Argosy, Vol. 117, No. 3 — page 66: what you’re looking at

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

316 around town ringin’ door-bells and askin’, “ Do you know Michael P. Flanagan?” and havin’ people tell me, “‘ He used to live here, but he moved to such and such a number so and so street.” So, cuttin’ about a ‘hundred miles of car- ridin’ and walkin’ out of a long story, I P.M. found me gazin’ at the name Flanagan on the letter-box of a flat in West One Hun- dreth Street. It’s on the top floor—four flights up. “Well, Joe,” I tell myself as I start up the stairs, “ you’re lucky at that. Friend Mike’s prob’ly tappin’ on boiler-rivets about now, which means that you ain’t goin’ to meet him but his missus. It’s better so; this might be one of the days when Mike’s feelin’ threatenin’ and abusive.” I rap on the door of the left-hand flat on the top floor. It opens sudden, and, if I wasn’t pretty used to gettin’ shocks in one form or- another, I think I’d have fell all the way to the street. The door is opened by Mike himself. Leastwise it’s opened by a red-faced, red- headed, red-mustached guy about eight feet tall, with a chest and shoulders like the front elevation of a court-house, and a look in his eye that reminded me of the cost of livin’. He’s stripped for action, wearin’ a woolen undershirt, a pair of loose blue pants and easy-lookin’ house-slippers. In _ his mouth is a cob pipe, in which I’d say he was smokin’ a mixture of wet wood shavin’s and sulfur. ~ “ Well,” he roars in a voice that come all the way up from his toes, “ what in blazes are you sellin’?” “Joe,” I says to myself, “ if you let this bird see you’re, scared, your finish as a collector is goin’ to come right now.” So, although my teeth is chatterin’, I look him up and down slow like for a minute and then bark at him: “Say, you big stiff! Who d’you think you're talkin’ to? Huh? You'll find out who I am and what I want soon enough. I got your number, Flanagan. You’re a beat. Now cut out the beefin’, and just come across with that money you owe Feinstein & Reilly.” I tip the beam at just a little over the welter-weight limit—about a hundred and THE ARGOSY. fifty, ’d say. As I talked, my eyebrows were even with the second button on Flana- gan’s shirt. All he had to do was to give me the flat of either one of his hands to take me out of his life forever. But he didn’t do it. He sticks both his big, red paws down the waist-band of his pants, kind of rocks back and forth in the slippers for a few seconds, and then grins at me. “Well, I'll be blowed!” he says. ‘“ Ye cocky little~devil! Well, Flanagan’s me name; ye got that right; but what’s the meanin’ o’ the rest o’ yer palaver? And would ye mind tellin’ me who it is I’m sup- posed to be owin’ the money to?” “That soft stuff won’t get you nothin’, either, Flanagan,” I growl at him. “ Just come across with that dough. Come on, I’m in a hurry; I’ve got other calls to make.” , “Easy, me boy, easy,” says he. “ Just take yer time, and ye’ll be all right. Who was it now ye mentioned as bein’ them I’m said to be owin’ the money to?” “Aw, you know blame well—Feinstein & Reilly.” “Feinstein & Reilly!” he repeats, like he was puzzled. “ Feinstein &—well, Ill be blowed! Haw, haw, haw!” And he lets out a roar of laughter that shakes the house. He howls for a full minute, me standin’ there lookin’ at him. At last he stops, rubs the tears out of his eyes with one hand and beckons to me with the other. ‘Come inside,” he says. Then to him- self: “ Feinstein & Reilly! So they’re around yet? I’ll be blowed!——-Say,” he asks me suddenly, “ how long ago was it I got that stuff from Feinstein & Reilly?” “Aha!” I exclaim, stoppin’ and pointin’ my finger at him. “So you admit you got the stuff? You admit you owe Fein- stein &—” “ Admit I owe them—hell!”’ he bellows. “Sure I got some stuff from them: a bed that busted down the third night it was slept in, some dinin’-room furniture chat fell apart the first day it rained, a pianner that Padwhiskey himself couldn’t ’a’ got a tune out of, an ice-box that was made out of old newspapers and tomato-cans—a fine mess o’ junk! Sure I got it, and I told Feinstein COMMICLOO© S (C@