Part 14 (2/2)
Bobby Ogden threw back his head to laugh. And instead he just sat there with his mouth wide open, waiting. He felt sure that there was a better moment coming. Hogarty fiddled with the dominoes and seemed to be considering that information with due deliberation and from every angle.
”I see,” he murmured at last. ”Surely. Quite right--quite right! And I may, I believe, safely a.s.sure you that I have several fine openings in the establishment for young men--for just the right sort of young men, of course. May I--er--inquire if you wish employment by the--er--week, or just in your spare time, to put it so?”
The question was icily sarcastic. Denny's answer came sharp upon its heels. His voice was just as measured, just as inflectionless as Hogarty's had been.
”If you hire them here by the week,” he said, ”or for their spare time, I--I reckon I've come to the wrong establishment. I was only asking you for a chance to show you whether I was any good or not. I was told you'd be just as interested to find out as I was myself.
Maybe--maybe I've made a bad mistake!”
Bobby Ogden was sorry he had waited to laugh. There was a hardness in the big-shouldered figure's words that he did not like; a directly simple, unmistakable rebuke for the sneer concealed in Hogarty's question that could not be misinterpreted. And something utterly bad flared up in the lean-faced black-clad proprietor's eyes--something of enmity that seemed to Ogden all out of proportion with the provocation. All the smooth suavity disappeared from his speech just as chalk marks are wiped out by a wet sponge. And Hogarty came swiftly to his feet.
”Maybe you were--maybe you did make a bad mistake!” he rasped out in a dead, colorless monotone that scarcely moved his lips. ”But no man ever came into this place yet, and went out again to say he didn't get his chance. I know a few specimens who make a profession of pleading that. They're quitters--and they a.s.say a streak of yellow that isn't pay dirt!”
His voice dropped in register. It just missed being hoa.r.s.e. With a rapidity that was almost bewildering he began to give orders to the two boys who were still phlegmatically waxing the floor. And the English-professor intonation was gone entirely.
”You, Joe!” he called, ”get out the rods; set 'em up and rope her off!
Legs, you chase out and find Sutton, if he's not in back. You'll run into him at Sharp's, most likely. Tell him to come a-running. Tell him a new one's drifted in from the frontier--and thinks he needs to be shown. Move, you shrimp!”
Before he had finished speaking he had started toward the locker rooms at the rear. Denny he ignored as though he did not exist. He went without a sound in his rubber-soled shoes. Bobby Ogden, waking suddenly from his trancelike condition, leaped to his feet and ran after him. Hogarty halted at the pressure of the boy's pink-nailed fingers on his arm and wheeled to show a face that was startlingly white and strained.
”Why, you great big kid!” Bobby Ogden flung at him. ”You big infant!
You're really sore! Don't you know he didn't mean anything. He's only a kid himself--and you egged him into it!”
”Is he?”
From that gently rising inflection alone Ogden knew that interference was absolutely hopeless.
”Is he? Well, he's old enough to seem to know what he wants. And he's going to get it--see? He's going to get it--and--get--it--good! No man ever flung it into my face that I didn't give him a chance--not and got away with it.”
Hogarty glanced meaningly down at the restraining hand upon his sleeve and Ogden removed it hastily. He stood in dismayed indecision until the ex-lightweight had disappeared before he turned toward Young Denny, who had been watching in silence his effort at intervention.
Denny had not moved. Ogden's almost girlishly modeled face was more than apprehensive as he stepped up to him.
”He's mad,” he stated flatly. ”You've got him peeved for keeps. And I guess you've let yourself in for quite a merry little session, too, unless--unless”--he hesitated, peering curiously in Denny's grave face, ”unless you want to make a nice quiet little exit before he comes back with Sutton. You can, you know, and--and it may save you quite a little--er--discomfort in the long run. Sutton--well, the least I can say of Sutton is that he's inclined to be a trifle rough!”
Ogden saw that slow smile returning; he saw it start far back in the steady eyes and spread until it touched the corners of the other boy's lips again.
”You mean--leave?” Young Denny asked.
Ogden nodded significantly.
”That's just what I do mean--only a great deal more so!”
”But I--I couldn't very well do that now--could I?”
The silk-s.h.i.+rted shoulders shrugged hopelessly.
”Well, since you ask me,” he said, ”judging from what I've already seen of your methods, I--I'd say most emphatically no. I've done all I can when I advise you that now is the one best hour to make your getaway. It wouldn't be exactly a glorious retreat from the field, but it wouldn't be so painful, either. Just remember that, will you? I'm to fit you out with some fighting togs, I suppose, if you'll just come along.”
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