The Argosy, Vol. 81, No. 4 — page 25: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

FOUR SPEEDS FOR FOREST HILL. he heard his name shouted from the curb. As he turned to look he saw leaping toward him the Rollerton Company’s ex-clerk of shipping, who had evidently made much better time by train than Orton had accom- plished with his motor. “Your cars are here already,” the man cried cheerfully. “They came straight through and are on the sidings of the Lehigh Valley already. I was up at your shop to— tell you, but found you weren’t in, so just started for home. My folks live up this way.” “Here already?” Orton cried in delight. “Say, we’re lucky for once, eh? Did they get on at all up at the works?” : ““Hadn’t when I left,” the clerk assured him. “And Mr. Tibbers had gone home for the night. It was half-past three when I turned over the desk key to his stenographer and beat it for the train.” “Well, get in. We'll run right down there. Rollerton will probably swallow his joke when he finds out; but it won’t hurt to set those cars rolling toward their desti- nations beforehand. And you can help me. Guess the best plan will be to tow them to the garage with this machine. I'll be able oe Earle “Ym afraid I can’t do that,” the clerk objected. ‘I telephoned ahead that I’d be home at half-past six, and it’s after seven now.” “Oh, all right. I’ve a man at the garage anyhow. He’ll be waiting there for me. But let me have the way-bills, unless—” ‘“T mailed them.” ‘No matter,” Orton said. ‘They know me down there at the freight station.” “But, Mr. Orton’”—the ex-clerk now spoke in a hesitant tone that proclaimed what he would say before the words were out—‘If you could let me—”’ “Sure, come along down to the garage. I think I’ve got fifty in cash in the safe.” Orton invited readily enough. “Oh, Dll wait till to-morrow. You see there’s a fellow next door I owe seventy- five, and I thought, if you had it on you, I’d square him up before he got to hollering. I suppose you haven’t twenty-five more on you?”’ “No”—I gave you almost all I had, and a break-down on the way home took pretty near all the rest,’’ Orton explained apolo- getically. And then something about the man’s manner gave Hardy Orton the feeling that 591 the fellow wanted to ask him for the two or three dollars he still had upon him. The ex- clerk finally climbed down from the run- ning-board he had mounted for the parley, without saying more than that he would drop into the shop to-morrow for the bal- ance of his bribe. But he had succeeded in arousing in Hardy a vague, quite unintelligible suspi- cion that all was not well, that he might not have spoken the exact truth as to the pres- ence of the thirty Rollerton Sixes in the Lehigh Valley’s Newark yards. Orton de- termined to go right on out there before putting up his car. He did not have to do it. A block below he could see his place of business. A crowd was standing before it. A policeman stood in front of it, as if in anticipation of some possible trouble. As Orton reached the spot he saw that the lights had been turned on and that another crowd was inside. Orton’s approach was the signal for sev- eral persons who had grown familiar with the sight of his car to raise the cry, “‘ Here he is!” ‘““Ah-h-h!” came from twenty throats at once, a sound like the growl of a pack of hungry and angry dogs. Orton looked his amazement from one face to another. He recognized his guests as the men who yesterday had given him orders for cars. ‘Two others of the faces were familiar. They were the sallow, sol- emn visage of Mr. Joshua H. Tibbers and the rotund but no longer grinning one of B. K. Rollerton. From beside these two stepped one more whom Orton did not rec- ognize at all. He hurriedly presented Hardy with a folded piece of paper. “That, sir,” he pronounced very sol- emnly, “is a notice of an order temporarily enjoining you from doing any business un- der the name or as having official connec- tion with the Rollerton Motor Car Com- pany. And this—” He extended another paper so that Orton in his amazement could — not dodge the tagging of his person with it — “And this is a summons to appear im- mediately in the Sixth District Court of Essex County to show to that court whether the action against you should be civil or criminal. “T may add that this last matter will be determined largely by your willingness or unwillingness to turn over either to these officers of the company or to the original depositors here present the amounts they CORMICLOOOKS (E@)