CHAPTER VA LONG SHOT ON DELANCEY
Well, I’ve been slummin’ up again. It happens like this: I was just preparin’, here the other noontime, to rush around the corner and destroy a plate of lunch counter hash decorated with parsley and a dropped egg, when I gets this ’phone call from Duke Borden, who says he wants to see me the worst way.
“Well,” says I, “the studio’s still here on 42d-st., and if your eyesight ain’t failed you——”
“Oh, chop it, can’t you, Shorty?” says he. “This is really important. Come right up, can’t you!”
“That depends,” says I. “Any partic’lar place?”
“Of course,” says he. “Here at the club. I’m to meet Chick Sommers here in half an hour. We’ll have luncheon together and——”
“I’m on,” says I. “I don’t know Chick; but I’m a mixer, and I’ll stand for anything in the food line but cold egg. Scratch the chilled hen fruit and I’m with you.”
Know about Duke, don’t you? It ain’t muchto tell. He’s just one of these big, handsome, overfed chappies that help the mounted traffic cops to make Fifth-ave. look different from other Main-sts. He don’t do any special good, or any partic’lar harm. Duke’s got just enough sense, though, to have spasms of thinkin’ he wants to do something useful now and then, and all I can dope out of this emergency call of his is that this is a new thought.
That’s the answer, too. He begins tellin’ me about it while the head waiter’s leadin’ us over to a corner table. Oh, yes, he’s going in for business in dead earnest now, y’know,—suite of offices, his name on the letterheads, and all that sort of thing, bah Jove!
All of which means that Mr. Chick Sommers, who was a star quarterback in ’05, when Duke was makin’ his college bluff on the Gold Coast, has rung him into a South Jersey land boomin’ scheme. A few others, friends of Chick’s, are in it. They’re all rippin’ good fellows, too, and awfully clever at planning out things. Chick himself, of course, is a corker. It was him that insisted on Duke’s bein’ treasurer.
“And really,” says Duke, “about all I have to do is drop around once or twice a week and sign a few checks.”
“I see,” says I. “They let you supply the funds, eh?”
“Why, yes,” says Duke. “I’m the only onewho can, y’know. But they depend a great deal on my judgment, too. For instance, take this new deal that’s on; it has all been left to me. There are one hundred and eighteen acres, and we don’t buy a foot unless I say so. That’s where you come in, Shorty.”
“Oh, do I?” says I.
“You see,” Duke goes on, “I’m supposed to inspect it and make a decision before the option expires, which will be day after to-morrow. The fact is, I’ve been putting off going down there, and now I find I’ve a winter house party on, up in Lenox, and—— Well, you see the box I’m in.”
“Sure!” says I. “You want me to sub for you at Lenox?”
“Deuce take it, no!” says Duke. “I want you to go down and look at that land for me.”
“Huh!” says I. “What I know about real estate wouldn’t——”
“Oh, that’s all right,” says Duke. “It’s only a matter of form. The boys say they want it, and I’m going to buy it for them anyway; but, just to have it all straight and businesslike, either I ought to see the land myself, or have it inspected by my personal representative. Understand?”
“Duke,” says I, “you’re a reg’lar real estate Napoleon. I wouldn’t have believed it was in you.”
“I know,” says he. “I’m really surprised at myself.”
Next he explains how he happened to think of sendin’ me, and casually he wants to know if a couple of hundred and expenses will be about right for spoilin’ two days of my valuable time. How could I tell how much it would lose me? But I said I’d run the chances.
Then Chick shows up, and they begin to talk over the details of this new bungalow boom town that’s to be located on the Jersey side.
“I tell you,” says Chick, “it’ll be a winner from the start. Why, there’s every advantage anyone could wish for,—ocean breezes mingled with pine scented zephyrs, magnificent views, and a railroad running right through the property! The nearest station now is Clam Creek; but we’ll have one of our own, with a new name. Clam Creek! Ugh! How does Pinemere strike you?”
“Perfectly ripping, by Jove!” says Duke, so excited over it that he lights the cork end of his cigarette. “Shorty, you must go right down there for me. Can’t you start as soon as you’ve had your coffee?”
Oh, but it was thrillin’, listenin’ to them two amateur real estaters layin’ plans that was to make a seashore wilderness blossom with surveyors’ stakes and fresh painted signs like Belvidere-ave., Ozone Boulevard, and so on.
It struck me, though, that they was discussin’ their scheme kind of free and public. I spots one white haired, dignified old boy, doing the solitaire feed at the table back of Duke, who seems more or less int’rested. And I notices that every time Clam Creek is mentioned he pricks up his ears. Sure enough, too, just as we’re finishing, he steps over and taps Duke on the shoulder.
“Why, howdy do, Mr. Cathaway?” says Duke. “Charmed to see you, by Jove!”
And it turns out he’s DeLancey Cathaway, the big noise in the philanthropy game, him that gets up societies for suppressin’ the poor and has his name on hospitals and iron drinkin’ fountains. After he’s been introduced all around he admits that he’s caught one or two remarks, and says he wants to congratulate Duke on givin’ up his idle ways and breakin’ into an active career.
Oh, he’s a smooth old party, Mr. Cathaway is! He don’t let on to be more’n moderately int’rested, and the next thing I know he’s sidled away from Duke and is walkin’ out alongside of me.
“Going down town?” says he. “Then perhaps you will allow me to give you a lift?” and he motions to his town car waiting at the curb.
“Gee!” thinks I. “I’m makin’ a hit with the nobility, me and my winnin’ ways!”
That don’t exactly state the case, though; for as soon as we’re alone DeLancey comes right to cases.
“I understand, Mr. McCabe,” says he, “that you are to visit Clam Creek.”
“Yep,” says I. “Sounds enticin’, don’t it?”
“Doubtless you will spend a day or so there?” he goes on.
“Over night, anyway,” says I.
“Hum!” says he. “Then you will hardly fail to meet my brother. He is living at Clam Creek.”
“What!” says I. “Not Broadway Bob?”
“Yes,” says he, “Robert and his wife have been there for nearly two years. At least, that is where I have been sending his allowance.”
“Mrs. Bob too!” says I. “Why—why, say, you don’t mean the one that——”
“The same,” he cuts in. “I know they’re supposed to be abroad; but they’re not, they are at Clam Creek.”
Maybe you’ve heard about the Bob Cathaways, and maybe you ain’t. There’s so many new near-plutes nowadays that the old families ain’t getting the advertisin’ they’ve been used to. Anyway, it’s been sometime since Broadway Bob had his share of the limelight. You see, Bob sort of had his day when he was along in his thirties, and they say he was a realold-time sport and rounder, which was why he was let in so bad when old man Cathaway’s will was probated. All Bob pulls out is a couple of thousand a year, even that being handled first by Brother DeLancey, who cops all the rest of the pile as a reward for always having gone in strong for charity and the perfectly good life.
It’s a case where virtue shows up strong from the first tap of the bell. Course, Bob can look back on some years of vivid joy, when he was makin’ a record as a quart opener, buyin’ stacks of blues at Daly’s, or over at Monte Carlo bettin’ where the ball would stop. But all this ends mighty abrupt.
In the meantime Bob has married a lively young lady that nobody knew much about except that she was almost as good a sport as he was, and they were doin’ some great teamwork in the way of livenin’ up society, when the crash came.
Then it was the noble hearted DeLancey to the rescue. He don’t exactly take them right into the fam’ly; but he sends Mr. and Mrs. Bob over to his big Long Island country place, assigns ’em quarters in the north wing, and advises ’em to be as happy as they can. Now to most folks that would look like landin’ on Velveteen-st.,—free eats, no room rent, and a forty-acre park to roam around in, with the use of a couple of safe horses and a libr’y full of improvin’books, such as the Rollo series and the works of Dr. Van Dyke.
Brother Bob don’t squeal or whine. He starts in to make the best of it by riggin’ himself out like an English Squire and makin’ a stagger at the country gentleman act. He takes a real int’rest in keepin’ up the grounds and managin’ the help, which DeLancey had never been able to do himself.
It’s as dull as dishwater, though, for Mrs. Robert Cathaway, and as there ain’t anyone else handy she takes it out on Bob. Accordin’ to all accounts, they must have done the anvil chorus good and plenty. You can just see how it would be, with them two dumped down so far from Broadway and only now and then comp’ny to break the monotony. When people did come, too, they was DeLancey’s kind. I can picture Bob tryin’ to get chummy with a bunch of prison reformers or delegates to a Sunday school union. I don’t wonder his disposition curdled up.
If it hadn’t been for Mrs. Bob, though, they’d been there yet. She got so used to rowin’ with Bob that she kept it up even when Brother DeLancey and his friends came down. DeLancey stands for it until one morning at breakfast, when he was entertainin’ an English Bishop he’d corraled at some conference. Him and the Bishop was exchangin’ views on whetherfree soup and free salvation was a good workin’ combination or not, when some little thing sets Mr. and Mrs. Bob to naggin’ each other on the side. I forgot just what it was Bob shot over; but after standin’ her jabs for quite some time without gettin’ real personal he comes back with some stage whisper remark that cut in deep.
Mrs. Bob was right in the act of helpin’ herself to the jelly omelet, usin’ a swell silver servin’ shovel about half the size of a brick layer’s trowel. She’s so stirred up that she absentmindedly scoops up a double portion, and just as Bob springs his remark what does she do but up and let fly at him, right across the table. Maybe she’d have winged him too,—and served him right for saying what no gentleman should to a lady, even if she is his wife,—but, what with her not stoppin’ to take good aim, and the maid’s gettin’ her tray against her elbow, she misses Bob by about three feet and plasters the English Bishop square between the eyes.
Now of course that wa’n’t any way to serve hot omelet to a stranger, no matter how annoyed you was. DeLancey told her as much while he was helpin’ swab off the reverend guest. Afterwards he added other observations more or less definite. Inside of two hours Mr. and Mrs. Bob found their baggage waitin’ under the porte cochère, and the wagonette ready to take’em to the noon train. They went. It was given out that they was travelin’ abroad, and if it hadn’t been for the omelet part of the incident they’d been forgotten long ago. That was a stunt that stuck, though.
As I looks at DeLancey there in the limousine I has to grin. “Say,” says I, “was it a fact that the Bishop broke loose and cussed?”
“That humiliating affair, Mr. McCabe,” says he, “I would much prefer not to talk about. I refer to my brother now because, knowing that you are going to Clam Creek, you will probably meet him there.”
“Oh!” says I. “Like to have me give him your best regards!”
“No,” says DeLancey. “I should like, however, to hear how you found him.”
“Another report, eh!” says I. “All right, Mr. Cathaway, I’ll size him up for you.”
“But chiefly,” he goes on, “I shall depend upon your discretion not to mention my brother’s whereabouts to anyone else. As an aid to that discretion,” says he, digging up his roll and sortin’ out some tens, “I am prepared to——”
“Ah, button ’em back!” says I. “Who do you think you’re dealin’ with, anyway?”
“Why,” says he, flushin’ up, “I merely intended——”
“Well, forget it!” says I. “I ain’t runnin’any opposition to the Black Hand, and as for whether I leak out where your brother is or not, that’s something you got to take chances on. Pull up there, Mr. Chauffeur! This is where I start to walk.”
And say, you could put his name on all the hospitals and orphan asylums in the country; but I never could see it again without growin’ warm under the collar. Bah! Some of these perfectly good folks have a habit of gettin’ on my nerves. All the way down to Clam Creek I kept tryin’ to wipe him off the slate, and I’d made up my mind to dodge Brother Bob, if I had to sleep in the woods.
So as soon as I hops off the train I gets my directions and starts to tramp over this tract that Duke Borden was plannin’ on blowin’ some of his surplus cash against. And say, if anybody wants an imitation desert, dotted with scrub pine and fringed with salt marshes, that’s the place to go lookin’ for it. There’s hundreds of square miles of it down there that nobody’s usin’, or threatenin’ to.
Also I walked up an appetite like a fresh landed hired girl. I was so hungry that I pikes straight for the only hotel and begs ’em to lead me to a knife and fork. For a wonder, too, they brings on some real food, plain and hearty, and I don’t worry about the way it’s thrown at me.
Yon know how it is out in the kerosene district. I finds myself face to face with a hunk of corned beef as big as my two fists, boiled Murphies, cabbage and canned corn on the side, bread sliced an inch thick, and spring freshet coffee in a cup you couldn’t break with an ax. Lizzie, the waitress, was chewin’ gum and watchin’ to see if I was one of them fresh travelin’ gents that would try any funny cracks on her.
I’d waded through the food programme as far as makin’ a choice between tapioca puddin’ and canned peaches, when in drifts a couple that I knew, the minute I gets my eyes on ’em, must be Mr. and Mrs. Bob Cathaway. Who else in that little one-horse town would be sportin’ a pair of puttee leggin’s and doeskin ridin’ breeches? That was Bob’s makeup, includin’ a flap-pocketed cutaway of Harris tweed and a corduroy vest. They fit him a little snug, showin’ he’s laid on some flesh since he had ’em built. Also he’s a lot grayer than I expected, knowin’ him to be younger than DeLancey.
As for Mrs. Bob—well, if you can remember how the women was dressin’ as far back as two years ago, and can throw on the screen a picture of a woman who has only the reminders of her good looks left, you’ll have her framed up. A pair of seedy thoroughbreds, they was, seedy and down and out.
“I knew it must be Mr. and Mrs. Bob Cathaway”
“I knew it must be Mr. and Mrs. Bob Cathaway”
I was wonderin’ if they still indulged in them lively fam’ly debates, and how soon I’d have to begin dodgin’ dishes; but they sits down across the table from me and hardly swaps a word. All I notices is the scornful way Lizzie asks if they’ll have soup, and the tremble to Bob Cathaway’s hand as he lifts his water tumbler.
As there was only us three in the room, and as none of us seemed to have anything to say, it wa’n’t what you might call a boisterous assemblage. While I was waitin’ for dessert I put in the time gazin’ around at the scenery, from the moldy pickle jars at either end of the table, over to the walnut sideboard where they kept the plated cake basket and the ketchup bottles, across to the framed fruit piece that had seen so many hard fly seasons, and up to the smoky ceilin’. I looked everywhere except at the pair opposite.
Lizzie was balancin’ the soup plates on her left arm and singsongin’ the bill of fare to ’em. “Col’-pork-col’-ham-an’-corn-beef-’n’-cabbage,” says she.
If Bob Cathaway didn’t shudder at that, I did for him. “You may bring me—er—some of the latter,” says he.
I tested the canned peaches and then took a sneak. On one side of the front hall was the hotel parlor, full of plush furniture and stuffed birds. The office and bar was on the other. Istrolls in where half a dozen Clam Creekers was sittin’ around a big sawdust box indulgin’ in target practice; but after a couple of sniffs I concludes that the breathin’ air is all outside.
After half an hour’s stroll I goes in, takes a lamp off the hall table, and climbs up to No. 7. It’s as warm and cheerful as an underground beer vault. Also I finds the window nailed down. Huntin’ for someone to fetch me a hammer was what sent me roamin’ through the hall and took me past No. 11, where the door was part way open. And in there, with an oil-stove to keep ’em from freezin’, I see Mr. and Mrs. Bob Cathaway sittin’ at a little marble topped table playin’ double dummy bridge. Say, do you know, that unexpected glimpse of this little private hard luck proposition of theirs kind of got me in the short ribs. And next thing I knew I had my head in the door.
“For the love of Mike,” says I, “how do you stand it?”
“Eh?” says Bob, droppin’ his cards and starin’ at me. “I—I beg pardon?”
Well, with that I steps in, tells him who I am, and how I’d just had a talk with Brother DeLancey. Do I get the glad hand? Why, you’d thought I was a blooming he angel come straight from the pearly gates. Bob drags me in, pushes me into the only rocker inthe room, shoves a cigar box at me, and begins to haul decanters from under the washstand. They both asks questions at once. How is everybody, and who’s married who, and are so and so still living together?
I reels off society gossip for an hour before I gets a chance to do some pumpin’ on my own hook. What I wants to know is why in blazes they’re hidin’ in a hole like Clam Creek.
Bob only shrugs his shoulders. “Why not here as well as anywhere?” says he. “When you can’t afford to live among your friends, why—you live in Clam Creek.”
“But two years of it!” says I. “What do you find to do?”
“Oh, we manage,” says he, wavin’ at the double dummy outfit. “Babe and I have our little game. It’s only for a dime a point; but it helps pass away the time. You see, when our monthly allowance comes in we divide it equally and take a fresh start. The winner has the privilege of paying our bills.”
How was that for excitement? And Bob whispers to me, as we starts out for a little walk before turnin’ in, “I generally fix it so Babe—er, Mrs. Cathaway—can win, you know.”
From other little hints I gathers that their stay in Clam Creek has done one thing for ’em, anyway. It had put ’em wise to the great factthat the best way for two parties to get along together is to cut out the hammer music.
“So you had a talk with DeLancey?” says Bob on the way back. “I suppose he—er—sent no message?”
It had taken Bob Cathaway all this while to work up to that question, and he can’t steady down his voice as he puts it. And that quaver tells me the whole story of how he’s been hoping all along that Brother DeLancey would sometime or other get over his grouch. Which puts it up to me to tell him what a human iceberg he’s related to. Did I? Honest, there’s times when I ain’t got much use for the truth.
“Message?” says I, prompt and cheerful. “Now what in blazes was it he did say to tell you? Something about asking how long before you and Mrs. Cathaway was goin’ to run up and make him a visit, I guess.”
“A visit!” gasps Bob. “Did—did DeLancey say that? Then thank Heaven it’s over! Come on! Hurry!” and he grabs me by the arm, tows me to the hotel, and makes a dash up the stairs towards their room.
“What do you think, Babe?” says he, pantin’. “DeLancey wants to know when we’re coming back!”
For a minute Mrs. Bob don’t say a word, but just stands there, her hands gripped in Bob’s, and the dew startin’ out of her eye corners.Then she asks, sort of husky, “Isn’t there a night train, Bob?”
There wa’n’t; but there was one at six-thirty-eight in the mornin’. We all caught it, too, both of ’em as chipper as a pair of kids, and me wonderin’ how it was all goin’ to turn out.
For three days after that I never went to the ’phone without expectin’ to hear from Bob Cathaway, expressin’ his opinion about my qualifications for the Ananias class. And then here the other afternoon I runs into Brother DeLancey on the avenue, not seein’ him quick enough to beat it up a side street.
“Ah, McCabe,” he sings out, “just a moment! That little affair about my Brother Robert, you know.”
“Sure, I know,” says I, bracin’ myself. “Where is he now?”
“Why,” says DeLancey, with never an eyelash flutterin’, “he and his wife are living at Green Oaks again. Just returned from an extended trip abroad, you know.” Then he winks.
Say, who was it sent out that bulletin about how all men was liars? I ain’t puttin’ in any not guilty plea; but I’d like to add that some has got it down finer than others.
CHAPTER VIPLAYING HAROLD BOTH WAYS
Anyway, they came bunched, and that was some comfort. Eh? Well, first off there was the lovers, then there was Harold; and it was only the combination that saved me from developin’ an ingrowin’ grouch.
You can guess who it was accumulated the lovers. Why, when Sadie comes back from Bar Harbor and begins tellin’ me about ’em, you’d thought she’d been left something in a will, she’s so pleased.
Seems there was these two young ladies, friends of some friends of hers, that was bein’ just as miserable as they could be up there. One was visitin’ the other, and, as I made out from Sadie’s description, they must have been havin’ an awful time, livin’ in one of them eighteen-room cottages built on a point juttin’ a mile or so out into the ocean, with nothin’ but yachts and motor boats and saddle horses and tennis courts and so on to amuse themselves with.
I inspected some of them places when I was up that way not long ago,—joints where theyget their only information about hot waves by readin’ the papers,—and I can just imagine how I could suffer puttin’ in a summer there. Say, some folks don’t know when they’re well off, do they?
And what do you suppose the trouble with ’em was? Why, Bobbie and Charlie was missin’. Honest, that’s all the place lacked to make it a suburb of Paradise. But that was enough for the young ladies; for each of ’em was sportin’ a diamond ring on the proper finger, and, as they confides to Sadie, what was the use of havin’ summer at all, if one’s fiancé couldn’t be there?
Bobbie and Charlie, it appears, was slavin’ away in the city; one tryin’ to convince Papa that he’d be a real addition to Wall Street, and the other trainin’ with Uncle for a job as vice president of a life insurance company. So what did Helen and Marjorie care about sea breezes and picture postal scenery? Once a day they climbed out to separate perches on the rocks to read letters from Bobbie and Charlie; and the rest of the time they put in comparin’ notes and helpin’ each other be miserable.
“Ah, quit it, Sadie!” says I, interruptin’ the sad tale. “Do you want to make me cry?”
“Well, they were wretched, even if you don’t believe it,” says she; “so I just told them tocome right down here for the rest of the season.”
“Wha-a-at!” says I. “Not here?”
“Why not?” says Sadie. “The boys can run up every afternoon and have dinner with us and stay over Sunday, and—and it will be just lovely. You know how much I like to have young people around. So do you, too.”
“Yes, that’s all right,” says I; “but——”
“Oh, I know,” says she. “This isn’t matchmaking, though. They’re already engaged, and it will be just delightful to have them with us. Now won’t it?”
“Maybe it will,” says I. “We ain’t ever done this wholesale before; so I ain’t sure.”
Someway, I had a hunch that two pair of lovers knockin’ around the premises at once might be most too much of a good thing; but, as long as I couldn’t quote any authorities, I didn’t feel like keepin’ on with the debate.
I couldn’t object any to the style of the young ladies when they showed up; for they was both in the queen class, tall and willowy and sweet faced. One could tease opera airs out of the piano in great shape, and the other had quite some of a voice; so the prospects were for a few weeks of lively and entertainin’ evenin’s at the McCabe mansion. I had the programme all framed up too,—me out on the veranda with my heels on the rail, the windows open, andinside the young folks strikin’ up the melodies and makin’ merry gen’rally.
Bobbie and Charles made more or less of a hit with me too when they first called,—good, husky, clean built young gents that passed out the cordial grip and remarked real hearty how much they appreciated our great kindness askin’ ’em up.
“Don’t mention it,” says I. “It’s a fad of mine.”
Anyway, it looked like a good game to be in on, seein’ there wa’n’t any objections from any of the fam’lies. Made me feel bright and chirky, just to see ’em there, so that night at dinner I cut loose with some real cute joshes for the benefit of the young people. You know how easy it is to be humorous on them occasions. Honest, I must have come across with some of the snappiest I had in stock, and I was watchin’ for the girls to pink up and accuse me of bein’ an awful kidder, when all of a sudden I tumbles to the fact that I ain’t holdin’ my audience.
Say, they’d started up a couple of conversations on their own hook—kind of side issue, soft pedal dialogues—and they wa’n’t takin’ the slightest notice of my brilliant efforts. At the other end of the table Sadie is havin’ more or less the same experience; for every time she tries to cut in with some cheerful observationshe finds she’s addressin’ either Marjorie’s left shoulder or Bobbie’s right.
“Eh, Sadie?” says I across the centerpiece. “What was that last of yours?”
“It doesn’t matter,” says she. “Shall we have coffee in the library, girls, or outside! I say, Helen, shall we have—— I beg pardon, Helen, but would you prefer——”
“What we seem to need most, Sadie,” says I as she gives it up, “is a table megaphone.”
Nobody hears this suggestion, though, not even Sadie. I was lookin’ for the fun to begin after dinner,—the duets and the solos and the quartets,—but the first thing Sadie and I know we are occupyin’ the libr’y all by ourselves, with nothing doing in the merry music line.
“Of course,” says she, “they want a little time by themselves.”
“Sure!” says I. “Half-hour out for the reunion.”
It lasts some longer, though. At the end of an hour I thinks I’ll put in the rest of the wait watchin’ the moon come up out of Long Island Sound from my fav’rite corner of the veranda; but when I gets there I finds it’s occupied.
“Excuse me,” says I, and beats it around to the other side, where there’s a double rocker that I can gen’rally be comfortable in. Hangedif I didn’t come near sittin’ slam down on the second pair, that was snuggled up close there in the dark!
“Aha!” says I in my best comic vein. “So here’s where you are, eh? Fine night, ain’t it?”
There’s a snicker from the young lady, a grunt from the young gent; but nothing else happens in the way of a glad response. So I chases back into the house.
“It’s lovely out, isn’t it?” says Sadie.
“Yes,” says I; “but more or less mushy in spots.”
With that we starts in to sit up for ’em. Sadie says we got to because we’re doin’ the chaperon act. And, say, I’ve seen more excitin’ games. I read three evenin’ papers clear through from the weather forecast to the bond quotations, and I finished by goin’ sound asleep in my chair. I don’t know whether Bobbie and Charlie caught the milk train back to town or not; but they got away sometime before breakfast.
“Oh, well,” says Sadie, chokin’ off a yawn as she pours the coffee, “this was their first evening together, you know. I suppose they had a lot to say to each other.”
“Must have had,” says I. “I shouldn’t think they’d have to repeat that performance for a month.”
Next night, though, it’s the same thing, and the next, and the next. “Poor things!” thinks I. “I expect they’re afraid of being guyed.” So, just to show how sociable and friendly I could be, I tries buttin’ in on these lonely teeter-tates. First I’d hunt up one couple and submit some samples of my best chatter—gettin’ about as much reply as if I was ringin’ Central with the wire down. Then I locates the other pair, drags a rocker over near ’em, and tries to make the dialogue three handed. They stands it for a minute or so before decidin’ to move to another spot.
Honest, I never expected to feel lonesome right at home entertainin’ guests! but I was gettin’ acquainted with the sensation. There’s no musical doings, no happy groups and gay laughter about the house; nothing but now and then a whisper from dark corners, or the creak of the porch swings.
“Gee! but they’re takin’ their spoonin’ serious, ain’t they?” says I to Sadie. “And how popular we are with ’em! Makes me feel almost like I ought to put on a gag and sit down cellar in the coalbin.”
“Pooh!” says Sadie, makin’ a bluff she didn’t mind. “Do let them enjoy themselves in their own way.”
“Sure I will,” says I. “Only this chaperon business is gettin’ on my nerves. I don’t feellike a host here; I feel more like a second story man dodgin’ the night watchman.”
There wa’n’t any signs of a change, either. When they had to be around where we was they had hardly a word to say and acted bored to death; and it must have taxed their brains, workin’ up all them cute little schemes for leavin’ us on a siding so they could pair off. Course, I’ve seen engaged couples before; but I never met any that had the disease quite so hard. And this bein’ shunned like I had somethin’ catchin’ was new to me. I begun to feel like I was about ninety years old and in the way.
Sunday forenoon was the limit, though. Sadie had planned to take ’em all for a motor trip; but they declines with thanks. Would they rather go out on the water? No, they didn’t care for that, either. All they seems to want to do is wander round, two by two, where we ain’t. And at that Sadie loses some of her enthusiasm for havin’ bunches of lovers around.
“Humph!” I hears her remark as she watches Bobbie and Marjorie sidestep her and go meanderin’ off down a path to the rocks.
A little while later I happens to stroll down to the summerhouse with the Sunday paper, and as I steps in one door Charlie and Helen slip out by the other. They’d seen me first.
“Well, well!” says I. “I never knew before how unentertainin’ I could be.”
And I was just wonderin’ how I could relieve my feelin’s without eatin’ a fuzzy worm, like the small boy that nobody loved, when I hears footsteps approachin’ through the shrubb’ry. I looks up, to find myself bein’ inspected by a weedy, long legged youth. He’s an odd lookin’ kid, with dull reddish hair, so many freckles that his face looks rusty, and a pair of big purple black eyes that gazes at me serious.
“Well, son,” says I, “where did you drop from?”
“My name is Harold Burbank Fitzmorris,” says he, “and I am visiting with my mother on the adjoining estate.”
“That sounds like a full description, Harold,” says I. “Did you stray off, or was you sent?”
“I trust you don’t mind,” says he; “but I am exploring.”
“Explore away then,” says I, “so long as you don’t tramp through the flowerbeds.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t think of injuring them,” says he. “I am passionately fond of flowers.”
“You don’t say!” says I.
“Yes,” says Harold, droppin’ down easy on the bench alongside of me. “I love Nature in all her moods. I am a poet, you know.”
“Eh!” says I. “Ain’t you beginning sort of young?”
“Nearly all the really great men of literature,” comes back Harold as prompt as if he was speakin’ a piece, “have begun their careers by writing verse. I presume mine might be considered somewhat immature; but I am impelled from within to do it. All that will pass, however, when I enter on my serious work.”
“Oh, then you’ve got a job on the hook, have you!” says I.
“I expect,” says Harold, smilin’ sort of indulgent and runnin’ his fingers careless through his thick coppery hair, “to produce my first novel when I am twenty. It will have a somber theme, something after the manner of Turgenieff. Do you not find Turgenieff very stimulating?”
“Harold,” says I, “all them Hungarian wines are more or less heady, and a kid like you shouldn’t monkey with any of ’em.”
He looks almost pained at that. “You’re chaffing me now, I suppose,” says he. “That sort of thing, though, I never indulge in. Humor, you know, is but froth on the deep seas of thought. It has never seemed to me quite worth one’s while. You will pardon my frankness, I know.”
“Harold,” says I, “you’re a wizard. So it’s nix on the josh, eh?”
“What singular metaphors you employ!” says he. “Do you know, I can hardly follow you. However, colloquial language does not offend my ear. It is only when I see it in print that I shudder.”
“Me too,” says I. “I’m just as sore on these foreign languages as anyone. So you’re visitin’ next door, eh? Enjoyin’ yourself?”
That was a plain cue for Harold Burbank to launch out on the story of his life; but, say, he didn’t need any such encouragement. He was a willin’ and ready converser, Harold was; and—my!—what a lot of classy words he did have on tap! First off I wondered how it was a youngster like him could dig up so many; but when I’d heard a little more about him I could account for it all.
He’d cut his teeth, as you might say, on the encyclopedia. Harold’s father had been a professor of dead languages, and I guess he must have died of it. Anyway, Mother was a widow, and from things Harold dropped I judged she was more or less frisky, spendin’ her time at bridge and chasin’ teas and dinner parties. It was clear she wa’n’t any highbrow, such as Father must have been. All of which was disappointin’ to Harold. He made no bones of sayin’ so.
“Why pretend to approve of one’s parent,” says he, “when approval is undeserved?”
There was a lot of other folks that Harold disapproved of too. In fact, he was a mighty critical youth, only bein’ able to entertain a good opinion of but one certain party. At any other time I expect he’d have given me an earache; but I’d been handed so much silence by our double Romeo-Juliet bunch that most any kind of conversation was welcome just then. So I lets him spiel away.
And, say, he acts like he was hungry for the chance. Why, he gives me his ideas on every subject you could think of, from the way Napoleon got himself started on the toboggan, to the folly of eatin’ fried ham for breakfast. He sure was a wonder, that kid! Two solid hours we chinned there in the summerhouse, and it was almost by main strength I broke away for a one o’clock dinner.
Then, just as I’d got settled comf’table on the veranda in the afternoon, he shows up and begins again. There was nothin’ diffident or backward about Harold. He didn’t have any doubts about whether he was welcome or not, and his confidence about bein’ able to entertain was amazin’.
It didn’t do any good to throw out hints that perhaps he was bein’ missed at home, or to yawn and pretend you was sleepy. He was as persistent as a mosquito singin’ its evenin’ song, and most as irritatin’. Twice I gets upand pikes off, tryin’ to shake him; but Harold trails right along too. Maybe I’d yearned for conversation. Well, I was gettin’ it.
At last I grows desp’rate, and in about two minutes more he would have been led home to Mother with the request that she tether him on her side of the fence, when I sees two of the lovers strollin’ off to find a nook that wa’n’t preempted by the other pair. And all of a sudden I has this rosy thought.
“Harold,” says I, “it’s most too bad, your wastin’ all this flossy talk on me, who can’t appreciate its fine points as I should, when there go some young people who might be tickled to death to have you join ’em. Suppose you try cheerin’ ’em up?”
“Why,” says Harold, “I had not observed them before. Thank you for the suggestion. I will join them at once.”
Does he? Say, for the next couple of hours I had the time of my life watchin’ the maneuvers. First off I expect they must have thought him kind of cute, same as I did; but it wa’n’t long before they begun tryin’ to lose him. If they shifted positions once, they did a dozen times, from the summerhouse to the rocks, then up to the veranda and back again, with Harold Burbank taggin’ right along and spoutin’ his best. He tackles first one pair, and then the other, until fin’lly they all retreatsinto the house. Harold hesitates a little about walkin’ through the door after ’em, until I waves my hand cordial.
“Make yourself right to home, Harold,” says I. “Keep ’em cheered up.”
Not until he drives the girls off to their rooms and has Bobbie and Charles glarin’ murderous at him, does he quit the sport and retire for supper.
“Come over again this evenin’,” says I. “You’re makin’ a hit.”
Harold thanks me some more and says he will. He’s a great one to keep his word too. Bobbie and Marjorie have hardly snuggled up in one end of a hammock to watch the moon do things to the wavelets before here is Harold, with a fresh line of talk that he’s bent on deliverin’ while the mood is on.
Gettin’ no answer from his audience didn’t bother him a bit; for passin’ out the monologue is his strong suit. Not to seem partial, he trails down Charlie and Helen and converses with them too. Course, all this occurrin’ outside, I couldn’t watch everything that took place; but I sits in the lib’ry with Sadie a lot more contented than I’d been before that week.
And when Marjorie drifts in alone, along about nine o’clock, and goes to drummin’ on the piano, I smiles. Ten minutes later Helenappears too; and it’s only when neither of the boys show up that I begins wonderin’. I asks no questions; but goes out on a scoutin’ trip. There’s nobody on the veranda at all. Down by the waterfront, though, I could hear voices, and I goes sleuthin’ in that direction.
“Yes,” I could hear Harold sayin’ as I got most to the boat landin’, “the phosphorescence that ignorant sailors attribute to electricity in the air is really a minute marine animal which——”
I expect I’ll never know the rest; for just then there’s a break in the lecture.
“One, two, three—now!” comes from Bobbie, and before Harold can let out a single squeal they’ve grabbed him firm and secure, one by the heels and the other by the collar, and they’ve begun sousin’ him up and down off the edge of the float. It was high tide too.
“Uggle-guggle! Wow!” remarks Harold between splashes.
“That’s right,” observes Charles through, his teeth. “Swallow a lot of it, you windbag! It’ll do you good.”
Course, these young gents was guests of mine, and I hadn’t interfered before with their partic’lar way of enjoyin’ themselves; so I couldn’t begin now. But after they was through, and a draggled, chokin’, splutterin’ youth had gone beatin’ it up the path and over towards thenext place, I strolls down to meet ’em as they are comin’ up to the house.
“Hope you didn’t see what happened down there just now, Professor,” says Bobbie.
“Me?” says I. “Well, if I did I can forget it quick.”
“Thanks, old man!” says both of ’em, pattin’ me friendly on the shoulder.
“The little beast!” adds Charles. “He had the nerve to say you had put him up to it. That’s what finally earned him his ducking, you know.”
“Well, well!” says I. “Such a nice spoken youngster too!”
“Huh!” says Bobbie. “I suppose there’ll be no end of a row about this when he gets home with his tale; but we’ll stand for it. Meanwhile let’s go up and get the girls to give us some music.”
Say, I don’t believe Harold ever mentioned it to a soul. It’s a funny thing too, but he hasn’t been over here since. And someway, gettin’ better acquainted with the boys in that fashion, made it pleasanter all round.
But no more entertainin’ lovers for us! Harolds ain’t common enough.