ON THE SWEENY WIRE

A party telephone wire is like a political picnic—lots of strangers on the ground and all full-fledged listeners-in. And Belle Sweeny, the race-track gambler’s widow, found her neighbors’ conversation irresistible, but, sad to relate, almost as disastrous.

A telephone inspector was in the Sweeny apartment, looking over the instrument. Mrs. Sweeny stood by, evidently suspicious, and watched the man as he worked. Sometimes telephone inspectors turned out to be evil-disposed persons, bent on loot. If one’s back were toward them, they would deftly collect whatever property happened to be available and decamp. So Mrs. Sweeny gave this man no opportunity at all to develop a burglarious streak, but watched his every move.

At last he finished brushing out the transmitter, tapping here and there with an inquisitive finger, tightening contact screws and the like, and went his way. His observer, now off duty, made her way to the Boarder’s rooms for a chat.

“Good mornin’,” she said, as she entered.

He returned the greeting and offered her a chair.

“Thanks,” said she, seating herself. “One of them telephone fellers was just here, fixin’ the thing. I been watchin’ him. You don’t find me takin’ chances on parties that comes around like that, bein’ flat workers. Not me!”

“It’s best to be careful,” agreed the Boarder.

“That’s what my Danny usta tell me b’fore he was shot,” she continued. “We was on a party line then⸺” She broke off abruptly, as if memory had flashed a message. “Say,” she resumed, “was you ever a party liner?”

“A what?” the Boarder asked.

“A party liner,” came the repetition. “You’re one when you and three or four other people all listens to what each other says on the phone, b’cause they’re on the same line and can. Anybody that would listen like that would peek through a keyhole—and I never met nobody that wouldn’t listen. After you’ve been a party liner for a while, you’ve got more of a rubberneck disposition than a’ astronomer. You watch a show from beginnin’ to end, through op’ry glasses, b’cause it makes you think you’re peekin’ at somethin’ on the sly. It’s a worse habit than whis’lin’ through your teeth; but there’s times when it comes in handy for some folks. The fine young one I had almost put Mr. Dan Sweeny and wife down and out.”

“I suppose the telephone company got after you?” the Boarder hazarded.

“You don’t get no coupon with that guess.” Mrs. Sweeny assured him. “Nothin’ like that happened; but somethin’ else did. Me and Danny seen our bank roll all made up and ready to go on in a disappearin’ act. It was a scary time for me, I tell you, mister.”

The boarder left off whittling the end of a pencil and began to make himself comfortable.

Mrs. Sweeny continued:

“About that time Danny had had a fallin’ out with a feller named ‘Mike the Wop’ that was workin’ at one of them race-track books. My husban’ wouldn’t stand for somethin’ he done, and told him so. They quarreled somethin’ outrag’ous; but afterward they made it up. Danny brought him out to dinner, and we treated him real stylish, like he was in the legislature and willin’ to be bought on the racin’ question. But that there Mike wasn’t no kind of a man. He had a low, backbitin’ disposition—he said he had Sicilian blood in him, and I believe it. Them Sicilians is great on that revenge thing, mister.”

The Boarder nodded.

“And,” his landlady went on, “I didn’t trust him; and afterward I told Danny to watch him like he was a tack on a dark floor. I remember that time at dinner that the telephone was talked about—somethin’ brought it out—and our party line got a hearin’. And Mike, bein’ one of them fellers that alwus likes to pan out wimmin for bein’ mutts and havin’ no principles, says he bet I listened on the line.

“‘Well,’ I says, ‘bein’ that I’m honust by nature,’ I says, ‘I’ll say this much: If I happen to take down the receiver and the line’s busy,’ I says, ‘mebbe I don’t put the thing right back up on the hook,’ I says.

“Mike laughs.

“‘Haw-haw-haw!’ he says, ‘you’re like all the rest of ’em, Mis’ Sweeny,’ he says. ‘Wimmin would listen on a telephone line, if what they heard was that their own house was burnin’ down,’ he says. ‘They’d stick till the folks got through talkin’ and then take a chance at gettin’ out alive,’ he says.

“Well, I didn’t have no argument with him, seein’ that he’s nothin’ but a rowdy. And then the talk turns to who’s on the line with us. You know how them things will come off. You bring up somethin’ to talk about and tell all you know about it, and then begin to lie. We told Mike that a Presbyterian minister was the L party; and a clairvoyant was the X party, and a feller named Doyle, that run a corner saloon over on Amsterdam Av-noo, was the R party, and we was the J party. I knew, for I’d called up the information operator from downtown and asked. Mebbe I was buttin’ in, but I just had to know. At first I was goin’ to kick about havin’ a saloon on our line, but the phone wasn’t there; it was at the man’s house. Of course all this patter didn’t mean nothin’ much to Mike at the time. It was just somethin’ that comes off between ladies and gent’m’n. But wait! I seen the time when I wished we’d never said a word about who was on our line. All the trouble come from that.”

The Boarder was showing considerable interest.

“I don’t see how⸺” he began.

But Mrs. Sweeny had the floor, and reminded him of it.

“Sometimes,” she declared, “you don’t seem like you had sense. Ain’t I doin’ my best to tell you how?”

He subsided, and she went on:

“That evenin’ when Mike left, Danny walked to the corner saloon with him and interduced him to the proprietor, Doyle. This here Doyle was crazy about the horses, and had more respect for Danny, who was a bookmaker, than for the man that made the subway. Danny didn’t stay, though, but come home right away. He wasn’t one of them stay-out-all-nights, except when there was somethin’ special to celebrate, like makin’ a big winnin’ at the track. When he come in, he says to me:

“‘Belle,’ he says, ‘Mike ain’t such a bad feller.’

“‘There’s worse,’ I says, ‘but they’re in jail. Take it from me, Danny, the Wop is the kind that’ll meet you with a glad face and then forget that he ever looked pleasant—he’s a smile-that-won’t-stay-on feller,’ I says. ‘I like him much,’ I says; ‘about as much as you’d like doin’ the housework,’ I says.

“You see, mister, a woman’s got a’ instinct that’s wound up all the time and rings up people and things like a cash register.”

The Boarder was moved to comment.

“Woman’s intuition is a strange thing,” he said.

“I bet on mine,” she assured him, “and I don’t have to walk home much, as you might say. And when it told me the Wop’s number—which was 00—I was sure that the right record was playin’. I tried to make Danny listen to it, but he was goin’ to sleep in his chair and wanted peace. So we let the thing drop.

“One mornin’ not long after that our telephone rung, and some party ast for Mr. Doyle.

“‘You’re in the wrong pew,’ I says.

“‘Ain’t this the R party?’ says the feller talkin’, and his voice sounded familiar.

“‘No,’ I says, ‘this is the J party.’

“I heard him laughin’.”

“‘Hello, Mrs. Sweeny,’ he says, ‘rubberin’ in on the line again? This is Mike talkin’.’

“‘No,’ I says, gettin’ mad. ‘I ain’t rubberin’ in on the line. Our bell rung,’ I says, ‘and a lady’s got a puffec’ right to answer her telephone if the bell rings,’ I says.

“He laughs again.

“‘Correct,’ he says; ‘go to the head of the class.’ Then he told me he didn’t mean nothin’ and for me not to go away mad. But I hung up, and throwed a salt cellar across the room, I was so put out.

“After a while, though, the thing got to easin’ up on my chest, and I begun to wonder what the Wop’s business with Mr. Doyle was. I knew that Doyle was makin’ considerable money out of his place; so, puttin’ two and two together, it looked to me that mebbe the Wop was after it. Now, mister, we’ve brought up at the place where there’s a curious woman to deal with—and somethin’ usually happens when one of them persons is turned loose, don’t it?”

“I believe so,” laughed the Boarder.

“You better had,” she told him. “Oh, don’t they know human nature, though!”

“Who?” inquired he, not knowing where he stood.

“Them gamblers,” she replied. “They know it better than a s’ciety woman thinks she knows bridge. Well, let me go on with my story. The next day, about the same time in the mornin’, our phone rings again, and it is another case of wrong number and another case of Mike. After we’d rung off, I gets to thinkin’ again: ‘What does he want with Doyle?’ And the next minute I’ve got the receiver down, and there I am, a peeping Tomerino, waitin’ for what’s comin’ off. I didn’t stay in suspense. Right off I heard Mr. Doyle sayin’:

“‘Hello!’ And then come Mike’s voice. They was talkin’ about a winner that was bein’ held for a killin’. Mr. Doyle was to play it on Mike’s tip.

“‘I ain’t quite sure yet,’ says Mike. ‘They’re keepin’ that horse covered up; but I’ll give you the info in time. You’ll know in two or three days. Then get on, and get on hard.’

“Mr. Doyle was for it, mister. And mebbe you think I ain’t the curious little girl about that time! What horse was goin’ to come through? If I could find out and tell Danny, we’d have a fine, soft place to cut loose in, after the horse had got home ahead of ’em all. The thing got me all excited. I couldn’t hardly wait till the next day, for I meant to listen in again—that telephone had took all my morals away from me, and I just didn’t care what happened, as long as I got that information. I didn’t even excuse myself on the grounds that I was doin’ a’ underhanded thing for the husban’ I loved—and at that, I figgered on gettin’ a swell dress out of the killin’. This money thing, mister, is somethin’ that’s awful quick and sure in givin’ wimmin a crool attack of bein’ wicked. Ain’t it?”

The Boarder thought so.

“Well,” Mrs. Sweeny went on, “it took me out of the Sunday-school class right away. And to make the temptation all the stronger, Mike the Wop alwus seemed to get our number b’fore he got what he wanted. You’d ought to of heard him pan out the service! He was real worked up about them girls makin’ so many mistakes. But I didn’t care. When the bell rung, I knew that them two men was goin’ to talk, so I got right on the job. And I stuck like garlic smell on a’ I-talian. I got crazy to know the name of that horse; and you can know how anxious I was, when I tell you that I almost cut out bein’ company for Mrs. ‘Big Joe’ Goss⸺”

“Er⸺” the Boarder began.

“She was a sick lady I was sittin’ up with afternoons,” Mrs. Sweeny hastened to explain. “And there’s more telephone stuff to her side of the story. But just you wait. It’ll all come out in time. Mrs. Big Joe was the wife of a pool-room keeper that me and Danny knowed real well, and her bein’ all in with neuritis, I was puttin’ out a helpin’ hand and gnawin’ on the rag all afternoon, so’s she wouldn’t have a relapse thinkin’ how Big Joe abused her. I’d been doin’ it about ten days; and lately I’d of gave my right mitt to stick around and listen to what might come over the telephone. Gee! but I was anxious to get the name of that horse, mister! It was real deep anxiety, the kind that makes you forget hatin’ people.”

“I think I can appreciate your position,” the Boarder assured her with sympathy.

“You don’t have to be a bettin’ man to do it,” she said. “If you’ve ever walked down street in a new suit, without no umbrella, and you’re dead sure it’s goin’ to rain, and it don’t,-then you have went through somethin’ like I did about that horse. But things have a habit of comin’ to ends, and this here pony business wasn’t any exception. A day or two later, it all come out. My bell had rung, as usual, and when me and the Wop had quit roastin’ the telephone company to each other, I. hung up and waited long enough for Mike to get his number. Then I kicks in. Mr. Doyle took down his receiver at just about the time I did—say, I had the thing timed to a second—for I heard him say:

“‘Hello!’

“Mike says ‘Hello!’ too. Then he went on;

“‘Doyle,’ he says, ‘I’ve got it. They’re goin’ to pull it in the fourth race to-morruh,’ he says.

“‘What is it?’ says Doyle.

“‘Whirlwind, Junior,’ says Mike, ‘and go to it, Doyle, like it was beefsteak and mushrooms,’ he says, ‘and you hadn’t et in a week. It’s the best thing that’s happened since Doc Cook discovered easy money,’ he says. ‘And don’t let this info get away. There’s twenty to one, if you get on early, and half that, anyway,’ he says.

“Mr. Doyle didn’t take a second to answer.

“‘You’re on,’ he says, ‘and I’ll carry fifty for you.’

“‘Fifty?’ says the Wop, in a voice that might mean anything.

“‘I mean a hundred,’ says Doyle. And then they babbled along for five minutes about the horse, and the best pool room to put up the money in, and such a line of stuff. Doyle never went to the track, b’cause if he did he couldn’t help bettin’ on every race, and that alwus busted him.”

Mrs. Sweeny paused a moment, a bit out of breath.

“I can’t help rememberin’,” she continued, “how fine I felt when I’d got that tip away from them men. I couldn’t wait till Danny come home that night. Once or twice I thought of tryin’ to locate him in some of them Broadway bootleggeries, but I stopped to think that mebbe some one else might be in on the line—some telephone girl—and spread the Whirlwind, Junior, stuff. You see, mister, when you’re bad yourself, you find yourself believin’ that everybody else is a crook, too. It’s caused by what you tell me is the sighological moment⸺”

“No,” interrupted the Boarder, “it is a psychic phenomena—a brain condition⸺”

“Put that in storage,” Mrs. Sweeny indignantly cut in. “Don’t you s’pose I know what I’m talkin’ about? Sighological moment is good enough for me. I heard Mrs. ‘Gold Dollar’ Cohen say that a few evenin’s ago, and she ain’t got nothin’ on me. If she can use them there words, I guess Belle Sweeny can. They don’t cost nothin’ and⸺”

The Boarder smiled.

“I meant no offense,” he said. “Won’t you please go on with the story?”

Mollified, the good lady gave her upturned nose the “going down” signal, and sailed forthwith into her yarn.

“Well,” she continued. “I was fidgety as a crate of hens till Danny come home. Then I told him all about what I’d heard.

“‘Belle,’ he says, when I’d shook it out of the trap, ‘you get a nice, new dress just for this. What does that there one cost you was tellin’ me about—the grape de foy grass?’ he says.

“‘Danny,’ I says, ‘it ain’t grapes, it’s crépe,’ I says. But I didn’t bother him with the rest of the name, b’cause I knowed he wouldn’t understand. I only mentioned somethin’ like two fifty, which was nearer his idea of information, and he stood for it.

“‘To-morruh,’ he says, ‘when I bring home the money,’ he says, ‘you get yours. I’ll go to it for a thousand,’ he says, ‘and when everything’s added up, there ought to be enough to pay our hired girl with, anyhow,’ he says. And with that he went to readin’ his paper, after havin’ asked when in—well, he wanted to know when dinner would be ready, he bein’ as hungry as never no man was b’fore. So I left him go ahead and read his paper, and we didn’t mention the horse again till the next day.

“I tell you, mister, I was just about crazy to go out to the track and see that Whirlwind, Junior, eat ’em up. I could see in my mind about how it would be. The horse would keep pretty well in front for a while, till the jockey seen just what he had to beat, then he’d give Whirlwind his head, and mebbe beat him up, down the stretch. And there’d be a gang of howlin’ maniacs, yellin’ for the fav’rite to make good.

“You bet there’d be excitement enough to satisfy a modust young thing like me, and I wanted to mix up in it. Also, I wanted to set around with a knew-it-all grin all over my face and collect my bit, me havin’ gave Danny fifty to put down for me. Did you ever make a surething bet?” she asked.

“No,” replied the Boarder.

“Then,” Mrs. Sweeny said, “you don’t know the thrillin’ feelin’ you get, waitin’ for things to come across. I can’t describe it to you, but it sure is some feelin’. It begun with me as soon as Danny went out of the house, and kep’ up right along. At noon, I slips over to Mrs. Big Joe’s house for lunch and to stay there with her all afternoon. I couldn’t go to no track, with her feelin’ like she wanted to jump out of the window and spendin’ her time quarrelin’ with her nurse. She wouldn’t row none with me, b’cause she kept too interested in what scandal was goin’ on in our set.

“I guess mebbe I’d been there a’ hour, when the phone, that was set on a stand by her bed, begun to ring.

“‘I wisht,’ she says, all nervous, ‘I wisht, Belle, that some one would kick this thing in the eye for me. It like to drives me bugs,’ she says, puttin’ the receiver to her ear. I was siftin' close b’side her, and when she says ‘Hello!’ I could hear the voice at the other end real plain.

“‘Is Joe there?’ it says. And you can just guess that I set up and took notice. That there voice belonged to Mike the Wop, and I seen, just as clear as anything, that Big Joe was in on the deal, too. Somethin’ told me he was. Mrs. Big Joe said her husban’ wasn’t nowhere around. He was down at his pool room, she was sure.

“‘No,’ says Mike, ‘he ain’t there. I called up. Say, Mrs. Goss,’ he says, ‘I wisht I knew where to find him.’

“‘What you want with him?’ she says.

“‘There’s a bad tip loose,’ he says, ‘on Whirlwind, Junior,’ he says, ‘and I don’t want Joe to fall for it,’ he says. ‘Nobody’s supposed to play it,’ he says, ‘but Sweeny. It’s a plant,’ he says.

“Mrs. Big Joe looks up at me, and I’m bendin’ down close to the receiver that was against her ear. She pulled it away a little bit, so I could hear better. ‘This here’s too good to be true,’ she says, forgettin’ that anything was the matter of her. Then to Mike:

“‘What’s this you’re sayin’?’

“‘Sweeny’s goin’ to get his this afternoon,’ Mike tells her, ‘and I guess him and his rubberneckin’ wife is goin’ to have somethin’ to study about to-night,’ he says. Then we heard him laugh. ‘Ha-ha-ha!’ he says, ‘I bet they have their telephone tore out by the roots,’ he says. ‘And I bet she never rubbers again, as long as she lives.’

“Mrs. Big Joe gets awful anxious at that. ‘What you drivin’ at, Mike?’ she says.