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BUNKER BEAN
237

"Nothing doing last night but riding around in a big red car that was waiting for him down in front. This morning at eight he starts north and picks up a man just this side Fordham, from a trolley car that breaks down. They turn around and go to the baseball park. He's setting there now, gassing with a lot of the players, telling funny stories and the like. He looks as if he didn't have a trouble on earth. My taxi-cab bill is now, for last night and to-day, forty-six eighty-five. Shall I keep on him?"

"No!" shouted the largest director. "Let him go to—let him alone and come in."

"I forgot to say," added the inconspicuous man, "that the party he picked up on the road and brought back here looks like he might be a ball player himself."

"Come in," repeated the largest director; "on a street-car!"

"Looks to me," ventured the quiet director to the largest, "as if you didn't bluff him quite to death last night."

"Aut'mobile!" said Breede. "Knew he had some one b'ind him."

"Let's get to business. No good putting it off now," said the quiet director.

"Seven hundred shares! My God! This is monstrous!" said the little eldest director, who had been making noises like a heavy locomotive.


Bean would have sat forever on that bench of the mighty, world-forgetting, if not world-forgot.