LITMIR.BIZ

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swell Eats, as per this last month.

      Ben started suddenly, with a quick glance at Pod, but the latter was far too absorbed in his reading to notice anything.

      No use for you to be a side stem in this Hashery, when you can be the main tent in a Cottage with Ivory—Ivy—round the door. Shed that apron, kid, and I’ll show you the real silks, cut on the Bias, with fringe and doll-fixings all from Paris. Get me? Cut out the tay-ta-tay confabs with that fresh new Night clerk, same as I’ve been wise to, the past Week, and ac­cept a Loving heart that beats only for you.

      Ben leaned forward, his face darken­ing, fist clenched, and eyes staring. His mouth was set in a thin line. Pod blissfully pursued the letter.

      Your blue lamps and hair and the Way you Double up on the rice pudding have won my heart, Baby. The coin I’ve staked you to, for that stock-game, and the eats-money I’ve slipped you, is only a taste be­side what I’ll slide your way when we’re Hitched, So say the word, and—

      The letter was never finished, for with a wordless cry Ben started up. His fist fell on the table with a bang. The dishes rattled. A cup fell crash­ing to the floor.

      Pod, startled, dropped the letter and stared, wide-eyed.

      “Wh— wh— why, what th—” he stammered blankly.

      “You—you!” hissed Ben, shaking a passionate forefinger right under Pod’s nose. “So that’s your game, is it, you scab? Rat! You—I—”

      “For Gawd’s sake, Ben!”

      “Copping my girl right under my very eyes, you sneak!”

      “Your—your—”

      “Yes, mine! For three weeks now—”

      “But—first thing we blew in here, Ben, I slid her a V! Every week since, another one! An’ I’ve slipped her coin for a stock-deal she’s in—an’ these here classy feeds she sends up are all for me, an’ she’s mine—”

      “Ah-ha! So, eh?” Ben’s fist shook violently in the huge fellow’s astonished face. “So? But we’ll see about that, we’ll see! These feeds are for you, are they? Why, you poor boob, they’re mine! Ten a week she’s had from me—ten bucks per, you tum­ble? An’ as for the deal in stocks—”

      “You been touched, too?”

      “Have I? Why, sure! But—I didn’t know you—you—had! Why—er—see here, Pod—”

      “Huh?”

      Ben’s fist fell, and over his pale face a strange expression passed. His eyes sought Pod’s, and for the space of ten heartbeats their looks met in silence.

      At last Ben spoke:

      “Pod!”

      “Ben?”

      “Whoa, back! Back up, both of us!”

      “You mean—”

      Pod was leaning forward now, grip­ping the table-edge with a fat though powerful hand. On his brow the sweat had started thicker than ever, and his breath was coming hard.

      “Ben, you mean we—we’re in wrong?”

      “Wrong—dead wrong, so help me! There’s more behind all this soft-soap biz and all this swell night-lunch racket than we’re wise to yet.

      “Pod, we’re being played against each other, both ends toward the mid­dle! A skirt is trying to do the oceana roll over us and con each of us into thinking we’re it!

      “I had it all doped to land solid with Birdy two or three weeks ago. So did you. Each of us has been pass­ing the gilt to her—”

      “Don’t, Ben—don’t!” Pod’s eyes were leaking and he stretched out an imploring hand. “I’m wise a plenty, so cut that explanation stuff! But—it hurts, Ben; hurts like—jus’ same; when I had it all doped I was goin’ to bust into married bliss—ivy round the door—”

      “No more o’ that now! We’re both leery, now we’ve got a peek at the works. Just a throw-off she was steering us, Pod—that’s all. How big a haymow of the green has she raked off you already?”

      “Oh, maybe four, five hundred—on Consolidated Copper. She said her cousin in Wall Street—”

      “I’m in for a thousand. Only it was her uncle!”

      “Ben! An’ we, we are—supposed to be—the smoothest con-workers in the U. S. A. or out!”

      Bender stared a moment, then burst into a laugh of mingled bitterness and relief.

      “My feed I thought it was all the time!” he cried. “You thought it was yours. Both wrong—just as wrong as in our size-up of Birdy and her affections. Who’s nuts now? Pod, Bender & Co.! And the an­swer is—”

      Pod Slattery arose, with all the dig­nity of his three hundred and fifty-seven pounds, and faced his old-time pal. In his eyes still gleamed the dew of heartfelt disappointment, but his lips were smiling as he spoke.

      “Ben, old boss,” said he, “the answer is, a new deal and reorganization of the film on a long lease Birdy’s. smooth O. K.

      “We’ve let a skirt near trim us and if it gets out our rep ain’t worth a hoot in Tophet. She’s no ordinary poke-getter or cold hand worker, Birdy ain’t. No, this was no penny ante game she was up to, she was stakin’ to make a kill, what with all them kind woids an’—an’ juicy raisins an’ cream—

      “A classy hex, all right aimin’ to fetch down a big bundle when she had us hog tied right. In a while longer she’d had our whole roll an’ us spoutin’ our sparks for pad-money! Oh an onion, kid! But now we’re hep—an’ it’s one big hike for ours!”

      “ ‘Hike’!” echoed Ben enthusiastically. “The quicker, the sooner—far, far away!”

      “Pack your keister!” Pod directed dramatically, with a sweep of his arm. “This very night we flit! See her again after all them ivy visions? Nix! Us for the big getaway, P.D.Q!

      “I can’t pull much of this here sentimental stuff on friendship, kid, but you know what I mean.”

      “That time you dug me out o’ Sing Sing I ain’t passin’ up. No, nor the times we carried the banner in India, did a Marathon on the African veldt, dodged a smash in Yokohama, an’—an all the hundreds of other times, some velvet, some sand paper, we been through together.

      “What? Let a peek-a-boo and a hobble pry us apart? Nix not! We must ha’ been pipes, Ben, you an’ me, to even think it! All over kid! It’s you an’ me again, with no Buttinskies, to the finish! An’ my mitt to bind it!” In silence Ben took the huge and generous hand. For a minute their eyes met. Then Pod turned away.

      “Ivy, hell,” he whispered under his breath and with a kind of savage joy began routing his effects out of closet and chiffonier and hurling them into his suitcase.

      Untouched, the tempting night lunch stood on the table. The savory pot of tea grew cold, the sherbet melted, and the fat raisins oozed out their juice forsakenly into the thick cream, which now had lost all its charm.

      Half an hour later an envelope lay on the table, addressed to the hotel management. Within it reposed coin of the realm to pay the bill up to and including the following Saturday night.

      Down the fire escape, meanwhile, Pod, Ben, and the suitcases wended their way to the alley at the rear of the hotel.

      And the friendly September night received them; and the great world opened out once more ahead of them—the world of ventures and of games, of losses and of winnings, of honest grafts and touches—best of all, of friendship and the brotherhood of long-tried pals.

      Damon and Pythias, David and Jonathan, Pylades and Orestes, Nisus and Euryalus had nothing on these two incomparable running mates as

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