Chapter 9

LATE RETURNS ON POPOVER

"Well?" says I, keepin' my feet up on the desk and glancin' casual over the brass rail. "What's your complaint, Spaghetti?"

It's a wrong guess, to begin with; but I wa'n't even takin' the trouble to place him accurate. He's some kind of a foreigner, and that's enough. Besides, from the fidgety way he's grippin' his hat in both hands, and the hesitating sidlin' style he has of makin' his approach, I figured he must be a stray that had got the wrong number.

"If--if you please, Sir," says he, bowin' elaborate and humble, "Mr. Robert Ellins."

"Gwan!" says I. "You read that on the floor directory. You don't know Mr. Robert."

"But--but if you please, Sir," he goes on, "I wish to speak with him."

"You do, eh?" says I. "Now, ain't that cute of you? Think you can pick out any name on the board and drift in for a chat, do you? Come now, what you peddlin'--dollar safety-razors, bullpups, or what?"

He ain't a real live wire, this heavy-faced, wide-shouldered, squatty-built party with the bumper crop of curly black hair. He blinks his big, full eyes kind of solemn, starin' at me puzzled, and about as intelligent as a cow gazin' over a fence. An odd lookin' gink he was, sort of a cross between a dressed up bartender on his day off and a longshoreman havin' his picture taken.

"Excuse," says he, rousin' a little, "but--but it is not to peddle. I would wish to speak with Mr. Robert Ellins."

"Well, then, you can't," says I, wavin' towards the door; "so beat it!"

This don't make any more impression than as if I'd tried to push him over with one finger. "I would wish," he begins again, "to speak with----"

"Say, that's all on the record," says I, "and the motion's been denied."

"But I----" he starts in once more, "I have----"

Just then Piddie comes turkeyin' over pompous and demands to know what all the debate is about.

"Look what wants to see Mr. Robert!" says I.

"Impossible!" says Piddie, takin' one look. "Send him away at once!"

"Hear that?" says I to Curlylocks. "Not a chance! Fade, Spaghetti, fade!"

The full force of that decision seems to penetrate his nut; for he gulps hard once or twice, the muscles on his thick throat swells up rigid, and next a big round tear leaks out of his off eye and trickles down over his cheek. Maybe it don't look some absurd too, seein' signs of such deep emotion on a face like that.

"Now, none of that, my man!" puts in Piddie, who's as chicken hearted as he is peevish. "Torchy, you--you attend to him."

"What'll I do," says I, "call in a plumber to stop the leak?"

"Find out who he is and what he wants," says he, "and then pack him off. I am very busy."

"Well," says I, turnin' to the thick guy, "what's the name?"

"Me?" says he. "I--I am Zandra Popokoulis."

"Help!" says I. "Popo--here, write it on the pad." But even when he's done that I can't do more than make a wild stab at sayin' it. "Oh yes, thanks," I goes on. "Popover for short, eh? Think Mr. Robert would recognise you by that?"

"Excuse, Sir," says he, "but at the club he would speak to me as Mike."

"Oh, at the club, eh?" says I. "Say, I'm beginnin' to get a glimmer. Been workin' at one of Mr. Robert's clubs, have you?"

"I am his waiter for long time, Sir," says Popover.

Course, the rest was simple. He'd quit two or three months ago to take a trip back home, havin' been promised by the head steward that he could have his place again any time inside of a year. But imagine the base perfidy! A second cousin of the meat chef has drifted in meanwhile, been set to work at Popover's old tables, and the result is that when Mike reports to claim his job he gets the cold, heartless chuck.

"Why not rustle another, then?" says I.

You'd thought, though, to see the gloomy way he shakes his head, that this was the last chance he had left. I gather too that club jobs are fairly well paid, steadier than most kinds of work, and harder to pick up.

"Also," he adds, sort of shy, "there is Armina."

"Oh, always!" says I. "Bunch of millinery in the offing. It never fails. You're her steady, eh?"

Popover smiles grateful and pours out details. Armina was a fine girl, likewise rich--oh, yes. Her father had a flower jobbin' business on West 28th-st.--very grand. For Armina he had ideas. Any would-be son-in-law must be in business too. Yet there was a way. He would take in a partner with two hundred and fifty dollars cash. And Mr. Popokoulis had saved up nearly that much when he'd got this fool notion of goin' back home into his head. Now here he was flat broke and carryin' the banner. It was not only a case of goin' hungry, but of losin' out on the fair Armina. Hence the eye moisture.

"Yes, yes," says I. "But the weeps won't help any. And, even if Mr. Robert would listen to all this sad tale, it's ten to one he wouldn't butt in at the club. I might get a chance to put it up to him, though. Suppose you drop in to-morrow sometime, and I'll let you know."

"But I would wish," says Popover, "to speak with----"

"Ah, ditch it!" I breaks in weary. "Say, you must have been takin' militant lessons from Maud Malone. Look here! If you're bound to stick around and take a long chance, camp there on the bench. Mr. Robert's busy inside, now; but if he should get through before lunch--well, we'll see. But don't go bankin' on anything."

And it was a lovely sample of arrested mental anguish that I has before me for the next hour or so,--this Popokoulis gent, with his great, doughy face frozen into a blank stare, about as expressive as a half-baked squash pie, his eyes fixed on the opposite wall, and only now and then a spasm in his throat showin' that he was still thinkin' an occasional thought.

Course, Piddie discovers him after a while and demands pettish, "That person still here! Who is he?"

"Club waiter with a mislaid job," says I.

"What!" says Piddie. "A waiter? Just a common waiter?"

I couldn't begin to put in all the deep disgust that Piddie expresses; for, along with his fondness for gettin' next to swell people, he seems to have a horror of mixin' at all with the common herd. "Waiters!" he sniffs. "The scum of mankind. If they had a spark of courage, or a gleam of self respect, or a teaspoonful of brains, they wouldn't be waiters. Bah!"

"Also I expect," says I, "if they was all noble specimens of manhood like us, Sherry's and Rector's would have to be turned into automatic food dispensaries, eh?"

"No fear!" says Piddie. "The lower classes will always produce enough spineless beings to wear aprons and carry trays. Look at that one there! I suppose he never has a thought or an ambition above----"

Bz-z-z-zt! goes the buzzer over my desk, and I'm off on the jump for Mr. Robert's room. I wa'n't missin' any of his calls that mornin'; for a partic'lar friend of mine was in there--Skid Mallory. Remember Skid, the young college hick that I helped find his footin' when he first hit the Corrugated? You know he married a Senator's daughter, and got boosted into an assistant general manager's berth. And Skid's been making good ever since. He'd just come back from a little trip abroad, sort of a delayed weddin' tour, and you can't guess what he'd pulled off.

I'd only heard it sketched out so far, but it seems while him and young Mrs. Mallory was over there in Athens, or some such outlandish place, this late muss with the Turks was just breakin' loose. Skid he leaves Wifey at the hotel one mornin' while he goes out for a little stroll; drifts down their Newspaper Row, where the red ink war extras are so thick the street looks like a raspberry patch; follows the drum music up as far as City Hall, where the recruits are bein' reviewed by the King; listens to the Greek substitute for "Buh-ruh-ruh! Soak 'em!" and the next thing he knows he's wavin' his lid and yellin' with the best of 'em.

It must have stirred up some of that old football fightin' blood of his; for he'd organized a regular cheerin' section, right there opposite to the royal stand, and was whoopin' things up like it was fourth down and two to go on the five-yard line, when all of a sudden over pikes a Colonel or something from the King's staff and begins poundin' Skid on the back gleeful.

It's a young Greek that used to be in his engineerin' class, back in the dear old college days. He says Skid's just the man he wants to come help him patch up the railroad that the Turks have been puttin' on the blink as they dropped back towards headquarters. Would he? Why, him bein' railroad construction expert of the Corrugated, this was right in his line! Sure he would!

And when Mrs. Mallory sees him again at lunchtime he's all costumed as a Major in the Greek army, and is about to start for the scene of atrocities. That's Skid, all over. He wasn't breathin' out any idle gusts, either. He not only rebuilds their bloomin' old line better'n new, so they can rush soldiers and supplies to the front; but after the muss is all over he springs his order book on the gover'ment and lands such a whackin' big contract for steel rails and girders that Old Hickory decides to work day and night shifts in two more rollin' mills.

Course, since it was Mr. Robert who helped me root for Skid in the first place, he's tickled to death, and he tells me confidential how they're goin' to get the directors together at a big banquet that evenin' and have a reg'lar lovefeast, with Skid at the head of the table.

Just now I finds Mr. Robert pumpin' him for some of the details of his experience over there, and after I lugs in an atlas they sent me out for, so Skid can point out something on the map, I just naturally hangs around with my ear stretched.

"Ah, that's the place," says Skid, puttin' his finger on a dot, "Mustapha! Well, it was about six miles east from there that we had our worst job. Talk about messes! Those Turks may not know how to build a decent railroad, but believe me they're stars at wrecking a line thoroughly! At Mustapha they'd ripped up the rails, burned the ties, and blown great holes in the roadbed with dynamite. But I soon had a dozen grading gangs at work on that stretch, and new bridges started, and then I pushed on alone to see what was next.

"That was when I got nearest to the big noise. Off across the hills the Turks were pounding away with their heavy guns, and I was anxious for a look. I kept going and going; but couldn't find any of our people. Night was shutting in too, and the first thing I knew I wasn't anywhere in particular, with nothing in sight but an old sheep pen. I tried bunking there; but it wasn't restful, and before daylight I went wandering on again. I wanted to locate our advance and get a cup of coffee.

"I must have gone a couple of miles farther, and it was getting light, when a most infernal racket broke loose not one hundred yards ahead. Really, you know, I thought I'd blundered into the midst of a battle. Then in a minute the noise let up, and the smoke blew away, and there, squatting behind a machine gun up on the side of a hill, was one lone Greek soldier. Not another soul in sight, mind you; just this absurd, dirty, smoke-stained person, calmly feeding another belt of cartridges into his gun!

"'Hello!' says I. 'What the deuce are you doing here?'--'Holding the hill, Sir,' says he, in good United States. 'Not all alone?' says I. He shrugs his shoulders at that. 'The others were killed or hurt,' says he. 'The Red Cross people took them all away last night,--Lieutenant, Sergeant, everyone. But our battery must keep the hill.' 'Where's the rest of the advance, though?' says I. 'I don't know,' says he. 'And you mean to say,' says I, 'you've been here all night with the Turkish artillery hammering away at you?' 'They are bad shots, those Turks, very bad,' says he. 'Also they send infantry to drive me away, many times. See! There come some more. Down there! Ah-r-r-r! You will, will you?' And with that he turns loose his big pepperbox on a squad that had just started to dash out of a ravine and rush him. They were coming our way on the jump. Scared? Say, if there'd been anything to have crawled into, I'd have been in it! As there wasn't, I just flattened myself on the ground and waited until it was all over.

"Oh, he crumpled 'em up, all right! He hadn't ground out one belt of cartridges before he had 'em on the run. But I want to tell you I didn't linger around to see how the next affair would turn out. I legged it back where I'd come from, and by nine o'clock I was behind our own lines, trying to find out what sort of campaign this was that left one machine gun to stave off the whole Turkish army. Of course no one knew anything very definite. The best guess was that our advance had been swung off for a flank movement, and that this particular one-man battery had been overlooked. I don't even know whether he was picked up again, or whether the Turks finally got him; but let me tell you, talk as much about your gallant Bulgarians as you like, some of those little Greeks were good fighters too. Anyway, I'll take off my hat any day to that one on the hill."

"Gee!" I breaks out. "Some scrapper, what?"

At which Mr. Robert swings around and gives me a look. "Ah!" says he. "I hadn't realized, Torchy, that we still had the pleasure of your company."

"Don't mention it," says I. "I was just goin' to--er--by the way, Mr. Robert, there's a poor scrub waitin' outside for a word with you, an old club waiter. Says you knew him as Mike."

"Mike?" says he, looking blank.

"His real name sounds like Popover," says I. "It's a case of retrievin' a lost job."

"Oh, very well," says Mr. Robert. "Perhaps I'll see him later. Not now. And close the door after you, please."

So I'm shunted back to the front office, so excited over that war story that I has to hunt up Piddie and pass it on to him. It gets him too. Anything in the hero line always does, and this noble young Greek doin' the come-one-come-all act was a picture that even a two-by-four imagination like Piddie's couldn't fail to grasp.

"By Jove, though!" says he. "The spirit of old Thermopylae all over again! I wish I could have seen that!"

"As close as Skid did?" says I. "Ah, you'd have turned so green they'd taken you for a pickled string bean."

"Oh, I don't pretend to be a daredevil," admits Piddie, with a sudden rush of modesty. "Still, it is a pity Mr. Mallory did not stay long enough to find out the name of this unknown hero, and give it to the world."

"The moral of which is," says I, "that all heroes ought to carry their own press agents with 'em."

We'd threshed it all out, Piddie and me, and I'd gone back to my desk some reluctant, for this jobless waiter was still sheddin' his gloom around the reception room, and I was just thinkin' how it would be to put a screen in front of him, when Mr. Robert and Skid comes out arm in arm, swappin' josh about that banquet that was to be pulled off.

"Of course you'll come." Mr. Robert is insistin'. "Only a few directors, you know. No, no set speeches, or anything like that. But they'll want to hear how you came to get that big order, and about some of the interesting things you saw over there, just as you've told me."

I had hopped up and was holdin' the gate wide open, givin' Skid all the honors, and Mr. Robert was escortin' him out to the elevator, when I notices that this Popover party has got his eye on the boss and is standin' right where he's blockin' the way.

"Hey, Poppy!" says I in a stage whisper. "Back out! Reverse yourself! Take a sneak!" But of all the muleheads! There he stands, grippin' his hat, and thinkin' only of that lost job.

"All right," Skid is saying; "but remember now, no floral tributes, or gushy introductions, or sitting in the spotlight for me at this--er--er---- Well, as I'm a living mortal!" He gets this last out after a gasp or two, and then stops stock still, starin' straight in front of him.

"What is it?" says Mr. Robert. "What's up?" And we sees that Skid Mallory has his eyes glued to this waiter shrimp.

"In the name of all that's good," says he, "where did you come from?"

You can't jar Popover, though, by any little thing like that. When he gets an idea in his dome it's a fixture there. "I would wish to speak," says he, "with Mr. Ellins."

"Yes, yes, another time," says Mr. Robert hasty.

"But see here!" says Skid, still gazin' steady. "Don't you remember me? Take a good look now."

Popover gives him a glance and shakes his head. "Maybe I serve you at the club, Sir," says he.

"Club be blowed!" says Skid. "The last time I saw you you were serving a machine gun, six miles east of Mustapha. Isn't that so?"

"Oh, Mustapha!" says Popover, his eyes lightin' up a little. "On the hill just beyond where the bridge was blown up? You came at the night's end. Oh, yes!"

"I knew it!" exclaims Skid. "I'd have bet a thousand--same curly hair, same shoulders, same eyes. Ellins, here's that lone hero I was telling you about. Here!"

"But--hut that's only Mike," says Mr. Robert, gazin' from one to the other. "Used to be a waiter at the club, you know."

"I don't care what he used to be," says Skid, "or what he is now, I want to shake hands with him."

Popover he pinks up and acts foolish about swappin' grips; but Skid insists.

"So you beat 'em out in the end, did you?" Skid goes on. "Just naturally put it all over that whole bunch of Turks, didn't you? But how did it happen?"

"I don't know," says Popover, fingerin' his hat nervous. "I am very busy all the time, and--and I have nothing to eat all night. You see, all other Greek soldiers was hurt; and me, I must stay to keep the Turks from the hill. Very busy time, Sir. And I am not much for fight, anyway."

"Great Scott!" says Skid. "He says he's not much for--but see here, how did it end?"

Popover gives a shoulder shrug. "Once more they run at me after you go," says he, "and then come our brave Greek General with big army and chase Turks away. And the Captain say why am I such big fool as to stay behind. That is all I know. Three weeks ago I am discharged from being soldier. Now I come back here, and I have no more my good job. I am much sorry."

"Think of that!" breaks out Skid. "Talk about the ingratitude of Republics! Why, England would have given him the Victoria Cross for that! But can't something or other be done about this job of his?"

"Why, certainly," says Mr. Robert. "Here, let's go back into my office."

"Hey, Popover," says I, steerin' him respectful through the gate. "Don't forget to tell them about Armina too."

And as the three of 'em streams in, with the waiter in the middle, I turns to find Piddie gazin' at the sight button-eyed.

"Wa'n't you sayin' how much you'd like to see the lone hero of the hill?" says I. "Well, take a good look. That's him, the squatty one. Uh-huh. Mike, alias Popover, who quit bein' a waiter to fight for his country, and after he'd licked all the Turks in sight comes pikin' back here to hunt around for his tray again. Say, all of 'em ain't such scum, are they?"

It was a great old banquet too; for Skid insists that if they must have a conquerin' hero to drink to Mr. Popokoulis is the only real thing in sight. Mike wouldn't stand for a seat at the table, though; so they compromised by havin' him act as head waiter. Skid tells the story just the same, and makes him stand out where they can all see him. There was some cheerin' done too. Mr. Robert was tellin' me about it only this mornin'.

"And you've got him his old place at the club, eh?" says I.

"No," says he. "I've arranged to buy out a half interest in a florist's shop for Mr. Popokoulis."

"Oh!" says I. "Backin' him for the Armina handicap, eh? It ought to be a cinch. Some chap, that Popover, even if he was a waiter, eh? It's tough on Piddie, though. This thing has tied all his ideas in double bow-knots."