The Argosy, Vol. 84 No. 2 — page 108: what you’re looking at

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

290 ‘‘ Er—oh, yes. But, say—where’d you get the tip to sell? I’ve got a lot of this myself,” the cashier said. “Why, Mr. Wheelock—’”’ “Oh! That’s all right. Just a minute, Mr. Evans.” Bruce wondered at the brisk young man’s manner. One might have thought that the cashier realized some fault in the question he had just asked. He had dropped that line with peculiar haste. Bruce watched him figuring rapidly. “You want cash, I suppose?” he asked. 7 He seemed to take the answer for granted, and began counting out money before Bruce had made up his mind that a check would be a safer thing to carry. Then he gasped. The spruce young man had laid down two thousand-dollar bills, was adding a five-hundred-dollar bill, reaching for hundred-dollar bills. He put some tens and fives on the rest, then a quarter and a nickel and two cents. He scribbled some figures across a_ blank receipt, then he handed out the fortune with the blank and a pen! Twenty-eight hundred and seventy-five dollars and thirty-two cents! Was it a dream? Had the world gone crazy? Was Bruce losing his mind? He signed his name mechanically. “ Aren’t you going to take the money?” the cashier laughed. Bruce had started for the door without it. He managed a grin as he turned and got the wonderful little bundle of big bills. One of the two pennies dropped to the tiled floor. He bent down and fished it out from under a chair. Flushed of face, he hurried out to the street. All the way to the bank he was trying to figure what twelve hundred from twenty-eight hundred and _ seventy-five dollars and thirty-two cents would leave. Whatever it was, he would deposit it the moment he had settled with Mr. Whee- lock. He was going to have a bank account of his own. He was going to have THE ARGOSY. fifteen—sixteen hundred and—something. * He was going to draw checks with his name on the front of them. He could buy—Ellen’s chicken farm! A man stared at the strange sight of a fellow hurrying so fast and laughing aloud as he hurried. A chicken farm! It was to be thirty-two by a hundred feet! Bruce was still laughing when he got to ‘the bank. “Gee! Evans, what did you take while you were out?” one of the fellows asked as he brushed through toward Wheelock’s office. He was quite breathless. “You got back quick,’ Wheelock com- mented in a friendly tone. ‘‘ How did you make out?” “Tt was—fifty-eight and something— three-quarters. I—the cashier gave me twenty-eight hundred and_ seventy-five dollars and thirty-two cents. I—how much do I owe you, Mr. Wheelock?” He thought surely there would be a split of the profits to make. “Twelve hundred dollars,” Wheelock responded. “ I’ll let you buy me a nice, high-priced drink with the interest. Pretty good, wasn’t it?” ‘““But—but—you ought to have some of the profits,’ Bruce stammered. “That’s right. You can take me to lunch. I ought to say at the Waldorf. But we'll let you off with Pabst’s. On the way we'll stop in at the Twentieth National and deposit it.” ‘Why, I was going to deposit it right here,” Bruce objected. It had occurred to him that it would not be unpleasant to have the others know of his substan- tially well fixed condition. ‘“And have them set the detective on you to find out where you stole it?” Wheelock said with a chuckle. ‘“ Say, you are green in some things for a man who knows so much about others. Don’t you know that an employee in a bank never wants to show any sudden amount of wealth, unless he’s got an inheritance- tax receipt in his pocket? Don’t you know that you’ve been breaking the . bank’s rules? And don’t you know that Go TOO AUUG “eS (C@