Shorty accepted the challenge. 'A thing's worth what you can get for it, ain't it?' he demanded.
'Yes, but — '
'But nothin'. I'm tellin' you what we can get for 'em. Ten a throw, just like that. We're the egg trust, Smoke an' me, an' don't you forget it. When we say ten a throw, ten a throw goes.' He mopped his plate with a biscuit. 'I could almost eat a couple more,' he sighed, then helped himself to the beans.
'You can't eat eggs like that,' Wild Water objected. 'It — it ain't right.'
'We just dote on eggs, Smoke an' me,' was Shorty's excuse.
Wild Water finished his own plate in a half-hearted way and gazed dubiously at the two comrades. 'Say, you fellows can do me a great favor,' he began tentatively. 'Sell me, or lend me, or give me, about a dozen of them eggs.'
'Sure,' Smoke answered. 'I know what a yearning for eggs is myself. But we're not so poor that we have to sell our hospitality. They'll cost you nothing — ' Here a sharp kick under the table admonished him that Shorty was getting nervous. 'A dozen, did you say, Wild Water?'
Wild Water nodded.
'Go ahead, Shorty,' Smoke went on. 'Cook them up for him. I can sympathize. I've seen the time myself when I could eat a dozen, straight off the bat.'
But Wild Water laid a restraining hand on the eager Shorty as he explained. 'I don't mean cooked. I want them with the shells on.'
'So that you can carry 'em away?'
'That's the idea.'
'But that ain't hospitality,' Shorty objected. 'It's — it's tradin'.'
Smoke nodded concurrence. 'That's different, Wild Water. I thought you just wanted to eat them. You see, we went into this for a speculation.'
The dangerous blue of Wild Water's eyes began to grow more dangerous. 'I'll pay you for them,' he said sharply. 'How much?'
'Oh, not a dozen,' Smoke replied. 'We couldn't sell a dozen. We're not retailers; we're speculators. We can't break our own market. We've got a hard and fast corner, and when we sell out it's the whole corner or nothing.'
'How many have you got, and how much do you want for them?'
'How many have we, Shorty?' Smoke inquired.
Shorty cleared his throat and performed mental arithmetic aloud. 'Lemme see. Nine hundred an' seventy- three minus nine, that leaves nine hundred an' sixty-two. An' the whole shootin'-match, at ten a throw, will tote up just about nine thousand six hundred an' twenty iron dollars. Of course, Wild Water, we're playin' fair, an' it's money back for bad ones, though they ain't none. That's one thing I never seen in the Klondike — a bad egg. No man's fool enough to bring in a bad egg.'
'That's fair,' Smoke added. 'Money back for the bad ones, Wild Water. And there's our proposition — nine thousand six hundred and twenty dollars for every egg in the Klondike .'
'You might play them up to twenty a throw an' double your money,' Shorty suggested.
Wild Water shook his head sadly and helped himself to the beans. 'That would be too expensive, Shorty. I only want a few. I'll give you ten dollars for a couple of dozen. I'll give you twenty — but I can't buy 'em all.'
'All or none,' was Smoke's ultimatum.
'Look here, you two,' Wild Water said in a burst of confidence. 'I'll be perfectly honest with you, an' don't let it go any further. You know Miss Arral an' I was engaged. Well, she's broken everything off. You know it. Everybody knows it. It's for her I want them eggs.'
'Huh!' Shorty jeered. 'It's clear an' plain why you want 'em with the shells on. But I never thought it of you.'
'Thought what?'
'It's low-down mean, that's what it is,' Shorty rushed on, virtuously indignant. 'I wouldn't wonder somebody filled you full of lead for it, an' you'd deserve it, too.'
Wild Water began to flame toward the verge of one of his notorious Berserker rages. His hands clenched until the cheap fork in one of them began to bend, while his blue eyes flashed warning sparks. 'Now look here, Shorty, just what do you mean? If you think anything underhanded — '
'I mean what I mean,' Shorty retorted doggedly, 'an' you bet your sweet life I don't mean anything underhanded. Overhand's the only way to do it. You can't throw 'em any other way.'
'Throw what?'
'Eggs, prunes, baseballs, anything. But Wild Water, you're makin' a mistake. They ain't no crowd ever sat at the Opery House that'll stand for it. Just because she's a actress is no reason you can publicly lambaste her with hen-fruit.'
For the moment it seemed that Wild Water was going to burst or have apoplexy. He gulped down a mouthful of scalding coffee and slowly recovered himself.
'You're in wrong, Shorty,' he said with cold deliberation. 'I'm not going to throw eggs at her. Why, man,' he cried, with growing excitement, 'I want to give them eggs to her, on a platter, shirred — that's the way she likes 'em.'
'I knowed I was wrong,' Shorty cried generously, 'I knowed you couldn't do a low-down trick like that.'
'That's all right, Shorty,' Wild Water forgave him. 'But let's get down to business. You see why I want them eggs. I want 'em bad.'
'Do you want 'em ninety-six hundred an' twenty dollars' worth?' Shorty queried.
'It's a hold-up, that's what it is,' Wild Water declared irately.
'It's business,' Smoke retorted. 'You don't think we're peddling eggs for our health, do you?'
'Aw, listen to reason,' Wild Water pleaded. 'I only want a couple of dozen. I'll give you twenty apiece for 'em. What do I want with all the rest of them eggs? I've went years in this country without eggs, an' I guess I can keep on managin' without 'em somehow.'
'Don't get het up about it,' Shorty counseled. 'If you don't want 'em, that settles it. We ain't a-forcin' 'em on you.'
'But I do want 'em,' Wild Water complained.
'Then you know what they'll cost you — ninety-six hundred an' twenty dollars, an' if my figurin's wrong, I'll treat.'
'But maybe they won't turn the trick,' Wild Water objected. 'Maybe Miss Arral's lost her taste for eggs by this time.'
'I should say Miss Arral's worth the price of the eggs,' Smoke put in quietly.
'Worth it!' Wild Water stood up in the heat of his eloquence. 'She's worth a million dollars. She's worth all I've got. She's worth all the dust in the Klondike .' He sat down, and went on in a calmer voice. 'But that ain't no call for me to gamble ten thousand dollars on a breakfast for her. Now I've got a proposition. Lend me a couple of dozen of them eggs. I'll turn 'em over to Slavovitch. He'll feed 'em to her with my compliments. She ain't smiled to me for a hundred years. If them eggs gets a smile for me, I'll take the whole boiling off your hands.'
'Will you sign a contract to that effect?' Smoke said quickly; for he knew that Lucille Arral had agreed to smile.
Wild Water gasped. 'You're almighty swift with business up here on the hill,' he said, with a hint of a snarl.
'We're only accepting your own proposition,' Smoke answered.
'All right — bring on the paper — make it out, hard and fast,' Wild Water cried in the anger of surrender.
Smoke immediately wrote out the document, wherein Wild Water agreed to take every egg delivered to him at ten dollars per egg, provided that the two dozen advanced to him brought about a reconciliation with Lucille Arral.
Wild Water paused, with uplifted pen, as he was about to sign. 'Hold on,' he said. 'When I buy eggs I buy good eggs.'
'They ain't a bad egg in the Klondike ,' Shorty snorted.
'Just the same, if I find one bad egg you've got to come back with the ten I paid for it.'
'That's all right,' Smoke placated. 'It's only fair.'
