Page:Fighting blood (IA fightingblood00witw).pdf/227

 I'm coming down again, when who do I bump into at the first landing but Rags Dempster. I would of passed him without a word, but he grabs my arm and hangs onto me like he's drowning.

"For God's sake, Galen, give me ten minutes of your time!" he pants. "I'm in a terrible fix!"

I look at him in amazement. He seems to me like he's two inches from the hystericals and if I didn't know prohibition was in our midst I would swear he's been drinking heavily—a favorite drink of his any more. I'm so surprised at the shape he's in, wild-eyed and trembling, that I don't stop to think of what a terrible nerve he's got coming for help when he's in a jam to the fellow he's fouled a million times. Still and all, if he's really in trouble I can't turn him down cold without a hearing. I wouldn't want nobody to do that to me. So I told him to come on upstairs to the office.

A half hour later Rags is sitting at Judy's desk with his head buried in his arms—crying like a baby. I'm walking up and down the floor in a trance, but even in the trance I notice that Rags is sitting in Judy's chair and I stop walking long enough to make him get up and sit somewheres else. My mind's in a whirl, it is for a fact, because Rags has just told me he's stole ten thousand bucks from his father's office and dropped every nickel of it at roulette in a New York gambling house.

Sweet Mamma, what a trap he's in! I suppose after what he's done to me I should of been tickled silly that he's up against it proper, but I ain't particularly pleased,