[Illustration]




                           ON THE SWEENY WIRE

                          By Charles R. Barnes

    Author of “The Sweeny Motor Car,” “Mr. Sweeny: Financier,” Etc.


    A party telephone wire is like a political picnic--lots of
    strangers on the ground and all full-fledged listeners-in.
    And Belle Sweeny, the race-track gambler’s widow, found her
    neighbors’ conversation irresistible, but, sad to relate,
    almost as disastrous.

A telephone inspector was in the Sweeny apartment, looking over the
instrument. Mrs. Sweeny stood by, evidently suspicious, and watched the
man as he worked. Sometimes telephone inspectors turned out to be
evil-disposed persons, bent on loot. If one’s back were toward them,
they would deftly collect whatever property happened to be available and
decamp. So Mrs. Sweeny gave this man no opportunity at all to develop a
burglarious streak, but watched his every move.

At last he finished brushing out the transmitter, tapping here and there
with an inquisitive finger, tightening contact screws and the like, and
went his way. His observer, now off duty, made her way to the Boarder’s
rooms for a chat.

“Good mornin’,” she said, as she entered.

He returned the greeting and offered her a chair.

“Thanks,” said she, seating herself. “One of them telephone fellers was
just here, fixin’ the thing. I been watchin’ him. You don’t find me
takin’ chances on parties that comes around like that, bein’ flat
workers. Not me!”

“It’s best to be careful,” agreed the Boarder.

“That’s what my Danny usta tell me b’fore he was shot,” she continued.
“We was on a party line then----” She broke off abruptly, as if memory
had flashed a message. “Say,” she resumed, “was you ever a party liner?”

“A what?” the Boarder asked.

“A party liner,” came the repetition. “You’re one when you and three or
four other people all listens to what each other says on the phone,
b’cause they’re on the same line and can. Anybody that would listen like
that would peek through a keyhole--and I never met nobody that wouldn’t
listen. After you’ve been a party liner for a while, you’ve got more of
a rubberneck disposition than a’ astronomer. You watch a show from
beginnin’ to end, through op’ry glasses, b’cause it makes you think
you’re peekin’ at somethin’ on the sly. It’s a worse habit than
whis’lin’ through your teeth; but there’s times when it comes in handy
for some folks. The fine young one I had almost put Mr. Dan Sweeny and
wife down and out.”

“I suppose the telephone company got after you?” the Boarder hazarded.

“You don’t get no coupon with that guess.” Mrs. Sweeny assured him.
“Nothin’ like that happened; but somethin’ else did. Me and Danny seen
our bank roll all made up and ready to go on in a disappearin’ act. It
was a scary time for me, I tell you, mister.”

                   *       *       *       *       *

The boarder left off whittling the end of a pencil and began to make
himself comfortable.

Mrs. Sweeny continued:

“About that time Danny had had a fallin’ out with a feller named ‘Mike
the Wop’ that was workin’ at one of them race-track books. My husban’
wouldn’t stand for somethin’ he done, and told him so. They quarreled
somethin’ outrag’ous; but afterward they made it up. Danny brought him
out to dinner, and we treated him real stylish, like he was in the
legislature and willin’ to be bought on the racin’ question. But that
there Mike wasn’t no kind of a man. He had a low, backbitin’
disposition--he said he had Sicilian blood in him, and I believe it.
Them Sicilians is great on that revenge thing, mister.”

The Boarder nodded.

“And,” his landlady went on, “I didn’t trust him; and afterward I told
Danny to watch him like he was a tack on a dark floor. I remember that
time at dinner that the telephone was talked about--somethin’ brought it
out--and our party line got a hearin’. And Mike, bein’ one of them
fellers that alwus likes to pan out wimmin for bein’ mutts and havin’ no
principles, says he bet I listened on the line.

“‘Well,’ I says, ‘bein’ that I’m honust by nature,’ I says, ‘I’ll say
this much: If I happen to take down the receiver and the line’s busy,’ I
says, ‘mebbe I don’t put the thing right back up on the hook,’ I says.

“Mike laughs.

“‘Haw-haw-haw!’ he says, ‘you’re like all the rest of ’em, Mis’ Sweeny,’
he says. ‘Wimmin would listen on a telephone line, if what they heard
was that their own house was burnin’ down,’ he says. ‘They’d stick till
the folks got through talkin’ and then take a chance at gettin’ out
alive,’ he says.

“Well, I didn’t have no argument with him, seein’ that he’s nothin’ but
a rowdy. And then the talk turns to who’s on the line with us. You know
how them things will come off. You bring up somethin’ to talk about and
tell all you know about it, and then begin to lie. We told Mike that a
Presbyterian minister was the L party; and a clairvoyant was the X
party, and a feller named Doyle, that run a corner saloon over on
Amsterdam Av-noo, was the R party, and we was the J party. I knew, for
I’d called up the information operator from downtown and asked. Mebbe I
was buttin’ in, but I just had to know. At first I was goin’ to kick
about havin’ a saloon on our line, but the phone wasn’t there; it was at
the man’s house. Of course all this patter didn’t mean nothin’ much to
Mike at the time. It was just somethin’ that comes off between ladies
and gent’m’n. But wait! I seen the time when I wished we’d never said a
word about who was on our line. All the trouble come from that.”

The Boarder was showing considerable interest.

“I don’t see how----” he began.

But Mrs. Sweeny had the floor, and reminded him of it.

“Sometimes,” she declared, “you don’t seem like you had sense. Ain’t I
doin’ my best to tell you how?”

He subsided, and she went on:

                   *       *       *       *       *

“That evenin’ when Mike left, Danny walked to the corner saloon with him
and interduced him to the proprietor, Doyle. This here Doyle was crazy
about the horses, and had more respect for Danny, who was a bookmaker,
than for the man that made the subway. Danny didn’t stay, though, but
come home right away. He wasn’t one of them stay-out-all-nights, except
when there was somethin’ special to celebrate, like makin’ a big winnin’
at the track. When he come in, he says to me:

“‘Belle,’ he says, ‘Mike ain’t such a bad feller.’

“‘There’s worse,’ I says, ‘but they’re in jail. Take it from me, Danny,
the Wop is the kind that’ll meet you with a glad face and then forget
that he ever looked pleasant--he’s a smile-that-won’t-stay-on feller,’ I
says. ‘I like him much,’ I says; ‘about as much as you’d like doin’ the
housework,’ I says.

“You see, mister, a woman’s got a’ instinct that’s wound up all the time
and rings up people and things like a cash register.”

The Boarder was moved to comment.

“Woman’s intuition is a strange thing,” he said.

“I bet on mine,” she assured him, “and I don’t have to walk home much,
as you might say. And when it told me the Wop’s number--which was 00--I
was sure that the right record was playin’. I tried to make Danny listen
to it, but he was goin’ to sleep in his chair and wanted peace. So we
let the thing drop.

“One mornin’ not long after that our telephone rung, and some party ast
for Mr. Doyle.

“‘You’re in the wrong pew,’ I says.

“‘Ain’t this the R party?’ says the feller talkin’, and his voice
sounded familiar.

“‘No,’ I says, ‘this is the J party.’

“I heard him laughin’.”

“‘Hello, Mrs. Sweeny,’ he says, ‘rubberin’ in on the line again? This is
Mike talkin’.’

“‘No,’ I says, gettin’ mad. ‘I ain’t rubberin’ in on the line. Our bell
rung,’ I says, ‘and a lady’s got a puffec’ right to answer her telephone
if the bell rings,’ I says.

“He laughs again.

“‘Correct,’ he says; ‘go to the head of the class.’ Then he told me he
didn’t mean nothin’ and for me not to go away mad. But I hung up, and
throwed a salt cellar across the room, I was so put out.

“After a while, though, the thing got to easin’ up on my chest, and I
begun to wonder what the Wop’s business with Mr. Doyle was. I knew that
Doyle was makin’ considerable money out of his place; so, puttin’ two
and two together, it looked to me that mebbe the Wop was after it. Now,
mister, we’ve brought up at the place where there’s a curious woman to
deal with--and somethin’ usually happens when one of them persons is
turned loose, don’t it?”

“I believe so,” laughed the Boarder.

“You better had,” she told him. “Oh, don’t they know human nature,
though!”

“Who?” inquired he, not knowing where he stood.

“Them gamblers,” she replied. “They know it better than a s’ciety woman
thinks she knows bridge. Well, let me go on with my story. The next day,
about the same time in the mornin’, our phone rings again, and it is
another case of wrong number and another case of Mike. After we’d rung
off, I gets to thinkin’ again: ‘What does he want with Doyle?’ And the
next minute I’ve got the receiver down, and there I am, a peeping
Tomerino, waitin’ for what’s comin’ off. I didn’t stay in suspense.
Right off I heard Mr. Doyle sayin’:

“‘Hello!’ And then come Mike’s voice. They was talkin’ about a winner
that was bein’ held for a killin’. Mr. Doyle was to play it on Mike’s
tip.

“‘I ain’t quite sure yet,’ says Mike. ‘They’re keepin’ that horse
covered up; but I’ll give you the info in time. You’ll know in two or
three days. Then get on, and get on hard.’

“Mr. Doyle was for it, mister. And mebbe you think I ain’t the curious
little girl about that time! What horse was goin’ to come through? If I
could find out and tell Danny, we’d have a fine, soft place to cut loose
in, after the horse had got home ahead of ’em all. The thing got me all
excited. I couldn’t hardly wait till the next day, for I meant to listen
in again--that telephone had took all my morals away from me, and I just
didn’t care what happened, as long as I got that information. I didn’t
even excuse myself on the grounds that I was doin’ a’ underhanded thing
for the husban’ I loved--and at that, I figgered on gettin’ a swell
dress out of the killin’. This money thing, mister, is somethin’ that’s
awful quick and sure in givin’ wimmin a crool attack of bein’ wicked.
Ain’t it?”

The Boarder thought so.

“Well,” Mrs. Sweeny went on, “it took me out of the Sunday-school class
right away. And to make the temptation all the stronger, Mike the Wop
alwus seemed to get our number b’fore he got what he wanted. You’d ought
to of heard him pan out the service! He was real worked up about them
girls makin’ so many mistakes. But I didn’t care. When the bell rung, I
knew that them two men was goin’ to talk, so I got right on the job. And
I stuck like garlic smell on a’ I-talian. I got crazy to know the name
of that horse; and you can know how anxious I was, when I tell you that
I almost cut out bein’ company for Mrs. ‘Big Joe’ Goss----”

“Er----” the Boarder began.

“She was a sick lady I was sittin’ up with afternoons,” Mrs. Sweeny
hastened to explain. “And there’s more telephone stuff to her side of
the story. But just you wait. It’ll all come out in time. Mrs. Big Joe
was the wife of a pool-room keeper that me and Danny knowed real well,
and her bein’ all in with neuritis, I was puttin’ out a helpin’ hand and
gnawin’ on the rag all afternoon, so’s she wouldn’t have a relapse
thinkin’ how Big Joe abused her. I’d been doin’ it about ten days; and
lately I’d of gave my right mitt to stick around and listen to what
might come over the telephone. Gee! but I was anxious to get the name of
that horse, mister! It was real deep anxiety, the kind that makes you
forget hatin’ people.”

“I think I can appreciate your position,” the Boarder assured her with
sympathy.

“You don’t have to be a bettin’ man to do it,” she said. “If you’ve ever
walked down street in a new suit, without no umbrella, and you’re dead
sure it’s goin’ to rain, and it don’t,-then you have went through
somethin’ like I did about that horse. But things have a habit of comin’
to ends, and this here pony business wasn’t any exception. A day or two
later, it all come out. My bell had rung, as usual, and when me and the
Wop had quit roastin’ the telephone company to each other, I. hung up
and waited long enough for Mike to get his number. Then I kicks in. Mr.
Doyle took down his receiver at just about the time I did--say, I had
the thing timed to a second--for I heard him say:

“‘Hello!’

“Mike says ‘Hello!’ too. Then he went on;

“‘Doyle,’ he says, ‘I’ve got it. They’re goin’ to pull it in the fourth
race to-morruh,’ he says.

“‘What is it?’ says Doyle.

“‘Whirlwind, Junior,’ says Mike, ‘and go to it, Doyle, like it was
beefsteak and mushrooms,’ he says, ‘and you hadn’t et in a week. It’s
the best thing that’s happened since Doc Cook discovered easy money,’ he
says. ‘And don’t let this info get away. There’s twenty to one, if you
get on early, and half that, anyway,’ he says.

“Mr. Doyle didn’t take a second to answer.

“‘You’re on,’ he says, ‘and I’ll carry fifty for you.’

“‘Fifty?’ says the Wop, in a voice that might mean anything.

“‘I mean a hundred,’ says Doyle. And then they babbled along for five
minutes about the horse, and the best pool room to put up the money in,
and such a line of stuff. Doyle never went to the track, b’cause if he
did he couldn’t help bettin’ on every race, and that alwus busted him.”

Mrs. Sweeny paused a moment, a bit out of breath.

“I can’t help rememberin’,” she continued, “how fine I felt when I’d got
that tip away from them men. I couldn’t wait till Danny come home that
night. Once or twice I thought of tryin’ to locate him in some of them
Broadway bootleggeries, but I stopped to think that mebbe some one else
might be in on the line--some telephone girl--and spread the Whirlwind,
Junior, stuff. You see, mister, when you’re bad yourself, you find
yourself believin’ that everybody else is a crook, too. It’s caused by
what you tell me is the sighological moment----”

“No,” interrupted the Boarder, “it is a psychic phenomena--a brain
condition----”

“Put that in storage,” Mrs. Sweeny indignantly cut in. “Don’t you s’pose
I know what I’m talkin’ about? Sighological moment is good enough for
me. I heard Mrs. ‘Gold Dollar’ Cohen say that a few evenin’s ago, and
she ain’t got nothin’ on me. If she can use them there words, I guess
Belle Sweeny can. They don’t cost nothin’ and----”

The Boarder smiled.

“I meant no offense,” he said. “Won’t you please go on with the story?”

Mollified, the good lady gave her upturned nose the “going down” signal,
and sailed forthwith into her yarn.

                   *       *       *       *       *

“Well,” she continued. “I was fidgety as a crate of hens till Danny come
home. Then I told him all about what I’d heard.

“‘Belle,’ he says, when I’d shook it out of the trap, ‘you get a nice,
new dress just for this. What does that there one cost you was tellin’
me about--the grape de foy grass?’ he says.

“‘Danny,’ I says, ‘it ain’t grapes, it’s crépe,’ I says. But I didn’t
bother him with the rest of the name, b’cause I knowed he wouldn’t
understand. I only mentioned somethin’ like two fifty, which was nearer
his idea of information, and he stood for it.

“‘To-morruh,’ he says, ‘when I bring home the money,’ he says, ‘you get
yours. I’ll go to it for a thousand,’ he says, ‘and when everything’s
added up, there ought to be enough to pay our hired girl with, anyhow,’
he says. And with that he went to readin’ his paper, after havin’ asked
when in--well, he wanted to know when dinner would be ready, he bein’ as
hungry as never no man was b’fore. So I left him go ahead and read his
paper, and we didn’t mention the horse again till the next day.

“I tell you, mister, I was just about crazy to go out to the track and
see that Whirlwind, Junior, eat ’em up. I could see in my mind about how
it would be. The horse would keep pretty well in front for a while, till
the jockey seen just what he had to beat, then he’d give Whirlwind his
head, and mebbe beat him up, down the stretch. And there’d be a gang of
howlin’ maniacs, yellin’ for the fav’rite to make good.

“You bet there’d be excitement enough to satisfy a modust young thing
like me, and I wanted to mix up in it. Also, I wanted to set around with
a knew-it-all grin all over my face and collect my bit, me havin’ gave
Danny fifty to put down for me. Did you ever make a surething bet?” she
asked.

“No,” replied the Boarder.

“Then,” Mrs. Sweeny said, “you don’t know the thrillin’ feelin’ you get,
waitin’ for things to come across. I can’t describe it to you, but it
sure is some feelin’. It begun with me as soon as Danny went out of the
house, and kep’ up right along. At noon, I slips over to Mrs. Big Joe’s
house for lunch and to stay there with her all afternoon. I couldn’t go
to no track, with her feelin’ like she wanted to jump out of the window
and spendin’ her time quarrelin’ with her nurse. She wouldn’t row none
with me, b’cause she kept too interested in what scandal was goin’ on in
our set.

                   *       *       *       *       *

“I guess mebbe I’d been there a’ hour, when the phone, that was set on a
stand by her bed, begun to ring.

“‘I wisht,’ she says, all nervous, ‘I wisht, Belle, that some one would
kick this thing in the eye for me. It like to drives me bugs,’ she says,
puttin’ the receiver to her ear. I was siftin' close b’side her, and
when she says ‘Hello!’ I could hear the voice at the other end real
plain.

“‘Is Joe there?’ it says. And you can just guess that I set up and took
notice. That there voice belonged to Mike the Wop, and I seen, just as
clear as anything, that Big Joe was in on the deal, too. Somethin’ told
me he was. Mrs. Big Joe said her husban’ wasn’t nowhere around. He was
down at his pool room, she was sure.

“‘No,’ says Mike, ‘he ain’t there. I called up. Say, Mrs. Goss,’ he
says, ‘I wisht I knew where to find him.’

“‘What you want with him?’ she says.

“‘There’s a bad tip loose,’ he says, ‘on Whirlwind, Junior,’ he says,
‘and I don’t want Joe to fall for it,’ he says. ‘Nobody’s supposed to
play it,’ he says, ‘but Sweeny. It’s a plant,’ he says.

“Mrs. Big Joe looks up at me, and I’m bendin’ down close to the receiver
that was against her ear. She pulled it away a little bit, so I could
hear better. ‘This here’s too good to be true,’ she says, forgettin’
that anything was the matter of her. Then to Mike:

“‘What’s this you’re sayin’?’

“‘Sweeny’s goin’ to get his this afternoon,’ Mike tells her, ‘and I
guess him and his rubberneckin’ wife is goin’ to have somethin’ to study
about to-night,’ he says. Then we heard him laugh. ‘Ha-ha-ha!’ he says,
‘I bet they have their telephone tore out by the roots,’ he says. ‘And I
bet she never rubbers again, as long as she lives.’

“Mrs. Big Joe gets awful anxious at that. ‘What you drivin’ at, Mike?’
she says.

“‘You’ll hear later on,’ he says. ‘I’m showin’ Dan Sweeny that he can’t
make a monkey of me and get away with it,’ he says. ‘And I’m flatterin’
myself today that I’m clever enough to walk home alone, anyway. So Joe
ain’t there? Well, I got to hunt him up. If you should happen to get him
on the phone, tell him I said not to play that Whirlwind thing. It’s
goin’ all up and down the line, and how it got loose I don’t know. Tell
him, if you find him. Good-by.’ And Mike hung up b’fore we could get any
more out of him.

“Mrs. Big Joe was so interested that she couldn’t hardly stay in bed.

“‘Tell me, Belle,’ she says, ‘what all this here funny business means,’
she says.

“I just set there and bowed my poor, whirlin’ head in my hands. For I
seen it all now. The Wop had been nursin’ his grudge against Danny, and
he had played a slick hand. He’d been callin’ up our number right along,
figgerin’ that I’d rubber in and hear what was goin’ on. I s’pose he
kept at it so long to be sure that I’d get the phony tip. He’d prob’ly
been listenin’ for that little click you hear when somebody takes down
another receiver on a party-line wire, and he’d found out when I was
listenin’ that way, takin’ a chance, like all them gamblers does, that
it was me, and not somebody else. And right now he was havin’ his little
giggle and warnin’ his good fr’en’s off the information.

“It sure had me goin’, mister, and for a while I was so flustered that I
couldn’t get my head workin’ even good enough to tell Mrs. Big Joe what
had happened. Wasn’t it a’ awful thing, mister, me gettin’ my husban’ in
wrong, through my sneakin’ ways?”

“I suppose you felt decidedly unpleasant,” the Boarder said. “But what
of Doyle? Was he being slaughtered, too?”

“It looked like this to me,” Mrs. Sweeny told him. “What do you think
the Wop cared about Mr. Doyle? Nothin’. He wasn’t no fr’en’ of the
Wop’s--just a’ acquaintance--a fr’en’ of a man that the sneakin’, lyin’
Sicilian didn’t like, anyway. Doyle was only a tool, that’s all. Nobody
cared what happened to him.”

“I see,” said the Boarder.

“Well,” she resumed, “I fin’ly got settled down enough to tell Mrs. Big
Joe the whole story. I didn’t hide a bit of it. But she didn’t have a
word to say against me.

“‘I’d of did the same,’ she said. ‘A lady has got a puffec’ right to
listen if she wants to. What do we have party lines for, if they ain’t
to listen at, when a pusson ain’t got nothing else to do?’ she says. And
I thought it was real lovely in her. Some folks is too narrow-minded to
take her kind of a view of things.

“But she was full of the idee that we ought to find Danny and make him
run away from that Whirlwind stuff. For the life of me, I didn’t know
where to telephone to, for sometimes Danny left his pardner run the book
and stayed in town, even when he was bettin’. And them times he was
usually in a hotel room, playin’ poker and such a line of work.

“‘Be-lieve me,’ I said to Mrs. Big Joe, ‘I’m clean up in the air,’ I
says, ‘for I don’t know where to look for him.’

“But she wanted to do somethin’.

“‘Belle,’ she says, ‘call up all the live dives along Broadway, close to
Forty-second Street,’ she says, ‘and if he ain’t in one of ’em, we’ll
get the track. Now begin.’ She takes the book from the table and hands
it to me.

                   *       *       *       *       *

“For a while, it seemed as if the type just danced around, but soon I
was able to read, and then I begun to call up numbers. My only hope was
that, as Whirlwind, Junior, wasn’t to start till the fourth race, Danny
might fool around with some of his pals till late, and then ride out to
the track in a’ automobile. When I got that far in my reasonin’, I kept
repeatin’ that word, ‘automobile, automobile, automobile.’ It struck me
like a hunch, but it was several minutes before I knew what it meant.
After that, I didn’t telephone no more places. I rung up Mrs. Gold
Dollar Cohen.

“‘Say,’ I says, ‘somethin’ turrible has happened,’ I says, ‘and I must
get to Danny,’ I says, ‘b’fore the fourth race. And will you lend me
your car for a fast ride, and your choofer?' I says. Follerin’ which, I
told her of the mean trick that the Wop had pulled on me and Danny. Mrs.
Gold Dollar spoke right up, as soon as she seen what was happenin’.

“‘Belle,’ she says, ‘you can have the French car,’ she says, ‘and,
what’s more, I’ll go along. Where are you now?’

“‘At Mrs. Big Joe’s,’ I says.

“‘Then,’ she says, ‘get trimmed up, Belle,’ she says, ‘b’cause it won’t
be more’n ten minutes till I’m yellin’ my head off out in front of that
there place for you,’ she says. Then we hangs up, and I’m the busy party
for a while, gettin’ fixed for the trip. Oncet I says to Mrs. Big Joe
that I’d ought to stick around and take care of her, but she let out a
awful holler at that.

“‘There is big things to be did this day,’ says she, ‘and I’m sure I’m
able to take care of myself,’ she says, ‘for there’s the nurse to bawl
out,’ she says, ‘when I want somethin’ to do. And, anyway, I want Mike
the Wop to understand that ladies has a puffec’ right to listen at a
telephone. I do it myself,’ she says, ‘and I ain’t goin’ to stand for no
call down from no cheap Sicilian,’ she says. ‘Our husban’s ought to beat
him up.’

“‘Ain’t that the truth!’ I says, real emphatically. And then I was on my
way, hopefuller than I’d been since the Wop showed us his hand.

                   *       *       *       *       *

“Mrs. Gold Dollar was waitin’ for me when I got downstairs.

“‘Belle,’ she says to me, ‘wait till we get over in Brooklyn,’ she says.
‘I’ve told my man to hit it up and make Sheepshead Bay quicker than it
was ever did b’fore. I don’t care if we do get pinched,’ she says, ‘for
the Gold Dollar is havin’ a great season with his book, and his wife
ought to be allowed a little fun now and then,’ she says.

“My eyes was shut all durin’ that trip, mister, so I can’t tell just
what happened. All I know is that them new French-make cars hits only
every sixteenth high spot, and even at that they touch so light that you
can’t notice it. Mrs. Gold Dollar screamed all the way out. When she
begun, the choofer stopped the car, but she hollers:

“‘Ferdunund, if you do that again, I’ll scream! Go on! Make them wheels
go round like they was paid for it. I’m havin’ the time of my life!’

“And you can take it from me, mister, he done just that. Whee! We sure
did go; and it didn’t seem hardly ten minutes b’fore the thing stopped,
and there we was. Both of us set right out on a hunt for Danny, and
pretty soon we found him talkin’ with a couple of gents.

“‘Danny,’ I says, ‘we been bunked,’ I says.

“‘Give it a name, Belle,’ he says.

“‘The Wop,’ I says, ‘has handed us somethin’.’

“‘Whirlwind, Junior?’ says he.

“‘Yep,’ says I. ‘It’s bad. He ain’t goin’ to win.’ Then I told him the
story as fast as I could patter it out. When I was through, he only
kinda laughed.

“‘Well, Belle,’ he says, ‘I’m sorry you and Mrs. Gold Dollar took the
trouble to come way out here and tell me,’ he says, ‘for I didn’t get on
Whirlwind. They was a big tip out that he was to make a killin’, and it
didn’t look good to me. I don’t never fall for them hot ones, Belle, for
I never seen many of ’em get across,’ he says, ‘but thanks, just the
same, for the bother you and Mrs. Gold Dollar has went to on my
account,’ he says. ‘It makes a man think he’s got fr’en’s.’

“I was so surprised, mister, that I couldn’t do nothin’ but stare.

“‘You didn’t get on?’ I managed to say, after a while.

“‘Nope, I didn’t,’ he says.

“‘Well,’ says I, comin’ to my senses, ‘it looks to me as if the only man
that gets stung is Mr. Doyle,’ I says, ‘and I guess somebody ought to
call him up.’

“Danny looked at me hard when I said that. In another minute he was
runnin’ away as hard as he could go.

“‘I’m goin' to phone him,’ he says.

“And five minutes afterward he was back, mister, with a grin on his face
that made it look like a half-opened steamer trunk.

“‘Belle,’ he says, ‘nobody has got no worries but Mike the Wop. My
fr’en’ Doyle didn’t make no bets,’ he says, ‘b’cause he was in on the
plant. He was stallin’ for Mike; only he didn’t know it was us,’ he
says.

“‘Who was meant, then?’ I says.

“‘Haw-haw-haw!’ says Danny, 'who do you s’pose?'

“‘The minister on the line,’ says I.

“‘You lose,’ says he. ‘Doyle said that he thought they were after the
clairvoyant!’

“‘My sakes!’ I says.

“‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Mike the Wop says to Doyle that the clairvoyant had
trimmed him some way. And Doyle didn’t have no use for her, b’cause his
wife kept goin’ there and spendin’ money for bum information. So he got
in on the plant, and there you are,’ he says.

“Mrs. Gold Dollar and me was so supprised that we couldn’t chatter. And
that’s some supprised for a woman. Then Mrs. Gold Dollar come to. She
dug down in her shoppin’ bag, and brought out a hundred.

“‘Well,’ she says, ‘somebody’s got to lose somethin’ this day, Mr.
Sweeny,’ she says. ‘Go put this on Roller Skates for me, to show,’ she
says.”

                   *       *       *       *       *

                             TURN THE DIALS

Perhaps the next time the radio set begins to howl as if a dozen cat
fights were mewling inside of the loud speaker, it is not static that is
interfering with the reception from the broadcasting station, but a
newspaper photograph which is being sent through the air.

For an event has occurred that has been anticipated for some time--it
has been found possible to send pictures for long distances by wireless.
Though the apparatus has not been brought to that point of perfection
where we can sit at home and see, cast upon a screen, moving pictures,
the while spoken or sung words of the performer issue from the loud
speaker--this development will probably come later--photographs can be
transferred as great a distance as across the Atlantic Ocean.

The picture to be sent is first translated into radio impulses by
photoelectric cells. These radio impulses are broadcast, received on the
other side of the ocean, where they actuate a receiving apparatus which
reproduces the picture as a sketch in hot brown wax. The wax flows from
a fountain pen, which is operated by radio impulses. The reproduction is
a sketch in wavy lines of wax, which is deposited on the paper a little
thicker than the ink on an engraved card.

So, the next time the loud speaker emits squeaks, howls, squeals, or
absolutely impossible-to-be-identified noises--don’t blame it on static!
Just turn the dials and try to get something else, for you may be
listening to a drawing or a photograph flying through the air in bits.

[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the July 7, 1926 issue of
The Popular Magazine. The prescient description of television that would
“probably come later,” included here, appeared on the final page of the story.]