OLD EYES ARE SHARP EYES!
Thorpe Richendollar finished in some five times more minutes than it would have taken him—had he not been a theoretical Mexican! In short, he spent fully 7 minutes of the permitted 10 in completing his “pome.” The loops and lines of his apparently laborious composition looked, thanks to the exceedingly fine platinum-tipped point of the fountain pen, more like fairy cables—cables as gossamer and tenuous as those which cement friendship itself—than they did when he had created the first letter of his composition. The beautiful chimes of the clock—that clock which cockily struck 10 when it should have dignifiedly been thinking of striking 12!—were in his ears as he re-read the whole:
Theez reeding lamp, reflacted, makes the tabul
A sea of gold beneeth theez latter-pad.
The roe of books are pirate chests of fabul
The clock chimes tan exoltantly an glad.
Throo looping lines of frandship’s fairy cables
My han be-4 me guides my eeger pan.
I lov all rooms weeth gold-reflacting tabuls
I lov the chiming hour of tan.
He handed it silently to Crabtree.
“Wat you theenk, boss—sair, I mean—’bout theez man Heetler? He crazee like an’theeng, don’ you theenk?”
“Crazy?” snorted the other. “Not at all. He has a Grade-A brain, except that, by some freak of birth in him, all its molecules are turned exactly inside out like laevo-rotary sugar in contradistinction to the ordinary dextro-rotary stuff; so that—but skip it!—you wouldn’t understand my theory in the least, quite outside of the fact of my having been in the sugar business once, since you’re only an untutored Mexican who—I’ll look at your poem.”
“Ah!” Richendollar breathed to himself. “‘Multimillionaire Advances Amazing New Theory About Hitler’s Mental Workings!’”
The other seemed greatly impressed with the poem.
“Why—this is poetry, Montesquez. And genuine. Well, well—that’s a good line—‘through looping lines of friendship’s fairy cables’—those fine fountain-pen-made letters do look like gossamer cables—yes—well—well—well—
“Well,” he resumed, looking up, “the 30 or so entries put in here by those other foreigners who qualified with the conditions of my advertised announcement, don’t come anywhere near this. When the misspelling is corrected here, we have a technically fine poem. Well, I award you the prize—without further hesitation. Or equivocation. Since it’s now a few minutes to 12—and—and there’ll be be no more contestants in view of the fact that none have made appointments prior to 11—according to the conditions. So you are the last man. And, it seems, best man! You win. And you get your prize now. And likewise clear me from all postal-law complications—for of course you know that, under the law, a holder of a contest like myself has to award the prize described? And, moreover, show all entries to the post office to confirm that his decision was an honest one?”
“I know natheeng ’bout thoz’,” said Thorpe Richendollar dignifiedly.
“Well, that’s the case. Uncle Sam is very pernickety about his prize contests. Yes, indeed! And so here—right now—is the prize.” Silas Crabtree leaned over towards a fragile Chippendale desk near his elbow, and, from several tri-folded documents lying crisscross of each other, withdrew one that was definitely “outsized,” at least with respect to the rest; that is, what must have been the actual width of the paper made it, as a folded thing, markedly longer than the rest; and what must have been its length, made it, when tri-foided, markedly broader than the others. Indeed, it was obvious why Silas Crabtree did not even have to check the identity of that particular document, by re-reading it. “Your tract of winning land,” he was continuing, “is, of course, in the form of a deed. A deed from the owner of record to me—and now reconveyed by me to you—or to whomsoever you’d want me to convey it. Hrmph! It is unnotarized—but the laws of the State where the tract lies do not require notarization of or on a deed. Just the signatures of grantor and reconveyer. I am the grantee. And also the reconveyer. Where and how I got the deed doesn’t matter. It’s valid—and it’s a deed to a tract of land—just as I set forth in my contest announcement.” Richendollar rather thought the other was overemphasizing certain of his words. “The tract now becomes yours—or, should you prefer, any designatee of yours—to put of record, by registered mail, or in any other way that either of you wishes, after which you—or he, as the case may be—may then pasture, on your newly acquired ranch, vast hordes of milk cows—” Richendollar was certain now he detected a note of irony in the multimillionaire’s voice. “—or breed wild horses on it—or even ride to hounds on it, like an English gentleman. And—but what name—yours?—or somebody else’s?—would you like me to fill out on this reconveyance form on the back here?”
“I wo’d lik’,” Richendollar said hastily—very hastily, “that you mak’ ree-ceep-i-ent my boss what own night club w’ere I work: Meester Reech’ndollar. He pay me good monee for theez deed. Heez name she eez Thor-app Reech’ndollar.” He spelled his own name carefully out.
“Thorpe?—Richendollar?—yes, I get it,” said Silas Crab-tree. He laid the folded deed atop the broad handle of his chair, and with a fountain pen which he withdrew from the pocket of his black silk dressing gown, inserted a number of handwritten words, and a date, in a printed reconveyance form which filled the particular fold of the deed that stood uppermost. Ending with his signature.
Silently he handed the tri-folded paper to Richendollar. Then, recovering Richendollar’s “affidavits” for a second from the near-by table drawer, pinning them to Richendollar’s poem, marking the hour at the top of the latter, he replaced all in the desk. The latter was, in the meantime, studying the reconveyance form on the uppermost fold of the document, finding it all in order, though not altogether explicatory, since it specified, as the tract of land in question, only “the land described on the face of this deed.”
“Quite valid, de Montesquez,” said the other, a bit cuttingly. “My agents have checked record and ownership, and everything, on it. Good God, I wouldn’t give you a no-good deed, you know, for a tract of land, in a contest held under postal-law conditions!”
Richendollar’s wits were swimming. He realized that, thanks to the unfortunate way in which Crabtree had worded his contest, he, Richendollar, now owned a ranch—probably somewhere in Montana—but which, by all decency, he must reconvey to the next runner-up in the contest—the real foreigner in America who had penned a good extemporaneous poem. And precisely that, he told himself, he would do, as soon as he could learn from Crabtree who the next runner-up was. Just now, however, Richendollar realized, he must get out of here. For he had a news beat!—this red-hot interview—his permanent job was cinched—he had gotten away with it! But as he fumbled about mentally for his next move, he thought he’d better express his gratefulness.
“I—I thank you, sair—so moch. I am pleez’ I ’ave ween contast. I feel honor’, after I be in theez’ contree onlee so short lik’ I ’ave. And—”
“Save the bunkum!” said Silas Crabtree cuttingly. “You’ve won the contest, you dirty rat, thanks to some technicality of your not having been born here in America—and of your having entered this country within a year—as, otherwise, Archbishop Michael Shay and Alderman Perce Landyne would never have written out such affidavits as they have here. Yes, you’ve won the contest, you filthy skunk, thanks to the fact that your poem would be considered best by any post-office inspector, though why wouldn’t it be best, in Christ’s name?—you, a Yale grad, competing against all the poor wops and Greeks and so forth who tried their hand in this house. All right! You’ve received a prize exactly as the conditions declared: a valid deed—to a tract of land! And the tract of land you would have won—had you been a legitimate foreigner, in the very spirit of the word ‘foreigner’—now goes as a consolation prize to the next runner-up—one George Poplos, a Greek—and is in Wyoming—and is worth exactly $10,000. What you got, you stinking newspaper louse, is worth $1000—now wait!—wait!—don’t get pleasurably excited—thanks to a most interesting little situation involving it—and the fact that, because of that odd situation, no taxes have been paid on it for Christ knows how many years—it has exactly $2000 back taxes now due and payable on it!—yes, my dear poem-writing newspaper whelp—their payability has today been decreed and confirmed by a decision of the highest court in all America. So all you’ve got is a liability of $1000! In short, to get complete title to something worth a thousand dollars, you will only have to pay two thousand!” He chuckled gleefully. “I knew you were a phony the minute I contemplated the misspelling in your poem—I’ve had two other Mexicans up here, and they didn’t misspell in any degree as they talked. There’s where you slipped—Mr. Smart Man! The only trouble with me was that I thought you were one of those bastard post-office inspectors, and I determined then and there to hamstring you right off the bat—by awarding you the prize just as I’d described it. But—aha!—I found you were a lousy Blade reporter, instead, the minute you called for the name, Thorpe Richendollar, on that deed. For don’t you think I saw that 1-inch squib, awhile back, of how the blue-blooded Richendollar family—broke at last—had to go to work—and one T. Richendollar, of Yale, moreover, on the Blade? And wait—here’s some more good news for you: any interview you write up with me will be repudiated—denied!—and before you ever even phone it in—by my lawyer who lives in a penthouse above your filthy Blade—and your City Editor will be notified that a million-dollar lawsuit nestles in his lap the minute he prints a word. I’ll show you—”
“But—but see here, Mr. Crabtree,” expostulated Richendollar. “After all, you did, you know, express yourself freely to me tonight on a half-dozen points—and I’ve a right to write them up as an interview—you gave such—I got it—and I’m going to print—”
“Just—a—minute.” The millionaire pushed a pear-shaped button hanging from the table. The library door opened. The same Gargantuan 7-footed, 200-pound, hard-jawed butler—and, beyond doubt, bodyguard!—who had admitted Richendollar earlier, entered.
“Rawleigh, did I give this gentleman an interview tonight?”
“You most assuredly did not, sir. I was in the room with you both the entire time you were together—and you said not a word on any subject! And I’ll testify to that in any court.”
“You see?” sneered Crabtree. “All right, Rawleigh. Get Blomberg—”
“I have him on the wire already, sir. For I suspected this rat myself. And would have more than liked, on my own volition alone, to have knocked all his teeth down this throat—except that, of course, I wasn’t sure whether he was a newspaperman or a post-office inspector. But nevertheless, sir, on the theory that he was a newspaperman, I got Mr. Blomberg on the wire. And Mr. Blomberg will, immediately he and I hang up, warn every paper in town—including the Blade underneath him—that a spurious interview with you may be offered—but that witnesses are available to establish in court that none was given—and that if even a single alleged quotation is printed from it, a suit will be immediately filed for 10 times the amount you recovered from the Mirror, and 20 times the amount you recovered from the Despatch!”
“That’s fine, Rawleigh. You may go—er—at least for the moment.”
The door closed.
“Well,” inquired Crabtree sardonically, “will your editor print your interview?”
“No,” admitted Richendollar glumly. “Not in a thousand years. Not in ten thousand, in fact!”