11

He yelled: “Do you think you can get You are cordially invited to a Recep-by?” He sounded like the dog that had tion honoring the esteemed Isotopist, Profes-chased the cat.

sor Enri Baedeker, at the Parkside-Regent She was silent. She was looking at me Friday, 5 p.m.

and anxiety was taking her lips away from Doctor Morand Funk Hodges, Chair-her nice teeth.

“

man.

Answer me!” he bellowed.

She didn’t.

Scripted in ink at the foot of the invita-He got even with her by moving over and aiming a kick at my face. But I’d had time tion was this additional information: to rest and organize. I got his foot, gathered it in my arms like a football, and tried to turn a The celebrities present will include cartwheel, but his leg was rubbery and Clark Savage, Jr. (Doc Savage).

wouldn’t break. He made, in pain, a large hissing noise, and I climbed up the front of I didn’t know what an isotopist was, him, trying to take an arm off him, or at least and had never heard of Professor Baedeker a nose or an ear. All I got was the front of his or Doctor Hodges. . . . It seemed to me that coat. It tore off. He had paid his tailor proba-the other name, Doc Savage, should be bly two hundred dollars for the coat, and I vaguely familiar, perhaps mean something, took the front of it off him like stripping one but I couldn’t quite place it.

peel off a banana. He didn’t like that.

The shindig was this afternoon.

“You dirty thug!” he said.

I whipped him in the face with the coat rag, the way you would use a dishrag on a Chapter II naughty dog. He went back a few paces on his heels. There was a large cut-glass vase I HAD his fifty dollars, anyway.

on a gilded wood French side table, and he Even the washrooms in the Parkside-took the vase, rapped it on the table to break Regent were as regal as such a place could it and get a cutting edge of glass, and made conveniently be, and apparently it was not for me. I made for the door and got through it unusual for a guest to come in and repair into the hall and got the door closed.

minor physical damages. I was treated very He didn’t come out into the hall. Pres-discreetly by the attendant; he pretended he ently the key turned in the door lock.

could see no evidence whatever that I had “Come out and fight like a man, you been in a fight. I was tempted to hand him dirty-so-and-so,” I said.

one of Mr. Albert Gross’ ten-dollar bills, an “Beat it, bum,” his voice said.

impulse that was overcome easily.

“Miss Fenisong,” I said.

Repaired and enraged, I sat in the She didn’t answer.

lobby. There is nothing quite as full-blown as I said: “I’m sorry about the mix-up, Miss the kind of anger that you have righteously Fenisong. There were two Wales registered after you have come out of a mess second-at the hotel and you got the wrong one this best. Particularly if it follows something that morning, which was me. I was groggy with swatted you without just cause. Admittedly I sleep and didn’t get it straightened out at that wasn’t the moon expert, but that didn’t seem time. I really came around just now to square to me like a good reason to be hit over the it.”

head and kicked in the middle.

“Scram,” he said.

After sitting in the elegant hotel lobby On the way to the elevator. I threw the for a while, I began to get the feel of the part of his coat I had taken into a corner. . . .

place enough to see that something out of But I went back and picked it up and exam-the ordinary was happening. Men were arriv-ined the pockets. There were three engraved ing, were getting a lot of attention, getting invitations that read: ohs and ahs of wonder, were being put in a private elevator and whisked aloft somewhere.

Presently there was a particularly violent spell of gasping and eye-popping. A very large man who had just entered was the 12

DOC SAVAGE

cause of this. I stood up to look. He was who was a little distracted by the moment of large, all right, but not in the sense that you the occasion.

mean fat when you say large.

“From the union?” he asked.

This was a giant bronze man, so excel-

“From the union,” I said. “I’m an extra lently proportioned that his size wouldn’t they sent over in case you need more help have been jarring if he hadn’t been near for this shindig upstairs.”

other men. He was good-looking, not pretty-He said: “We always need help.

handsome in any sense, but really something Where’s your working paper?”

to look at and impress. He seemed a little “I lost that, but I can run back to union embarrassed by the twittering and finger-headquarters and get a new one signed,” I pointing. Moving as easily as if he was on said. “It won’t take long.”

oiled bearings, he went to the special eleva-He shrugged and said, “Never mind.

tor and was taken up.

What is your name?”

“Who’s that?” I asked a fat man.

“Samuel Wales.”

“That,” said the man pompously, “is “Sam, can you bus?”

Doc Savage.”

I did not have much of an idea what he “And who is Doc Savage?” I inquired.

meant by bus. “If I can’t, I won’t expect any The fat man stared at me as if I had not pay,” I said, trying to sound as if I didn’t think heard of Christopher Columbus, the New much of being a bus, and was half-way inDeal, and night and day.

sulted.

“A poor joke, sir!” he said, and walked It was an insult, all right. The job was off.

that of bus-boy; they handed me a big bowl I asked a bellhop, and he said, “Doc with ice in it, a pair of tongs, and it was my Savage? He’s the big shot they’re all coming job to go around and chuck ice in the to see. I wish to God I could get an auto-glasses. It was a good thing they didn’t start graph off him.”

me laying out the silverware. There were “What does he do?”

enough tools around each plate to look as if “Savage? He rights wrongs and pun-a mechanic had laid out his kit.

ishes evildoers.”

“What are these guys?” I asked a I looked to see if the lad was ribbing waiter.

me. The expression on his face was as seri-

“Scientists,” he said.

ous and admiring as that of a pickaninny who If scientists are supposed to be bald had just touched Joe Louis.

men in shaggy suits and with no hair, only “He shouldn’t lack for business in this about half of those present qualified. Many of world,” I said.

them were young, and there was a woman The bellhop sighed loudly.

here and there.

I asked: “Are you serious?”

The big bronze fellow, Doc Savage, He just looked me up and down and was getting a lot of play. He was being talked walked of the way you would leave a stray to more than he was talking. The bellhop dog after you found fleas on it.

downstairs had said he righted wrongs and I thought I would sit in on this Recep-punished evildoers, which sounded like tion upstairs whatever it was.

something you hear in Sunday School, and didn’t go with this fellow’s appearance. Savage looked as if he was a man who knew NOW, I always have a reason for eve-where all the marbles were. Galahad went rything I do. Sometimes the reasons don’t out of fashion a long time ago, and this man satisfy anyone but me, but that’s all right with didn’t seem back-dated. He puzzled me.

me. In this case, I felt a little guilty about em-

“Who’s the big copper-colored guy?” I barrassing lovely-voice, and about taking fifty asked another waiter.

dollars of her friend’s money, if he was her “That’s Doc Savage.”

friend, and I wanted to clear the slate of that.

“I know, but what makes him rate?”

I might even offer to give him back his dough.

“Boy, you’re kind of ignorant, aren’t But not if I saw him again. In that case, I in-you?” the waiter said, and walked off.

tended to take a stroll across his face.

Miss Fenisong—lovely-voice—came in The man who hired the waiters was a presently, but her entrance was ruined for my slick-mannered white-haired old gentleman money by Albert Gross being with her. He NO LIGHT TO DIE BY