Part 16 (2/2)

Denny leaned over and picked up his coat from a chair beside the bench, searching the pockets until he found the card which the plump, brown-clad newspaper man had given him. Without a word he reached out and put it in Hogarty's hands.

It bore Jesse Hogarty's Fourteenth Street address across its face.

Hogarty turned it over.

”Introducing the Pilgrim,” ran the caption in the cramped handwriting of Chub Morehouse's stubby fingers. And, beneath, that succinct sentence which was not so cryptic after all:

”Some of them may have science, and some of them may have speed, but after all it's the man who can take punishment who gets the final decision. Call me up, if this ever comes to hand.”

Very deliberately Hogarty deciphered the words, lifted a vaguely puzzled face to Young Denny, who waited immobile--and then returned again to the card. He even nodded once in thorough appreciation of the t.i.tle which Morehouse had given the boy; he smiled faintly as he remembered Denny as he had stood there in the entrance of the big room, a short while before, and realized how apt the phrase was. Then he began to whistle, a shrill, faint, monotonous measure, the calculating glitter in his eyes growing more and more brilliant.

”So!” he murmured thoughtfully. ”So-o-o!”

And then, to Denny:

”Was there--did he make any comment in particular, when he gave you this?”

The boy's eyes twinkled.

”He--made several,” he answered. ”He said that there was a man at that address--meaning you--that would fall on my neck and weep, if I happened to have the stuff. And he warned me, too, not to think that Jed The Red fought like a school boy, just because he was a second-rater--because he didn't, nothing like that!”

Hogarty laughed aloud. That sudden, staccato chuckle was almost startling coming from his pale lips. It hushed just as quickly as it had begun.

”Jed The Red, eh?” he reiterated softly, and he began tapping the card with his fingertips. ”I see, or at least I am commencing to get a glimmer of those possibilities which Mr. Morehouse may have had in mind. And now I think the one best thing to do would be to call him up, as he has here requested. As soon as you finish dressing Ogden here will show you the rest of the works, if you'd care to look around a little. It is entirely likely that we shall want to talk with you directly.”

He wheeled abruptly toward Ogden who had been listening without a word, the broad grin never leaving his lips. It was the silk-s.h.i.+rted boy to whom Hogarty addressed the rest of that sentence.

”And you,” he said, and his voice shed with astounding completeness all its syllabled nicety. ”You try to make yourself useful as well as pestilential. Get him a bit of adhesive for that cut. It looks as bad as though a horse had kicked him there.

”And the rest of your mob will be swarming in here in a few minutes, too. You can tell them that Sutton is--er--indisposed this morning, and that they'll have to play by themselves.”

He nodded briefly to Denny and opened the door. But he stopped again before he pa.s.sed out.

”There's one other question, Mr. Bolton,” he said over his shoulder.

”And please believe that I am not usually so inquisitive. But I'm more than a little curious to know why you did not present this card first--and go through the little informal examination I arranged for you afterward? It would have insured you a far different reception.

Was there any special reason, or did you just overlook it?”

Denny dabbed again at the red drop on his chin.

”No, I didn't exactly forget it,” he stated ponderously. ”But, you see, I kind of thought if I just told you first that I wanted to see if I had any chance, you wouldn't make any allowances for me because I----”

Hogarty's second nod which cut him short was the quintessence of crisp satisfaction.

”I understand,” he cut in. ”Perfectly! And quite right--quite right!”

The ex-lightweight proprietor was sitting with his chin clasped in both palms, still staring at the half facetious words of introduction which the plump newspaper man had penciled across that card, when the door of the small office in the front of the gymnasium was pushed open a crack, some scant fifteen minutes after his peremptory summons had gone out over the wire, and made him lift his head.

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