up. He acted like a different person at once. He laughed, told some funny stories, was his natural self once more, and Frank was very glad of it.

“Poor fellow,” he mused. “He’s got some harrowing secret on his mind, that’s sure, and he doesn’t want to meet certain people for some reason or other, and this Dale Wacker is one of them. Well, he’s been true blue to me, and I won’t worry him by asking about this mystery. It will come out some time, and if he’s in danger of trouble I’ll stick to him like a brother, for I know he hasn’t got a grain of real badness in his nature.”

With the morning all of Markham’s recent disquietude seemed to have entirely disappeared. When they got down to the office he kept a close watch until nine o’clock.

“Mail’s in, Frank,” he announced at last, putting on his cap.

“All right,” nodded Frank, keeping on with his writing.

“Fatal hour approaches. We shall soon know our doom,” continued Markham in a mock-alarm way.

He picked up a new canvas mail satchel marked “F. M. O. H.,” and started for the door.

“See here,” hailed Frank, “don’t you think you can about carry all of our first morning’s mail in some modest pocket?”

“Don’t care if I can. Big mail satchel makes a good business impression, see?” and Markham darted off, wondering if Frank’s heart was beating as fast as his own over the suspense attached to their first mail results.

Frank was indeed anxious, but he tried to go on with his writing. All the same his nerves were on keen edge and his hand was a trifle unsteady, as Markham returned from the post office and placed the satchel on the desk before him.

“Eight letters,” said Frank, drawing out the mail in the satchel. “That isn’t so bad. Well, let us see what our correspondents have to say.”

Frank cut open the end of the first missive, and Markham watched him like a ferret.

“No money in this one,” reported Frank, the enclosure in hand. “Well, well, listen to this now! ‘You are a frod. I bot an apple corer last munth, and it was no good. You out to be persecuted.’”

Frank was quite disappointed, and Markham gulped several times as each succeeding letter produced no money or stamps. Two people asked for a catalogue. One correspondent wanted a “Twelve Tools in One” sent to him, and if found satisfactory would remit forthwith.

Another correspondent sent an order for a ring, and wanted it “charged.” Then there was a man who asked if they could furnish him with a cheap second-hand thrasher for his farm.

One client wrote that if they would send him samples of their entire list, he would show the goods in his town and possibly get them lots of customers.

“Ah,” said Frank, feeling of the last letter, “here is something tangible, sure, Markham. I can feel the coin.”

“Maybe it’s a cent,” suggested Markham, with a slight tinge of sarcasm.

“No, a ten-cent piece, sure enough,” declared Frank. “For your puzzle, Markham, too.”

“Yes,” put in Markham, picking up the coin that Frank had placed on his desk, “but the dime is – lead!”

Frank pulled a dismal face. Markham looked actually mad. Then their glances met. They broke into a hearty laugh mutually.

“Humph!” commented Markham.

“Amusing, isn’t it?” asked Frank, trying hard to keep up his courage.

“Oh, well, there’s the afternoon mail,” suggested Markham, getting up and beginning to fold some more circulars. “Who expected any mail of consequence this morning, anyhow?”

Frank resumed his task of working on the catalogue. He whistled a cheery bar or two, felt too serious to keep it up, and went on with his work in a half-hearted way.

“This Frank’s Mail Order House?” demanded a brisk voice, half an hour later.

“Don’t you know it is?” challenged Frank, arising to welcome Ned Davis, a bright young fellow, who was the messenger of the local bank.

“All right,” chirped Ned. “Got a letter this morning from a correspondent at Bayview. Enclosure. Man running a small store there asks us if Frank’s Mail Order House is a reliable concern. If so, instructs us to place this order with you.”

Ned importantly spread out quite a voluminous order list before Frank.

“Accompanied with the cash,” added Ned, and set down a crisp, encouraging-looking five-dollar bill beside the document.

“Oh!” ejaculated Markham, almost falling off his chair with surprise.

“Ned,” said Frank, with a touch of genuine feeling, “thank you.”

“That’s all right,” responded Ned. “We’re simply working to get your bank account when it runs up into the thousands, see?”

“Will it ever, I wonder?” murmured Frank.

“Isn’t that a nest egg?” challenged the practical young financier.

CHAPTER XVIII
A SUSPICIOUS VISITOR

Frank looked up from his work with an eager flush on his face. Markham, who had gone to the post office, was returning. His light, springy step coming up the walk, and cheery, ringing whistle told Frank that he was the bearer of good news.

“Afternoon mail,” sang out Markham, putting the satchel down on Frank’s desk. “And she’s a cracker-jack!”

“Good,” said Frank.

“Over thirty letters,” continued Markham gaily. “Stamps in some, coin in others. My finger tips just itched to feel those letters, Frank. I just had to do it. Oh, if this suspense keeps up I’ll be rifling the mails next.”

Frank slitted all the letters in turn. Four postal cards asking for catalogues were promptly disposed of. The first of the letters was from a country newspaper offering reduced terms for advertising.

There was an application for an agency. No. 3 wanted to be hired in the office – could count money and put on postage stamps fast.

Frank was not given to being very demonstrative on any occasion. As, however, he now began to stare at the next letter he opened and almost uttered a shout, Markham knew that something very much out of the ordinary had come up.

“What is it, Frank?” he questioned eagerly.

“Markham,” said Frank, quite unnerved with excitement, “it’s a big, big order.”

“How big?” demanded Markham. “Quick, I’m on the edge of nervous prostration.”

“Fifty to one hundred dollars,” announced Frank, in quite a husky voice. “A few more of such orders and we’ll know where we stand. It’s from the owner of a general store at Decatur. He writes that he has purchased from an advertising agency fifty-two picture rebuses – easy ones – one for each week in the year. Accompanying them are fifty-two separate advertisements. These he intends to insert in his weekly paper. He wants to offer each week ten prizes for the ten persons who first appear at his store with correct solutions of the rebuses.”

“I see,” nodded Markham – “good idea.”

“He wants us to designate fifty-two novelties that we can supply, about half and half ten-and-twenty-cent articles. He will take ten of each article, or five hundred and twenty in all. Think of it, Markham!”

“It’s grand, yes, just grand!” declared Markham, in a tone of suppressed excitement.

“He says he will trust to our judgment to select the most catchy novelties, only he expects us to give him special figures on the lot.”

“Of course you’ll do it, Frank?”

“Yes, and make a neat profit, too. Well, this is encouraging.”

“Yes, Frank, that one order will cover the cost of all the circularizing we have done to date. Hello! hello! hello!”

In three different crescendo tones Markham tallied off three letters which Frank opened next in turn, and in each instance with cash results – two silver dimes and thirty cents in postage stamps.

When the entire mail was opened, Frank had a little heap at his elbow representing six dollars and eighty cents, three dollars of which was to pay for two rings.

“Seven orders for your puzzle, Markham,” announced Frank, “besides what goes in the big order. Only one apple corer ordered. I’m afraid my prized invention is a frost.”

“Not at all,” dissented Markham. “Look here, it’s plain from the letter you got this morning that the Riverton hardware man had already used at least some of the names in the mail order lists. If I were you, Frank, in any new printed matter you get out I would refer to your apple corer as a decided improvement on the old one. I think, even, I would illustrate these improvements.”

“An excellent idea, Markham,” declared Frank. “Further, I don’t know but it would be a good thing to offer one of the new corers, free on return of an old one, charging only the postage.”

“Oh, we’re learning,” declared Markham, buoyantly. “This thing is a decided go.”

Frank was immersed in business during the rest of that week. Markham proved an energetic and reliable assistant. There were circulars to send out, orders to fill, letters to write.

Saturday night they had to work till eleven o’clock to clean up their desks. Frank was rushing the catalogue copy. Mrs. Haven was busy making new drawings, which had to be sent to the city to be photo-engraved. Orders, too, were sent daily to the city supply houses.

Up at the novelty factory they were filling Frank’s first big order for a thousand of the wire puzzles and a thousand of the new apple corers.

This latter device was really a very meritorious article. Retaining the form and dimensions of the original sheath, Frank had set inside two moving pieces of tin that acted as knives. These ran into a spiral tube which penetrated the apple without injuring it, and a twist on a knob cut the core out clean as a whistle.

Monday morning’s mail was the largest yet received, due, Frank believed, to some little advertising Haven Bros. had caused to be inserted in a few neighboring country newspapers.

His little capital was now again nearly at the two hundred dollar mark. About noon Frank made up a package of about two hundred dollars. He had arranged to pay this amount to Haven Bros., draw against it if he ran short of funds, otherwise leave it in their hands to pay for the catalogue, which would be quite an expensive job.

Markham had gone to the post-office with some mail. Frank looked up as a footstep sounded on the walk outside of the office door.

It was not Markham, as Frank at first expected. Instead, a person he regarded in a decidedly unfavorable light came into view.

The visitor was Dale Wacker, the boy Bob Haven had designated to Frank the day that Markham made his sensational dive into the cistern.

He was not dressed as jauntily as on that occasion. His appearance was shabby and unkempt now. He slouched up to the door with a sneak-thief air, yet withal the brass and effrontery of a person possessed of few fine sensibilities.

“Say,” spoke Wacker to Frank, “you run this shop?”

“I’m interested in this business, yes,” answered Frank distantly.

“Pretty good graft? Looking for some such fake myself. What I wanted to know, though, was about one of your samples in the show case out there.”

“Well?” demanded Frank.

“That wire puzzle.”

“What about it?”

“Where did you run across it?”

Frank did not like the speech nor manner of his visitor.

“Is that particularly any of your business?” he asked.

“Why, you see, just curious about it, that’s all,” stammered Wacker, somewhat taken aback at Frank’s sharp challenge. “Do you own it?”

Frank’s eye flashed with manifest resentment at Wacker’s cool effrontery.

“See here,” he said pretty firmly, “I have no time to waste answering idle and impertinent questions,” and turned away from the door.

“Well, I’d seen it before, that’s all,” muttered Wacker.

“Oh, I fancy not,” said Frank.

“Oh, yes, I did. Huh! guess I did – I was with the fellow who first made it when he got it up.”

Frank was surprised. He must have shown it to the keen-eyed fellow quizzing him, for Wacker exclaimed:

“Aha – interested now, hain’t you? Tell you something more: the owner made me a duplicate of his original puzzle, and – there it is.”

And to Frank’s amazement Mr. Dale Wacker pulled from his pocket a crude copy of the wire puzzle.

It was the exact counterpart of the one Markham had furnished as a model for those now being sold broadcast by Frank’s Mail Order House.

CHAPTER IX
MISSING

Frank was a good deal upset. In the light of the cistern episode and the knowledge that Markham seemed afraid to meet certain people, he believed that the advent of his present visitor boded no good for his friend and helper.

As Dale Wacker showed the wire puzzle, stating that he knew its inventor, Frank felt that he was in the presence of a mystery.

“Let me look at that, will you?” he said.

“Sure,” grinned Wacker. “Why not? Take a good look, too. Seems familiar? Quite the right thing, eh?”

“What do you mean?” demanded Frank.

“Why, just this,” retorted Wacker: “How do you come to be selling an article that no one has a right to sell except my friend who made it? I happen to know he invented that puzzle. I was with him when he did.”

“When was that?” asked Frank.

“Oh, about six months ago.”

“And where?”

“Now you’re asking questions, hey?” said Wacker, with a cunning air. “You tell me first: do you know the fellow who made that puzzle?”

“What’s his name?” asked Frank.

“Dick Welmore.”

“Never heard of him.”

“Aha!” cried Dale Wacker triumphantly, “then I’ve got you. I say, young fellow, you’re violating the law, you are. See here, I’m hard up. I know where Dick Welmore is snug and tight. If you don’t make it worth my while, I’ll go to him and have you prosecuted for stealing his invention.”

“Get out of here,” cried Frank, with flashing eyes.

“Hold on, now. Say, give me a job, and I’ll keep mum. Say, I can write a good hand. Once I took stock, see – ”

“Yes, I reckon you’ve taken stock to your cost, if what I hear is true. March out, and it won’t be healthy for you to come around here again.”

“I can make you trouble.”

“Try it.”

Frank gave Wacker a decided push through the open doorway. Wacker was muttering under his breath all kinds of dire threats.

At exactly that moment Frank looked along the walk to the street at the echo of a cherry whistle. It was instantly checked. Markham, tripping towards the office, halted with a shock. Like a flash he turned at a sight of Wacker. He disappeared so quickly that Frank wondered if Wacker got a clear look at him.

The latter, with a malignant growl at Frank, went away without another word. In some perplexity Frank sat down at his desk, thinking hard and fast.

“I just couldn’t truckle with that fellow,” he said. “Dick Welmore, eh? Can that be Markham’s real name? Evidently, though, this Wacker doesn’t know Markham is here. He thinks he is somewhere else, ‘snug and tight.’ Oh, bother! there’s only one right course to take in such a case, and I’ll follow it.”

Frank decided that at quitting time he would lock himself and Markham into the office, and ask for an explanation of his fear and dread of meeting Dale Wacker.

“It won’t be to Markham’s discredit, I’ll guarantee,” reflected Frank. “He’s square, if there ever was a square boy. Here he is now.”

Markham appeared, breathing hard and looking excited. He tried, however, to appear calm. His face was quite pale. Frank saw that he was under an intense nervous strain.

“Oh, Markham,” said Frank, not indicating that he noticed his friend’s perturbation, “I want you to take that money to Darry Haven.”

“All right,” answered Markham, glancing over his shoulder towards the street.

“Be careful of it, won’t you now?” directed Frank, with a little laugh. “Remember, it’s our entire capital, and here’s the mailing lists. Tell Darry to get them set up and printed just as quick as he can. We need them at once.”

Frank had decided to have the mailing list names printed, each on a separate line with a broad margin. This he did so they could keep a permanent record of the result of using each name. Besides that, in the fire at Riverton the lists had got charred, and some of them were brittle and broken away, and some pages hard to decipher.

Markham clasped the wallet containing the money tightly in one hand, thrust it into his outside coat pocket, and tucked the rolled-up lists under his arm.

“Be back soon,” he said.

“All right, do so. Want to have a little talk with you.”

Markham looked up quickly, hesitated, gave a sigh, and started rapidly down the walk.

“I’ll have it over and done with, soon as he comes back,” reflected Frank. “Poor fellow. Something’s on his mind. I’m going to help him get rid of it.”

Frank resumed his task. He was soon engrossed in finishing up a page of writing.

“Good,” he said finally, with satisfaction, “the last copy for the catalogue. It will make twenty-four printed pages. The cuts I have had made and the cuts the supply houses have loaned me make a very fine showing. Well, the first two weeks show up pretty good. Business started, and paying expenses. Why, that’s queer,” exclaimed Frank with a start, as he chanced to glance at the clock – “Markham has been gone a full half-hour.”

It was queer. Markham had less than three squares to go on his errand. Usually he made the trip to Haven Bros. in five minutes.

Frank walked to the door and looked out. He stood there, growing restless and anxious, as ten minutes went by. Then he grew restless, put on his cap, waited five minutes longer, and, closing the office door, went out to the street.

“Pshaw,” he said, looking up and down the street, “what am I worrying about? Got that Dale Wacker on my mind, and it has upset me. Markham is probably chatting with Bob Haven. Well, I’ve gone so far, I’ll step over to the printing office and see.”

Frank walked rapidly to the principal street, and up the flight of stairs in a business block to Haven Bros.’s office.

As he entered he noticed all hands busy at cases and presses. Bob, shirt sleeves rolled up, was working on some chases on an imposing stone. Darry was reading proof at his desk.

But there was no Markham. Frank experienced a sensation of dread for which he could not account. He tried to keep cool, but the first word he spoke as he approached Darry made the latter look up quickly.

“Got the money I sent you, Darry?” asked Frank.

“Why, no – did you send it?”

“Yes – over half-an-hour ago.”

“Who by?”

“Markham.”

“Oh, then, he’s doing some other errand first,” said Darry. “Sit down, if you’re going to wait for him.”

“No, I’ll watch them doing things,” answered Frank, with an assumed lightness of tone.

He strolled about the neat little office, pretending to be interested. It was a dead failure. A lump of lead seemed bearing him down. Frank glanced at his watch. An hour had passed since he had sent Markham on his errand.

“Be back soon, Darry,” he said, and went out of the printing office with a dull, sick feeling at heart.

Frank returned to his office. Markham was not there. He went back to the print shop.

“Markham been here yet?” he inquired in a failing voice to Darry.

“Not yet, Frank.”

“Then something’s wrong,” suddenly burst out Frank, unable longer to endure the strain of suspense and dread.

“Why, how pale you are,” began Darry, rising from his chair.

“Yes, Darry,” said Frank in a quivering tone – “Markham is missing, and with him my mailing lists and over two hundred dollars in cash.”