Part 10 (2/2)
”What's the S. D. for?” I asks. ”South Dakota?”
”No--Success Developer!” he says. ”I ain't selfish--I put myself over and now I'm gonna put 'em _all_ over! At the same time, as I say, I'll charge a reasonable sum for my work. Why this is bigger business than Wall Street, makin' men instead of breakin' 'em and--”
”Stop talkin' for a second, Alex,” I says, ”and get a new sensation! I got an idea of what that reasonable charge of yours will be, that's provided your scheme works, which it prob'ly won't. If you cause a guy to make himself twenty dollars, your fee won't exceed a hundred and fifty! You're as liberal with money as Grant's Tomb is with advice.
But if you're on the level with this, I'll bet you a thousand bucks, American money, to five hundred of the same coinage, that you'll flop like a seal on your first try. They's only one thing you gotta do!”
”What is it?” he asks. He was thinkin' of them thousand bucks and his eyes sparkled till you could of hocked 'em anywheres for five hundred apiece.
”You gotta let _me_ pick the first victim!” I says.
”Not to change the subject,” remarks the wife to me, ”if you got a thousand dollars for purposes of bettin', they's a ring in Tiffany's window which will come here to-morrow escorted by a C.O.D. bill. The price and one thousand dollars is the same.”
”Do you think I print this money myself?” I hollers.
”I would of married you long ago if I did!” she says, smilin' sweetly.
”Think of a man mean enough to argue about money with his lovin' wife!”
sneers Alex.
”If _you_ was married,” I says, ”your wife would think they had stopped the circulation of all money, with the exception of nickels!”
”Ha! Ha!” he sneers, like a movie villain. ”I just give Eve Rossiter an engagement ring that can be _p.a.w.ned_ for eight hundred men!”
”I think you're four flus.h.i.+n',” I hollers, gettin' warmed up, ”but you can't hang nothin' on me! You go down to Tiffany's, honey,” I tells the wife, ”and get that thousand buck ring--but put up a battle for it at $750!”
The wife pulls her million-dollar smile and gimme a chaste salute, as the guy says, on the forehead. Then she opens her sea-goin' handbag and takes somethin' out.
”Here it is, dear!” she says, with the giggle that made me a married man, ”I knowed you'd fall, so I got it this morning! It was only $987.
Ain't I the great little buyer?”
Oh, boy!
”Well,” I says to Alex, ”it seems to be the open season for takin' me.
Does that bet go?”
”It does!” he says, rubbin' his hands together like a c.r.a.p shooter.
”And I produce the first candidate for fame and fortune?”
”Bring him on!” he grins, winkin' at the wife--a thing he knows I loathe.
We shook hands on it and I went out into the kitchen to laugh it over with the cat. I'm a soft-hearted b.o.o.b and I hate to take a sucker, at that. But accordin' to my dope, that dough of friend Alex's was the same as in the bank in my name!
Now the bird I had in mind to make me win this bet from Alex was a pitcher I had on the payroll who's name was Hector Sells. He would of been just as rotten a ball player if his name had been First Base, Center Field or Short Stop. He could do everything in the world with a baseball, with the slight exception of gettin' it over the plate, and, when he pitched, his main difficulty was keepin' the pill outa left field. In the seven years he had been stealin' wages from my club his twirlin' percentage read like the thermometer in Alaska and when he come to bat, as far as he ever found out, first base was in Berlin. I put him on the third base coachin' line one afternoon and he tries to send a runner back to second when the batter triples. I tried this guy out at every position on the team and he made so many errors that the official scorers went out and bought addin' machines every time he appeared in the line-up. If they was anything on earth connected with the game of baseball that Hector could do, he never showed it to me, and puttin' a uneyform on him was the same as givin' a blind man a pair of opera gla.s.ses.
Yet with all this, that guy thought he was the greatest baseball player that ever laid hold of a glove. He not only thought it, he _conceded_ it.
For the past year, Hector had played out the schedule from the dugout, with the exception of six games he pitched against the Athletics. He lost an even six. I sent him to every flag station in North America where they looked on baseball as a game, and Hector would come back at the end of the season with his suit case jammed full of unconditional releases. Him and pneumonia was just as easy to get rid of as far as I was concerned and we started off every season with Hector in our midst.
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