Speedy (Holman)/Chapter 1
New York.—Subway trains hurtling through holes in the ground at sixty miles an hour. Airplanes winging through the blue at twice that speed with mail for Boston and Chicago. Four lines of motor cars skimming up and down Fifth Avenue as green lights flash on at crossings and reluctantly stopping to allow four similar lines to catapult across their bows as the green flares switch to red. Pedestrians risking their lives to scamper between the hustling automobiles and thus save a precious minute. More pedestrians elbowing their various ways past each other at rapid pace on clogged sidewalks. Tired, tense, worried faces. Rouged, sparkling, merry faces. Hurry, hurry, hurry.
New York. In a residential section near Columbus Circle a white figure spinning swiftly down the street on a bicycle.
As he sped closer, you saw that he was a darkhaired youth of some twenty-odd years, eyes merry behind a pair of tortoise-shelled glasses. He was dressed in white. White trousers, shoes and visorless cap, tilted jauntily on his brown hair. A large wire tray-like container hooked in front of his handle bars. This was heaped as high as possible with small, immaculately white packages. A little, neatly painted sign was fastened onto the tray. It bore the legend, lettered in dainty script: Smythe's Sweets Shoppe.
The rider was in a playful mood. Without slowing the breakneck speed at which he was traveling, he now proceeded to swoop from side to side with the bicycle. He breezed along with both hands lifted from the handlebars. He gripped the bars again, swung one leg over the saddle and rode with both feet on the same pedal. Then, performing what was evidently his masterpiece, he ducked his head under the horizontal main rod of the bicycle, followed his head with his body, emerged on the other side of the machine and triumphantly settled into the saddle into a sensible position at last. All without even breaking his neck!
For a miracle there were no pedestrians on that particular stretch of street. The youth was not showing off. He was indulging in his mad feats purely out of high exuberance of spirits. Vaudeville headliners with four-figure salaries could not do as well.
Now the wild rider leaned earnestly over his handle bars and summoned up even greater speed into his legs. He leaned in the approved racing style as he scorched around a corner. The street he entered was lively with trucks, taxis and pleasure cars. He darted in and out among them. But he had to slow down as the rear end of a huge sprinkling cart loomed in his path. He tried to pass this obstacle, but there was not room between it and the curb. The boy lustily squeezed the bulb of the horn on his handlebars. Finally the red-faced driver of the cart turned around.
"Nothin' doin', big boy," jeered the driver. "Keep that Rolls-Rough back where it belongs."
The cyclist grinned. He shrewdly gauged the space between the water-filled juggernaut and the sidewalk. Deciding he could make it, he put on speed. He edged closer to the rear of the cart. His cycle wheels an inch from the curb, he started to ease past. The driver of the cart, sensing that he was being bested, reached over toward a lever near his seat. No water had been issuing from the snake-like pipes protruding from the stern of the barrel-like vehicle. Now its hard-hearted chauffeur proposed to give this intrepid cyclist a drenching.
He turned the lever. The bicycle was exactly opposite the point where huge sheets of water usually flooded out. The driver expected his prey to be half drowned in a young Niagara.
The water swashed out! But, alas for the practical-joking keeper of the floods, it came from only one pipe. And that was the hose on the opposite side from his victim. A few miserable drops fell apologetically from the pipe near the curb.
The youth on the bicycle laughed aloud as he realized what had been intended for him. He was forging ahead, was opposite the driver's seat.
"Hard luck, old timer," the cyclist shouted sarcastically. "That cart of yours is only meant for alleys."
The driver turned redder than ever. His language was hot enough to dry up the water in his tank.
The boy on the wheel flipped around another corner. He stopped in front of a brownstone house and rang the bell. A pleasant faced young lady, in dust cap and apron, answered.
"Good morning—Smythe's Sweets Shoppe service, madam," said the boy, handing her a box of candy wrapped in art paper and a ribbon and sweeping off his cap with a courtly bow.
The woman giggled.
"Oh, you funny boy," she said.
The boy grinned. He ran down the steps and mounted his wheel again. He made ten or more similar stops in the neighborhood, at each one repeating his greeting and delivering one of the packages from his wire tray. Finally the tray was empty.
Always the boy traveled at a fast pace. He had finished his deliveries now and, as ordered by his employer, was hurrying back to Smythe's Sweets Shoppe. But suddenly as he passed an open lot en route, the only piece of unimproved land for miles around, he slowed down. His eyes were upon a group of youths of about his own age, playing baseball on the field. Opposite the home plate he stopped and rested one foot upon the curb.
The boys, bareheaded and coats off, were playing an impromptu game, six to a side. The cyclist watched one side have its innings. He followed every ball hit or fielded with eager, expert eyes. Baseball was evidently a major passion with him. Smythe's Sweets Shoppe was for the moment forgotten. The boy longed to run over and join the embryo Babe Ruths.
Opportunity came in the form of a cry from the upper window of an apartment house across the street. "Johnn-e-e-e-e! Johnne-e-e-e! Come home to your lunch!" in a woman's voice, wrecked the ball game for one player, the catcher on the side in the field. Johnny reluctantly dropped glove and mask and started across the street.
"Need a man?" cried the boy on the wheel at once and had picked up the dropped implements of war even before the affirmative answer came. The others accepted him as a matter of course, such is the democracy of America's national game. The opposing side was retired without incident, the newcomer having little chance to distinguish himself.
His own side came to bat, to the joy of the new recruit. Batting was really the part of baseball he enjoyed most. He had studied Babe Ruth. He knew how. He waited impatiently while two men struck out. The next two saved him from nervous prostration by getting on base. The crucial moment came. The bicyclist from Smythe's Sweets Shoppe came to the plate swinging two bats. He tossed one aside in the approved manner. He took the traditional hunching, menacing Ruth stance at the plate. The first ball was "right over" and he smote it lustily.
It was a noble swat. Too noble. The runners scurried around the bases. The batter rounded first and started for second. The ball traveled clear out of the lot and, as if aimed by an expert marksman, crashed through the exact center of the large plate glass window of the drug store on the corner!
There was a warning cry and in a second, as if by magic, the field was deserted. Except for the mighty hitter who, head down and oblivious of catastrophe, had turned third base and was headed home. But a few feet from the plate he raised his head and turned to see if the outfielder on the opponents' side had retrieved the ball. Instead he saw a fat, white-clad man rush out of the drug store, look fleetingly at the smashed window and then start running angrily up the street shaking his fist.
That was enough for the sandlot Sultan of Swat. He crossed the home base and kept right on going. He leaped on his bicycle almost in his stride and started pedaling madly. Only when he was three blocks away did he esteem himself safe. He slowed down, panting and a little white-faced, and rode decorously the remaining distance to Smythe's Sweets Shoppe. Here he dismounted and pushed his wheel across the sidewalk and down an alley to the rear of the shop. He entered the store by the back door.
A small, nervous man was waiting for him. It was Mr. Smythe, the proprietor.
"Where have you been all this time, Swift?" demanded this bird-like but shrewd creature querulously.
"I had a lot of stuff to deliver," said Swift, surnamed Harold and nicknamed Speedy, because of the speed with which he went from place to place, and also, if the truth be known, from job to job.
"That's no excuse," insisted the boss. "Oh, I don't know what to make of you young men nowadays. Here all the lunch-time trade is crowding in and Leslie is home sick and—"
"Who? The new soda jerker?" asked Speedy.
"I do wish you wouldn't use such a vulgar term," chided Smythe. "I want my fountain attendants known as soda dispensers."
"Well, how about me for a soda suspender then, boss?" suggested the smiling Speedy. "I'll take Leslie's place. I've watched those lads back there and I can mix with the best of them. This isn't the first time I've asked you for a chance to break into the big time sundae slinging, you know."
"Don't I though!" lamented Smythe. "You're always annoying me. Well, dear, dear, this is an emergency and I'll have to take you. Go back in the wardrobe and change into Leslie's uniform. Your own is very dirty. You must have been rolling around in the streets with it. And please stop that eternal whistling!"
Speedy obediently unpuckered his lips and walked briskly into a neat little back room. He was elated. His chance to make a name for himself in the soda world had arrived.
Three white uniforms, with Smythe's Sweets Shoppe sewed in thin red script on the front of the cap and on the left chest of the coat, hung in a neat soldierly line on hooks against the white wall.
Everything about Smythe's Sweets Shoppe, from the freshly painted front and glistening plate glass windows to this immaculately kept clerks' dressing room in the rear was neat, ultra-modern and expensive. Smythe catered to a high class clientele and kept the atmosphere accordingly. The fountain was marble, huge and shiny. Everything from ice water to nearly a full course dinner was served. The highly polished floors were filled with an ocean of gay tables and comfortable chairs. The place was open twenty-four hours a day.
After a rushing trade during the day and late into the evening, Smythe's was again filled after eleven o'clock by an after-theatre crowd that had made it a fad. Even at four o'clock in the morning you would find pleasure-seekers in evening gowns and dress suits consuming huge triple-decked sandwiches, costing a dollar apiece, and selections from the literally scores of different concoctions that a deft-handed squad of "soda dispensers" poured from the highly polished line of faucets. So many faucets that a plumber would go mad looking at them.
It was behind this soda' fountain de luxe that Speedy Swift, arrayed like the other busy members of Smythe's drink staff, now stepped. Smythe himself, watching him from behind the cashier's bars, inwardly quaked. This Swift boy was such a rattle-brain!
"Hello, Speedy. Joined the juice army at last?" a clerk asked as Speedy squeezed behind him, almost upsetting the ice-cream-filled sundae glass into which the questioner was skillfully spilling a gooey mixture of nuts and hot chocolate syrup mixed with marshmallows.
"Yep, all dressed up in my sundae clothes," chortled Speedy, edging behind other swift, busy "dispensers" up to the end of the counter near the door, the official post of the absent Leslie.
Speedy surveyed the scene in front of him. Smythe's was in the midst of the noon rush. The chairs around the tables were all crowded. Fast, sure-footed clerks were rushing orders from fountain to lunchers. The stools lining the counter were all occupied, and clamoring customers were standing two deep awaiting service none too patiently.
The heaps of sandwiches piled on marble slabs behind the fountain were fast disappearing. Electric toasters were toasting at top speed. Electric mixers were whirring industriously, flinging together milk shakes and other delicacies. Pound cake, chocolate éclairs and doughnuts were making rapid journeys from their glass-encased crocks to hungry lips.
"Young man, are you waiting on me or aren't you?" a fat, over-dressed matron overflowing her stool asked Speedy sharply.
"I'm not, but I'd like to," answered Speedy promptly.
The dowager glared.
"A chocolate malted milk shake and a ham sandwich," snapped the woman.
Speedy seized a nickel, plated container, sluiced chocolate syrup out of a faucet, ladled a slab of ice cream and spooned some malted milk. But when he turned to set the mixture on the whirring electric disk, he found they were all occupied. Undaunted, he snatched up two glasses, poured the brown fluid into one of them and proceeded to fling the liquid from one glass to another. As he warmed to this task, his eye caught the headline on the newspaper in which the head of the man next to his customer was buried. "Yanks Must Win Today to Stay in Pennant Chase," shrieked this heading. Speedy tried to read more, but a woman's scream stopped him.
Taking his eye off his task had resulted in his flinging the full contents of the glass into the irate matron's ample lap!
She rose to her feet, yelling and pointing to her ruined gown. The whole shop turned toward her cries. Customers rose from their tables. Smythe came running from the cashier's cage. The proprietor, gushing apologies, procured a rag as if from mid-air and industriously wiped the stains. Speedy's tared, panic-stricken.
"It's all right, lady. Send the dress to the cleaners and bring me the bill," soothed Smythe.
"That awful clerk. That loafer!" cried the injured one.
"I'll attend to him!" said Smythe, grimly.
Finally, appeased but still muttering, the abused customer was led to the door. Smythe returned, tight-lipped. He walked up to the pale Speedy.
"One more like that and out you go!" threatened Smythe.
Speedy was silent.
Smythe's Sweets Shoppe settled down. No calamity is too great to deprive New Yorkers of their lunch. In five minutes Speedy retrieved his good humor and confidence. He jerked sodas, sundaes, frappés and phosphates with the speed and ease of a veteran. But he also took time to notice that the man with the baseball extra had left the paper on top of the stool. Speedy reached over carefully and took possession of it, tucking it under the top of the counter.
At three o'clock came a lull. For the first time in three hours Speedy was not only customer-less but he had washed and dried all his glasses. He felt privileged now to rescue his newspaper and read the story about "Yanks Must Win Today." Smythe had left the shop temporarily. Speedy devoured the baseball dope like the rabid fan he was.
Gee, they would be playing even at that minute up at the Yankee Stadium. He envisaged the scene. Perhaps Ruth was at bat, with men on bases. Would he catch hold of one? The pitcher—
"Young man, is this a reading room or a soda fountain?" interrupted a gruff voice in front of him. "Is it too much trouble for you to take a large order and have it brought out to my car?"
"Smythe's Sweets Shop service, sir," brightly replied Speedy.
"Bologney," remarked the customer.
Speedy picked up a pad and pencil hanging inside the counter and poised expectantly. But his mind was still up at the Yankee Stadium. The man started reading from a slip of paper which a feminine hand, his wife's, had written upon.
"Three chocolate sodas," read the man and glanced sharply at the soda jerker.
"Three home runs," Speedy wrote on his pad in a daze.
"Two fudge pecan sundaes," dictated the customer.
"Two two-baggers," wrote Speedy.
"A lemon phosphate and a milk shake," finished the man.
"An error and an assist," scribbled Speedy's pencil.
The owner of the thirst had been eying Speedy's writing suspiciously. He now leaned over the counter to observe it more closely. Then he seized the pad from Speedy's hand and read it wonderingly.
"What's this!" cried the man. "As I suspected—plum crazy! Where's the manager of this joint?"
Smythe came trotting up from the rear of the shop, attracted by the noise.
"What can I do for you, sir," obsequiously asked Smythe.
"Read this! Read it!" urged the customer, holding out Speedy's memorandum.
Smythe read. He turned to Speedy.
"You're fired!" he roared. "Take off your uniform and leave this store at once. Stop at the cashier's cage on your way out for what I owe you."
Speedy's face fell. But there was nothing to do but obey. He slowly retreated to the clerks' dressing room. He doffed his white suit and replaced it with his street clothes. He hung the uniform carefully back on its peg, and walked out of the dressing room and into the storage compartment next door. He thoughtfully fingered the shining nickel of the delivery bicycle which had been his during the past two weeks. He gave it a silent farewell. Then he turned and walked through the shop, stopping at the cashier window to receive his wages from a scowling Smythe.
"You're a rattle-brain, Swift," warned Smythe. "I never should have taken you in here. I got bad reports from the other places you worked at. They said you were too happy-go-lucky and they were right. You better settle down or you'll come to a bad end."
"Yes, sir," agreed Speedy, and for the moment believed that his ex-boss was right.
But out on the sidewalk he cheered up. Well, what was one job more or less? Jobs were easy to get. He had had a million of them. True, he always lost them, but then people were always misunderstanding him. Why, he could get another job that very afternoon. See if he couldn't.
With a sudden inspiration he pulled the baseball extra out of his pocket and turned to the want columns. He sat down on the bread box in front of the grocery store next door to Smythe's and read the closely set print of the "Male Help Wanted" news. There was only one that appealed to him:
Speedy sought the nearest subway station.A hungry-faced crowd of men, young and old, were waiting in the ante-room to the spacious offices of the Consolidated Steel Corporation when Speedy breezily opened the door and walked in. They eyed him hostilely, as job-seekers always greet a newcomer and additional competitor. He smiled back at them with confidence. He gave the impression that he had been especially sent to take the job by Charles M. Schwab or some other steel man. His bearing had its effect upon the underling who presently distributed application blanks among the suppliants. He handed Speedy one first. Pens and pencils worked industriously for five minutes. Speedy was ready with his filled-in blank before the others. He strode over the front of the line to hand it to the waiting clerk. Then he stayed there, despite the protests of the man he had supplanted.
Before an actual battle broke out, the clerk, noticing only that Speedy was the first in line and not questioning how he got there, opened the little gate leading to the inner office and motioned him in.
"Second office to the right," directed the guide.
The glass door to this sanctum read, "William Talbott, Office Manager."
The pale, thin-haired man behind the immense flat-topped desk was scanning his application blank when Speedy entered.
"I read where you advertised for me," sang out Speedy blithely.
"What do you mean?" asked Talbott. "I never saw or heard of you before."
"Well, here it is," persisted the youth, handing over the newspaper and indicated with his thumb the Consolidated want advertisement. "That means me. I'm the only man for that job."
The office manager frowned, then his rather severe face broke into a smile.
"You know, I'm rather partial to brass, though our business is steel," declared Talbott. "Your application, with no reference on it and indicating absolutely no experience in our line, warns me against you. But such confidence in yourself must be deserved. You're hired."