CHAPTER IV

THE SKINNERS

Jim Mayberry was smoking his second cigarette when a girl came out of the main door of the factory offices. She was a slim, rather startled looking girl. Her flaxen hair was pulled back so tightly as to raise her eyebrows perceptibly; this opened very wide her eyes and seemed even to pull the point of her nose up a little and raise her upper lip to display two little rabbit teeth.

“Hello, Skinner,” said the superintendent. “Isn’t Ethel ’most ready?”

“Hello, Jim Mayberry,” responded the girl, who felt no obligation to show the superintendent any particular respect outside the factory. “Going to take me home in your flivver?”

“Aren’t you afraid to ride with me?” asked the man with a slow smile.

“Nope. You try to get funny with _me_ and I’ll scratch your eyes out.”

“My!” drawled Mayberry, “aren’t you the catty thing?”

“You’d think so,” rejoined the flat-chested girl with all the strutting boastfulness of a boy. “No feller’s ever going to kiss _me_ if I don’t want him to.”

“I bet you!” agreed the superintendent with mock admiration. “But where’s Ethel?”

“You aren’t waiting for her, are you, Jim?” the slim girl asked, giggling.

“I thought I was.”

“Then there’s another thought coming to you,” declared the delighted Skinner. “Ethel went long ago--out through the side gate. Guess she must have suspected you’d be waiting here.”

Mayberry uttered a brief and impolite expletive. That did not trouble Mabel Skinner. She lived in a house full of rough men. Her mother was dead and an older sister kept house for the Skinners. The children of Sam Skinner had not been brought up according to the Puritan acceptance of the term. Like Topsy, they had “just growed.”

“She wouldn’t ride in that flivver with you anyway,” Mabel Skinner added. “But I would.”

“Jump in, then, Little Skinner,” the superintendent said, without further advertising his chagrin.

“I hope my Sunday School teacher won’t see me,” the girl observed, getting in beside him quickly. “If she does she will know I am riding fast to perdition. And _do_ make your old rattle-bang go as fast as possible, Jim. I just love to scoot over the road. Gee, if I’d only been made a boy instead of a girl, I’d have been a jockey.”

“Hear the girl!” chuckled Mayberry, who was really after all too good-natured to be spiteful to his guest. “You’ll be up in one of these flying machines yet.”

“Oh, that would be grand! I’d go to France and join the flying corps. That girl from Texas that got over there with the first batch of Yankee soldiers--did you read about her? They got on to her and sent her back. That’s because she got married to one of the buddies. Catch _me_! I wouldn’t marry the best man alive.”

“You won’t,” prophesied Jim Mayberry, still chuckling.

“Smartie! Anyhow, I wouldn’t fall for any man I’ve ever seen yet. Not even Mr. Barton,” she added, as though there might be some doubt in her mind about the general manager.

“Humph! who has fallen for him?” demanded the superintendent suspiciously.

“Every girl in town but me,” declared Mabel Skinner promptly, but grinning impishly, “He’s an awfully nice man, is Mr. Barton.”

“Yes. I’d fall for him myself if I were a girl, I guess,” Mayberry agreed.

“Yes--you--would! Say, that’s my corner!”

“I know. But I’m going to spin you around the reservoir and bring you home the other way.”

“Oh, bully!” ejaculated the girl, fairly jumping in her seat. “I’m being run away with by a man. Never thought it would happen to me. I really wish you wasn’t so trifling, Jim Mayberry. I’d maybe sue you for breach of promise.”

“Then I’m safe, am I?” he asked.

“As far as I am concerned you are. I wouldn’t really marry you on a bet, Jim. Don’t you know that?”

He was highly amused. Mabel Skinner’s tart tongue always delighted him. She lived in one of the poorer quarters of the town. When he finally brought the machine into her street it created a sensation. People left their supper tables to see Mabel Skinner brought home in the superintendent’s car.

“What’s the matter, Mab? Broke a leg?” demanded one lout of a boy, with an impudent grin for Mayberry, and who was just slipping out of the Skinners’ gate. This was “Boots” Skinner, next younger of the clan than Mabel.

“Both of ’em, or you wouldn’t catch me ruining my reputation riding home with Mr. Mayberry. Don’t tell anybody, Boots.”

The superintendent of the Hapwood-Diller factory found that it was he who felt some confusion in bringing Mabel home. The latter took her time in getting out of the car.

“I’m awfully much obliged to you, Mr. Mayberry,” she said, in a shrill and penetrating voice, so that the interested neighbors could all hear. “I don’t know what I should have done if you hadn’t brought me. Walked, I guess. Well! ‘Over the river!’”

She popped into the house before he could get the starter into action under the fire of the neighbors’ chuckles. They all knew Mabel Skinner; and most of them had sized up Jim Mayberry for what he was, too.

Mayberry drove down into Mailsburg’s business quarter and stopped before the Bellevue Hotel. He often took his dinner there and spent the evening, as well, in some upper room where there were shaded lights, much cigar smoke, the clink of glasses and the rattle of poker chips.

The superintendent had been born and brought up in Mailsburg, as Frank Barton had been; but his family was now scattered. He and Barton had been the closest of chums at school. Mayberry owned quite as bright a mind as the general manager of the Hapwood-Diller Company; but he lacked the balance of his friend.

Had it not been for the inspiration of Barton’s companionship and example Mayberry would never have obtained the eminence he had in the factory. In truth, his old chum had actually boosted Mayberry into the superintendent’s job after having been himself elected manager of the concern. Not that Mayberry was not well fitted for this position. But he lacked that quality of ambition to have gained it for himself without Frank Barton’s good offices. At that, he lacked the grace of gratitude.

The Bellevue was the gathering place of the sporting men of the town. When Mayberry came out from dinner, Mr. Grandon Fuller occupied one of the easy chairs on the porch. Fuller’s taste for society was not like that of his wife and daughter. He was a big, pursy man with a shock of white hair and a ruddy countenance. He had a hail-fellow-well-met air for most occasions, and his jovial manner made him popular with most people. In local politics he had some prominence.

“Hey, young man!” he called to Mayberry, “you’ve no engagement, have you? Smith is getting up a party for a little game. Will you join us?”

“Not to-night, Colonel,” returned the superintendent, giving Fuller a handle to his name that always delighted the rich man. He had been on the governor’s staff once. “I am sorry. I have an appointment.”

“Tut, tut! can’t you let the girls alone for one night, Son?” and Fuller’s laugh was unctuous.

“’Pon my word it’s business.”

“Thought nobody had to trouble their heads about business up at the factory except Barton?”

“But Barton may not be there always,” laughed the superintendent, although the suggestion of the manager’s omnipotence did not please him. Everybody praised Frank Barton’s business acumen. Mayberry, being Barton’s close friend, knew just how weak the fellow really was! This was Mayberry’s thought; but he made no display of this feeling, saying:

“It really is business, Colonel. I am sorry not to be able to join you and the other gentlemen. But we really all have to work up there at the factory. Barton may get the bulk of the credit. You know how it is when a fellow once gets into the limelight.”

“Yes,” chuckled Fuller. “But they tell me a lime never gets into the limelight. Don’t tell me Frank Barton is to be counted among the citrus fruit.”

“Never!” responded Mayberry. “But, then, there are others working for the Hapwood-Diller Company too who are not lemons. Good-night.”

He went down the steps whistling cheerfully and Mr. Fuller looked quizzically after him.

“Bright young fellow, just the same,” murmured the man. “Perhaps may be made more useful, even, than Barton. But I fear neither Helen nor the wife would stand for _him_ as a dinner guest; whereas, Barton----”

These cryptic observations were unheard by Mayberry of course. And the frown on his brow belied his cheerful whistle and airy remarks to Mr. Fuller. He got into his car, started it, and drove away from the hotel with the secret feeling that he would enjoy running over a dog.

He kept on through the old part of Mailsburg and down past the docks and over the Stone Bridge. The creek was a wide, oilily flowing stream--save in the time of the spring freshets. He took the Creek Road and rolled easily out of town and along past the farms and wooded strips which intervened between Mailsburg and Norville.

He drove slowly and looked at the illuminated dial of the clock before him frequently. It was plain that he had a rendezvous here in the open. Some one has said: “If you have a secret to tell, select the middle of a ten-acre lot.” Mayberry’s appointment suggested secrecy, for he finally stopped near the bank of the creek with an open, sloping field on the other hand, and no cover but a rock beside the road.

There was shadow enough about the rock, however, to protect the figure of a man on the landward side. But the scent of his tobacco permeated the air.

“Hello, Blaisdell?” Jim Mayberry said quietly and questioningly, having brought his car to a stop just opposite this rock.

“Welcome, dear boy,” was the prompt reply. The waiting man stretched his long limbs and came out of the shadow, still puffing his pipe, to rest a foot upon the step of the car. Mayberry lit a cigarette and pinched out the glowing end of the match before dropping it. “What’s the news?” asked Blaisdell.

“Kind of bad--for you and me,” Mayberry admitted.

“What do you mean? Doesn’t that order go through?”

“It may not. I’m no intriguer, Blaisdell. I can keep you informed; but I am not up in diplomacy. Barton has heard some yarn about you fellows. He is for turning the order down--flat.”

“Can’t you influence him? I thought you and he were thicker than the hair on a dog’s neck.”

“We’ve always been chums,” drawled Mayberry. “That doesn’t give me any hold over Frank’s processes of reasoning. And he can talk me off my feet. I didn’t agree to do the impossible, Blaisdell. If the order goes through the best I can do is to rush it.”

“Yet you expect to get your rake-off,” sneered the other.

“That’s my legitimate graft. It’s for letting everything go through smoothly. You know, in my position, I can favor your company, Blaisdell.”

“It doesn’t seem that you can--not if this order clogs the chute. I am frank to tell you, Jim, we’ve got to get those goods without question or we shall be in untold trouble.”

“Ye-as,” drawled the superintendent, “so I inferred. That is what is bothering Barton. He seems to be wise to the state of your credit.”

“He doesn’t _know_ it,” snapped the other. “He only suspects. Nobody knows it but Billings, Hempstead, me and--you.”

“And I’m sitting tight and saying nothing. I want my rake-off on the order of course--By jinks, I _need_ it! Money is as scarce with me just now as gold filling in a hen’s teeth.”

“Then do something to help us,” urged Blaisdell.

“I’ll do all I can. If I were in charge--Oh, well! I _could_ do something in that case.”

“Say! any chance of that happening?” demanded the other and with eagerness.

“I--don’t--know. There may be. Frank has got the war fever. Fact! Any fellow that got exempted as easy as he did----”

“By the way,” asked Blaisdell, “how did you get past the board?”

“Conscientious objector,” replied Mayberry glibly. “Sure! My mother and father were Quakers and I often attended the Friends’ Meeting House,” and he laughed.

“You are a liar, Jim,” said the other frankly. “The Quakers are putting their young men into the Red Cross and all such work. That claim don’t go. I believe it cost you money. Doc Flammer has bought a new runabout--and it’s a better car than you drive, Jim. I believe that foxy medico knows how to feather his nest.”

“I really have a bad heart,” said the superintendent of the Hapwood-Diller Company seriously. “Quite a murmur. You can hear it sometimes without the stethoscope.”

“But the doc never advised you to cut out the tobacco, did he?” drily queried Blaisdell, as Mayberry lit another cigarette at the coal of his first. “Now, see here, to get back to biz: You say Barton has the fever?”

“He’s wanted to go all along. You should hear him talk! He makes me sick!” scoffed the superintendent. “If he should go I shall step into his shoes _pro tem_. He wants to go to the officers’ training camp at Lake Quehasset. _Then_ I might be able to help you fellows--and myself--Blaisdell.”

“You think Barton will immediately turn down our order? Before he goes away--if he does go?”

“I believe he has already.” Mayberry gave no particulars, but he spoke of the letter the manager of the Hapwood-Diller Company had ordered written that afternoon. It was not to his advantage to say anything about Ethel Clayton and the confidence Barton had in her good sense and ability.

“Postpone the sending of that letter, Jim,” said Blaisdell hastily. “It has not left the office yet, has it?”

“I do not believe so. It was too late for the last mail,” Mayberry agreed. But he was puzzled.

“I’ll tell you what I mean,” Blaisdell said, leaning nearer to the superintendent. He laid a hand upon the latter’s shoulder. His lips were close to Mayberry’s ear. Nobody could have heard then what he said, not if they had been at Blaisdell’s elbow. And there was nobody so near. A few minutes later the superintendent turned his car and started back toward Mailsburg while Blaisdell strolled away in the opposite direction. Then it was that a cramped figure rolled out from the shadow on the creek side of the great rock.

“Those two chumps purty near made me late setting my lines,” observed Boots Skinner under his breath. “The moon’ll be up in a few minutes and then mebbe I’d git nabbed.

“Old Man Hammerly says that if I’m caught doing this ag’in he’ll give me all the laws allows--an’ then some. The old jackdaw! I bet he never gits the chance.

“That’s the way. Ain’t no chance for a poor feller, jest as dad says. Such rich chaps as them two can plan to do all the devilment that they want, and nobody dast touch ’em. But me! I ain’t let to ketch a mess o’ fish in peace. Huh! Jest the same, me an’ dad will have a fish-fry for breakfast,” and he grinned in the darkness, carefully baiting his hooks.