"On your way, now, on your way!" says I; gazin' haughty over the brass gate. "No window cleanin' done here durin' office hours!"

"But," says the specimen on the other side, "I—I didn't come to clean the windows."

"Eh?" says I, sizin' up the blue flannel shirt, the old leather belt, and other marks of them pail and sponge artists. "Well, we don't want any sash cords put in, or wirin' fixed, or any kind of jobbin' done until after five. That's General Order No. 1. See?"

He nods in kind of a lifeless, unexcited way; but he don't make any motions towards beatin' it. "I—I—the fact is," he begins, "I wish to see some one connected with the Corrugated Trust Company."

"You've had your wish," says I. "I'm Exhibit A. For a profile view of me step around to the left. Anything more?"

He don't get peeved at this, nor he don't grin. He just keeps on bein' serious and calm. "If you don't mind," says he, "I should like to see one of the higher officials."

"Say, that's almost neat enough to win out," says I. "One of the higher officials, eh? How would the president suit you?"

"If I might see him, I'd like it," says he.

"Wha-a-a-at!" says I.

Honest, the nerve that's wasted on some folks is a shame. I had to sit up and give him the Old Sleuth stare at that. He's between twenty-five and thirty, for a guess; and, say, whatever he might have been once, he's a wreck now,—long, thin face, with the cheekbones almost stickin' through, slumped in shoulders, bony hands, and a three months' crop of mud colored hair stringin' damp over his ears and brushin' his coat collar. Why, he looked more like he ought to be sittin' around the waitin' room of some charity hospital, than tryin' to butt in on the time of one of the busiest men in New York.

"It's a matter that ought to go before the president," says he, "and if he isn't busy I'd like very much to——"

"Say, old scout," says I, "you got about as much chance of bein' let in to see Mr. Ellins as I have of passin' for a brunette! So let's come down to cases. Now what's it all about?"

He ain't makin' any secret of it. He wants the concern to make him a bid on an option he holds on some coal and iron lands. Almost comes to life tellin' me about that option, and for the first time I notice what big, bright, deep sunk eyes he's got.

"Oh, a thing of that kind would have to go through reg'lar," says I. "Wait; I'll call Mr. Piddie. He'll fix you up."

Does he? Well, that's what Piddie's supposed to be there for; but he don't any more'n glance at the flannel shirt before he begins to swell up and frown and look disgusted. "No, no, go away!" says he. "I've no time to talk to you, none at all."

"But," says the object, "I haven't had a chance to tell you——"

"Get out—you!" snaps Piddie, turnin' on his heel and struttin' off.

It ain't the way he talks to parties wearin' imported Panamas and sportin' walkin' sticks; but, then, most of us has our little fads that way. What stirred me up, though, was the rough way he did it, and the hopeless sag to the wreck's chin after he's heard the decision.

"Sweet disposition he's got, eh?" says I. "But don't take him too serious. He ain't the final word in this shop, and there's nobody gets next to the big wheeze oftener durin' the day than yours truly. Maybe I could get that option of yours passed on. Got the document with you?"

He had and hands it over. With that he drops onto the reception room settee and says he'll wait.

"Better not," says I; "for it might be quite a spell before I gets the right chance. We'll do this reg'lar, by mail. Now what's the name?"

"Tuttle," says he, "Tinkham J. Tuttle."

"They call you Tink for short, don't they?" says I, and he admits that they do. "All right," I goes on. "Now the address, Tink. Jersey, eh? Well, it's likely you'll hear from Mr. Ellins before the week's out. But don't get your hopes up; for he turns down enough propositions to fill a waste basket every day. Express elevator at No. 5. So long," and I chokes off Mr. Tuttle's vote of thanks by wavin' him out the door.

It's well along in the afternoon before I sees an openin' to drop this option in front of Old Hickory, grabbin' a minute when his desk is fairly clear, and slammin' it down just as though it had been sent in through Piddie.

"Delivered on," says I. "Wants rush answer by mail."

"Huh!" grunts Old Hickory, lightin' up a fresh Cassadora.

That's all I expected to hear of the transaction; so about an hour later, when Piddie comes out lookin' solemn and says I'm to report to Mr. Ellins, I don't know what's up.

"Is it a first degree charge, Piddie," says I, "or only for manslaughter?"

"I presume Mr. Ellins will discover what you have done," says he.

"Well, hope for the worst, Piddie," says I. "Here goes!"

And the minute I sees what Old Hickory has in front of him, I'm wise.

"Torchy," says he, givin' me the steely glitter out of them cold storage eyes of his, "Mr. Piddie seems to know nothing about this Michigan option."

"If he admits that much," says I, "it must be so. It's a record, though."

"What I want to know," goes on Mr. Ellins, "is how in blue belted blazes it got here. You brought it in, didn't you?"

"Yep," says I. "It was this way, Mr. Ellins: Piddie had it put up to him and wouldn't even hang it on the hook; but the guy that brings it looked so mournful that I butts in and takes a chance on passin' it along to you on my own hook."

"Oh, you did, eh?" he snorts.

"Sure," says I. "I got to do the fresh act once in a while, ain't I? Course, if you want a dead one on the gate, I can hand in my portfolio; but I thought all you had to do with punk options like this was to toss 'em in the basket and then have 'em fired back at——"

"Fire nothing back!" says Mr. Ellins. "Why, you lucky young rascal, we've been trying to get hold of this very property for eight months! And Piddie! Bah! Of all the pin-headed, jelly brained——"

"Second the motion," says I, springin' the joyous grin.

"That will do," says Old Hickory, catchin' himself up. "Just you forget Mr. Piddie and listen to me. Know this Tuttle person by sight, don't you?"

"Couldn't forget him," says I. "Want him on the carpet?"

"I do," says he. "Have him here at ten-thirty to-morrow morning. But find him to-night, and see that you don't open your head about this business to anyone else."

"I get you," says I, doin' the West Point salute. "It's me to trail and shut up Tuttle. He'll be here, if I have to bring him in an ambulance."

That's why I jumps out before closin' time and mingles with the Jersey commuters in a lovely hot ride across the meadows. It's a scrubby station where I gets off, too; one of these fact'ry settlements where the whole population answers the seven o'clock whistle every mornin'. There's a brick barracks half a mile long, where they make sewin' machines or something, and snuggled close up around it is hundreds of these four-fam'ly wooden tenements, gettin' the full benefit of the soft coal smoke and makin' it easy for the hands to pike home for a noon dinner. Say, you talk about the East Side double deckers; but they're brownstone fronts compared to some of these corporation shacks across the meadows!

Seventeen dirty kids led me to the number Tuttle gave me, and in the right hand first floor kitchen I finds a red faced woman in a faded blue wrapper fryin' salt pork and cabbage.

"Mrs. Tinkham Tuttle?" says I, holdin' my breath.

"No," says she, glancin' suspicious over her shoulder. "I'm his sister."

"Oh!" says I. "Is Tink around?"

"I don't know whether he is or not, and don't care!" says she.

"Much obliged," says I; "but I ain't come to collect for anything. Couldn't you give a guess?"

"If I did," says she, "I'd say he was over to the factory yard. That's where he stays most of the time."

It's half-past five; but the fact'ry's runnin' full blast, and I has to jolly a timekeeper and the yard boss before I locates my man. Fin'lly, though, they point out a big storage shed in one corner of the coal cinder desert they has fenced in so careful. The wide double doors to the shed are shut; but after I've hammered for a while one of 'em is slid back a few inches and Tuttle peeks out.

"Oh!" he gasps. "You! Say, are they going to take it? Are they?"

"Them's the indications," says I, "providin' it's all O. K. and your price is right."

"Oh, I'll make the price low enough," says he. "I'll sell out for two thousand, and it ought to be worth twice that. But two is all I need."

"Eh?" says I. "What kind of finance do you call that? Say, Tuttle, you know you can't work any 'phony deal on the Corrugated. Better give me the straight goods and save trouble."

"I will," says he. "Come in, won't you!"

With that he leads the way through the dark shed to a sort of workshop at the back, where there's a window. There's a tool bench, a little hand forge with an old coffee pot and a fryin' pan on it, and a cot bed not ten feet away.

"Campin' out here?" says I.

"I'm not supposed to," says he; "but the yard superintendent lets me. This is where I've lived and worked for nearly two years, and until you came a minute ago it was where I expected to end. But now it's different."

"It is?" says I. "How's that?"

Which is Tink Tuttle's cue to open up on the story of his life. It's a soggy, unexcitin' yarn, most of it. As I'd kind of guessed by the way he talked, he wa'n't just an ordinary fact'ry hand. He'd been through some high class scientific school up in Massachusetts, where he'd lived before his father lost his grip. Seems the old man was a crackerjack boss machinist; but he got to monkeyin' with fool inventions, drifted from place to place, got to be a lunger, and finally passed in. The last four years in the fact'ry here had finished him. Tink had worked there, too, and his sister had married one of the hands.

"It's the graveyard of the Tuttle family, this place is, I suppose," says Tink. "It got father, and it has almost got me. Some folks can breathe brass filings and carbon dioxid and thrive on it; but we can't. So I gave up and hid myself away in here to work out one of my silly dreams. Last spring I caught a bad cold, and Sister sent me West. There we have an uncle. She thought the change of climate might help my cough. It didn't do a bit of good; but it was out there that I picked up this option. That was when I saw a chance of making my dream come true. You saw what I've been building, didn't you, as we came through?"

"I didn't notice," says I. "What is it, anyway?"

"Wait until I light the lantern," says Tuttle. "Now come. This way. Don't hit your head on those wings. There!"

And, say, it's a wonder I could walk right by a thing of that kind without gettin' next, even if it was kind of dark. But all I needs now is one glimpse of the outlines.

"Oho!" says I. "A flyer! Say, every bughouse in the country is at work on one of them."

"I suppose so," says he. "I may be as big a fool as any of them, too; but I think I know what I'm doing. At any rate, I've put my last dollar into it. That's why my sister is so——Well, she thinks I am——"

"Yes, I suspicioned she was some sore on you," says I. "But what sort of a flyer is this, double or single winger?"

"It's a biplane," says Tuttle, "on the Farnham type, only an improved model."

"Of course it's improved," says I. "Tried her out yet!"

"Hardly," says he. "I couldn't buy an engine, you see. That's what I've been waiting for. Say, you really think the Corrugated will take that option, do you? If they only would!"

"You must be in a hurry to break your neck," says I.

Before I left, though, he'd shown me all over the thing, explained how it was goin' to work, and did his best to get me as excited as he was. Also I makes him give me the full details of how he come to get this option, and I advises him if he does manage to cash it in for two thousand, to take an ax to his flying machine and hike out for some lung preservin' climate where he'll have a chance to shake that cough.

"Thanks," says he, grippin' my hand and chokin' up. "You—you've been mighty good to me. I'll remember it."

Course, I gives Mr. Ellins the whole tale in the mornin', about Tuttle and his bum air pumps, and his batty scheme of buildin' the flyer; but all that interests Old Hickory is the option and the price.

"Good work, Torchy," says he. "I've wired our Western agents to investigate, and if they report an O. K., Tuttle shall have his two thousand to do what he likes with."

It must have been two weeks later, and I'd almost forgot the case, when one mornin' I gets a note from Tinkham J., askin' me to come over to the shed as quick as I could. Well, I didn't know whether he was havin' a final spasm or not; but it seemed like I ought to go, so that night I does. I finds him waitin' for me at the yard gate. He don't look any worse than usual, either.

"Well," says I, "didn't the deal go through?"

"It did," says he, pattin' me on the back. "Thanks to you, it did. The check came two days later, and I've spent it all."

"What!" says I. "You don't mean to say you blew all that in on an engine for that blamed——"

"All but a few dollars that I put into oil and gasoline," says he. "But the machine is all hooked up, Torchy, and it works. Do you hear that? It works! I've been up!"

"Up?" says I.

"Not far," says he; "but enough to know what I can do. Started right here from the yard, just at daylight, and landed here again. I've told no one else, you know. Come in and see how smooth the engine works."

And it was just while he was gettin' ready to start the wheels that these two strangers butts in on us. One is a husky, red faced, swell dressed young sport, and the other is a tall, swivel eyed, middle aged gent dressed in khaki. They walks around the machine without payin' any attention to me or Tuttle.

"Well, what do you think of it, Captain?" says the young sport after a while.

The Captain, he shakes his head. "I can't tell positively," says he; "but these planes seem to me to be set entirely wrong. I never saw deflectors worked on that principle before, either. The theory may be good; but in a practical test——"

"They say he's made flight, though," breaks in the young sport. "The night watchman saw him. Hey! You're the chap that built this aËroplane, aren't you?"

"Yes, sir," says Tuttle.

"And didn't you make a flight?" he wants to know.

"A short one," says Tuttle.

"That's enough for me," says the sport. "Say, you know who I am, don't you?"

"Oh, yes," says Tuttle. "At least, I ought to. You're Bradish Jones, Jr., one of the owner's sons."

"That's right," says young Mr. Jones. "And I know you. You're the son of old Tuttle, who used to be foreman of the machine shop when I was doing my apprentice work. Thought this little trick of yours was a secret, didn't you? But I heard about it. Lucky for you I did, too. I'm in the market. I don't care a hoot what the Captain says, either. I want a flyer, and I'm ready to take a chance on yours. What do you want for it?"

"Why," says Tuttle, "I don't believe I want to sell."

"What's that?" snaps Bradish. "Come, now! Don't try to bluff me! I'll admit I'm in a hurry. These Curtiss people have been holding me off for a month, and I want to begin flying right away. So name your price. How much?"

But Tuttle, he only shakes his head.

"Oh, yes, you will," says Bradish. "Why, you've hardly a dollar to your name. You can't afford to own a flyer, even if you did build it. You know you can't. Now show me what it cost you, and I'll give you a thousand for your work and a hundred a week until I learn to manage the thing. Is it a go?"

"No!" says Tuttle, sharp and quick, them big eyes of his fairly blazin'. "This is my machine, and I'm going to fly it. I don't care how much money you've got. You've taken a sudden whim that you'd like to fly. It's been the one dream of my life. You've had your yachts and your racing cars. I've never had anything but hard work. My father wore himself out in your stinking old factory. I nearly did the same. But you can't rob me of this. You sha'n't, that's all!"

And for a minute them two stood there givin' each other the assault and batt'ry stare, without sayin' a word. A queer lookin' pair they made, too; this Bradish gent, big and beefy and prosperous, and Tink Tuttle, his greasy old coat hangin' loose on his skinny shoulders, and lookin' like he was on his way from the accident ward to the coroner's office.

"Five thousand cash, then," growls Mr. Jones.

"Not if you said fifty!" Tink comes back at him.

"Bah!" says Bradish. "Why, I could have you and your machine thrown out in the road this minute. But I'll give you twenty-four hours to think it over. Remember, to-morrow night at six I'll be here with the money. Then it will be either sell or go. Come, Captain," and with that they pikes out.

"Say, Tink," says I, "you got him comin', all right, and if you don't get that five thousand you're no good."

"I know I'm no good," says Tuttle. "That's why I don't want his money."

"But see here, Tink," says I. "You ain't goin' to turn down an offer like that, are you?"

"I am," says he, "and I'll tell you why. It's because I know I'm no good and never would be any good, even if I could live, which I can't. Oh, I don't need any doctor to tell me how much longer I've got. They gave me only three months over a year ago. I knew better. I knew I should hold out until I finished my flyer. Father didn't have anything like that to keep on for; so he went quicker. He didn't want to go, either. And it was awful to watch him, Torchy, just awful! But I'm not going to finish that way. No, not now," and he walks up to the machine and runs his hand loving along one of the smooth planes.

"How's that?" says I. "What are you drivin' at, Tink?"

"I can't tell you how I shall do it exactly," says he; "for I'm not sure. But I mean to go up once; way, way up, out over the ocean just at sunrise. Won't that be fine, eh? Just think! Sailing off up there into the blue; up, and up, and up; higher than anyone has ever dared to go before, higher and higher, until your gasoline gives out and you can't go any more!"

"Yes; but what then?" says I, beginnin' to feel some chilly along the spine.

"Why, that's enough, isn't it?" says he. "Anyway, it's all I ask. I'll call it all quits then."

"Ah, say, cut out the tragedy!" says I. "You give me the creeps, talkin' that rot! What you want to do is to go up for a short sail if you can, forget to try any Hamilton stunts, and then beat it back to collect that five thousand while the collectin's good. Say, when do you try her again?"

"At daylight to-morrow morning," says he.

"Gee!" says I. "I've got a notion to stick around and watch how you come out."

"No, don't," says he. "I—I'll let you know. Yes, honest I will. Goodnight and—good-by." He kept his word as well as he could, too. The postmark on the card was six A.M.; but I guess it must have been dropped in the box earlier than that. All it says is:

Now, what would you say to a batty proposition like that? I couldn't tell whether it was a bluff, or what. And I waits four days before I had the nerve to go and see.

Sister says she ain't seen him since last Monday. And there was no flyer in the shed. Nobody around the place knew what had become of it, either.

Well, it's been two weeks since I got that postal. What do I think? Say, honest, I don't dare. But at night, when I'm tryin' to get to sleep, I can see Tink, sittin' in between all them wires and things, with the wheel in his hand, and them big eyes of his gazin' down calm and satisfied, down, down, down, and him ready to take that one last dip to the finish. And, say, about then I pull the sheets up over my eyes and shiver.

"Piddie," says I, "you got more sense than you look to have. Anyway, you know when to sidestep the nutty ones, don't you?"