Page:Arthur Stringer--The House of Intrigue.djvu/155

Rh brain, and scamper up to the top like a run in a stocking. If I was the instrument that was so airily tossing three and a half millions into the laps of each of those two old hypocrites in rusty black, why couldn't I just as easily toss a quarter of a million into my own lap? Why couldn't two play at that game? If old Ezra Tweedie Bartlett was to wallow in such easy money, why shouldn't he be ready to see me shave a paring or two off that fat cheese of his? Why, since they'd squeezed me into that menagerie, practically against my own will, couldn't I set up a little howl of my own?

Then I saw trouble ahead. I saw the foolishness of trying to will a quarter of a million to Miss Baddie Pretlow, address unknown, occupation—well, unfortunately, of such a nature that it would not bear too much official inquiry. The thing would have been easier, I remembered, if poor old Bud had only been alive. I could have trusted Bud. And he would have backed up my claim with a bunch of affidavits knee-high to the Statue of Liberty. He would have made me out a charity worker for the Scrubwomen's Reform Association, or something quite as respectable, and marshaled an army of solemn-eyed witnesses to prove it. And I couldn't help wondering, as I lay there, if this was the sort of