Humorous American Short Stories by Bob Blaisdell

Author:Bob Blaisdell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dover Publications
Published: 2013-11-08T05:00:00+00:00

THE CRIMSON CORD (1904)

Ellis Parker Butler

An Iowa native, Butler (1869–1937) moved to New York to write for trade magazines. Even after having gained a lot of financial success as a writer, he worked as a banker in Queens for ten years. The subtitle in the magazine for this story was “An Adventure of Perkins the Great.” Butler’s inventive salesman had appeared in an earlier story.

I.

I had not seen Perkins for six months or so and things were dull. I was beginning to tire of sitting indolently in my office with nothing to do but clip coupons from my bonds. Money is good enough, in its way, but it is not interesting unless it is doing something lively— doubling itself or getting lost. What I wanted was excitement and adventure—and I knew that if I could find Perkins I could have both. A scheme is a business adventure, and Perkins was the greatest schemer in or out of Chicago.

Just then Perkins walked into my office.

“Perkins,” I said, as soon as he had arranged his feet comfortably on my desk, “I’m tired. I’m restless. I have been wishing for you for a month: I want to go into a big scheme and make a lot of new, up-to-date cash. I’m sick of this tame, old cash that I have. It isn’t interesting. No cash is interesting except the coming cash.”

“I’m with you,” said Perkins, “what is your scheme?”

“I have none,” I said sadly, “that is just my trouble. I have sat here for days trying to think of a good practical scheme, but I can’t. I don’t believe there is an unworked scheme in the whole wide, wide world.”

Perkins waved his hand.

“My boy,” he exclaimed, “there are millions! You’ve thousands of ’em right here in your office! You’re falling over them, sitting on them, walking on them! Schemes? Everything is a scheme. Everything has money in it!”

I shrugged my shoulders.

“Yes,” I said, “for you. But you are a genius.”

“Genius, yes,” Perkins said smiling cheerfully, “else why Perkins the Great? Why Perkins the originator? Why the Great and Only Perkins of Portland?”

“All right,” I said, “what I want is for your genius to get busy. I’ll give you a week to work up a good scheme.”

Perkins pushed back his hat and brought his feet to the floor with a smack.

“Why the delay?” he queried, “time is money. Hand me something from your desk.”

I looked in my pigeonholes and pulled from one a small ball of string. Perkins took it in his hand and looked at it with great admiration.

“What is it?” he asked seriously.

“That,” I said humoring him, for I knew something great would be evolved from his wonderful brain, “is a ball of red twine I bought at the ten-cent store. I bought it last Saturday. It was sold to me by a freckled young lady in a white shirtwaist. I paid—”

“Stop!” Perkins cried, “what is it?”

I looked at the ball of twine curiously. I tried to see something remarkable in it. I couldn’t.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.