The Streets of Ascalon ebook

Contents

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER I

It being rent day, and Saturday, the staff of the “Irish Legation,” with the exception of Westguard, began to migrate uptown for the monthly conference, returning one by one from that mysterious financial jungle popularly known as “Downtown.” As for Westguard, he had been in his apartment all day as usual. He worked where he resided.

A little before five o’clock John Desmond Lacy, Jr., came in, went directly to his rooms on the top floor, fished out a check-book, and tried to persuade himself that he had a pleasing balance at the bank–not because he was likely to have any balance either there or in his youthful brain, but because he hadto have one somewhere. God being good to the Irish he found he had not overdrawn his account.

Roger O’Hara knocked on his door, later, and receiving no response called out: “Are you in there, Jack?”

“No,” said Lacy, scratching away with his pen in passionate hopes of discovering a still bigger balance.

“Sportin’ your oak, old Skeezicks?” inquired O’Hara, affectionately, delivering a kick at the door.

“Let me alone, you wild Irishman!” shouted Lacy. “If I can’t dig out an extra hundred somewhere the State Superintendent is likely to sport my oak for keeps!”

A big, lumbering, broad-shouldered young fellow was coming up the stairs behind O’Hara, a blank book and some papers tucked under his arm, and O’Hara nodded to him and opened Mr. Lacy’s door without further parleying.

“Here’s Westguard, now,” he said; “and as we can’t shoot landlords in the close season we’ll have to make arrangements to pay for bed and board, Jack.”

Lacy glanced up from the sheet of figures before him, then waved his guests to seats and lighted a cigarette.

“Hooray,” he remarked to Westguard; “I can draw you a check, Karl, and live to tell the tale.” And he rose and gave his place at the desk to the man addressed, who seated himself heavily, as though tired.

“Before we go over the accounts,” he began, “I want to say a word or two–”

“Hadn’t you better wait till Quarren comes in?” interrupted O’Hara, smoking and stretching out his long legs.

“No; I want to talk to you two fellows first. And I’ll tell you at once what’s the matter: Quarren’s check came back marked ‘no funds.’ This is the third time; and one of us ought to talk to him.”

“It’s only a slip,” said Lacy–”it’s the tendency in him that considers the lilies of the field–”

“It isn’t square,” said Westguard doggedly.

“Nonsense, Karl, Rix means to be square–”

“That’s all right, too, but he isn’t succeeding. It humiliates me; it hurts like hell to have to call his attention to such oversights.”

“Oh, he’s the gay tra-la-la,” said O’Hara, indulgently; “do you think he bothers his elegant noddle about such trifles as checks? Besides he’s almost as Irish as I am–God bless his mother and damn all landlords, Lester Caldera included.”

“What does Quarren do with all his money, then?” mused Lacy–”soaking the public in Tappan-Zee Park and sitting up so close and snug to the rich and great!”

“It’s his business,” said Westguard, “to see that any check he draws is properly covered. Overdrafts may be funny in a woman, and in novels, but once is too often for any man. And this makes three times for Rix.”

“Ah, thin, lave the poor la-ad be! ye could-blooded Sassenach!” said Lacy, pretending to the brogue. “Phwat the divil!–‘tis the cashier ye should blame whin Rix tells him to pay, an’ he refuses to projuice the long-green wad!”

But Westguard, unsmiling, consulted his memoranda, then, holding up his sheet of figures:

“There’s a quorum here,” he said. “Rix can read this over when he comes in, if he likes. Here’s the situation.” And he read off the items of liabilities and assets, showing exactly, and to a penny, how the house had been run for the past month.

Everything was there, rent, servants’ wages, repairs, provisions, bills for heating and lighting, extras, incidentals–all disbursements and receipts; then, pausing for comments, and hearing none, he closed the ledger with a sharp slap.

“The roof’s leakin’,” observed O’Hara without particular interest.

“Write to the landlord,” said Lacy–”the stingy millionaire.”

“He won’t fix it,” returned the other. “Did you ever hear of Lester Caldera spendin’ a cent?”

“On himself, yes.”

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