Argosy All-Story Weekly — 'The Metal Monster' — page 103: what you’re looking at

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

J. BARLEYCORN, INC. amount. The remaining thousand shares were left in the treasury. This all took about five minutes. Then McMann started to read the chatter to Fin. “ Never min’ about th’ constitution an’ by-laws,” interrupted Fin when McMann started to read. ‘ I’m th’ main-spring, ain’t 1? Nobody else can sign no checks, can they? I’m th’ one what passes out the divi- dent-checks, ain’t I? N’other words, I’m th’ works. Right?” ““That’s it exactly,” agreed McMann. ‘¢ Now all you have to do is get the money from the Big Five an’ we're all set.” — That afternoon Fin took the imposing- looking document to the Big Five. It had two or three seals and several signatures, and was filled with double-barreled words. It was enough to ‘satisfy the investors. They saw their names on it. worth five thousand dollars. Fin’s assurance that everything was all set was sufficient; if the array of legal terms had not been— That night Fin slept with twenty-five thousand dollars in cash under his pillow. Next morning, supervised by Larry, he opened a checking account in the name of ‘‘ J. Barleycorn, Inc., per Michael Rafferty, President and Treasurer.” The address he ' gave the bank was his boat-house home on the toy -path. The cashier looked surprised. Tt’s the business address we wish,” he suggested. ‘“‘ Tha’s whatcha got,” declared. Fin, and walked out. For a week nothing happened. Fin soaked in the river before breakfast and in the sun after lunch. Only he called it dinner when he ate at all at midday. A hearty breakfast and prospects of a big feed at night, and Fin never worried about a meal at noon. More likely he was to eat a third meal at midnight or thereabouts, depending entirely on the revenue agents. At the expiration of a week, the other and silent members of the firm broke the silence. Peters sent for Fin. “Well, when do we get th’ firs’ load? It’s been ten days since I had any booze, an’ I’m pretty near out. Smokey Joe sent over this mornin’ and borryed two gallons. TA . That was 97 We gotta get busy an’ rustle up a whole flock of it.” Fin nodded agreement. ‘But we wanta ‘range th’ business de- tails firs’ an’en I'll get busy.” ‘Whatcha mean, details?” queried Peters. Peters was always ready for an argument, and long habit of meeting quar- relsome customers brought him half-way round the end of the bar before he remem- bered whom he was dealing with. He stopped, and leaned over the mahogany. “Bout the firm’s business.® é ‘Why, th’ ain’t nothin’ t’ that, is they?” asked Peters, evidently surprised. ‘““ Jus’ a little. make it jus’ as much like reg’lar business as we can,” said Fin. “ Firs’ we'll pay f’r th’ liquor jus’ like we been doin’, an’ th’ dough ‘ll be deposited in th’ bank. Then we have a reg’lar meetin’ a’ stockholders an’. d’clare a div’dend, accordin’ to our -holdin’s. Tha’s th’ way it’s gotta be did.” Peters protested. “But tha’s puttin’ money in th’ bank an’ tyin’ it up where it ain’t doin’ no one no good,” was his argument. In the end Fin prevailed, having shown Peters that if he was going to be a regular, honest-to-goodness member of a corpora- tion, be had to do things in such a way that there wouldn’t be any holes in the proceedure. Fin brought over a cargo that night. It had been accumulating in a boat-house on the Canadian side until it simply had to be moved, to make room for more. It was two o’clock when he-had passed the whisky from boat to waiting truck and saw it started on its trip of distribution. He considered for a moment, wondering if he should bring another cargo, but decided against it. From the very start everything seemed to favor the new corporation. No disturbing word came from Fin’s agent in the revenue office, and load after load was brought over. Two trips were made several nights, and one rainy evening, when Fin started earlier _ than usual, he managed to squeeze in three loads. | The third was landed just as the first pink of the approaching dawn commenced to light the eastern world. Fin ran his boat I’ve decided we oughta EGORNIG OOO co wo