Part 37 (2/2)

”No,” says she, glancin' suspicious over her shoulder. ”I'm his sister.”

”Oh!” says I. ”Is Tink around?”

”I don't know whether he is or not, and don't care!” says she.

”Much obliged,” says I; ”but I ain't come to collect for anything.

Couldn't you give a guess?”

”If I did,” says she, ”I'd say he was over to the factory yard. That's where he stays most of the time.”

It's half-past five; but the fact'ry's runnin' full blast, and I has to jolly a timekeeper and the yard boss before I locates my man. Fin'lly, though, they point out a big storage shed in one corner of the coal cinder desert they has fenced in so careful. The wide double doors to the shed are shut; but after I've hammered for a while one of 'em is slid back a few inches and Tuttle peeks out.

”Oh!” he gasps. ”You! Say, are they going to take it? Are they?”

”Them's the indications,” says I, ”providin' it's all O. K. and your price is right.”

”Oh, I'll make the price low enough,” says he. ”I'll sell out for two thousand, and it ought to be worth twice that. But two is all I need.”

”Eh?” says I. ”What kind of finance do you call that? Say, Tuttle, you know you can't work any 'phony deal on the Corrugated. Better give me the straight goods and save trouble.”

”I will,” says he. ”Come in, won't you!”

With that he leads the way through the dark shed to a sort of workshop at the back, where there's a window. There's a tool bench, a little hand forge with an old coffee pot and a fryin' pan on it, and a cot bed not ten feet away.

”Campin' out here?” says I.

”I'm not supposed to,” says he; ”but the yard superintendent lets me.

This is where I've lived and worked for nearly two years, and until you came a minute ago it was where I expected to end. But now it's different.”

”It is?” says I. ”How's that?”

Which is Tink Tuttle's cue to open up on the story of his life. It's a soggy, unexcitin' yarn, most of it. As I'd kind of guessed by the way he talked, he wa'n't just an ordinary fact'ry hand. He'd been through some high cla.s.s scientific school up in Ma.s.sachusetts, where he'd lived before his father lost his grip. Seems the old man was a crackerjack boss machinist; but he got to monkeyin' with fool inventions, drifted from place to place, got to be a lunger, and finally pa.s.sed in. The last four years in the fact'ry here had finished him. Tink had worked there, too, and his sister had married one of the hands.

”It's the graveyard of the Tuttle family, this place is, I suppose,”

says Tink. ”It got father, and it has almost got me. Some folks can breathe bra.s.s filings and carbon dioxide and thrive on it; but we can't.

So I gave up and hid myself away in here to work out one of my silly dreams. Last spring I caught a bad cold, and Sister sent me West. There we have an uncle. She thought the change of climate might help my cough.

It didn't do a bit of good; but it was out there that I picked up this option. That was when I saw a chance of making my dream come true. You saw what I've been building, didn't you, as we came through?”

”I didn't notice,” says I. ”What is it, anyway?”

[Ill.u.s.tration: ”TUT, TUT,” SAYS THE BOSS OF THE RESTORIUM.]

”Wait until I light the lantern,” says Tuttle. ”Now come. This way.

Don't hit your head on those wings. There!”

And, say, it's a wonder I could walk right by a thing of that kind without gettin' next, even if it was kind of dark. But all I needs now is one glimpse of the outlines.

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