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And, in the meantime, if you want me to do anything for you, say the word. I am open for any proposition that you may offer." On the way to the Falls, Tom Shocker told much about himself, and Nat learned that the fellow was one of those shiftless mortals who change from one situation to another.
"Will you help me, if I er try to fix that Dave Porter?" asked Nat. "He started it. I don't care so much about Lawrence." "Sure I'll help you. Anything you say goes," answered Tom Shocker, readily. He thought he saw a chance of getting another dollar or two out of Nat. The two walked behind some bushes and there talked the matter over for several minutes.
You're not a bad fellow, but you've landed me in melodrama for the first time in my sober existence. I have a grudge against you for mixing up the Coolin with a shilling shocker. You've spoiled their sanctity. 'You've the wrong notion of romance, I said. 'Why, man, last night for an hour you were in the front line the place where the enemy forces touch our own.
D'Amade looked in to say good-bye. On my way down to the harbour I overhauled the Assyrian Jewish Refugee Mule Corps at the Wardian Camp. Their Commander, author of that thrilling shocker, "The Man-killers of Tsavo," finds Assyrians and mules rather a mouthful and is going to tabloid bipeds and quadrupeds into "The Zion Corps."
He knew the teacher to be a model man, who did not drink or gamble. "Here we are," said Tom Shocker, as he stopped in front of a door at the back of the hallway on the third floor of the building. "I guess you can go right in. He's on the bed with his broken ankle." "His broken ankle?" repeated Dave. "Why didn't you tell me of that before?" "I thought I did," returned Shocker, smoothly.
"Nat, I've got to get back to Buffalo to catch my train for Chicago." "Humph. Not to-night. You'll stay here." "The others will worry about me." "Let them worry. I'll be glad of it." "Better destroy that note," suggested Tom Shocker. Then he noticed Dave's watch and chain, and valuable stickpin, and his eyes glistened. He began to wonder how much money the lad had in his pocket.
But if you talk often enough and glibly enough of "four and five hundred yards," it does not sound like much, does it? The same class of writer always gets all the thrills. He speaks of "blanched cheeks," of the "thrilling suspense," and so on down the gamut of the shilling shocker. His stuff makes good reading; there is no doubt of that.
"All right; I might as well go to Buffalo, now I am so close," answered Nat. "But I'll send word home first," he added, and this was done. After resting at a hotel in Buffalo, Tom Shocker proposed a trip to Niagara Falls, Nat, of course, to pay the way. "I'll pay you back some day," said Shocker, offhandedly. "When I strike another situation I'll have plenty of cash.
He found Tom Shocker rather coarse, and the man wanted to drink whenever the opportunity afforded. From the rapids below the Falls the pair walked to Goat Island, and there Nat was on the point of giving Shocker the slip when he chanced to see Dave and the others of the party.
I knew Sir Shadwell was in town, and telegraphed to him to beg him to see me that night at half-past eleven if he possibly, could, and, on arriving, I found him at home very much at home, indeed, in a smoking jacket and slippers over a big fire in his own private sanctum, enjoying his bachelor ease with a cigarette and the last shilling shocker.
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