Money in the Bank Read Free

recognised an old acquaintance.
    "Well, well, well," he cried. Mrs. Molloy was not a woman of whom he was fond, but relief lent an almost effusively welcoming note to his voice. "Well, well, well, look who's here. Come along in and sit down, Dolly, Take the clean chair."
    "What clean chair?" asked the visitor, establishing herself, after an inspection which might have pained a more sensitive man, on a corner of the desk. "Are you trying to grow mustard and cress in here, or sump'n? Well, Chimp, it's a long time since we run across each other. You look about the same as ever."
    This, if true, was rather a pity, for Mr. Twist's appearance could scarcely but have been improved by alteration. Pie was a small man with the face of an untrustworthy monkey, the sort of monkey other monkeys would have shrunk from allowing to come within arm's reach of their nut ration, and, not content with Nature's handiwork, had superimposed on his upper lip a waxed moustache of singular hideousness. Nevertheless, he appeared to regard the remark as a tribute.
    "Sure, I keep pretty good," he said, curling the growth with a toothpick. "How's Soapy?"
    A cloud seemed to pass over Dolly's face. A keen ear might have detected a tremor in her voice, as she replied that Soapy was all right.
    "And what brings you around?"
    " Well, I happened to be in these parts, and I thought I'd look in. I'd sort of like your advice about something. And then there's that five smackers Soapy loaned you getting on for over a year ago and not a yip out of you since. I'll collect that while I'm here."
    "Soapy never loaned me any five smackers."
    "I've got your note in my bag."
    "I paid it him. Sure, that's right. I remember now. It all comes back to me."
    "And now it's coming back to Soapy."
    Mr. Twist seemed cast down for an instant, but only for an instant. He was a resilient man.
    "Well, we'll get round to that later," he said. "What do you want advice about?"
    The rather predatory gleam which had been lighting up his visitor's lustrous eyes died away, and she heaved a sigh, like one about to reveal a secret sorrow. She dabbed at her nose with a delicate cambric handkerchief, one of a set of twelve for which a prominent West End haberdasher had been looking everywhere since he had last enjoyed her patronage.
    " I'm kind of worried, Chimp."
    "What about?"
    "Soapy."
    "I thought you would be one of these days. You were a sap to marry him," said Mr. Twist. His association with the absent Mr. Molloy had been a long rather than an affectionate one. He could never forget the numerous occasions on which he, Mr. Molloy, had double-crossed him, Mr. Twist, just when he, Mr. Twist, was preparing to double-cross him, Mr. Molloy. "What's the trouble? Has he started playing the old Army game?"
    "It sort of looks like it."
    "The big chunk of boloney."
    "I'd be glad," said Dolly, with womanly dignity, "if you wouldn't call my husband chunks of boloney."
    "What else is there to call him?" asked Chimp. "Slice him where you like, that's what he still is."
    Mrs. Molloy bit a brightly coloured lip, but she refrained from the belligerent retort which had trembled on it. Chimp Twist, whatever his defects, and no one was more alive to these than she, was a man of recognized judgment and acumen, and she was a stranger in a strange land and had nobody else to whom to take a young wife's problems. In her native Chicago, there were a dozen knowledgeable Solons in whom she could have confided the anxieties which were gnawing her bosom, with a reasonable certainty of getting aid and comfort. She could even have consulted Dorothy Dix. But this was England, and her advisory committee far away, probably behind bars. Except Miss Dix, of course.
    Chimp returned to the matter in hand. His was a nasty little mind, that took pleasure in other people's recitals of their troubles. He anticipated particular enjoyment from a parade of the Molloy family skeletons.
    "What's he been doing?"
    "Well, it's this dame.  I