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Updated: June 21, 2025
It's yours because you wanted it, that's all; and maybe the one that sent it is glad you've got it. That's as far as I can go." "But see here, McCabe!" he insists. "Delighted as I am, I must know who it is that " Just here the front office door opens, and in walks J. Bayard. For a second he don't notice Twombley-Crane, who's standin' between me and the window.
What J. Bayard would decide to do drop the whole shootin' match, or knuckle under in this case in the hopes of gettin' a fat commission on the next was more'n I could dope out. But inside of an hour I had the answer. A messenger boy shows up with a package. It's the sketch from Steele, with a note sayin' I might send it to Twombley-Crane, if that would answer. He'd be hanged if he would!
"It was more than a dozen years ago, when Twombley-Crane was still actively interested in the railroad game. He was president of the Q., L. & M.; made a hobby of it, you know. Used to deliver flowery speeches to the stockholders, and was fond of boasting that his road had never passed a dividend. About that time Gordon was organizing the Water Level System.
He's leased a nice furnished cottage from one of the Meadowbrook bunch, not more'n a mile from the Twombley-Crane estate, got the promise of havin' the youngster's name put up at the Hunt Club for the summer privileges, and has arranged to have mother and son move in right in the height of the season. "In time for the Twombley-Cranes' big costume ball?" I suggests. "Nothing less," says he.
Twombley-Crane had many interests at the time, financial, social, political.
How he does wiggle and squirm over the very thought of givin' that picture to Twombley-Crane, after he'd done the gloat act so long! But I had the net over Mr. Steele good and fast, and while I was about it I dragged him over a few bumps; just for the good of his soul, as Father Reardon would say.
"Oh, I say!" says Steele, sort of breathless and hasty. "Have you sent that away yet?" A freak hunch hit me and I couldn't shake it: I guess I wanted to see what would happen. So I nudges Twombley-Crane. "Here's the party now, if you must know," says I. "This is Mr. J. Bayard Steele." "Eh?" says he, steppin' forward. "Steele, did you say?
Must have been about three o'clock that afternoon, and I'd just finished a session in the gym, when who should show up at the studio but Twombley-Crane. What do you suppose? Why, in spite of the fact that I'd sent the picture without any name or anything, he'd been so excited over gettin' it that he'd rung up the messenger office and bluffed 'em into tellin' where the call had come in from.
He needed the Q., L. & M. as a connecting link. But Twombley-Crane would listen to no scheme of consolidation. Rather an arrogant aristocrat, Twombley-Crane, as perhaps you know?" "Yes, he's a bit stiff in the neck," says I. "He gave Gordon a flat no," goes on Steele. "Had him shown out of his office, so the story went. And of course Pyramid started gunning for him.
You see, for months Pyramid had been buying in loose holdings and gathering proxies, and on the first ballot he fired Twombley-Crane out of the Q., L. & M. so abruptly that he never quite knew how it happened. And you know how Gordon milked the line during the next few years. It was a bitter pill for Twombley-Crane; for it hurt his pride as well as his pocketbook.
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