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THE PRICE
’ By FRANCIS LYNDE l
CHAPTER |,
! s G o
At Chaudiere’s.
It was at Chaudiere’s that Griswold
had eaten his first breakfast in the
Crescent city, and it was at Chau
dlere’'s again that he was sharing a
farewell supper with Bainbridge of the
Louisianian. Six weeks lay between
that and this; forty-odd days of dis
couragement and failure superadded
upon other similar days and weeks
and months,
Without meaning to, Bainbridge had
been strewing the path with fresh
thorns for the defeated one. He had
Just been billeted to write up the ba
nana trade for his paper. Boyishly ju
bilant over the assignment, he had
dragged the New Yorker around to
Chaudiere’'s to a small parting feast.
Not that it had required much per
suasion. Griswold had fasted for 24‘
hours, and if Bainbridge were not a‘
friend in a purist’'s definition of the<
term, he was at least a friendly ac
quaintance. |
The burden of the table talk fell
upon Bainbridge, and it occurred to
the host that his guest was less than
usually responsive, a fault not to be
lightly condoned under the joyous cir
cumstances. Wherefore he protested,
“What's the matter with you to
night, Kenneth, old man? You're more
than commonly grumpy, it seems to
me; and that's needless.”
Griswold looked up with a smile
that was almost ill-natured, and quot
ed cynically: “‘Unto everyone that
hath shall be given, and he shall have
abundance; but from him that hath
not, shall be taken away even that
which he hath.’"”
Bainbridge's laugh was tolerant
enough to take the edge from his re
tort.
“That’s a pretty thing to fling at a
man who never knifed you or pistoled
you or tried to poison you! An inno
cent bystander might say you envied
me.”
“l do,” rejoined Griswold gravely.
“l envy any man who can earn enough
money to pay for three meals a day
and a place to sleep in.”
“Oh, cat's foot!-—anybody can do
that,” ~asserted Mnbfidn, with the
] ) hean . méra athlete'a
¥ A e »‘*é@mmmfi
6Urscts disprove It T can't, for one”
ish hair and beard and the quick and
sensitive skin of the type. A red flush
of anger crept up under the closely
cropped beard, and his eyes were
bright,
Bainbridge scoffed openly; but he
was good-natured enough to make
amends when he saw that Griswold
was moved.
“] take it all back,"” he said. “I sup
pose the book-chicken has come home
again to roost, and a returned manu
script accounts for anything. But,
seriously, Kenneth, you ought to get
down to bed-rock facts. Nobody but
& crazy phenomenon can find a pub
lisher for his first book, nowadays,
unless he has had some sort of an
introduction in the magazines or the
newspapers. You haven't had that;
80 far as 1 know, you haven't tried
"."
“Oh, yes, I have—tried and failed.
It isn’t in me to do the salable thing,
and there isn't a magazine editor in
the country who doesn't know it hy
this time. I tell you, Bainbridge, the
conditions are all wrong when a man
with a vital message to his kind can't
get to deliver it to the people who
want to hear it.”
Bainbridge ordered the small cof
fees and found his cigar case.
“That i{s about what I suspected,”
he commented Impatiently. “You
couldn't keep your peculiar views
muzzled even when you were writing
a bit of a pot boiler on sugar plant
fng. You drop your fool socialistic
fad and write a book that a reputable
publisher can bring out without com
mitting commercial suicide, and you'll
stand some show.”
“Call it what you pleass; names
don't change facts, Listen"--Griswold
leaned upon the table; his eyes grew
hard and the blue in them became me
tallic—" For more than a month I
have tramped the streets of this
cursed city begging--yes, that is the
word—begging for work of any kind
that would suffice to keep body and
soul together, and for more than half
of that time I have lived on one meal
a day., That is what we have come
to; we of the submerged majority.
And that isn’t all. The wage worker
himself, when he is fortunate enough
to find a chance to earn his crust, is
but a serf; a chattel among the other
possessions of some fellow man who
has acquired him in the plutocratic
redistribution of the earth and the
fullpess thereof" -
Balnbridge glanced at his watch,
_ "1 must be going,” he said. “The
Adelantado drops down the river at
eleven. How are you fixed for the
present, and what are you going to do
for the future?”
Griswold's smile was not pleasant
to look at.
~ "1 am ‘Bxed’ to runm twenty-four
hours longer, thanks to your hospital
ity. For that length of time I pre
sume I shall continue to conform to
what we have been taught to believe
is the immutable order of things.
After that—"
He pausged, and Bainbridge put the
question. “Well, after that; what
then?”
“Then, if the chance to earn is still
denied me, and 1 am sufficiently hun
gry, 1 shall stretch forth my hand and
take what I need.”
Bainbridge fished in his pocket and
took out a ten-dollar banknote. “Do
that first,” he said, offering Griswold
the money.
The proletary smiled and shook his
head.
. - . - » * *
The fruit steamer Adelantado, out
ward bound, was shuddering to the
first slow revolutions of her propeller
when Bainbridge turned the key in
the door of the stuffy little stateroom
to which he had been directed, and
went on deck.
“Why, hello, Broffin! How are you,
old man? Where the dickens did you
drop from?”
It was the inevitable steamer ac
quaintance who {8 always at hund to
prove the trite narrowness of the
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“You Couldn't Keep Your Peculiar
Views Muzzled.”
world, and Bainbridge kicked a chalr
into comradely place for him.
Broffin, heavy browed and clean
shaven save for a thick mustache that
hid the hard-bitted mouth, replaced
the chair to suit himself and sat down.
In appeararce he was a cross between
a steamboat captain on a vacation and
an up-river plantation overseer recov
ering from his annual pleasure trip
to the city. But his reply to Bain
bridge's query proved that he was nei
ther,
“I didn't drop; 1 walked. More than
that, I kept step with you all the way
from Chaudiere's to the levee. You'd
be dead easy game for an amateur.”
“You'll get yourself disliked, the
first thing you know,” sald Bainbridge,
laughing. “Can't you ever forget that
you are in the man-hunting business?
Where are you headed for, Broffin?"
The man who might have passed for
a steamboat captain or a plantation
overseer, and was neither, chuckled
dryly.
“You don't expect me to give it away
to you, and you a newspaper man, do
you? But I will--seeing you can't get
it on the wires. I'm going down to
Guatemala after Mortsen.” |
“The Crescent bank defaulter? By 1
Jove! you've found him at last, have ‘
you?” {
The detective nodded. “I've been
two years, off and on, trying to locate 1\
Mortsen; and now that I've found him,
he is where he cant be extradited.
All the same, I'll bet you five to one |
he goes back with me in the next
steamer--what?" 1
CHAPTER 11, l
. i
The Right of Might,
Two days after the supper at Chau
diere's the unimpetuous routine of the
business quarter of New Orleans was
rudely distyrbed by the shock of a
genuine sensatlon.
To shatter at a single blow the most
venerable of the routine precedents,
the sensational thing chose for its ecol
liding point with orderly system one
of the oldest and most conservative
of the city's bankg—the Bayou State
Security. At ten o'clock, followln:‘
the precise habit of half a lifetime,
Mr. Andrew Galbraith, president of
the Bayou State, entered his prlvate‘
room in the rear of the main banking
apartment, opened his desk, and ad
dressed himself to the business of the
day. At half-past the hour the presi
dent was left glone to read his cor
respondence.
Being & man whose mental proe-
CHARLTON COUNTY HERALD, FOLKSTON, GEORGIA.
- S AR B IR AR . BRI IR
(Copyrignht by Charles Scribner’s Sons)
esses were all serious, and whose
hobby was method, Mr. Galbraith had
established a custom of giving himself
a quiet half-hour of inviolable seclu
sion in which to read and consider
his mail. During this sacred interval
the stenographer, standing guard in
the outer office, had instructions to
deny his chief to callers of any and
every degree. Wherefore, when, at
20 minutes to 11, the door of the pri
vate office opened to admit a stranger,
the president was justly annoyed.
“Well, sir; what now?” he demand
‘ed, impatiently, taking the intruder’s
measure in a swift glance shot from
‘ beneath his bushy white eyebrows.
i The unannounced visitor was a
- young man of rather prepossessing ap
pearance, a trifle tall for his breadth
of shoulder, fair, with blue eyes and a
curling, reddish beard and mustache,
the former trimmed to a point. So
much the president was able to note
in the appraisive glance—and to re
member afterward.
The caller made no reply to the curt
question. He had turned and was
closing the door. There was a quiet
insistence in the act that.was like the
flick of a whip to Mr. Galbraith’s irri
tation,
“If you have business with me,
you'll have to excuse me for a few
minutes,” he protested, still more im
patiently. “Be good enough to take a
seat in the anteroom until I ring.
MacFarland should have told you.”
The young man drew up a chair and
sat down, ignoring the request as if
he had failed to hear it. Ordinarily
Mr. Andrew Galbraith’s temper was
equable enough; the age-cooled tem
per of a methodical gentleman whose
long upper lip was in itself an adver
tisement of self-control. But such &
deliberate infraction of his rules,
coupled with the stony impudence of
the visitor, made him spring up an
grily to ring for the watchman.
The intruder was too quick for him.
When his hand sought the bell push
he found himself looking into the
muzzle of a revolver, and so was fain
to fall back into his chair, gasping.
“Abh-h-h!” he stammered. And when
the words could be managed: “So
that’s it, is it>—you're a robber!”. 3
the first time since his_pagm ng 9
ani not a robber, save in your own
very limited definition of the word. I
am merely a poor man, Mr. Gal
braith—one of the uncounted thou
sands—and I want money. If you call
for help, I shall shoot you. It is
merely a question of money, and if
you are amenable to reason—"
“If I'm—but I'm not amenable to
your reasons!” blustered the presi
dent, recovering a little from the first
shock of terrified astoundment. “I re
fuse to listen to them. I'll not have
anything to do with you. Go away!”
The young man's smile showed his
teeth, but it also proved that he was
not wholly devoid of the sense of
humor. o |
“Keep your temper, Mr. Galbraith,” [
he advised coolly. “The moment is
mine, and I say you shall listen nm!
and obey afterward. Otherwise you\
die. Which is it to be? Choose
quickly—time is precious.” |
The president yielded the first
point, that of the receptive ear; but
grudgingly and as one under strict
| compulsion, |
“Well, well, then; out with it. What
have you to say for yourself?”
“This: You are rich; you represent
the existing order of things. 1 am
poor, and I stand for my necessity,
which is higher than any man-made
law or custom. You have more money
than you can possibly use in any le
gitimate personal channels; I have
not the price of the next meal, already
twenty-four hours overdue. 1 came
here this morning with my life in my
hand to invite you to share with me
a portion of that which is yours chiefly
by the right of possession. If you do
it, well and good; if not, there will
be a new president of the Bayou State
Security, Do I make myself sufficient
ly explicit?”
Andrew Galbraith glanced furtively
at the paper-weight clock on his desk.
It was nearly eleven, and MacFarland
would surely come in on the stroke
of the hour. If he could ouly fend
off the catastrophe for a few minutes,
until help should come. He searched
in his pockets and drew forth a hand-‘
ful of coins.
The invader of privacies glanced at
the clock in his turn and shook his
head.
“You are merely trying to gain time,
and you know it, Mr. Galbraith., My
stake in this game is much more than
a 4 handful of charity silver; and I
don't do you the injustice to believe
that you hold your life so cheaply:
you who have so much money and,
at best, so few years to live”
The president put the little heap
of coins on the desk, but he did not
abandon the struggle for delay.
“What's your price, then?" he de.
manded, as one who may possibly
consider a compromise.
~ “One hundred thousand dollars—in
cash.”
” lllustrations by C. D. RHODES I
“But man! ye're clean daft! Do ye
think I have—"
In the midst of his vehement pro
tests the stranger sprang out of his
chair, stepped back a pace and raised
- his weapon,
- “Mr. Galbraith, you are juggling
with your life! Write a check while
there is yet time!”
~ The hammer of the leveled pistol
‘clicked. Andrew Galbraith shut his
‘eyes and made a blind grasp for pen
‘and checkbook. His hands were shak
ing as with a palsy, but the fear of
‘death steadied them suddenly when he
came to write,
“Indorse it!” was the next com
mand. The voices had ceased beyond
the partition, and the dead silence was
relieved only by the labored strokes
of the president’s pen and the tap-tap
of the typewriter in the adjacent
anteroom.
The check was written and indorsed,
and under the menace of the revolver
Andrew Galbraith was trying to give
it to the robber. But the robber would
not take it.,
“No, I don’t want your paper; come
with me to your paying teller and get
me the money. Make what explana
tion you see fit; but remember—if he
hesitates, you die.”
They left the private office together,
the younger man a short half-step in
the rear, with his pistol-bearing hand
thrust under his coat.. The president
did not despair. In the public lobby
there would be eyes to see, and per
haps some that would understand. Mr.
Galbraith took a firmer hold upon his
self-possession and trusted that some
happy chance might yet intervene to
save him,
But chance did not intervene. There
was a goodly number of customers in
the public space, but not one of the
half-dozen or more who nodded to the
president or passed the time of day
with him saw the eye-appeal which
was the only one he dared to make.
On the short walk around to the pay
ing teller's window, the robber kept
even step with his victim, and try as
he would, Andrew Galbraith could not
summon the courage to forget the
pistol muzzle menacing him in its
only one customer, instead of the
group the president had hoped to find;
a sweet-faced young woman in a mod
est traveling hat and a gray coat. She
was getting a draft cashed, and when
she saw them she would have stood
aside. It was the robber who antici
pated her intention and forbade it
with a courteous gesture; whereat she
turned again to the window to con
clude her small transaction with the
teller.
The few moments which followed
were terribly trying ones for the gray
haired president of the Bayou State
Security. None the less, his brain
was busy with the chanceful possi
bilities. Failing ail else, he was deter
mined to give the teller a warning
signal, come what might. It was a
duty owed to society no less than to
the bank and to himself. But on the
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The Hammer of the Leveled Pistol
Clicked.
pinnacle of resolution, at the instant
when, with the robber at his elbow,
he stepped to the window and pre
sented the check, Andrew Galbraith
felt the gentle pressure of the pistol
muzzle against his side; nay, more—
he fancied he could feel the cold chill
of the metal strike through and
through him.
So it came about that the fine reso
lution had quite evaporated when he
said, with what composure there was
in him: “You'll please give me cur
rency for that, Johnson,”
The teller glanced at the check and
then at his superior; not too inquisi
tively, since it was not his business
to question the president’s com
mands.
“How will you have it?” he asked;
and it was the stranger at Mr. Gal
braith’s elbow who answered,
“One thousand in fives, fens and
twenties, loose, if you please; the re
mainder in the largest denominations,
put up in a package.”
The teller counted out the one thou
sand in small notes quickly; but he
had to leave the cage and go to the
vault for the huge remainder. This
was the crucial moment of peril for
the robber, and the president, stealing
a glance at the face of his persecutor,
saw the blue eyes blazing with ex
citement.
“It is your time to pray, Mr. Gal
braith,” said the spoiler in low tones.
“If you have given your man the sig
nal—"
But the signal had not been given.
The teller was re-entering the cage
with a bulky packet of money paper.
“You needn’t open it,” said the
young man at the president’s elbow.
“The bank’s count is good enough for
me.” And when the window wicket
had been unlatched and the money
passed out, he stuffed the loose bills
carelessly into his pocket, put the
package containing the ninety-nine
thousand dollars under his arm, nod
ded to the president, backed swiftly
to the street door and vanished.
Then it was that Mr. Andrew Gal
braith suddenly found speech, opening
his thin lips and pouring forth a tor
rent of incoherence which presently
got itself translated into a vengeful
hue and cry; and New Orleans the un
impetuous had its sensation ready
made,
| CHAPTER Il
lo Triumphe!
Once safely in the street, Kenneth
Griswold, with a thousand dollars in
his pocket and the packet of bank
notes under his arm, was seized by an
impulse to do some extravagant thing
to celebrate his success. It had proved
to be such a simple matter, after all—
one bold stroke; a tussle, happily
bloodless, with the plutocratic dragon
whose hold upon his treasure was so
easily broken; and presto! the hungry
proletary had become himself a power
in the world, strong to do good or
evil, as the gods might direct.
This was the prompting to exulta
tlon as it might have been set in
words; but in Griswold’s thought it
was but a swift suggestion, followed
instantly by another which was much
more to the immediate purpose. He
was hungry; there was a restaurant
next door to the bank. Without think
ing overmuch of the risk he ran, and
perhaps not at all of gq_g'géfiq,i_oqfl
subtlety of sneh 47 ~Expedient at such
a critical” moment, he went in, sat
down at one of the small marble
topped stables, and calmly ordered
breakfalst,
_ SlNcss hunger is a 1 _special
sty e e s
any pulpit drum of the higher facul
tles, it is quite probable that Gris
wold dwelt less upon what he had
done than upon what he was about to
eat, until the hue and cry in the
street reminded him that the chase
was begun. But at this, not to appear
suspiciously incurious, he put on the
mask of indifferent interest and asked
the waiter concerning the uproar.
~ The serving man did not know what
‘' had happened, but he would go and
find out if M’sieu’ so desired. “M’sieun’”
said breakfast first, by all means, and
information afterward. Both came in
due season, and the hungry one ate
while he listened.
Transmuted into the broken English
of the Gascon serving man, the story
‘or the robbery lost nothing in its sen
~sational features,
It was very evident that the pluto
‘cratic dragon did not intend to accept
defeat without a struggle, and Gris
wold set his wits at work upon the
problem of escape.
“It’s a little queer that 1 hadn’t
thought of that part of it before,” he
mused, sipping his coffee as one who
need not hasten until the race is actu
ally begun. “I suppose the other fel
low, the real robber, would have fig
ured himself safely out of it—or would
have thought he had—before he made
the break. Since I did not, I've got to
do it now, and there isn’'t much time
to throw away. Let me see—" he shut
his eyes and went into the inventive
trance of the literary craftsman—‘“the
keynote must be originality; I must
do that which the other fellow would
never think of doing.”
On the strength of that decision he
ventured to order a third cup of cof
fee, and before it had cooled he had
outlined a plan, basing it upon a cross
questioning of the Gascon waiter.
There had been but one man con
cerned in the robbery, and the side
walk gossip was beginning to describe
him with discomforting accuracy.
Griswold paid his score and went
out boldly and with studied noncha
lance. He reasoned that, notwith
standing the growing accuracy of the
street report, he was still in no imme
diate danger so long as he remained
in such close proximity to the bank.
It was safe to assume that this was
one of the things the professional
“strong-arm man” would not do. But
it was also evident that he must
speedily lose his identity if he hoped
to escape; and the lost identity must
leave no clue to itself.
Griswold smiled when he remem
bered how, in fiction of the felon-catch
ing sort, and in real life, for that mat
ter, the law-breaker always did leave
a clue for the pursuers. Thereupon
arose a determination to demonstrate
practically that it was quite as pos
sible to create an inerrant fugitive as
to conceive an infallible detective.
Joining the passere-by on the side
walk, he made his way leisurely toj
Canal street, and thence diagonally
through the old French quarter roward
the French market. In a narrow alley
giving upon the levee he finally found
what he was looking for; a dingy sail
ors’ barber’s shop. The barber was
a negro, fat, unctuous and sleepy look
ing, and he was alone.
“Yes, sah; shave, boss?”’ asked the
negro, bewing and scraping a foof
when Griswold entered.
“No; a hair cut.” The customer
produced a silver half-dollar. “Go
somewhere and get me a cigar to
smoke while you are doing it. Get a
good one, if you have to go to Canal
street,” he added, climbing into the
rickety chair.
The fat negro shuffled out, scenting
tips. The moment he was out of
sight Griswold took up the scissors
and began to hack awkwardly at his
beard and mustache; awkwardly, but
swiftly and with well-considered pur
pose. The result was a fairly com
plete metamorphosis easily wrought.
In place of the trim beard and curling
mustache there was a rough stubble,
stiff and uneven, like that on the face
of a man who had neglected to shave
for a week or two.
“There, I think that will answer,”
he told himself, standing back before
the cracked looking-glass to get the
general effect. “And it is decently
original. The professional cracksman
would probably have shaved, where
upon the first amateur detective he
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Griswold Went Out Smiling Between
His Teeth.
met would reconstruct the beard om
the sunburned lines. Now for a pawn~
.%:Qko;;; and the more avaricious he
ppens to be, the better he will serve
the purpose.”
He went to the door and looked up
and down the alley. The negro was
not yet in sight, and Griswold walked
rapidly away in the direction opposite
to that taken by the obliging barber.
A pawnbroker’s shop of the kind re
quired was not far to seek in that lo
cality, and when it was found, Gris
wold drove a hard bargain with the
Portuguese Jew behind the counter.
The pledge he offered was the suit he
was wearing, and the bargaining con
cluded in an exchange of the still serv
iceable business suit for a pair of but
ternut trousers, a second-hand coat too
short in the sleeves, a flannel shirt, a
cap, and a red handkerchief; these
and a sum of ready money, the small
ness of which he deplored piteously
befors e would consent to accept it.
The effect of the haggling was ex
actly what Griswold had prefigured.
The Portuguese, most suspicious of
his tribe, suspecting everything but
the truth, flatly accused his customer
of having stolen the pledge. And
when Griswold departed without deny
ing the charge, suspicion became con
viction, and the pledged clothing,
which might otherwise have given the
police the needed clue, was carefully
hidden away against a time whern the
Jew’s apprehensions should be quieted.
Having thus disguised himself, Gris.
wold made the transformation artisti
cally complete by walking a few
squares in the dust of a loaded cotton
float on the levee. Then he made a
tramp’s bundle of the manuscript of
the moribund book, the pistol, and
the money in the red handkerchief;
and having surveyed himself with
some satisfaction in the bar mirror
of a riverside pot-house, a daring im
pulse to test his disguise by going
back to the restaurant where he had
breakfasted seized and bore him uwp
town,
The experiment was an unqualified
success. The proprietor of the banke
neighboring case not only failed to rec
ognize him; he was driven forth with
revilings in idiomatic French and brok
en English.
“Bete! Go back on da levee w'ere
you belong to go. I'll been kipping dis
case for zhentlemen! Scelerat! Go!”
Griswold went out, smiling between
Jiis teeth.
“That settles the question of idens
tification and present safety,” he as
sured himself exultantly., Then: “I
believe I could walk into the Bayou
State Security and not be recognized.”
As before, the daring impulse was
irresistible, and he gave place to it
on the spur of the moment. Fouling
a five-dollar bill in the mud of the gut
ter, he went boldly into the bank and
asked the paying teller to give him
silver for it. The teller sniffed at the
money, scowled at the man, and turned
back to his cash book without a word.
Griswold's smile grew to an inward
laugh when he reached the street
(TO BE CONTINUED.) i