VIII: _Mr. Braddy's Bottle_
Sec.1
"This," said Mr. William Lum solemnly, "is the very las' bottle of thisstuff in these United States!"
It was a dramatic moment. He held it aloft with the pride and tendercare of a recent parent exhibiting a first-born child. Mr. Hugh Braddyemitted a long, low whistle, expressive of the awe due the occasion.
"You don't tell me!" he said.
"Yes, siree! There ain't another bottle of this wonderful old hooch leftanywhere. Not anywhere. A man couldn't get one like it for love normoney. Not for love nor money." He paused to regard the bottle fondly."Nor anything else," he added suddenly.
Mr. Braddy beamed fatly. His moon face--like atwo-hundred-and-twenty-pound Kewpie's--wore a look of pride andresponsibility. It was his bottle.
"You don't tell me!" he said.
"Yes, siree. Must be all of thirty years old, if it's a day. Mebbeforty. Mebbe fifty. Why, that stuff is worth a dollar a sniff, if it'sworth a jit. And you not a drinking man! Wadda pity! Wadda pity!"
There was a shade of envy in Mr. Lum's tone, for Mr. Lum was, or hadbeen, a drinking man; yet Fate, ever perverse, had decreed that Mr.Braddy, teetotaler, should find the ancient bottle while poking about inthe cellar of his very modest new house--rented--in that part of LongIsland City where small, wooden cottages break out in clusters, here andthere, in a species of municipal measles.
Mr. Braddy, on finding the treasure, had immediately summoned Mr. Lumfrom his larger and more pretentious house near by, as one who would beable to appraise the find, and he and Mr. Lum now stood on the very spotin the cellar where, beneath a pile of old window blinds, the venerableliquor had been found. Mr. Braddy, it was plain, thought very highly ofMr. Lum's opinions, and that great man was good-naturedly tolerant ofthe more placid and adipose Mr. Braddy, who was known--behind hisback--in the rug department of the Great Store as "Ole Hippopotamus."Not that he would have resented it, had the veriest cash boy called himby this uncomplimentary but descriptive nickname to his face, for Mr.Braddy was the sort of person who never resents anything.
"Y'know, Mr. Lum," he remarked, crinkling his pink brow in philosophicthought, "sometimes I wish I had been a drinking man. I never minded ifa man took a drink. Not that I had any patience with these here boozefighters. No. Enough is enough, I always say. But if a fella wanted totake a drink, outside of business hours, of course, or go off on a spreeonce in a while--well, I never saw no harm in it. I often wished I coulddo it myself."
"Well, why the dooce didn't you?" inquired Mr. Lum.
"As a matter of solid fact, I was scared to. That's the truth. I wasalways scared I'd get pinched or fall down a manhole or something. Yousee, I never did have much nerve." This was an unusual burst ofconfidence on the part of Mr. Braddy, who, since he had moved into Mr.Lum's neighborhood a month before, had played a listening role in hisconferences with Mr. Lum, who was a thin, waspy man of forty-four, inambush behind a fierce pair of mustachios. Mr. Braddy, essence ofdiffidence that he was, had confined his remarks to "You don't tell me!"or, occasionally, "Ain't it the truth?" in the manner of a Greek chorus.
* * * * *
Now inspired, perhaps, by the discovery that he was the owner of apriceless bottle of spirits, he unbosomed himself to Mr. Lum. Mr. Lummade answer.
"Scared to drink? Scared of anything? Bosh! Tommyrot! Everybody's gotnerve. Only some don't use it," said Mr. Lum, who owned a book called"The Power House in Man's Mind," and who subscribed for, and quotedfrom, a pamphlet for successful men, called "I Can and I Will."
"Mebbe," said Mr. Braddy. "But the first and only time I took a drink Igot a bad scare. When I was a young feller, just starting in the rugs inthe Great Store, I went out with the gang one night, and, just to besmart, I orders beer. Them was the days when beer was a nickel for astein a foot tall. The minute I taste the stuff I feel uncomfortable. Idon't dare not drink it, for fear the gang would give me the laugh. So Iups and drinks it, every drop, although it tastes worse and worse. Well,sir, that beer made me sicker than a dog. I haven't tried any drinkstronger than malted milk since. And that was all of twenty years ago.It wasn't that I thought a little drinking a sin. I was just scared;that's all. Some of the other fellows in the rugs drank--till theypassed a law against it. Why, I once seen Charley Freedman sell a partya genuine, expensive Bergamo rug for two dollars and a half when he waspickled. But when he was sober there wasn't a better salesman in therugs."
Mr. Lum offered no comment; he was weighing the cob-webbed bottle in hishand, and holding it to the light in a vain attempt to peer through thegolden-brown fluid. Mr. Braddy went on:
"I guess I was born timid. I dunno. I wanted to join a lodge, but I wasscared of the 'nitiation. I wanted to move out to Jersey, but I didn't.Why, all by life I've wanted to take a Turkish bath; but somehow, everytime I got to the door of the place I got cold feet and backed out. Iwanted a raise, too, and by golly, between us, I believe they'd give itto me; but I keep putting off asking for it and putting off and puttingoff----"
"I was like that--once," put in Mr. Lum. "But it don't pay. I'd still beselling shoes in the Great Store--and looking at thousands of feet everyday and saying thousands of times, 'Yes, madam, this is a three-A, andvery smart, too,' when it is really a six-D and looks like hell on her.No wonder I took a drink or two in those days."
He set down the bottle and flared up with a sudden, fierce bristling ofhis mustaches.
"And now they have to come along and take a man's liquor away fromhim--drat 'em! What did our boys fight for? Liberty, I say. And then,after being mowed down in France, they come home to find the countrydry! It ain't fair, I say. Of course, don't think for a minute that Imind losing the licker. Not me. I always could take it or leave italone. But what I hate is having them say a man can't drink this and hecan't drink that. They'll be getting after our smokes, next. I read inthe paper last night a piece that asked something that's been on my minda long time: 'Whither are we drifting?'"
"I dunno," said Mr. Braddy.
"You'd think," went on Mr. Lum, not heeding, as a sense of oppressionand injustice surged through him, "that liquor harmed men. As if itharmed anybody but the drunkards! Liquor never hurt a successful man;no, siree. Look at me!"
Mr. Braddy looked. He had heard Mr. Lum make the speech that customarilyfollowed this remark a number of times, but it never failed to interesthim.
"Look at me!" said Mr. Lum, slapping his chest. "Buyer in the shoes inthe Great Store, and that ain't so worse, if I do say it myself. That'swhat nerve did. What if I did used to get a snootful now and then? I hadthe self-confidence, and that did the trick. When old man Briggscroaked, I heard that the big boss was looking around outside the storefor a man to take his place as buyer in the shoes. So I goes right tothe boss, and I says, 'Look here, Mr. Berger, I been in the shoeseighteen years, and I know shoes from A to Z, and back again. I can fillBriggs' shoes,' I says. And that gets him laughing, although I didn'tmean it that way, for I don't think humor has any place in business.
"'Well,' he says, 'you certainly got confidence in yourself. I'll seewhat you can do in Briggs' job. It will pay forty a week.' I knew oldBriggs was getting more than forty, and I could see that Berger neededme, so I spins on him and I laughs in his face. 'Forty popcorn balls!' Isays to him. 'Sixty is the least that job's worth, and you know it.'Well, to make a long story short, he comes through with sixty!"
This story never failed to fascinate Mr. Braddy, for two reasons. First,he liked to be taken into the confidence of a man who made so princely asalary; and, second, it reminded him of the tormenting idea that he wasworth more than the thirty dollars he found every Friday in hisenvelope, and it bolstered up his spirit. He felt that with theglittering example of Mr. Lum and the constant harassings by his wife,who had and expressed strong views on the subject, he would some dayconquer his qualms and demand the raise he felt to be due him.
"I wish I had your crust," he said to Mr. Lum in tones of
frankadmiration.
"You have," rejoined Mr. Lum. "I didn't know that I had, for a long,long time, and then it struck me one day, as I was trying anOxford-brogue style K6 on a dame, 'How did Schwab get where he is? Howdid Rockefeller? How did this here Vanderlip? Was it by being humble?Was it by setting still?' You bet your sweet boots it wasn't. I justbeen reading an article in 'I Can and I Will,' called 'Big Bugs--And HowThey Got That Way,' and it tells all about those fellows and how most ofthem wasn't nothing but newspaper reporters and puddlers--whatever thatis--until one day they said, 'I'm going to do something decisive!' Andthey did it. That's the idea. Do something decisive. That's what I did,and look at me! Braddy, why the devil don't you do something decisive?"
"What?" asked Mr. Braddy meekly.
"Anything. Take a plunge. Why, I bet you never took a chance in yourlife. You got good stuff in you, Braddy, too. There ain't a bettersalesman in the rugs. Why, only the other day I overheard Berger say,'That fellow Braddy knows more about rugs than the Mayor of Bagdadhimself. Too bad he hasn't more push in him.'"
"I guess mebbe he's right," said Mr. Braddy.
"Right? Of course, he's right about you being a crack salesman. Why, youcould sell corkscrews in Kansas," said Mr. Lum. "You got the stuff, allright. But the trouble is you can sell everything but yourself. Getbusy! Act! Do something! Make a decision! Take a step!"
Mr. Braddy said nothing. Little lines furrowed his vast brow; he halfclosed his small eyes; his round face took on an intent, scowling look.He was thinking. Silence filled the cellar. Then, with the air of a manwhose mind is made up, Hugh Braddy said a decisive and remarkable thing.
"Mr. Bill Lum," he said, "I'm going to get drunk!"
"What? You? Hugh Braddy? Drunk? My God!" The idea was too much even forthe mind of Mr. Lum.
"Yes," said Mr. Braddy, in a hollow voice, like Caesar's at the Rubicon,"I'm going to drink what's in that bottle this very night."
"Not all of it?" Mr. Lum, as an expert in such things, registereddismay.
"As much as is necessary," was the firm response. Mr. Lum brightenedconsiderably at this.
"Better let me help you. There's enough for both of us. Plenty," hesuggested.
"Are you sure?" asked Mr. Braddy anxiously.
"Sure," said Mr. Lum.
Sec.2
And he was right. There was more than enough. It was nine o'clock thatnight when the cellar door of Mr. Braddy's small house openedcautiously, and Mr. Braddy followed his stub nose into the moonlight.Mr. Lum, unsteady but gay, followed.
Mr. Braddy, whose customary pace was a slow, dignified waddle,immediately broke into a brisk trot.
"Doan' go so fas', Hoo," called Mr. Lum, for they had long since reachedthe first-name stage.
"Gotta get to city, N'Yawk, b'fore it's too late," explained Mr. Braddy,reining down to a walk.
"Too late for what, Hoo?" inquired Mr. Lum.
"I dunno," said Mr. Braddy.
They made their way, by a series of skirmishes and flank movements, tothe subway station, and caught a train for Manhattan. Their action indoing this was purely automatic.
Once aboard, they began a duet, which they plucked out of the dim past:
"Oh, dem golden slippers! Oh, dem golden slippers!"
This, unfortunately, was all they could remember of it, but it wasenough to supply them with a theme and variations that lasted until theyarrived in the catacombs far below the Grand Central Station. There theywere shooed out by a vigilant subway guard.
They proceeded along the brightly lighted streets. Mr. Braddy's step wasthat of a man walking a tight-rope. Mr. Lum's method of progression wasa series of short spurts. Between the Grand Central and Times Squarethey passed some one thousand eight hundred and twenty-nine persons, ofwhom one thousand eight hundred and twenty-nine remarked, "Where didthey get it?"
On Broadway they saw a crowd gathered in front of a building.
"Fight," said Mr. Braddy hopefully.
"'Naccident," thought Mr. Lum. At least a hundred men and women wereindustriously elbowing each other and craning necks in the hope ofseeing the center of attraction. Mr. Braddy, ordinarily the most timidof innocent bystanders, was now a lion in point of courage.
"Gangway," he called. "We're 'tectives," he added bellicosely to thosewho protested, as he and Mr. Lum shoved and lunged their way through therapidly growing crowd. The thing which had caused so many people tostop, to crane necks, to push, was a small newsboy who had dropped adime down through an iron grating and who was fishing for it with apiece of chewing gum tied on the end of a string.
They spent twenty minutes giving advice and suggestions to the fisher,such as:
"A leetle to the left, now. Naw, naw. To the right. Now you got it.Shucks! You missed it. Try again." At length they were rewarded byseeing the boy retrieve the dime, just before the crowd had grown tosuch proportions that it blocked the traffic.
The two adventurers continued on their way, pausing once to buy fourfrankfurters, which they ate noisily, one in each hand.
Suddenly the veteran drinker, Mr. Lum, was struck by a disquietingthought.
"Hoo, I gotta go home. My wife'll be back from the movies by eleven, andif I ain't home and in bed when she gets there, she'll skin me alive;that's what she'll do."
Mr. Braddy was struck by the application of this to his own case.
"Waddabout me, hey? Waddabout me, B'lum?" he asked plaintively."Angelica will just about kill me."
Mr. Lum, leaning against the Automat, darkly considered thiseventuality. At length he spoke.
"You go getta Turkish bath. Tell 'Gellica y' hadda stay in store allnight to take inventory. Turkish bath'll make you fresh as a daisy.Fresh as a li'l' daisy--fresh as a li'l' daisy----" Saying which Mr. Lumdisappeared into the eddying crowd and was gone. Mr. Braddy was alone inthe great city.
But he was not dismayed. While disposing of the ancient liquor, he andMr. Lum had discussed philosophies of life, and Mr. Braddy had decidedthat his was, "A man can do what he is a-mind to." And Mr. Braddy wasvery much a-mind to take a Turkish bath. To him it represented the laststroke that cut the shackles of timidity. "I can and I will," he said abit thickly, in imitation of Mr. Lum's heroes.
Sec.3
There was a line of men, mostly paunchy, waiting to be assigned dressingrooms when Mr. Braddy entered the Turkish bath, egged sternly on by hisnew philosophy. He did not shuffle meekly into the lowest place and waitthe fulfillment of the biblical promise that some one would say,"Friend, go up higher." Not he. "I can and I will," he remarked to theman at the end of the line, and, forthwith, with a majestic, if rolling,gait, advanced to the window where a rabbit of a man, with nose glasseschained to his head, was sleepily dealing out keys and taking invaluables. The other men in line were too surprised to protest. Mr.Braddy took off his huge derby hat and rapped briskly on the counter.
"Service, here. Li'l' service!"
The Rabbit with the nose glasses blinked mildly.
"Wotja want?" he inquired.
"Want t' be made fresh as a li'l' daisy," said Mr. Braddy.
"Awright," said the Rabbit, yawning. "Here's a key for locker numberthirty-six. Got any valuables? One dollar, please."
Mr. Braddy, after some fumbling, produced the dollar, a dog-earedwallet, a tin watch, a patent cigar cutter, a pocket piece from a pickleexhibit at the World's Fair in Chicago, and some cigar coupons.
The Rabbit handed him a large key on a rubber band.
"Put it on your ankle. Next," he yawned.
And then Mr. Braddy stepped through the white door that, to him, ledinto the land of adventure and achievement.
He found himself in a brightly lighted corridor pervaded by an aroma notunlike the sort a Chinese hand laundry has. There were rows of little,white doors, with numbers painted on them. Mr. Braddy began at once asearch for his own dressing room, No. 36; but after investigating themain street and numerous side alleys, in a somewhat confused butresolute frame of mind, he discovered that he was lost
in a rabbitwarren of white woodwork. He found Nos. 96, 66, 46, and 6, but he couldnot find No. 36. He tried entering one of the booths at random, but wasgreeted with a not-too-cordial, "Hey, bo; wrong stall. Back out!" froman ample gentleman made up as grandpa in the advertisements of Non-Skidunderwear. He tried bawling, "Service, li'l' service," and rapping onthe woodwork with his derby, but nothing happened, so he replaced hishat on his head and resumed his search. He came to a door with no numberon it, pushed it open, and stepped boldly into the next room.
Pat, pat, pat, pat, pat, pat, pat, pat, pat, pat--it was the shower bathon Mr. Braddy's hat.
"'Srainin'," he remarked affably.
An attendant, clad in short, white running pants, spied him and camebounding through the spray.
"Hey, mister, why don't you take your clothes off?"
"Can't find it," replied Mr. Braddy.
"Can't find what?" the attendant demanded.
"Thirry-sizz."
"Thirry sizz?"
"Yep, thirry-sizz."
"Aw, he means room number thoity-six," said a voice from under one ofthe showers.
The attendant conducted Mr. Braddy up and down the white rabbit warren,across an avenue, through a lane, and paused at last before No. 36. Mr.Braddy went in, and the attendant followed.
"Undress you, mister?"
The Mr. Braddy of yesterday would have been too weak-willed to protest,but the new Mr. Braddy was the master of his fate, the captain of hissoul, and he replied with some heat:
"Say, wadda you take me for? Can undress m'self." He did so, mutteringthe while: "Undress me? Wadda they take me for? Wadda they take me for?"
Then he strode, a bit uncertainly, out into the corridor, pink,enormous, his key dangling from his ankle like a ball and chain. The manin the white running pants piloted Mr. Braddy into the hot room. Mr.Braddy was delighted, intrigued by it. On steamer chairs reclined otherlarge men, stripped to their diamond rings, which glittered faintly inthe dim-lit room. They made guttural noises, as little rivulets glideddown the salmon-pink mounds of flesh, and every now and then they drankwater from large tin cups. Mr. Braddy seated himself in the hot room,and tried to read a very damp copy of an evening paper, which he decidedwas in a foreign language, until he discovered he was holding it upsidedown.
An attendant approached and offered him a cup of water. The temptationwas to do the easy thing--to take the proffered cup; but Mr. Braddydidn't want a drink of anything just then, so he waved it away,remarking lightly, "Never drink water," and was rewarded by a battery ofbass titters from the pink mountains about him, who, it developed fromtheir conversation, were all very important persons, indeed, in theworld of finance. But in time Mr. Braddy began to feel unhappy. The heatwas making him ooze slowly away. Hell, he thought, must be like this. Hemust act. He stood up.
"I doan like this," he bellowed. An attendant came in response to theroar.
"What, you still in the hot room? Say, mister, it's a wonder you ain'tbeen melted to a puddle of gravy. Here, come with me. I'll send youthrough the steam room to Gawge, and Gawge will give you a good rub."
He led Mr. Braddy to the door of the steam room, full of dense, whitesteam.
"Hey, Gawge," he shouted.
"Hello, Al, wotja want?" came a voice faintly from the room beyond thesteam room.
"Oh, Gawge, catch thoity-six when he comes through," shouted Al.
He gave Mr. Braddy a little push and closed the door. Mr. Braddy foundhimself surrounded by steam which seemed to be boiling and scalding hisvery soul. He attempted to cry "Help," and got a mouthful of rich steamthat made him splutter. He started to make a dash in the direction ofGawge's door, and ran full tilt into another mountain of avoirdupois,which cried indignantly, "Hey, watch where you're going, will you? Youain't back at dear old Yale, playing football." Mr. Braddy had a touchof panic. This was serious. To be lost in a labyrinth of dressing roomswas distressing enough, but here he was slowly but certainly beingsteamed to death, with Gawge and safety waiting for him but a few feetaway. An idea! Firemen, trapped in burning buildings, he had read in thenewspapers, always crawl on their hands and knees, because the lower airis purer. Laboriously he lowered himself to his hands and knees, and,like a flabby pink bear, with all sense of direction gone, he startedthrough the steam.
"Hey!"
"Lay off me, guy!"
"Ouch, me ankle!"
"Wot's the big idea? This ain't no circus."
"Leggo me shin."
"Ouf!"
The "ouf" came from Mr. Braddy, who had been soundly kicked in themid-riff by an angry dweller in the steam room, whose ankle he hadgrabbed as he careered madly but futilely around the room. Then,success! The door! He opened it.
"Where's Gawge?" he demanded faintly.
"Well, I'll be damned! It's thoity-six back again!"
It was Al's voice; not Gawge. Mr. Braddy had come back to the same doorhe started from!
He was unceremoniously thrust by Al back into the steaming hell fromwhich he had just escaped, and once more Al shouted across, "Hey, Gawge,catch thoity-six when he comes through."
Mr. Braddy, on his hands and knees, steered as straight a course as hecould for the door that opened to Gawge and fresh air, but thebewildering steam once again closed round him, and he butted the tumidcalves of one of the Moes and was roundly cursed. Veering to the left,he bumped into the legs of another Moe so hard that this Moe went downas if he had been submarined, a tangle of plump legs, arms, andprofanity. Mr. Braddy, in the confusion, reached the door and pushed itopen.
"Holy jumpin' mackerel! Thoity-six again! Say, you ain't supposed tocome back here. You're supposed to keep going straight across the steamroom to Gawge." It was Al, enraged.
Once more Mr. Braddy was launched into the steam room. How many times hetried to traverse it--bear fashion--he never could remember, but it musthave been at least six times that he reappeared at the long-sufferingAl's door, and was returned, too steamed, now, to protest. Mr. Braddy'snew-found persistence was not to be denied, however, and ultimately hereached the right door, to find waiting for him a large, genial soul whowas none other than Gawge, and who asked, with untimely facetiousness,Mr. Braddy thought:
"Didja enjoy the trip?"
Gawge placed Mr. Braddy on a marble slab and scrubbed him with a largeand very rough brush, which made Mr. Braddy scream with laughter,particularly when the rough bristles titillated the soles of his feet.
"Wot's the joke?" inquired Gawge.
"You ticker me," gasped Mr. Braddy.
He was rather enjoying himself now. It made him feel important to haveso much attention. But he groaned and gurgled a little when Gawgeattacked him with cupped hands and beat a tattoo up and down his spineand all over his palpitating body. Wop, wop, wop, wop, wop, wop, wop,wop wop went Gawge's hands.
Then he rolled Mr. Braddy from the slab, like jelly from a mold. Mr.Braddy jelled properly and was stood in a corner.
"All over?" he asked. Zizzzzzz! A stream of icy water struck him betweenhis shoulder blades.
"Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow!" he cried. The stream, as if in response to hisoutcries, immediately became boiling hot. First one, then the otherplayed on him. Then they stopped. An attendant appeared and dried Mr.Braddy vigorously with a great, shaggy towel, and then led him to adormitory, where, on white cots, rows of Moes puffed and wheezed andsnored and dreamed dreams of great profits.
Mr. Braddy tumbled happily into his cot, boiled but triumphant. He hadtaken a Turkish bath! The world was at his feet! He had made a decision!He had acted on it! He had met the demon Timidity in fair fight anddowned him. He had been drunk, indubitably drunk, for the first andlast time. He assured himself that he never wanted to taste the stuffagain. But he couldn't help but feel that his one jamboree had made anew man of him, opening new lands of adventure, showing him that "hecould if he would." As he buried his head in the pillow, he rehearsedthe speech he would make to Mr. Berger, the manager, in the morning.Should he begin, "Mr. Berger, if you think I
'm worth it, will you pleaseraise my pay five dollars a week?" No, by Heaven, a thousand noes! Hewas worth it, and he would say so. Should he begin, "See here, Mr.Berger, the time has come for you to raise my salary ten dollars?" No,he'd better ask for twenty dollars while he was about it, and compromiseon ten dollars as a favor to his employers. But then, again, why stop attwenty dollars? His sales in the rugs warranted much more. "I can havethirty dollars, and I will," he said a number of times to the pillow.Carefully he rehearsed his speech: "Now, see here, Berger----" and thenhe was whirled away into a dream in which he saw a great hand take downthe big sign from the front of the Great Store, and put up in its placea still larger sign, reading:
BRADDY'S GREATER STORE Dry Goods and Turkish Baths Hugh Braddy, Sole Prop.
Sec.4
He woke feeling very strange, and not exactly as fresh as a daisy. Hefelt much more like a cauliflower cooled after boiling. His head buzzeda bit, with a sort of gay giddiness, but for all that he knew that hewas not the same Hugh Braddy that had been catapulted from bed by analarm clock in his Long Island City home the morning before.
"A man can do what he's a mind to," he said to himself in a slightlyhusky voice. His first move was to get breakfast. The old Hugh Braddywould have gone humbly to a one-armed beanery for one black coffee andone doughnut--price, one dime. The new Hugh Braddy considered thisbreakfast, and dismissed it as beneath a man of his importance. Instead,he went to the Mortimore Grill and had a substantial club breakfast. Hecalled up Angelica, his wife, and cut short her lecturewith--"Unavoidable, m'dear. Inventory at the store." His tone, somehow,made her hesitate to question him further. "It'll be all right aboutthat raise," he added grandly. "Have a good supper to-night. G'by."
He bought himself an eleven-cent cigar, instead of his accustomedsix-center, and, puffing it in calm defiance of a store rule, strodeinto the employees' entrance of the Great Store a little after nine.Without wavering, he marched straight to the office of Mr. Berger, wholooked up from his morning mail in surprise.
"Well, Mr. Braddy?"
Mr. Braddy blew a smoke ring, playfully stuck his finger through it, andsaid:
"Mr. Berger, I'm thinking of going with another concern. A fellow was into see me the other day, and he says to me, 'Braddy, you are the bestrug man in this town.' And he hinted that if I'd come over with hisconcern they'd double my salary. Now, I've been with the Great Storemore than twenty years, and I like the place, Mr. Berger, and I know theropes, so naturally I don't want to change. But, of course, I must gowhere the most money is. I owe that to Mrs. B. But I'm going to do thesquare thing. I'm going to give you a chance to meet the ante. Sixty'sthe figure."
He waved his cigar, signifying the utter inconsequence of whether Mr.Berger met the ante or not. Before the amazed manager could frame areply, Mr. Braddy continued:
"You needn't make up your mind right away, Mr. Berger. I don't have togive my final decision until to-night. You can think it over. I suggestyou look up my sales record for last year before you reach anydecision." And he was gone.
All that day Mr. Braddy did his best not to think of what he had done.Even the new Mr. Braddy--philosophy and all--could not entirely banishthe vision of Angelica if he had to break the news that he had issued anultimatum for twice his salary and had been escorted to the exit.
He threw himself into the work of selling rugs so vigorously that hisfellow salesmen whispered to each other, "What ails the OleHippopotamus?" He even got rid of a rug that had been in the departmentfor uncounted years--showing a dark-red lion browsing on a field of richpink roses--by pointing out to the woman who bought it that it wouldamuse the children.
At four o'clock a flip office boy tapped him on the shoulder and said,"Mr. Boiger wants to see you." Mr. Braddy, whose head felt as if a hiveof bees were establishing a home there, but whose philosophy stillburned clear and bright, let Mr. Berger wait a full ten minutes, andthen, with dignified tread that gave no hint of his inward qualms,entered the office of the manager.
It seemed an age before Mr. Berger spoke.
"I've been giving your proposition careful consideration, Mr. Braddy,"he said. "I have decided that we'd like to keep you in the rugs. We'llmeet that ante."
The Sin of Monsieur Pettipon, and other humorous tales Page 8