Mike Flannery On Duty and Off Part 2

Flannery dug all that morning. At lunch-time he stopped digging--and went without his lunch--long enough to deliver the packages that had come on the early train. As he pa.s.sed the station he saw a crowd of boys playing hockey with an old tomato-can, and he stopped. When he reached the office he was followed by sixteen boys. Some of them had spades, some of them had small fire-shovels, some had only pointed sticks, but all were ready to dig. He showed them where he had already dug.

"Twinty-five cints apiece, annyhow," he said, "an' five dollars fer th'

lucky wan that finds it."

"All right," said one. "Now what is it we are to dig for?"

"'Tis a cat," said Flannery, "a dead wan."

"Go on!" cried the boy sarcastically. "What _is_ it we are to dig for?"

"I can get you a dead cat, mister," said another. "Our cat died."

"'T will not do," said Flannery. "'T is a special cat I'm wantin'. 'T is a long-haired cat, an' 't was dead a long time. Ye can't mistake it whin ye come awn to it. If ye dig up a cat ye know no wan w'u'd want t' have, that 's it."

The sixteen boys dug, and Flannery, in desperation, dug, but a square mile is a large plot of ground to dig over. No one, having observed that cat on the morning when Timmy planted it, would have believed it could be put in any place where it could not be instantly found again. It had seemed like a cat that would advertise itself. But that is just like a cat; it is always around when it is n't needed, and when it is needed it can't be found. Before the afternoon was half over the boys had tired of digging for a dead cat and had gone away, but Flannery kept at it until the sun went down. Then he looked to see how much of the plot was left to dig up. It was nearly all left. As he washed his hands before going to his boarding-house a messenger-boy handed him a telegram.

Flannery tore it open with misgivings.

"Cat has not arrived. Must come on night train. Can accept no excuse,"

it read.

Flannery folded the telegram carefully and put it in his hip pocket. He washed his hands with more deliberate care than he had ever spent on them. He adjusted his coat most carefully on his back, and then walked with dignity to his boarding-house. He knew what would happen. There would be an inspector out from the head office in the morning. Flannery would probably have to look for a new job.

In the morning he was up early, but he was still dignified. He did not put on his uniform, but wore his holiday clothes, with the black tie with the red dots. An inspector is a hard man to face, but a man in his best clothes has more of a show against him. Flannery came to the office the back way; there was a possibility of the inspector's being already at the front door. As he crossed the filled-in meadows he poked unhopefully at the soil here and there, but nothing came of it. But suddenly his eyes lighted on a figure that he knew, just turning out of the alley three buildings from the office. It was Timmy!

Flannery had no chance at all. He ran, but how can a man run in his best clothes across soft, new soil when he is getting a bit too stout? And Timmy had seen him first. When Flannery reached the corner of the alley Timmy was gone, and with a sigh that was partly regret and partly breathlessness from his run Flannery turned into the main street. There was the inspector, sure enough, standing on the curb. Flannery had lost some of his dignity, but he made up for it in anger. He more than made up for it in the heat he had run himself into. He was red in the face.

He met the inspector with a glare of anger.

"There be th' key, if 'tis that ye're wantin', an' ye may take it an'

welcome, fer no more will I be ixpriss agint fer a company that sinds long-haired cats dead in a box an' orders me t' kape thim throo th' hot weather fer a fireside companion an' ready riferince av perfumery. How t' feed an' water dead cats av th' long-haired kind I may not know, an'

how t' live with dead cats I may not know, but whin t' bury dead cats I _do_ know, an' there be plinty av other jobs where a man is not ordered t' dig up forty-siven acres t' find a cat that was buried none too soon at that!"

"What's that?" said the inspector. "Is that cat dead?"

"An' what have I been tellin' th' dudes in th' head office all th'

while?" asked Flannery with asperity. "What but that th' late deceased dead cat was defunct an' no more? An' thim insultin' an honest man with their 'Have ye stholen th' cat out av th' box, Flannery, an' put in an inferior short-haired cat?' I want no more av thim! Here's the key. Good day t' ye!"

"Hold on," said the inspector, putting his hand on Flannery's arm. "You don't go yet. I 'll have a look at your cash and your accounts first.

What you say about that cat may be true enough, but we have got to have proof of it. That was a valuable cat, that was. It was an Angora cat, a real Angora cat. You've got to produce that cat before we are through with you."

"Projuce th' cat!" said Flannery angrily. "Th' cat is safe an' sound in th' back lot. I presint ye with th' lot. If 't is not enough fer ye, go awn an' do th' dirthy worrk ye have t' do awn me. I'll dig no more fer th' cat."

The inspector unlocked the door and entered the office. It was hot with the close heat of a room that has been locked up overnight. Just inside the door the inspector stopped and sniffed suspiciously. No express office should have smelled as that one smelled.

"Wan minute!" cried Flannery, pulling away from the inspector's grasp.

"Wan minute! I have a hint there be a long-haired cat near by. Wance ye have been near wan av thim ye can niver mistake thim Angora cats. I w'u'd know th' symbol av thim with me eyes shut. 'T is a signal ye c'u'd tell in th' darrk."

He hurried to the back door. The cat was there, all right. A little deader than it had been, perhaps, but it was there on the step, long hair and all.

"Hurroo!" shouted Flannery. "An' me thinkin' I w'u'd niver see it again!

Can ye smell th' proof, Misther Inspictor? 'T is good sthrong proof fer ye! An' I sh'u'd have knowed it all th' while. Angora cats I know not be th' spicial species, an' th' long-haired breed av cats is not wan I have a.s.sociated with much, an' cats so dang dead as this wan I do not kape close in touch with, ginerally, but all cats have a grrand resimblance t' cats. Look at this wan, now. 'T is just like a cat. It kem back."

II

THE THREE HUNDRED

There was a certain big sort of masterfulness about the president of the Interurban Express Company that came partly from his natural force of character and partly from the position he occupied as head of the company, and when he said a thing must be done he meant it. In his own limited field he was a bigger man than the President of the United States, for he was not only the chief executive of the Interurban Express Company, but he made its laws as well. He could issue general orders turning the whole operation of the road other end to as easily as a national executive could order the use of, let us say, a simplified form of spelling in a few departments of the Government. He sat in the head office of the company at Franklin and said "Let this be done," and, in every suburban town where the Interurban had offices, that thing was done, under pain of dismissal from the service of the company. Even Flannery, who was born rebellious, would scratch his red hair in the Westcoate office and grumble and then follow orders.

Old Simon Gratz came into the president's office one morning and sat himself into a vacant chair with a grunt of disapprobation, the same grunt of disapprobation that had been like saw-filing to the nerves of the president for many years, and the president immediately prepared to contradict him, regardless of what it might be that Simon Gratz disapproved of. It happened to be the simplified spelling. He waved the morning paper at the president and wanted to know what _he_ thought of this outrageous thing of chopping off the tails of good old English words with an official carving-knife, ruining a language that had been fought and bled for at Lexington, and making it look like a dialect story, or a woman with two front teeth out.

It rather strained the president sometimes to think of a sound train of argument against Simon Gratz at a moment's notice. Sometimes he had to abandon the beliefs of a lifetime in order to take the other side of a proposition that Simon Gratz announced unexpectedly, and it was still harder to get up an enthusiasm for one side of a thing of which he had never heard, as he sometimes had to do; but he was ready to meet Simon Gratz on either side of the simplified spelling matter, for he had read about it himself in the morning paper. It had seemed a rather unimportant matter until Simon Gratz mentioned it, but now it immediately became a thing of the most intimate concern.

"What do I think?" he asked. "I think it is the grandest thing--the most sensible thing--the greatest step forward that has been taken for centuries. That is what I think. It is a revolution! That is what I think, Mr. Gratz."

He swung around in his chair and struck his desk with his fist to emphasize his words. Mr. Gratz, whose opinions were the more obnoxious because he was a stockholder of the company, sniffed. The way he had of sniffing was like a red rag to a bull, and he meant it as such. The president accepted it in the spirit in which it was meant. He said: "Bah!"

"I will tell you what it is," said Mr. Gratz, pus.h.i.+ng his chin up at the president. "It is the most idiotic--"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "_'I will tell you what it is,' said Mr. Gratz_"]

"Don't tell me!" cried Mr. Smalley. "I don't want you to tell me anything! What do you know about the English language, anyhow? 'Gratz!'

That is a pretty name for a man who pretends to have a right to say how the English language shall be spelled! Don't I know your history, Mr.

Gratz? Don't I know you had your name changed from Gratzensteinburgher?

And you pretend to be worried because our President and the most talented men in the country want to drop a few useless letters out of a measly three hundred words! I tell you these changes in spelling should have been made long ago. Long ago. This is the business man's age, Mr.

Gratz-and-the-rest-of-it. Yes, sir! And you, as a business man, should be proud of this concession made by our most noted scholars to the needs of the business man."

"Look at 'em!" sneered Mr. Gratz, patting the list of three hundred revised words with his finger, and shoving the newspaper under Mr.

Smalley's nose. "Poor bob-tailed, one-eyed mongrels! Progress! It is anarchy--impudence--Look at this--'t-h-r-u!' What kind of a word is that? 'T-h-o!' What kind of a thing is that? What in the world is a 's-i-t-h-e,' I would like to know?"

Mr. Smalley had not been sufficiently interested in the matter of new spelling to save his morning paper. He had not even read through the list of three hundred words. But he was interested now. The new spelling had become the thing most dear to his heart, and he pulled the paper from Mr. Gratz's hand and slapped the list of words warmly.

"Progress! Yes, progress! That is the word. And economy!" he cried.

"That is the true American spirit! That is what appeals to the man who is not a fossil!" This was a delicate compliment to Mr. Gratz, but Mr.

Gratz was so used to receiving compliments when Mr. Smalley was talking to him that he did not blush with pleasure. He merely got red in the face. "Think of the advantage of saving one letter in every word that is written in every business office in America?" continued Mr. Smalley excitedly. "The ink saved by this company alone by dropping those letters will amount to a thousand dollars a year. And in the whole correspondence of the nation it will amount to millions! Millions of dollars, in ink alone, to say nothing of the time saved!" He got out of his chair and began to walk up and down the office, waving his arms. It helped him to get hot, and he liked to get hot when Mr. Gratz called. It was the only time he indulged himself. So he always got as hot as he could while he had the chance.

"Yes, sir!" he shouted, while Mr. Gratz sat shrunken down into his chair and watched him with a teasing smile. "And I will tell you something more. The policy of this company is to be economical. Yes, sir! And this company is going to adopt the simplified spelling! Going to adopt it right now! In spite of all the old-fogyism in the world!--Miss Merrill!"

The office-door opened, and a pompadour, followed by a demure young lady, entered the room. She slipped quietly into a chair beside the president's desk and laid her copy-book on the slide of the desk and waited while her employer arranged the words in his mind. Her pencil was delicately poised above the ruled page. While she waited she hit the front of her pompadour a few improving slaps with her unengaged hand and pulled out the slack of her waist front.

"Take this," said Mr. Smalley sharply. "General Order Number (you can supply the number, Miss Merrill). To all employees of the Interurban Express Company: On and after this date all employees of this company will use, in their correspondence and in all other official business, the following list of three hundred words. By order of the president.

Read what you have there."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "_Her pencil was delicately poised above the ruled page_"]

Miss Merrill ran one hand around her belt--she was the kind of girl that can make her toilet and do business at the same time--and read: