Smoke Bellew by Jack London (chrome ebook reader txt) đ
- Author: Jack London
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She waited, and Smoke regarded her with admiring eyes, while in his heart he backed with approval Wild Waterâs choice of her.
âYouâre not following,â she said.
âGo on,â he replied. âI give up. Whatâs the answer?â
âStupid! You know Wild Water. When he sees Iâm languishing for eggs, and I know his mind like a book, and I know how to languish, what will he do?â
âYou answer it. Go on.â
âWhy, heâll just start stampeding for the man thatâs got the corner in eggs. Heâll buy the corner, no matter what it costs. Picture: I come into Slavovitchâs at eleven oâclock. Wild Water will be at the next table. Heâll make it his business to be there. âTwo eggs, shirred,â Iâll say to the waiter. âSorry, Miss Arral,â the waiter will say; âthey ainât no more eggs.â Then up speaks Wild Water, in that big bear voice of his, âWaiter, six eggs, soft boiled.â And the waiter says, âYes, sir,â and the eggs are brought. Picture: Wild Water looks sideways at me, and I look like a particularly indignant icicle and summon the waiter. âSorry, Miss Arral,â he says, âbut them eggs is Mr. Wild Waterâs. You see, Miss, he owns âem.â Picture: Wild Water, triumphant, doing his best to look unconscious while he eats his six eggs.
âAnother picture: Slavovitch himself bringing two shirred eggs to me and saying, âCompliments of Mr. Wild Water, Miss.â What can I do? What can I possibly do but smile at Wild Water, and then we make up, of course, and heâll consider it cheap if he has been compelled to pay ten dollars for each and every egg in the corner.â
âGo on, go on,â Smoke urged. âAt what station do I climb onto the choo-choo cars, or at what water-tank do I get thrown off?â
âNinny! You donât get thrown off. You ride the egg-train straight into the Union Depot. You make that corner in eggs. You start in immediately, to-day. You can buy every egg in Dawson for three dollars and sell out to Wild Water at almost any advance. And then, afterward, weâll let the inside history come out. The laugh will be on Wild Water. His turbulence will be some subdued. You and I share the glory of it. You make a pile of money. And Dawson wakes up with a grand ha! ha! Of courseâifâif you think the speculation too risky, Iâll put up the dust for the corner.â
This last was too much for Smoke. Being only a mere mortal Western man, with queer obsessions about money and women, he declined with scorn the proffer of her dust.
âHey! Shorty!â Smoke called across the main street to his partner, who was trudging along in his swift, slack-jointed way, a naked bottle with frozen contents conspicuously tucked under his arm. Smoke crossed over.
âWhere have you been all morning? Been looking for you everywhere.â
âUp to Docâs,â Shorty answered, holding out the bottle. âSomethingâs wrong with Sally. I seen last night, at feedinâ-time, the hair on her tail anâ flanks was fallinâ out. The Doc saysââ
âNever mind that,â Smoke broke in impatiently. âWhat I wantââ
âWhatâs eatinâ you?â Shorty demanded in indignant astonishment. âAnâ Sally gettinâ naked bald in this crimpy weather! I tell you that dogâs sick. Doc saysââ
âLet Sally wait. Listen to meââ
âI tell you she canât wait. Itâs cruelty to animals. Sheâll be frost-bit. What are you in such a fever about anyway? Has that Monte Cristo strike proved up?â
âI donât know, Shorty. But I want you to do me a favor.â
âSure,â Shorty said gallantly, immediately appeased and acquiescent. âWhat is it? Let her rip. Me for you.â
âI want you to buy eggs for meââ
âSure, anâ Floridy water anâ talcum powder, if you say the word. Anâ poor Sally sheddinâ something scandâlous! Look here, Smoke, if you want to go in for high livinâ you go anâ buy your own eggs. Beans anâ baconâs good enough for me.â
âI am going to buy, but I want you to help me to buy. Now, shut up, Shorty. Iâve got the floor. You go right straight to Slavovitchâs. Pay as high as three dollars, but buy all heâs got.â
âThree dollars!â Shorty groaned. âAnâ I heard tell only yesterday that heâs got all of seven hundred in stock! Twenty-one hundred dollars for hen-fruit! Say, Smoke, I tell you what. You run right up and see the Doc. Heâll tend to your case. Anâ heâll only charge you an ounce for the first prescription. So-long, I gotta to be pullinâ my freight.â
He started off, but Smoke caught his partner by the shoulder, arresting his progress and whirling him around.
âSmoke, Iâd sure do anything for you,â Shorty protested earnestly. âIf you had a cold in the head anâ was layinâ with both arms broke, Iâd set by your bedside, day anâ night, anâ wipe your nose for you. But Iâll be everlastinâly damned if Iâll squander twenty-one hundred good iron dollars on hen-fruit for you or any other two-legged man.â
âTheyâre not your dollars, but mine, Shorty. Itâs a deal I have on. What Iâm after is to corner every blessed egg in Dawson, in the Klondike, on the Yukon. Youâve got to help me out. I havenât the time to tell you of the inwardness of the deal. I will afterward, and let you go half on it if you want to. But the thing right now is to get the eggs. Now you hustle up to Slavovitchâs and buy all heâs got.â
âBut whatâll I tell âm? Heâll sure know I ainât goinâ to eat âem.â
âTell him nothing. Money talks. He sells them cooked for two dollars. Offer him up to three for them uncooked. If he gets curious, tell him youâre starting a chicken ranch. What I want is the eggs. And then keep on; nose out every egg in Dawson and buy it. Understand? Buy it! That little joint across the street from Slavovitchâs has a few. Buy them. Iâm going over to Klondike City. Thereâs an old man there, with a bad leg, whoâs broke and who has six dozen. Heâs held them all winter for the rise, intending to get enough out of them to pay his passage back to Seattle. Iâll see he gets his passage, and Iâll get the eggs. Now hustle. And they say that little woman down beyond the sawmill who makes moccasins has a couple of dozen.â
âAll right, if you say so, Smoke. But Slavovitch seems the main squeeze. Iâll just get an iron-bound option, black anâ white, anâ gather in the scatterinâ first.â
âAll right. Hustle. And Iâll tell you the scheme tonight.â
But Shorty flourished the bottle. âIâm goinâ to doctor up Sally first. The eggs can wait that long. If they ainât all eaten, they wonât be eaten while Iâm takinâ care of a poor sick dog thatâs saved your life anâ mine more ân once.â
Never was a market cornered more quickly. In three days every known egg in Dawson, with the exception of several dozen, was in the hands of Smoke and Shorty. Smoke had been more liberal in purchasing. He unblushingly pleaded guilty to having given the old man in Klondike City five dollars apiece for his seventy-two eggs. Shorty had bought most of the eggs, and he had driven bargains. He had given only two dollars an egg to the woman who made moccasins, and he prided himself that he had come off fairly well with Slavovitch, whose seven hundred and fifteen eggs he had bought at a flat rate of two dollars and a half. On the other hand, he grumbled because the little restaurant across the street had held him up for two dollars and seventy-five cents for a paltry hundred and thirty-four eggs.
The several dozen not yet gathered in were in the hands of two persons. One, with whom Shorty was dealing, was an Indian woman who lived in a cabin on the hill back of the hospital.
âIâll get her to-day,â Shorty announced next morning. âYou wash the dishes, Smoke. Iâll be back in a jiffy, if I donât bust myself a-shovinâ dust at her. Gimme a man to deal with every time. These blamed womenâitâs something sad the way they can hold out on a buyer. The only way to get âem is sellinâ. Why, youâd think them eggs of hern was solid nuggets.â
In the afternoon, when Smoke returned to the cabin, he found Shorty squatted on the floor, rubbing ointment into Sallyâs tail, his countenance so expressionless that it was suspicious.
âWhat luck?â Shorty asked carelessly, after several minutes had passed.
âNothing doing,â Smoke answered. âHow did you get on with the squaw?â
Shorty cocked his head triumphantly toward a tin pail of eggs on the table. âSeven dollars a clatter, though,â he confessed, after another minute of silent rubbing.
âI offered ten dollars finally,â Smoke said, âand then the fellow told me heâd already sold his eggs. Now that looks bad, Shorty. Somebody else is in the market. Those twenty-eight eggs are liable to cause us trouble. You see, the success of the corner consists in holding every lastââ
He broke off to stare at his partner. A pronounced change was coming over Shortyâone of agitation masked by extreme deliberation. He closed the salve-box, wiped his hands slowly and thoroughly on Sallyâs furry coat, stood up, went over to the corner and looked at the thermometer, and came back again. He spoke in a low, toneless, and super-polite voice.
âDo you mind kindly just repeating over how many eggs you said the man didnât sell to you?â he asked.
âTwenty-eight.â
âHum,â Shorty communed to himself, with a slight duck of the head of careless acknowledgment. Then he glanced with slumbering anger at the stove. âSmoke, weâll have to dig up a new stove. That fire-box is burned plumb into the oven so it blacks the biscuits.â
âLet the fire-box alone,â Smoke commanded, âand tell me whatâs the matter.â
âMatter? Anâ you want to know whatâs the matter? Well, kindly please direct them handsome eyes of yourn at that there pail settinâ on the table. See it?â
Smoke nodded.
âWell, I want to tell you one thing, just one thing. Theyâs just exactly, preecisely, nor nothinâ more or anythinâ lessân twenty-eight eggs in the pail, anâ they cost, every danged last one of âem, just exactly seven great big round iron dollars a throw. If you stand in cryinâ need of any further items of information, Iâm willinâ and free to impart.â
âGo on,â Smoke requested.
âWell, that geezer you was dickerinâ with is a big buck Indian. Am I right?â
Smoke nodded, and continued to nod to each question.
âHeâs got one cheek half gone where a baldface grizzly swatted him. Am I right? Heâs a dog-traderâright, eh? His name is Scar-Face Jim. Thatâs so, ainât it? Dâye get my drift?â
âYou mean weâve been biddingâ?â
âAgainst each other. Sure thing. That squawâs his wife, anâ they keep house on the hill back of the hospital. I could âaâ got them eggs for two a throw if you hadnât butted in.â
âAnd so could I,â Smoke laughed, âif youâd kept out, blame you! But it doesnât amount to anything. We know that weâve got the corner. Thatâs the big thing.â
Shorty spent the next hour wrestling with a stub of a pencil on the margin of a three-year-old newspaper, and the more interminable and hieroglyphic grew his figures the more cheerful he became.
âThere she stands,â he said at last. âPretty? I guess yes. Lemme give you the totals. You
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