Argosy, Vol. 117, No. 3 — page 65: what you’re looking at

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

AN OUTSTANDIN’ ACCOUNT. you’re talkin’ about no more than I do. You’re just tryin’ to repeat somethin’ Du- gan told you—and gettin’ it all jazzed up.” The boss looks sore. ‘“‘ Anyhow,” he say®, “we're supposed to collect this money.” “ There’s that we again. You mean / am supposed to collect this money; all you do is cop the profits.” “No,” says the boss, “ you get your cut. Mr. Dugan gives me ten percent, and I split it fifty-fifty with you.” “Fair enough. Gimme some cards.”’ “You ought to go about this systematic,” the boss informs me, pullin’ the cards away. “You ought to lay out a route, and—” “Feinstein & Reilly prob’ly went about it systematic, and look where they reached up. Gimme them cards, and let’s go.” “Suit yourself,” grunts the boss, knowin’ I’'d®do it anyhow. He gives me the cards, and I look over them quick. They made what a smarter guy than me would call an int’restin’ study. T’ll tell the world I wouldn’t be workin’ for five a day and expenses as a private dick if I was a business man, but, if Feinstein & Reilly’s way of doin’ business was correct, then I know a few things 1 could Jearn Rockefeller. Judgin’ from the cards, Feinstein & Reilly went into partnership to give furni- ture away. Imagine handin’ anybody five hundred bucks’ worth of stvfff for fifty dol- lars down and ten dollars a week! I wouldn’t trust the feller that put the word honesty in the language to pay a cent on anything he got under an arrangement like that; certainly I wouldn’t expect him to cqgugh up after the polish begins to wear off the piano and the drawers of the bureau begin to stick. The deepest and darkest mystery in the whole thing, as far as I could see, was how Feinstein & Reilly lasted in -business as long as they did. What I could read between the lines on the cards made me think that I might as well start with Michael P. Flanagan in takin’ up my work as a collector. Not that I thought Mike was liable to prove soft pickin’s. Oh, no! I doped Mike to be the toughest bird on the whole list. But I decided it was as well to learn the worst about the collectin’ business first as last. oto ‘* Mike,” I thought, lookin’ at the card, ‘your name alone is enough to scare. me, Your occupation and the habit of regular exercise you've contracted from pursuin’ it, lead me to believe you’re a stalwart and well-muscled Bent. Since you was buyin’ instalment-plan furniture sixteen years ago, I'd say you ought to be about in the prime of life now. The fact that Feinstein & Reilly let you alone, after collectin’ twenty bucks on a five-hundred-dollar bill, makes me think you’re a roarin’, fightin’ fool. All in all, I’m inclined to picture you as bein’ — able to lick any man in the world but Jack Dempsey. But Mike, old dear, you got to show me,” So I bid the boss good-by, and start out in search of Michael P. Flanagan. That job’s right in my line, even if collectin’ bad debts for furniture instalment- houses that went broke ain’t. And where do you think I look for Michael—at 1892 Third Avenue, the ad- dress that’s on the card? Not on your life I don’t. I figure that the guy thai ain’t willin’ to pay for the bed he sleeps in ain’t goin’ to pay rent for the roof that covers him, either, and that Michael P. Flanagan’s been.dispossessed from 1892 Third Avenue years ago. It’s for the public library I steer, where I surround myself with city directories datin’ from the year 1902. The story the directors told proved con- clusive that I was right in assumin’ that Mike changed his address abOut as often as the average man changes his undershirt. Michael P. Flanagan, boilermaker, was nabbed by the census-taker, say, every third year. : In 1905 he was over on Tenth Avenue. In 1909. his address was given on one of the lost highways of the Bronnix. His abode was on East Eighty-Eighth Street in rorr, and in 1914 he was favorin’ Columbus Ave- nue with his presence. Then he seemed to have disappeared. The directories after 1914 had plenty of Michael P. Flanagans, but none of them was boilermakers.. I wrote the Columbus Avenue address on a slip o paper and went there. There’s no use of me tellin’ you the par- ticulars of my search for Mike’s latest resi- dence. It just consisted of me ‘hoppin’ COMMICLOOOkKS COM