Chapter 22 - Page 2

turn to be astonished.

"He could pass for fifteen on the street," Mallow said; "but when he talks I chalk him down for thirty-five. How old are you, Ben?"

"Seventeen. What's the big idea, anyhow?" The question was directed impudently at the occupant of the divan. "Did you send all the way to Hot Springs to get a guy you can lick?"

"Your mother is here in Dallas, my boy."

"Yeah?" There was a pause. "How's it breaking for her?"

"Um-m, very well. I thought she'd like to see you."

Bennie cocked his head, he eyed the speaker curiously, suspiciously. "Come clean," he rumbled. "Mallow said you could use me." "I can. I will." The boy shrugged. "All right, Sharkey. I s'pose it'll come out, in time. Only remember, I've got twenty coming, win or lose."

"Of course" Gray waved toward the dresser, upon which was a handful of bills. "Help yourself. Better make it twenty-five. Then wait outside, please. We will join you in a few minutes."

"And don't make it thirty," Bennie's traveling companion sharply cautioned.

When the door had closed, Gray gave his friend certain instructions, after which he limped to the telephone and called Arline Montague. "May I ask you to step down to Buddy's room?" he inquired, after making himself known. "Oh, it will be quite all right--We three must have a little talk--But he couldn't see you last night. He was quite ill, really; I sat up with him most of--" There was a longer hiatus then. "Hadn't we better argue that in Buddy's presence? Thank you. In five minutes, then."

As he and Gray prepared to leave, Mallow said, sourly: "Margie is a good little dame, in her way, and I feel like a--like a damned'stool.'"

"My dear fellow," the other told him, "I understand, and I'd gladly take another beating like this one to escape this wretched denouement."

When Ozark Briskow answered Gray's request for admittance, he was deeply embarrassed to find Miss Montague also waiting; his stammered protest was interrupted by her sharp inquiry:

"What is the meaning of all this mystery? He said you were too sick to see me."

"Permit me to explain," Gray began, as he closed the door behind them. "Buddy and I came to blows over you; you were, in a manner of speaking, an apple of discord between us, and the melancholy results you behold. Jealousy of your charms was not my motive; I merely asked Buddy to defer a contemplated action. He refused; I insisted. Argument failed to budge either of us and--"

The young woman's sympathetic regard of Gray's victim changed to a glare of hostility as she turned upon the speaker, crying: "You brute! You ought to be