# The Popular Magazine/Volume 73/Number 3/Old King's Coal

Extracted from Popular magazine, 1924 Aug 20, pp. 48–59. Title illustration may be omitted.
Old King's Coal
By C. S. Montanye
Author of “Old Father Hubbard,” “Tips that Pass in the Night,” Etc.
Ottie Scandrel jumps from the ladder of success and falls on the escalator of fortune.
ACCORDING to Marcus Borealis, younger brother of Aurora, one of the literati who roamed about Rome a year or so before the Eagles became sea gulls, “Twice blest is he who can forever retain what is his own.” Marcus might have been a shark or a bust as the Shakespeare of his day but upon that one remark alone he deserves everlasting credit and a prominent place in the textbooks. It's a fact that any bim who has nerve and gets a lucky break can collect the sugar, but it takes one who is smarter than smart to hang onto it once he's leveled off and has it.
I'm right, am I not?
In this age of dashing yachtsmen who make frequent trips to the West Indies on business, yeggs, eggs, race tracks, bobbed-hair bandits, to say nothing of all the strangers from out of town who take Broadway and make themselves eligible for doing time by lifting watches, head waiters, waiters with no heads, the tin-can pirates with crooked meters, chorus girls, cloakroom burglars and—finish it yourself—any one who can retain what good fortune, gray matter or Mistress Luck has bequeathed him deserves all the medals. Shylock, himself, would have been looking for space on the bread line had he ever dropped off at the port of New York to stretch at the tall buildings.
This zippy narrative hasn't a thing in the world to do with Shylock although it does concern a certain blockhead who undoubtedly traces directly back to the famous money lender. The name, as you probably suspect, reads Ottie Scandrel.
Friend Ottie, a Manhattan hick who'd believe that Adam smashed baggage in the Garden of Eden if you looked him in the eye when you told him so, was one of the kind the Borealis boy must have been thinking about when he dipped his fountain pen in the ink to pen his wise crack. Scandrel, with more ups and downs than a second-hand roadster on a tough detour, had knocked out an eye-widening fortune aided and abetted by luck and pluck, had clowned around on the dough, loafing like bread until the Stock Exchange shook him like a cocktail, cleaned him like a carpet and dried him like a bath towel before removing his last nickel and showing him the nearest exit.
It was pence to shillings that any one else slapped over the jumps in this manner would have called it a day and gotten a job as a bookkeeper or a bootlegger but not so with the former pride of the Broadway farm. Ottie had staged a comeback by a climb into the prize ring and, riding in on the long end of the purse, had copped a piece of important money. Right here is where the sense of Marcus gets in its fine work with the cents of Scandrel and proves without a doubt that what was good a few centuries ago can get across to-day without difficulty.
Just for fun let me tell you about it.
Scandrel with a fresh bankroll turned overnight into the well-dressed boulevardier he had been before the bulls and the bears had given him the crash. He began dining three times a day, ate between meals, bought another car whose wheels were all present and then began running up to my gym in the Bronx to snicker at the tomato-catchup sockers who were working their heads and hands off around the premises in order to get edged for some notorious prelim that was to start them off on the road to fame. Ottie had a laugh for the lightweights, the welters and the top heavies, a giggle for all his old pals and a sneer for Looie Pitz, the little fight manager, who, like the brook, went on forever.
Pitz and Ottie were always as friendly as a couple of Airedales in a strange kennel but for once Looie had the bulge on him. Somewhere in the great wide world the little Scandinavian had dug up a two-fisted welterweight who was the real case goods. The puncher answered to the name of “Right Hook” Lane and made the same kind of an impression on the Manhattan fight fans as a “Follies” queen would on a hick village. Pitz's boy had everything including a disposition like a tormented hornet and a love for taking and giving it. He fought in the ring, in his dressing room, in the street, up alleys and on corners and he fought his way up the ladder like an Irish bricklayer working with a half dozen Italians. It looked like the welter crown sure, and Pitz, who had formerly traded in nothing but champion floppers, was so tickled that he bought himself a silk dicer and two clean shirts.
Really, Right Hook Lane had the stuff that would make a butterfly talk back to a vulture!
Every one around the Bronnix gym thought so too except Ottie who rolled up a couple of days after he first began spending real jack again to look things over and cast an optic at Lane, who was tearing up a couple of his sparring partners and getting a lot of amusement out of it.
“It looks as if Pitz had struck gold at last, don't it?” I said when the second frame began with Lane steaming up his wallops.
Ottie glanced carelessly up at the slugfest and curled an immediate lip.
“Yeah? You think so, so I'm taking an opposite stand. Sure, this is a fast job, but I had a look at his record in the paper the other night and who did he ever fight except old men, nearly-wases, never-wases and other guys who think gloves are something you wear when you go to a wedding. Match him up with a first-rater and you'll see Looie going back to that funny derby hat he used to wear. A laugh, positively.”
As he finished speaking Pitz saw us and came over, dragging down his cuffs to prove they were clean.
“I guess I ain't got it now?” he chuckled, waving a finger at the fast-moving Mr. Lane. “Look at that boy sock! Look at his footwork! Look at the way he crosses that left, and don't overlook that wonderful right of his! He's there, I'm telling you!”
“But do I believe you?” Ottie yawned. “Where did you pick up this tramp?”
Pitz licked his lips.
“Out in Pennsylvania—fighting around the coal mines for nothing and enjoying every minute of it. He's a natural or I can find comfort in a telephone booth. He's going right up until he sits pretty on the throne. Sweet, no?”
Scandrel nudged me.
“Get every word of this, Joe. Looie thinks he's out before a circus. You poor fish,” he hissed at the optimistic manager, “I was just telling O'Grady here that your world beater ain't hardly anything at all. If I had time I'd step up there now and drop him like a cut-rate sale in a drug store. Sitting pretty on the throne, hey? That means somebody's going to crown him. Get away with that stuff. I could go out now and find any number of boys who, with a week or two of work, could put him to bed like flowers.”
One glance at Looie Pitz was sufficient to show that he was being singed.
“Come on now, you two!” I cut in hastily. “If you want to fight join the police force or get married. Don't mind him, Looie. He's taking you out for a gallop. Er—what did you want to see me about?” I asked Scandrel.
He consulted his notes, fingered one of his ruined ears and coughed.
“That's right, Joe. I come all the way up here for a piece of talk with you. If you've got a couple of minutes that are running to waste can I see you in your private office?”
“Go in and lock the safe first!” Pitz advised.
“I'll lock you perfectly safe!” Scandrel hollered. “You've got too much to say for your size. Don't forget you're handling Right Hook Lane—not Benny Leonard. Take a walk for yourself or I'll knock the top of your nut off!”
Before he could carry out the threat or promise Lane had punched his luckless sparring partner out of the ring and in the excitement I managed to get Ottie away. In the office I closed and locked the door while he dropped comfortably into a chair, put his new shoes on the edge of the desk, buttoned his new waistcoat, hung up his new tile and inhaled the fragrance of the silk kerchief that went with his balloon trousers and seven-dollar cravat.
“That guy Pitz!” he mumbled. “He's a human felony I'd like to take for plenty. If that silly smacker of his is the future champ the Prince of Wales can ride horses. Honest——”
“Is that what you came up here to see me about?” I interrupted.
He wiped off his chin, wound his new wrist watch and sighed.
“To be truthful—no. Listen, Joe. Now I got a wad again I'm looking around for a good investment. I want to buy in on a graft that earns as much as rum running, pays profits like the ladies' clothing business, is as safe as a political pull and as interesting as musical comedy. I might be wrong but I think I've found my future profession.”
“What is it—pocket picking?”
Ottie coughed again.
“Your comedy's rotten, Joe. No, it ain't pocket picking any more than law is medicine. Leave me tell you about it. The other day when I went to shop for a new bus I got a steer over to the Night-and-Day Garage which is nearer the East River than it is to Times Square. I didn't pick up a bargain there for the reason that the head of the works can't tell the difference between a new car and a used car when it comes to prices. The name of this party is Jerry King and he told me he's thinking of selling out on account of the tough hours and having to watch out that nobody gives him the oil to steal his gas. He says that it's a bargain for any one looking for a nifty investment and while I only had a sneer for the proposition I've been thinking it over ever since. It's a cinch that nobody could steal gas off me——”
“Why should they steal it when you give it to them for nothing?” I cut in.
“Well, to lay a long story with a punch in the eye, I'm set now to talk money with this King baby. Give me an hour out of your life and we'll run down and look the works over. I'll pass you in as an expert so he won't try to gyp me and we'll see which is what. Correct?”
My answer was such that two o'clock the same afternoon found us delving into a neighborhood somewhere between the Battery and Harlem where nobody's life was safe after twilight.
Future presidents and gunmen played in the gutters, in the middle of the street and on the slippery sidewalks. Somebody's wash was drying on a hundred fire escapes and peddlers with pushcarts that sold everything from suspicious herring to fur coats bargained along the way. We had to push a path through a couple of gang fights, cross two avenues and turn down another side street before we reached our destination.
The Night-and-Day Garage was located in a three-story edifice and was all wet. Two open touring cars that had given up the struggle had died at the front door, a couple of taxies with yellow fever lay in ruins back of them and a couple of sportive car washers with an equal number of hoses responsible for the general dampness were spraying a limousine that looked as if it might have given Noah a joy ride. For the rest there was the perfume of grease and gas and wet rubber.
Ottie sniffed it and reached for his pipe.
“It don't smell so good,” he admitted, “but neither does glue and look at all the money in it if you stick around on the job. Hey, Mac!” he bawled at one of the moist pair. “A little attention now!”
The washer swung around and handed us a stream from the hose before he was able to turn the water off at the nozzle. My boy friend chased his new skimmer, caught it before it flowed to the gutter and returning pasted the offender.
“Trying to beat Saturday night out, hey? Get under that boat and look at the axles. You, Herman,” he roared at the other one. “Where's the boss?”
The second mechanic shrugged.
“Down in the cellar with the bells and the bags,” he replied indifferently. “If you boys have got a bill to collect rush over and push that bell near the office door. I'd do it myself only I ain't no bell hop.”
Scandrel was about to put him on the floor with his friend when a door in the rear of the place opened and Jerry King, the proprietor, walked casually in.
King was a trifle breath-taking. I expected to behold some ex-mechanic who by preying on the customers had collected enough to go in for wholesale brigandage but saw instead a well-built, handsome youth with a Harvard face, a Yale accent and a Princeton polish. King wore gray-flannel trousers, white tennis shoes and a silk shirt over which he was pulling a heavy sweater before he smoothed down his carefully parted hair and sauntered over to us with the languid grace of a matinée idol stepping out to take his fifteenth curtain call.
“Well, here we are,” Ottie began. “A little wet but all together otherwise. Meet my friend, Joe O'Grady, who knows more about the garage graft than most paying tellers do about time-tables. For a fact, Joe can run a bus on a gallon of cold water and get fifty miles or more out of it. He knows as much about cars as the party who runs the subway, even if he does hang out in the Bronx. Let's go inside and talk about this and that and so and so.”
The handsome and well-bred Jerry King agreed with a languid nod, smothered a yawn and led us into a small office which he unlocked with two keys. Once inside he waved us into chairs. Ottie promptly took two—one for himself and one for his feet.
“Now I know where I've seen you before,” King murmured politely. “You're the prospective purchaser who was here the other day. Your face is not easily forgotten.”
“Never mind my face,” Ottie growled. “Who did you think I was—Mary's lamb? Listen, I'm here with my pal to talk dollars and sense. Leave us look over your books and then we'll come down to brass tacks. Right?”
King waved a weary hand at a safe that was half open.
“The books? Oh, quite naturally. Just help yourself, old top. You'll find them all there, but you'll notice that on some days there were no entries. I couldn't afford to keep a bookkeeper and I was so frightfully enervated at times I really couldn't do it myself. But do help yourself. Maybe you can understand the figures—I can't.”
With his usual swagger Scandrel hauled out the ledgers and began running through them. He had no idea of what it was all about. A double entry to him meant two horses entered in a race by the same owner and for all he knew a debit was some kind of a dope fiend who used opium. Twenty minutes of close examination that told him absolutely nothing sufficed. With a knowing nod he hurled the books back in the safe, coughed and took his chair.
“Your accounts look O. K. to me, feller. Now for the most important item. What is your reason for selling out this here establishment? Be truthful. Liars to me are the same as second-story men to the flatfeet—I get them in the end. Come clean, bo.”
King helped himself to a cigarette and leaned farther back in his chair.
“It's rather a long story, you know. And a bit of a fanciful yarn though perfectly true. Favor me with your attention for a few minutes and I'll try and explain matters. I think you'll be surprised.”
We were.
To begin with we learned that Jerry King was no other than the only son of the millionaire coal magnate who was known to the press, pulpit and his associaes in high-way robbery as “Old King.” It seemed that he was one of these efficiency whales who wanted everybody on the job—except himself—every minute of the day. It also seemed that his most ardent desire was that his son and heir be a chip of the old blockhead. Jerry King frankly admitted that he had been born lazy and wasn't ashamed of it. He went on to tell how his father had taken him into the business only to throw him out when he had found him, not asleep at the switch, but doing a doze at a one-hundred-and-eighty-dollar mahogany desk.
It was a sad, sad story.
“Father,” young King continued, “was simply furious when he caught me napping. It was about the fifth or sixth time so perhaps he had reason to be. He called me a shiftless waster and other unpleasant epithets. Not only was he very disagreeable but he said he was through with me until I could prove to his satisfaction that I possessed some disguised qualifications he had never been able to find. He said I was a failure and, inasmuch as he hates failures, informed me that I need not come back to the fold until I had proved to his satisfaction that I could do some one thing better than any one else could. Father don't care if it is driving a truck, cleaning the streets or manipulating an elevator. If I can excel in something and prove that I can earn money by my own ability, he'll be glad to bury the battle-ax, knowing I'm not quite as lazy and worthless as he believes me. So after the jolly old talk he wrote me out a check, I cashed it and purchased this garage from a gentleman who didn't like the police commissioner and didn't want to stay in the same city where he was.”
“And the jolly old garage is a flop,” Ottie horned in. “Well, well. So that's the way it was? You sound like a library book reads, but go right along. Tell me lots more.”
Young King obliged.
It seemed that his father, following the traits of numerous rich men who had discovered that office hours interfered with golf, was about to retire and hand the business over intact, not to a little group of faithful employees but to one Adolphus McSweeney.
“McSweeney,” King explained, “is a cousin of mine who lives five hundred or a thousand miles from New York.”
“A distant cousin,” Scandrel grinned. “What about him?”
“It's so beastly unfair,” the other went on. “I haven't seen Adolphus for years, though I understand he has developed into a somewhat uncouth and low person with odd hobbies. If father does fulfill his threat my cousin will surely wreck the business. Whereas, if father handed it over to me I feel perfectly confident I could handle it successfully.”
“The same way you keep books, hey?” Ottie grunted.
Jerry King flushed.
“There's a difference,” he pointed out stiffly, “between doing the work yourself and having some one do it for you. The head of a vast corporation such as father's coal business has only to sign letters and checks. My chirography is splendid, if I do say so myself, and competent aids will handle all the necessary routine, leaving me merely to push buttons. This is why I'm selling out this garage. It's not my line and there's no use to continue on. You may have it for one third of my original investment.”
“Fair enough,” Ottie replied briskly. “Get your lawyers to draw up the papers, telephone me at the Swank Club over on Third Avenue when they're ready to be signed and I'll stop in with a certificate check to close the deal. The car business is a made-to-order fit for me. I'll collect heavy on this grift.”
King promising to have everything ready for the transfer of the property before the end of the week, bowed us languidly out, Ottie as pleased as a laundress with a new washboard.
“So you think you can make a success of it?” I murmured when we reached the runway that led to the street.
“Think it?” was his answer. “I know it! I ain't got a college education and for all I know Mussolini is something you catch in the mud at low tide, but I'll clean on this, I positively will. Let me tell you——”
He was cut short by the appearance of a canary-colored roadster that shot in from the street and came to a panting stop, its brakes burning, its radiator boiling over and its five tires as flat as the sole of a traveling salesman's shoe.
From this colorful example of the automotive industries' art alighted a young lady who resembled a magazine advertisement that had come to life. She owned hair the same shade as the car, Broadway eyes, a Riverside Drive smile and a West End Avenue hauteur. She was as trim and twice as neat as a package of pins, as pleasing to look at as twilight across a lake and as fascinating as roulette.
While she got out and slammed the door Ottie, his eyes bulging, stepped forward and she snapped her pretty fingers twice.
“Here, my man,” she ordered, “just take a wrench and find out what's the trouble with my car. Don't stand there gaping at me like a fish. I had the motor as far north as Central Park when I heard something drop and since then it hasn't been running well at all. Be quick now.”
Ottie looked at me, coughed and unbuttoned his jacket so she could get a glimpse of his new platinum watch chain.
“Er—you've got me wrong, Peachy,” he began with a smirk. “I ain't no more a mechanic here than you're the janitress and I couldn't tell you what ails your job if you promised on your word of honor to wed me at four o'clock. The name is Otto Scandrel. If you hail from New York or its suburbs you probably know all about me.”
The girl shook her yellow head.
“I'm afraid I don't. I'm sorry I made such a dreadful mistake. But do you suppose I can have the car fixed so I can use it after the show to-night? I want to take two of my girl friends up to the Outside Inn.”
“The show?” Ottie hollered. “So you're in the show business? I might have known it. No doll with beauty like yours is letting it go to waste. Be at ease with me. The show business is my profession also, you might say. I used to help Georgie Cohan write his songs and plays, I always give the Shubert boys tips when they build a new theayter and I pick out the 'Follies' chorus for Ziegfeld every season. That ought to make us pals on the spot. What did you say your name was?”
“Merla Nevin. I'm playing the ingénue in 'Come On Feet, Let's Go!' the new revue at the St. Jaundice. You must stop in some time.”
“Try to keep me away!” Scandrel giggled. “And meet one of my pals—Joe O'Grady, on the left. When we go out on parties we'll find somebody for Joe—maybe you got an aunt whose rheumatism ain't so bad in warm weather. Joe's not much to look at but he's got a nice disposition and money flows with him like cement. Excuse me now while I go and get some one to look over your car. Don't go away. I'll be right back.”
He returned with all the employees of the place armed with everything from nail files to sledge hammers. By cuffing a few and bawling out the others he got them all to the yellow roadster and snapped up the hood.
“Now—go!”
With joyous shouts the bunch rushed forward and began tearing the engine apart. While they threw half of it away Ottie and Miss Nevin held animated conversation.
“You know,” the good-looking blonde confessed, “I begin to think I was rooked when I bought that car. I paid twelve hundred—or almost half a week's salary for it—and I've had nothing but trouble from the day I first owned it. It's yellow in more ways than its paint. I hate it, I hate it!”
“After a while I'll go over and kick it for you!” Ottie said. “Why don't you sell it? A snapper like you needs pearls hung around her neck, not a wreck like that. You know it—so do I.”
Merla Nevin smiled grimly.
“Sell it? Who'd buy themselves trouble?” She gave Ottie a sharp look, laughed a little and continued. “You know it isn't really such a bad car after all. The upholstery is lovely and when the wind shield is clean you can see right through it. Would—would you be interested in buying it from me for nine hundred dollars?”
This was Ottie's cue to snicker out loud.
“No, baby. There are limits to even friendship and admiration. But I'll tell you what I will do, Merla—yes, I'm calling you that because I can see we're due to be regular pals. I'm practically set to snap this sink up outright and once I do I'll advertise the can and wish it off on the first person who comes in here with a loose fifty megs. Right? I'll see you back to Broadway in a taxi—if you don't mind and have your pocketbook with you. This neighborhood is so tough that they boil nails here instead of cabbage.”
The girl looked in my direction.
“But is Mr. McShady coming too?”
He made a careless gesture.
“Stay around and see that these tramps don't lay down on the job, Joe. The boss mechanic tells me that with any kind of luck that calliope will be running like a phonograph within a week and a half. So long—see you Tuesday.”
Some two weeks or fourteen days later Ottie became the proprietor of the Night-and-Day Garage and on the afternoon after that the weary Mr. Jerry King called around to remove the last of his personal belongings. These, as he explained, were behind lock and key in the cellar.
“The nose paint, hey?” Ottie questioned, all attention. “I'm sorry, cull, but there's nothing doing. All the case goods on the premises belong to me now. Good afternoon. Call again when you're in need of service. We'll fix your mud guards and sell you four square gallons of gas every time you order five.”
Instead of seeking the nearest door King raised a brow.
“I'm afraid that you misunderstand me entirely. I have no liquor here that I wish to take away. If you and your friend will come downstairs I'll jolly soon show you what I called for.”
We slid across the garage to a flight of stairs, fell down them and waited until our host produced a key and unlocked the door he had led us up to. A dazzling electric light was switched on and what we saw was a fairly spacious chamber that had been fitted up as a makeshift gymnasium. There were rows of Indian clubs and dumbbells, chest-weight machines, a sand dummy, skipping ropes, flopping mats, and a soap box full of gloves.
Ottie swallowed his disappointment and rolled a lamp hastily about.
“So this is what Water, the car washer, meant when he said you were down with the bells and the bags, eh? What's the big idea?”
King smiled sheepishly.
“I rather imagine that I will be more successful in the prize ring than in the garage business. At college I used to spar a bit and more than once several people told me that I should go out after amateur welterweight laurels. I've always kept fit and top hole, you know. Personally, I believe the ring is where I can convince father that I'm not quite the unambitious, shiftless waster he imagines. At least it's worth a trial. The very worst thing that can happen to me will be a damaged nasal appendage.”
“Yeah? Don't kid yourself. You're as liable as not to draw a busted beak,” Ottie cut in. “So you're set to be a slapper, is that so? I don't know whether you read the papers but I used to be in the box business myself. How many battles have you pulled, if so when, where, why and what's your record?”
King coughed and buttoned his neat tweed jacket.
“To be perfectly candid I've had only one professional engagement so far. That was one night last week at the Paralytic A. C. in Jersey City. Under the nom de plume of 'Left Hook' Swain I opened the card and went six rounds to a draw with some local rowdy who was introduced as 'Cockeye' Callahan.”
“Callahan!” Ottie broke in. “I know that jobbie. He's got a punch that could kill a hippo—when he's sober. If you kept the small of your back off the mat and did six stanzas with him you can't be so terrible. Who's your manager, where do you train and what's the next date, if any, on your slate?”
The handsome King gave orders to a couple of day laborers who shuffled in to pack the gym stuff up before going through with the third degree.
“I've been both managing and training myself so far, you know. Perhaps I've neglected the latter because the garage business distracted me and frequently I was too tired to put my entire mind to it. My next encounter, you ask? It's rather odd. After the Jersey City affair I was approached by a Mr. Pitz. This Pitz has charge of a pugilist who has been somewhat of a sensation and who is called Right Hook Lane. He wants me to sign articles to meet Lane next month in a final bout at the Metropolis A. C. I'm to let him know definitely by Thursday.”
At this Ottie's eyes lighted like bonfires. He smacked his lips and shook hands with me.
“I hope you didn't miss any of that, Joe. Looie, the little stiff, is trying to match that wiz of his with what he thinks is a set-up. Don't you get it? A little easy jack, a K.O. in the first frame and all the newspaper gab. Fond mamma! I'd like to tip over his apple cart and knock his plans for a loop. Picture that mountain lion of his getting chewed up by what the pair of them think is a Pekingese lap cat. Maybe it wouldn't be a sight worth seeing! Listen,” he said to King, with what might be described as a dash of excitement, “I know these two tramps not well but too well. Pitz talks too much with his mouth and Lane ought to be stiffened on general principles. Now pay attention. Give me the name of the gym where you expect to work and I'll call around and watch you step. If you've got anything at all except a pair of arms I'll manage you myself for nothing, shape you up like the Winter Garden and teach you tricks you'd have to have your head beaten off to learn otherwise. Make me?”
The former owner of the Night-and-Day Garage looked a trifle surprised but didn't hesitate.
“I've made arrangements to practice at Harry O'Rosenblum's gymnasium over on Fifty-sixth Street. I'll be there to-morrow morning from ten o'clock until noon, at which time I would be most happy to have you call. It will be jolly nice of you and if you can furnish me with a fair estimate of my prowess and ability you may be sure I'll be deeply appreciative.”
“A return to prosperity has undoubtedly unbalanced you,” I told the big egg when King and an express wagon full of the gymnasium paraphernalia departed. “You might think Lane is as phony as the Bell System but I'm telling you that he's the next welterweight champ of the world. It's a crime to send a green boy in against him.”
Scandrel shrugged this off with the indifference of a duck getting rid of a raindrop.
“You think so, but let me tell you this. The bim I train is trained. If King looks good to me in action I'll have him ready to crash Dempsey, Harry Wills, Greb and Tunney all in one ring at the same time.” He threw a glance at his arm clock and another at the back of the garage where the herd of busy mechanics were still working on Merla Nevin's horseless carriage. “I got a date now with the lady who owns that ark, so stay around, keep an eye on the gas pump, don't let no one short change me and if there are any callers from the advertisement I put in the paper for Cutey's car start with a thousand dollars but don't take less than eighty-five cash. And be sure to meet me to-morrow morning. You can clean out the office while you're waiting, if you want. I'll let you.”
A nice fellar, what?
More out of curiosity than for any other reason I met Ottie the following morning at the rendezvous. He showed up rubbing his hands and grinning like a child at the sight of a new drum.
“You seem,” I murmured, “pleased about something. What did you do—look in the mirror?”
He took off his new hat, admired it, put it back and sighed.
“Like the party said whose wife threw the contents of the kitchen at him—everything is coming my way. Equal this if you're able, Joe. Not thirty minutes ago by a grandfather's clock a customer who read the advertisement comes down to the carriage to look at the four-wheeled cup of custard. It's Right Hook Lane or I can touch the back of my neck with the end of my heel. I didn't tell him my name and I don't think he recognized me. He said the car was just exactly what he was looking for but he didn't want to meet the price. He only wants to pay two fifty and I'm holding out for two sixty-five. He's to think it over and let me know before the end of the month. It's a sure sale and I kill two stones with one bird. Not only do I set myself in right with the little blond lady who wears the classy shrouds but I stick Pitz's world beater with the most renowned piece of junk ever seen since the last crop of heavyweights. Come on, let's go up and slant King.”
Harry O'Rosenblum, an ex-convict who had switched from the wire to the bag tappers, greeted us at the door and after listening to what Scandrel had to say nodded like a cuckoo in a Swiss clock.
“You're talking from King, mebbe? Do I know is he good, do I know is he bad? Esk me and I can't tell you. He pays me twelve dollars a day for the use of the gym and for twelve dollars he could be a half-wit, what I care? He's inside getting dressed like a chorus girl. He tells me he expects it company this morning and that I should get him a good tough boy to play with.”
“Who's the good tough boy?” our hero inquired.
O'Rosenblum risked a smile that let us in on the secret of his one tooth.
“'Rusty' Hogan. Go ahead in and look around. How is business by you, O'Grady?”
We mingled with a couple of dozen cast-iron gangsters, plug-uglies and pugilists who were throwing the dice and the bull. In twenty minutes or so Jerry King came out of his boudoir wrapped up in a violent violet kimono. The good-looking son of Old King, the coal millionaire, yawned behind his gloved hand and greeted us with some enthusiasm.
We had time only for a short sample of his patter before Rusty Hogan, a former stevedore who was unfavorably known in sporting circles as a boxer and who had at least fifty pounds on King, swaggered in. With his wire hair, his brassy smile, his steely gaze and his iron jaw Hogan was a walking hardware store.
He cast one contemptuous look at King, threw away the drag he was puffing on and climbed into the ring. A big mockie in a faded red sweater volunteered to act as timekeeper and a few of his playmates left the dice tournament to come over and bid King good-by.
Even O'Rosenblum seemed slightly agitated.
“I hope the police don't hound me for this,” he muttered. “With my record they should railroad me for twenty, thirty years, mebbe. This ain't business—this is taking a chance!”
“Simply watch my style of action,” King requested. “I realize that I have a jolly lot to learn before I meet Right Hook Lane. I'll be thankful for advice, you know.”
He dropped the bath robe, revealing a well-knit body, a chest big enough to support locomotives and a waist like a débutante. Then he swung up into the ring, said something to Hogan and an instant later, without bothering to shake hands or kiss, the fray was on.
Our one regret was that it hadn't been staged in Madison Square Garden!
Disregarding and not waiting for the bell, King and Hogan tore into each other like a pair of cats from different neighborhoods. There was action from the first punch to the last punch and the Marquis of Queensberry might have drawn up a set of rules governing parchesi for all the notice either took of them. Catching King short with a left and a right, Hogan jabbed a hook to the mouth and a left to the body. We looked for the heir to the coal business to take the pad with alacrity but he weathered both wallops and came through with a sizzling uppercut that rocked Hogan like an old-fashioned cradle.
Hogan hung on, used a wicked rabbit punch in the break, hit low in the next exchange and continued with a variety of unsportsmanlike tactics that no more stopped King than a paper fence would a runaway horse.
With all the inmates of the gymnasium yelling their heads off, he fought Hogan across the ring with rights and lefts while O'Rosenblum in his excitement, swung upon the ropes and offered his favorite blackjack. The timekeeper rang the gong frantically but the end of the round meant as little to King and Hogan as a Fourteenth Street department store to the Vanderbilt family.
With the claret flowing freely, one of King's glims out for good and Hogan's face a complete ruin, they took turns spilling each other but fooling the crowd by jumping up and coming back for further assault and battery without waiting to take any part of a count.
O sole mio!
In the center of the ring King did terrible damage with a straight right to the kidneys and a scissors hook to the head. Hogan hung on, missed with a left jab and a right swing and had three punches thrown at him before he could cover up. He closed in and they stood toe to toe and slugged, but it was a cinch to see King had all the advantage of it and that Hogan was tiring rapidly.
With encouraging shouts from the gallery who overlooked the fact that Hogan was one of them, King tore loose and prepared to administer a final pasting. With his left he jabbed the groggy Hogan off so he could measure him and unleashed a mattress wallop.
“That's pretty!” Ottie roared above the tumult. “The old right now and take your time, kid! Measure him and then straight to the button. Let her go!”
King obliged and Master Hogan shot through the ropes, doubled up like a blanket and broke three camp chairs when he landed. Then, just to make it even all around, King rushed over and knocked the wildly excited Mr. O'Rosenblum cold, kicked the timekeeper in the face and would have beaten up the rest of the gym if Ottie hadn't grabbed a red pail marked “Fire” and dashed the contents over him.
At that he had to hit King with the bucket before he could restore order.
“A fighting fool and no mistake, Joe! So Right Hook Lane is a bear cat in action? Well, he'd better have his obituary set up in type because this baby is going to take him the same as Pershing took Manila Bay. I'll get O'Rosenblum to act as manager so Pitz won't suspect there's a West Indian in the woodpile, we'll sign immediately on any terms and then I'll toss a stiff dose of condition into Jerry. Look—he's emerging from it!”
King sat up, shook some water away, grinned sheepishly and yawned.
“What happened? Really, I remember my antagonist fouling me on several occasions. Did I lose my temper? And tell me—in what respect is improvement necessary?”
To continue.
The articles and terms of combat for an engagement between Right Hook Lane and Left Hook Swain were signed the next day and later the same afternoon Looie Pitz strolled into the Bronx gym, his silk hat newly ironed, Lane a pace back of him.
The dangerous welter was a tough-looking proposition who wore a sneer, a smile as false as his teeth, one good ear and some burlesque clothing. Pitz seated him and tossed a grin at me.
“We just now signed for a roll over, O'Grady. I'm letting the kid earn a little pin money by sticking the count on some mate who copies us by going around as Left Hook Swain. He's a flashy proposition and the one round he stays will go swell with the scribes. Why shouldn't we take something soft while we're waiting for the champ to accept one of our daily challenges?”
“I understand Swain went six rounds with Callahan,” I said by way of diversion.
“Callahan?” Lane sneered. “That bolognie is as soft as an omelet. I could put on my shoes with one hand and lick him with the other. Who is this Swain guy? He looks like a duke or something to me.”
He continued mumbling threats until it was half past five and Pitz led him off for an interview with some sporting editor who had a four-o'clock appointment with them both.
While tempus fugited Ottie, running the garage and training Jerry King, was as busy as a queen bee on the first day of spring. He had set up training quarters on the top floor of the Night-and-Day Garage, he used the mechanics as sparring partners and he let the well-bred youth do his roadwork along the East River. No reporters ever ventured into the lair because Ottie kept his protégé's whereabouts dark and his only expense was bribes for the cops who grabbed their nightsticks and rushed after King with cries of “Stop thief!” when he was doing a morning spin!
As a day-and-night caller at the garage with a finger on the pulse of the situation it wasn't difficult for me to see that King was coming along nicely. Under Ottie's tutelage he was discovering how to get everything out of a punch, how to use his left and what to do with his feet. Planting me to watch the gas pump, Ottie had developed the habit of rushing up to the top floor every afternoon to lace on the gloves and give King his daily music lesson.
Scandrel might have been a conceited ignoramus, the fool of luck and so small that he could ride horseback on an ant, but when he made up his mind to put something across bullets couldn't stop him!
I understood vaguely that he was rushing around Broadway with Merla Nevin, the Queen of the Blondes, in his spare minutes, but I never suspected what he was framing up until he displayed a solid-diamond, real-gold engagement ring that he had taken out of pawn on a ticket he had found in the back seat of one of the cars stored in the garage.
This he displayed in confidence one afternoon a few days before the fight when King was doing a kip on an upstairs couch and one of the mechanics was preparing repair bills by slipping around the motors and stealthily removing a dozen or more of their magnetos.
“When a gal asks some gils for a ring they get an alarm clock,” Scandrel chuckled, dropping the engagement ice carelessly back in his waistcoat pocket. “Wait'll Merla gets a peek at this inducement. I'll give her the ring first and ask her afterward. And picture me with a wiff earning two grand or so a week. All I'll have to worry about in the future is how long she will keep her looks and be able to sing and dance.”
“Then it's all arranged?”
“Er—not exactly. After the fight's over I'm taking her to the Golden Slipper Supper Club and that's where I goal her with the hock rock and the proposition. I can't lose on this——”
He was interrupted by the appearance of a mechanic who had twelve dollars' worth of lubricating oil on his pan and overalls.
“There's a fifteen-thousand-dollar Rolls-Arrow outside, boss,” this number stated. “The party inside it wants to see you. What'll I do?”
“Send him in,” Ottie directed, “and while he's talking to me puncture a back shoe so we'll be sure of a little something. Get me?”
The other touched his cap and ducked.
There was a few minutes' intermission and then we had with us an elderly gentleman who closely resembled Palm Beach in the winter, Newport in the summer and Wall Street the rest of the year. He was a little gray and careworn and leaned heavily on his stick.
“Our aim is service,” was Ottie's greeting. “Carbon burned out for a buck a cylinder, brakes lined with the care of fur coats and batteries charged like the Light Brigade. How much of a strain can you stand?”
The caller smiled slightly and sat down.
“I think,” he began, “I had better introduce myself. My name is Benjamin King, sometimes known as Old King. My son Jeremiah telephoned me last night and explained the details of his latest enterprise. Prize fighting is a manly art and some of my fondest recollections are battles of the old guard—'Lanky Bob' Fitzsimmons, Tom Sharkey, Peter Maher, Jim Corbett—fighting men who fought like men. Jeremiah tells me that you are handling him. In confidence—how good or bad is the boy?”
Ottie made a gesture.
“He's the crocodile's cough, Mr. King, and don't let no one tell you different. He might be as lazy as a daisy in the sun but once he's in a ring and gets a couple of clouts to wake him up he's a tiger.”
The elder King nodded.
“That's exactly what I wanted to learn. The outcome of this prize fight is of great importance. I've decided that upon it shall rest the future of my business. If Jeremiah can win it will be proof enough for me that he has the stuff in him to do something well and to fight the battle of business. If he loses, I'm practically certain that I'll hand the entire establishment over to my sister's boy, my young nephew, McSweeney. Ah—there will be a few thousand dollars in it for you if the lad wins. You need not tell Jeremiah I was here to-day. He will see me at the ringside where I have already reserved seats. That, I believe, is all. Thank you. Good day.”
“The same to you—don't mention it,” Ottie whinnied, opening and closing the door. “A few thousand in it for me, Joe? This is a big day for me. I forgot to tell you that Right Hook Lane has decided to buy the yellow-dog roadster for two hundred and sixty-five dollars and seventy-five cents precisely. That also will help along the proposal. Lady Luck is certainly carrying on an outrageous flirtation with me!”
The night of the Lane-Swain bout found Jerry King polished up like a brass front-door knob, as cool as all summer resorts are advertising to be and as confident as a crook in the dock with a political lawyer whispering to the judge. I didn't invade the dressing room but went directly to my ringside seat which was one row removed from the chairs occupied by Benjamin King and several of his business acquaintances. As I sat down I noticed King handing a couple of letters to a young man who looked like a secretary but failed to see more for the reason that in the excitement of the semifinal a stout gentleman on my left used my ear as an ash receiver.
With old King champing at the bit the star bout was finally ready to go on. Left Hook Swain entered the ring first to mild applause and Lane, trailed by his seconds and handlers, showed up a minute later and won a roar of admiring approval. Then Ottie had a lot to say that meant little, bandages were examined, the announcer announced, Pitz took himself and his silk hat out of the ring, the rest of the bunch followed suit, the gong clanged and the battle began.
It's perfectly safe to say that no fan present felt that he wasn't receiving full value in return for the price of his admission ticket. The mill was scheduled to go twelve rounds and went the limit with terrific action characterizing every minute of them and the pendulum of victory swinging first in Lane's direction and then in King's. Knockdowns were as frequent as Reds in Russia. If Lane won a round, King was certain to even it up by taking the next and when the final bell rang and the draw that was a foregone conclusion was handed out, the crowd showed their appreciation of the fair verdict by getting up on their heels and cheering for twenty minutes straight.
The only one who failed to register delight was Scandrel.
“Them crooks!” he moaned when I went down to the dressing room. “Jerry had it on points nine out of the twelve chapters. A tough break for you, kid,” he went on, turning to the handsome youth. “You lose the coal business and I'm out them few thousand your old gent mentioned. Let's catch this Lane baby upstairs and knock his nut off. What do you say?”
Before King could say anything the dressing-room door opened and his father and cane entered. The anthracite magnate swept the room with a glance, handed Ottie a check and crossing to his son slapped him heartily on the back.
“Splendid, splendid, Jeremiah! I knew that once you learned the true identity of your opponent and he learned yours the bout would be sensational from the instant it began.”
“Hold everything!” Ottie bawled, shoving the check in a side pocket. “You're as mysterious as a detective going up a fire escape, Mr. King. What do you mean—the identity of his opponent? Who is Right Hook Lane?”
jerry King stretched languidly and smiled.
“Lane? He's merely Adolphus McSweeney, the uncouth cousin I told you about. Father had him looked up, learned that he was a pugilist and just before we both left for the ring sent his secretary down with a note to each of us explaining matters and telling us that the winner would be the one who received the business. Jolly idea, what? Just like a book or a movie.”
Benjamin King turned his shrewd eyes affectionately on his son.
“Neither of you won, so it's up to me to be the referee. Jeremiah, the coal business is yours! Take it, keep it running, but don't bother me with anything concerning it. I'm off to Pinehurst in the morning to play golf until I haven't enough strength to reach the green with an iron. Take it, my boy, it's yours!”
Young King yawned.
“Thanks a lot, father. Jolly nice of you and all that. But I don't think I'm interested. You'd better speak to Adolphus. I understand he's worked around the coal mines of Pennsylvania and he's probably looking for a soft-coal job. I've found the one thing I can do better than anything else and with Mr. Scandrel to guide me, I'm going to try and get a crack at fame, fortune and the champ!”
Exactly twenty minutes after that we rushed into the Golden Slipper Supper Club and discovered the beautiful Merla Nevin waiting for us in the foyer. The blondie was chuckling at something that amused her greatly. While Ottie's fingers went directly to his waistcoat pocket she broke into silvery laughter and spilled it.
“You simply must pardon my mirth,” she gurgled. “A girl on the stage receives the most laughable propositions at times. Let me tell you about one of them. For quite some time now Right Hook Lane, the prize fighter, has been paying me devoted attention, never dreaming I've been happily married for the past seven years. This afternoon after the matinée he called at the theater to propose matrimony and offer me an unusual inducement to accept. You can never, never guess what this inducement was.”
Ottie slipped the pawn-ticket diamond ring out of his vest pocket, handed it to the girl in charge of the coatroom, drew a breath and tried to smile.
“If we can't guess you had better tell us. What was the inducement?”
Merla Nevin giggled again.
“Right Hook Lane wanted to give me a car,” she explained. “A beautiful yellow roadster he had just purchased at some garage uptown and which he claimed was as good as new. Fancy that!”
Another story by Mr. Montanye in the next issue.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1930.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1948, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 76 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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