CHAPTER XIIIHEINEY TAKES THE GLOOM CURE
Two in one day, mind you. It just goes to show what effect the first dose of hot weather is liable to have on the custard heads. Well, maybe I oughtn’t to call ’em that, either. They can’t seem to help gettin’ that way, any more’n other folks can dodge havin’ bad dreams, or boils on the neck. And I ain’t any mind specialist; so when it comes to sayin’ what’ll soften up a man’s brain, or whether he couldn’t sidestep it if he tried, I passes the make.
Now look at this dippy move of Mr. Jarvis’s. Guess you don’t remember him. I’d ’most forgot him myself, it’s so long since he was around; but he’s the young chap that owns that big Blenmont place, the gent that Swifty and I helped out with the fake match when he——Well, never mind that yarn. He got the girl, all right; and as he had everything else anybody could think of, it should have been a case of lockin’ trouble on the outside and takin’ joy for a permanent boarder.
But there the other mornin’, just as I was havin’ a breathin’ spell after hammerin’ somesurplus ego out of a young society sport that had the idea he could box, the studio door opens, and in pokes this Mr. Jarvis, actin’ like he’d been doped.
Now he’s a big, husky, full blooded young gent, that’s always used himself well, never collected any bad habits, and knows no more about being sick than a cat knows about swimmin’. Add to that the fact that he’s one of the unemployed rich, with more money than he knows how to spend, and you can figure out how surprised I am to see that down and out look on his face. Course, I thinks something serious has been happenin’ to him, and I treats him real gentle.
“Hello, Mr. Jarvis!” says I. “Somebody been throwin’ the hooks into you, have they?”
“Oh, no,” says he. “No, I—I’m all right.”
“That’s good,” says I. “Dropped in to let me hand you a few vibrations with the mitts?”
“No, thank you, Shorty,” says he, fingerin’ a chair-back sort of hesitatin’, as if he didn’t know whether to sit down or stand up. “That is—er—I think I don’t care for a bout to-day. I—I’m hardly in the mood, you see.”
“Just as you say,” says I. “Have a seat, anyway. Sure! That one; it’s reserved for you. Maybe you come in to enjoy some of my polite and refined conversation?”
“Why—er—the fact is, Shorty,” says he,fixin’ his tie kind of nervous, “I—I don’t know just why I did come in. I think I started for the club, and as I was passing by in a cab I looked up here at your windows—and—and——”
“Of course,” says I, soothin’. “What’s the use goin’ to the club when the Physical Culture Studio is handier? You’re feelin’ fine as silk; how’re you lookin’?”
“Eh? Beg pardon?” says he, gettin’ twisted up on that mothy gag. “Oh, I see! I’m looking rotten, thank you, and feeling the same.”
“G’wan!” says I. “You ain’t got any license to have feelin’s like that. Guess you got the symptoms mixed. But where do you think it hurts most?”
Well, it takes five or ten minutes of jollyin’ like that to pull any details at all out of Jarvis, and when I does get the whole heartrendin’ story, I hardly knows whether to give him the laugh, or to send out for a nursin’ bottle.
Ever seen a great, grown man play the baby act? Talk about a woman in a cryin’ spell! That ain’t a marker to watchin’ a six-foot, one hundred and eighty-pound free citizen droop his mouth corners and slump his shoulders over nothin’ at all. Course, I don’t always feel like a hickey boy myself, and I’ll admit there are times when the rosy tints get a little clouded up; but I has my own way of workin’ out of suchspells before the mullygrubs turns my gray matter into curdled milk. But Jarvis, he’s as blue as a rainy Monday with the wash all in soak.
In the first place, he’s been alone for nearly three whole weeks, the women folks all bein’ abroad, and it’s a new experience for him. Think of that awful calamity happenin’ to a man of his size! Seems that before he was married he’d always carted mother and sister around, under the idea that he was lookin’ out for them, when as a matter of fact they was the ones that was lookin’ after him. Then Mrs. Jarvis, Lady Evelyn that was, takes him in hand and makes him more helpless than ever. He never mistrusts how much he’s been mollycoddled, until he finds himself with nobody but a valet, a housekeeper, and seventeen assorted servants to help him along in the struggle for existence.
His first move after the ladies have sailed is to smoke until his tongue feels like a pussycat’s back, eat his lonesome meals at lunch-counter clip, and work himself into a mild bilious state. That makes him a little cranky with the help, and, as there’s no one around to smooth ’em out, the cook and half a dozen maids leaves in a bunch. His head coachman goes off on a bat, the housekeeper skips out to Ohio to bury an aunt, and the domestic gear at Blenmont getsto runnin’ about as smooth as a flat wheel trolley car on a new roadbed.
To finish off the horrible situation, Jarvis has had a misunderstandin’ with a landscape architect that he’d engaged to do things to the grounds. Jarvis had planned to plant a swan lake in the front yard; but the landscaper points out that it can’t be done because there’s a hill in the way.
“To be sure,” says Jarvis, “these are little things; but I’ve been worrying over them until—until—— Well, I’m in bad shape, Shorty.”
“It’s a wonder you’re still alive,” says I.
“Don’t!” says he, groanin’. “It is too serious a matter. Perhaps you don’t know it, but I had an uncle that drank himself to death.”
“Huh!” says I. “’Most everybody has had an uncle of that kind.”
“And one of my cousins,” Jarvis goes on, lowerin’ his voice and lookin’ around cautious, “shot himself—in the head!”
“Eh?” says I. And then I begun to get a glimmer of what he was drivin’ at. “What! You don’t mean that you were thinkin’ of—of——”
He groans again and nods his head.
Then I cuts loose. “Why, look here!” says I. “You soft boiled, mush headed, spineless imitation of a real man! do you mean to tellme that, just because you’ve been tied loose from a few skirts for a week or so, and have had to deal with some grouchy hired hands, you’ve actually gone jelly brained over it?”
Perhaps that don’t make him squirm some, though! He turns white first, and then he gets the hectic flush. “Pardon me, McCabe,” says he, stiffenin’ up, “but I don’t care to have anyone talk to me like——”
“Ah, pickles!” says I. “I’ll talk to you a good deal straighter’n that, before I finish! And you’ll take it, too! Why, you great, overgrown kid! what right have you developin’ such a yellow cur streak as that? You! What you need is to be laid over that chair and paddled, and blamed if I don’t know but I’d better——”
But just here the door creaks, and in drifts the other one. Hanged if I ever did know what his real name was. I called him Heiney Kirschwasser for short, though he says he ain’t Dutch at all, but Swiss-French; and that it ain’t kirsch that’s his failin’, but prune brandy. He’s the mop and broom artist for the buildin’, some floater the janitor picked up off the sidewalk a few months back.
He wa’n’t exactly a decorative object, this Heiney; but he’s kind of a picturesque ruin. His widest part is around the belt; and from there he tapers both ways, his shoulders bein’ a good eight inches narrower; and on top ofthem, with no neck to speak of, is a head shaped like a gum drop, bald on top, and remindin’ you of them mountain peaks you see in pictures, or a ham set on end.
He has a pair of stary, pop eyes, a high colored beak that might be used as a danger signal, and a black, shoebrush beard, trimmed close except for a little spike under the chin, that gives the lower part of his face a look like the ace of spades. His mornin’ costume is a faded blue jumper, brown checked pants, and an old pair of rubber soled shoes that Swifty had donated to him.
That’s Heiney’s description, as near as I can get to it. He comes shufflin’ in, luggin’ a scrub pail in one hand, and draggin’ a mop in the other, and he looks about as cheerful as a worn-out hearse that’s been turned into an ash wagon.
“Heiney,” says I, “you’re just in time. Still lookin’ for a nice, comfortable place to die in, are you?”
Heiney shrugs his shoulders and lifts his eyebrows in a lifeless sort of style. He does most of his conversin’ that way; but he can say more with a few shrugs than Swifty Joe can by usin’ both sides of his mouth. What Heiney means is that one place is as good as another, and he don’t care how soon he finds it.
“Well, cheer up, Heiney,” says I; “for I’ve just decided to give you the use of my backroom to shuffle off in. I’ve got comp’ny for you, too. Here’s a friend of mine that feels the same way you do. Mr. Jarvis, Mr. Heiney Kirschwasser.”
And you should have seen the look of disgust on Jarvis’s face as he sizes up the specimen. “Oh, I say now, Shorty,” he begins, “there’s such a thing as——”
“G’wan!” says I. “Wa’n’t you just tellin’ me about how you was plannin’ a job for the coroner? And Heiney’s been threatenin’ to do the same thing for weeks. He comes in here every day or so and talks about jumpin’ off the dock, or doin’ the air dance. I’ve been stavin’ him off with slugs of prune brandy and doses of good advice; but if a chap like you has caught the fever, then I see I’ve been doin’ wrong not to let Heiney have his way. Now there’s the back room, with plenty of rope and gasjets. Get on in there, both of you, and make a reg’lar bee of it!”
Heiney, he stands blinkin’ and starin’ at Jarvis, until he gets him so nervous he almost screams.
“For Heaven’s sake, Shorty,” says Jarvis, “let’s not joke about such a subject!”
“Joke!” says I. “You’re the one that’s supplyin’ the comedy here. Now Heiney is serious. He’d do the trick in a minute if he had the nerve. He’s got things on his mind, Heineyhas. And what’s the odds if they ain’t so? Compared to what you’ve been fussin’ about, they’re——Here, Heiney, you tell the gentleman that tale of yours. Begin where you was a cook in some seashore hotel in Switzerland.”
“Not zeashore!Non!” says Heiney, droppin’ his pail and wavin’ one hand. “Eet ees at Lack Como, in ze montongs. I am ze head chef,moi!”
“Yes, you look it!” says I. “A fine figure of a chef you’d make! wouldn’t you? Well, go on: about bein’ full of prunes when they called on you to season the soup. What was it you dumped in instead of salt,—arsenic, eh?”
“Non, non!” says Heiney, gettin’ excited. “Ze poison for ze r-r-rat. I keep heem in one tin can, same as ze salt. I am what you call intoxicate. I make ze mistak’. Ah,diable! Deux, trois—t’ree hundred guests are zere. Zey eat ze soup. Zen come by me zemaître d’hôtel.He say ze soup ees spoil. Eet has ze foony taste. Ah, monDieu! Mon——”
“Yes, yes,” says I. “Never mind whether it was Monday or Tuesday. What did you do then?”
“Moi? I fly!” says Heiney. “I am distract. I r-r-r-run on ze r-r-r-road. I tear-r-r off my white apron, my white chapeau. Ah,sacr-r-ré nom!How my heart is thoomp, thoomp, on my inside! All night I speak to myself: ‘Youhave keel zem all! Zebelleladies! Zepauvreshildren! All, you have poi-zon-ed! Zey make to tweest up on ze floor!’ Ah,diable! Always I can see zem tweest up!”
“Reg’lar rough on rats carnival, eh?” says I. “Three hundred beautiful ladies and poor children, not to mention a few men, doin’ the agony act on the dinin’ room floor! There, Jarvis! How’d you like to carry round a movin’ picture film like that in your mem’ry? Course, I’ve tried to explain to Heiney that nothing of the kind ever took place; that the papers would have been full of it; and that he’d been in the jug long before this, if it had. But this is Heiney’s own particular pipe dream, and he can’t let go of it. It’s got tangled up in the works somehow, and nothing I can say will jar it loose. Poor cuss! Look at him! No doubt about its seemin’ real to him, is there? And how does your little collection of fleabites show up alongside it; eh, Jarvis?”
But Jarvis, he’s gazin’ at Heiney as if this lump of moldy sweitzerkase was fascinatin’ to look at.
“I beg pardon,” says he, “but you say this hotel was at Lake Como?”
Heiney nods his head, then covers his face with his hands, as if he was seein’ things again.
“And what was the date of this—this unfortunate occurrence?” says Jarvis.
“Year before the last, in Augoost,” says Heiney, shudderin’,—“Augoost seven.”
“The seventh of August!” says Jarvis. “And was your hotel the Occident?”
“Oui, oui!” says Heiney. “L’Hôtel Occident.”
“Guess he means Accident,” says I. “What do you know about it, Jarvis?”
“Why,” says he, “I was there.”
“What?” says I. “Here, Heiney, wake up! Here’s one of the victims of your rat poison soup. Does he look as though he’d been through that floor tweestin’ orgy?”
With that Heiney gets mighty interested; but he ain’t convinced until Jarvis gives him all the details, even to namin’ the landlord and describin’ the head waiter.
“But ze soup!” says Heiney. “Ze poi-zon-ed soup?”
“It was bad soup,” says Jarvis; “but not quite so bad as that. Nobody could eat it, and I believe the final report that we had on the subject was to the effect that a half intoxicated chef had seasoned it with the powdered alum that should have gone into the morning rolls.”
“Ze alum! Ze alum! Of zat I nevair think!” squeals Heiney, flopping down on his knees. “Ah,le bon Dieu! Le bon Dieu!”
He clasps his hands in front of him and rolls his eyes to the ceilin’. Say, it was the liveliestFrench prayin’ I ever saw; for Heiney is rockin’ back and forth, his pop eyes leakin’ brine, and the polly-voo conversation is bubblin’ out of him like water out of a bu’sted fire hydrant.
“Ah, quit it!” says I. “This is no camp meetin’.”
There’s no shuttin’ him off, though, and all the let-up he takes is to break off now and then to get Jarvis to tell him once more that it’s all true.
“You makecertainement, eh?” says he. “Nobody was keel?”
“Not a soul,” says Jarvis. “I didn’t even hear of anyone that was made ill.”
“Ah,merci, merci!” howls Heiney, beginnin’ the rockin’ horse act again.
“Say, for the love of Pete, Heiney!” says I, “will you saw that off before you draw a crowd? I’m glad you believe Jarvis, and that Jarvis believes you; but hanged if I can quite swallow any such dopy yarn as that without somethin’ more convincin’! All I know about you is that you’re the worst floor scrubber I ever saw. And you say you was a cook, do you?”
“Cook!” says Heiney, swellin’ up his chest. “I am tell you zat I was ze premier chef. I have made for myself fame. Everywhere inl’Europezey will tell you of me. For the king of ze Englise I have made a dinner.Moi!Ihave invent ze sauce Ravignon. From nozzing at all—some meat scraps, some leetle greens—I produce ze dish ravishment.”
“Yes, I’ve heard bluffs like that before,” says I; “but I never saw one made good. Tell you what I’ll do, though: In the far corner of the gym, there, is what Swifty Joe calls his kitchenet, where he warms up his chowder and beans. There’s a two-burner gas stove, an old fryin’ pan, and a coffee pot. Now here’s a dollar. You take that out on Sixth-ave. and spend it for meat scraps and leetle greens. Then you come back here, and while Jarvis and I are takin’ a little exercise, if you can hash up anything that’s fit to eat, I’ll believe your whole yarn. Do you make the try?”
Does he? Say, you never saw such a tickled Frenchy in your life. Before Jarvis and me had got nicely peeled down for our delayed boxin’ bout, Heiney is back with his bundles, has got the fryin’ pan scoured, the gas blazin’, and is throwin’ things together like a juggler doin’ a stage turn.
He sheds the blue jumper, ties a bath towel around him for an apron, makes a hat out of a paper bag, and twists some of that stringy lip decoration of his into a pointed mustache. Honest, he didn’t look nor act any more like the wreck that had dragged the mop in there half an hour before than I look like Bill Taft.And by the time we’ve had our three rounds and a rub down, he’s standin’ doubled up beside a little table that he’s found, with his arms spread out like he was goin’ to take a dive.
“Messieurs,” says he, “eet ees serve.”
“Good!” says I. “I’m just about up to tacklin’ a hot lunch. What kind of a mess have you got here, anyway, Heiney? Any alum in it? Blamed if I don’t make you put away the whole shootin’ match if it ain’t good!”
How’s that? Well, say, I couldn’t name it, or say whether it was a stew, fry or an omelet, but for an impromptu sample of fancy grub it was a little the tastiest article I ever stacked up against.
“Why!” says Jarvis, smackin’ his lips after the third forkful. “It’sris de veau, isn’t it?”
“But yes, monsieur!” says Heiney, his face lightin’ up. “Eet eesris de veau grillé, à la financier.”
“And what’s that in English?” says I.
“In Englise,” says Heiney, shruggin’ his shoulders, “eet ees not exist. Eet ees Parisienne.”
“Bully for Paris, then!” says I. “Whatever it might be if it could be naturalized, it touches the spot. I take it all back, Heiney. You’re the shiftiest chef that ever juggled a fryin’ pan. A refill on the riddy-voo, seal-voo-plate.”
Well, what do you guess! Jarvis engages Heiney on the spot, and an hour later they’ve started for Blenmont, both of ’em actin’ like they thought this was a good world to live in, after all.
Yesterday me and Sadie accepts a special invite out there to dinner; and it was worth goin’ out to get. From start to finish it was the finest that ever happened. Afterwards Jarvis has Heiney come up from the kitchen and show himself while we drinks his good health. And say, in his white togs and starched linen cap, he’s got the chef on the canned goods ads. lookin’ like a hash rustler in a beanery.
As for Jarvis, he’s got the pink back in his cheeks, and is holdin’ his chin up once more, and when we left in the mornin’ he was out bossin’ a couple of hundred lab’rers that was takin’ that hill in wheelbarrows and cartin’ it off where it wouldn’t interfere with the lake.
“Shorty,” says he, “I don’t know how you did it, but you’ve made me a sane man again, and I owe you more than——”
“Ah, chuck it!” says I. “It was curin’ Heiney that cured you.”
“Really?” says he. “Then you are a believer in homeopathic psychotherapeutics?”
“Which?” says I. “Say, write that down on my cuff by syllables, will you? I want to spring it on Swifty Joe.”
CHAPTER XIVA TRY-OUT FOR TOODLEISM
Eh? Yes, maybe I do walk a little stiff jointed; but, say, I’m satisfied to be walkin’ around at all. If I hadn’t had my luck with me the other day, I’d be wearin’ that left leg in splints and bein’ pushed around in a wheel chair. As it is, the meat is only a little sore, and a few more alcohol rubs will put it in shape.
What was it come so near gettin’ me on the disabled list? Toodleism! No, I expect you didn’t; but let me put you next, son: there’s more ’isms and ’pathys and ’ists floatin’ around these days, than any one head can keep track of. I don’t know much about the lot; but this Toodleism’s a punk proposition. Besides leavin’ me with a game prop, it come near bu’stin’ up the fam’ly.
Seems like trouble was lookin’ for me last week, anyway. First off, I has a run of old timers, that panhandles me out of all the loose coin I has in my clothes. You know how they’ll come in streaks that way, sometimes? Why, I was thinkin’ of havin’ ’em form a line, onewhile. Then along about Thursday one of my back fletchers develops a case of jumps. What’s a fletcher? Why, a steak grinder, and this one has a ripe spot in it. Course, it’s me for the nickel plated plush chair, with the footrest and runnin’ water attached; and after the tooth doctor has explored my jaw with a rock drill and a few other cute little tools, he says he’ll kill the nerve.
“Don’t, Doc.!” says I. “That nerve’s always been a friend of mine until lately. Wouldn’t dopin’ it do?”
He says it wouldn’t, that nothin’ less’n capital punishment would reform a nerve like that; so I tells him to blaze away. No use goin’ into details. Guess you’ve been there.
“Say, Doc.,” says I once when he was fittin’ a fresh auger into the machine, “you ain’t mistakin’ me for the guilty party, are you?”
“Did I hurt?” says he.
“You don’t call that ticklin’, do you?” says I.
But he only grins and goes on with the excavation. After he’s blasted out a hole big enough for a terminal tunnel he jabs in a hunk of cotton soaked with sulphuric acid, and then tamps down the concrete.
“There!” says he, handin’ me a drug store drink flavored with formaldehyde. “In the course of forty-eight hours or so that nerve willbe as dead as a piece of string. Meantime it may throb at intervals.”
That’s what it did, too! It dies as hard as a campaign lie. About every so often, just when I’m forgettin’, it wakes up again, takes a fresh hold, and proceeds to give an imitation of a live wire on an alternatin’ circuit.
“Ahr chee!” says Swifty Joe. “To look at the map of woe you’re carryin’ around, you’d think nobody ever had a bum tusk before.”
“Nobody ever had this one before,” says I, “and the way I look now ain’t chronic, like some faces I know of.”
“Ahr chee!” says Swifty, which is his way of bringin’ in a minority report.
The worst of it was, though, I’m billed to show up at Rockywold for a May party that Sadie and Mrs. Purdy-Pell was pullin’ off, and when I lands there Friday afternoon the jaw sensations was still on the job. I’m feeling about as cheerful and chatty as a Zoo tiger with ingrowin’ toenails. So, after I’ve done the polite handshake, and had a word with Sadie on the fly, I digs out my exercise uniform and makes a sneak down into their dinky little gym., where there’s a first class punchin’ bag that I picked out for Purdy-Pell myself.
You know, I felt like I wanted to hit something, and hit hard. It wa’n’t any idle impulse, either. That tooth was jumpin’ so I could almostfeel my heels leave the floor, and I had emotions that it would take more than language to express proper. So I peels off for it, down to a sleeveless jersey and a pair of flannel pants, and starts in to drum out the devil’s tattoo on that pigskin bag.
I was so busy relievin’ my feelin’s that I didn’t notice anything float in the door; but after awhile I looks up and discovers the audience. She’s a young female party that I didn’t remember havin’ seen before at any of the Rockywold doin’s; but it looks like she’s one of the guests, all right.
Well, I hadn’t been introduced, and I couldn’t see what she was buttin’ into the gym. for, anyway, so I keeps right on punchin’ the bag; thinkin’ that if she was shocked any by my costume she’d either get over it, or beat it and have a fit.
She’s one of the kind you might expect ’most anything from,—one of these long, limp, loppy, droop eyed fluffs, with terracotta hair, and a prunes-and-prisms mouth all puckered to say something soulful. She’s wearin’ a whackin’ big black feather lid with a long plume trailin’ down over one ear, a strawb’ry pink dress cut accordin’ to Louis Catorz designs,—waist band under her armpits, you know,—and nineteen-button length gloves. Finish that off with a white hen feather boa, have her hands claspedreal shy under her chin, and you’ve got a picture of what I sees there in the door. But it was the friendly size-up she was givin’ me, and no mistake. She must have hung up there three or four minutes too, before she quits, without sayin’ a word.
At the end of half an hour I was feelin’ some better; but when I’d got into my tailor made, I didn’t have any great enthusiasm for tacklin’ food.
“Guess I’ll appoint this a special fast day for mine,” says I to Sadie.
“Why, Shorty!” says she. “Whatever is the matter?” And she has no sooner heard about the touchy tusk than she says, “Oh, pooh! Just say there isn’t any such thing as toothache. Pain, you know, is only a false mental photograph, an error of the mind, and——”
“Ah, back up, Sadie!” says I. “Do you dream I don’t know whether this jump is in my brain or my jaw? This is no halftone; it’s the real thing.”
“Nonsense!” says she. “You come right downstairs and see Dr. Toodle. He’ll fix it in no time.”
Seems this Toodle was the one the party had been arranged for, and Sadie has to hunt him up. It didn’t take long to trail him down; for pretty soon she comes towin’ him into thedrawin’-room, where I’m camped down on a sofa, holdin’ on with both hands.
“Dr. Toodle,” says she, “I want to present Mr. McCabe.”
Now, I don’t claim any seventh-son powers; but I only has to take one look at Toodle to guess that he’s some sort of a phony article. No reg’lar pill distributor would wear around that mushy look that he has on. He’s a good sized, wide shouldered duck, with a thick crop of long hair that just clears his coat collar, and one of these smooth, soft, sentimental faces the women folks go nutty over,—you know, big nose, heavy chin, and sagged mouth corners. His get-up is something between a priest’s and an actor’s,—frock coat, smooth front black vest, and a collar buttoned behind. He gurgles out that he’s charmed to meet Mr. McCabe, and wants to know what’s wrong.
“Nothin’ but a specked tooth,” says I. “But I can stand it.”
“My de-e-ear brother,” says Toodle, puttin’ his fingers together and gazin’ down at me like a prison chaplain givin’ a talk to murderers’ row, “you are possessed of mental error. Your brain focus has been disturbed, and a blurred image has been cast on the sensitive retina of the——”
“Ah, say, Doc.,” says I, “cut out the preamble!If you’ve got a cocaine gun in your pocket, dig it up!”
Then he goes off again with another string of gibberish, about pain bein’ nothin’ but thought, and thought bein’ something we could steer to suit ourselves. I can’t give you the patter word for word; but the nub of it was that I could knock that toothache out in one round just by thinkin’ hard. Now wouldn’t that peeve you? What?
“All right, Doc.,” says I. “I’ll try thinkin’ I ain’t got any ache, if you’ll sit here and keep me comp’ny by thinkin’ you’ve had your dinner. Is it a go?”
Well, it wa’n’t. He shrugs his shoulders, and says he’s afraid I’m a difficult subject, and then he teeters off on his toes. Sadie tells me I ought to be ashamed of myself for tryin’ to be so fresh.
“He’s a very distinguished man,” she says. “He’s the founder of Toodleism. He’s written a book about it.”
“I thought he looked like a nutty one,” says I. “Keep him away from me; I’ll be all right by mornin’.”
The argument might have lasted longer; but just then comes the dinner call, and they all goes in where the little necks was waitin’ on the cracked ice, and I’m left alone to count the jumps and enjoy myself. Durin’ one of thecalm spells I wanders into the lib’ry, picks a funny paper off the table, and settles down in a cozy corner to read the jokes. I must have been there near an hour, when in drifts the loppy young lady in the pink what-d’ye-call-it,—the one I’d made the silent hit with in the gym.,—and she makes straight for me.
“Oh, here you are!” says she, like we was old friends. “Do you know, I’ve just heard of your—your trouble.”
“Ah, it ain’t any killin’ matter,” says I. “It don’t amount to much.”
“Of course it doesn’t!” says she. “And that is what I came to talk to you about. I am Miss Lee,—Violet Lee.”
“Ye-e-es?” says I.
“You see,” she goes on, “I am Dr. Toodle’s secretary and assistant.”
“Oh!” says I. “He’s in luck, then.”
“Now, now!” says she, just like that, givin’ me a real giddy tap with her fan. “You must be real serious.”
“I’m in condition to be all of that,” says I. “Are you plannin’ to try the——”
“I am going to help you to banish the imaginary pains, Mr. McCabe,” says she. “Now first you must repeat after me thesummum bonum.”
“Eh?” says I.
“It’s very simple,” says she, floppin’ downon the cushions alongside and reachin’ out for one of my hands. “It begins this way, ‘I am a child of light and goodness.’ Now say that.”
Say, how would you duck a proposition of that kind? There was Violet, with her big eyes rolled at me real pleadin’, and her mouth puckered up real cunning, and the soft, clingin’ grip on my right paw. Well, I says it over.
“That’s it!” she purrs. “Now, ‘Evil and fear and pain are the creatures of darkness.’ Go on!”
“Sure thing!” says I. “‘Evil and fear and——Ouch!”
Ever feel one of them last gasps that a nerve gives when it goes out of business? I thought the top of my head was comin’ off. But it didn’t, and a couple of seconds later I knew the jumpin’ was all over; so I straightens my face out, and we proceeds with the catechism.
It was a bird, too. I didn’t mind doin’ it at all with Miss Lee there to help; for, in spite of her loppy ways, she’s more or less of a candy girl. There was a good deal to it, and it all means the same as what Toodle was tryin’ to hand out; but now that the ache has quit I’m ready for any kind of foolishness.
Violet had got to the point where she has snuggled up nice and close, with one hand still grippin’ mine and the other smoothin’ out my jaw while she told me again how pain was only apipe dream,—when I glances over her shoulder and sees Sadie floatin’ in hangin’ to Dr. Toodle’s arm.
And does Sadie miss the tableau in our corner? Not to any extent! Her eyebrows go up, and her mouth comes open. That’s the first indication. Next her lips shut tight, and her eyes narrow down, and before you could count three she’s let go of Toodle as if he was a hot potato, and she’s makin’ a bee line for the cozy corner.
“Why!” says Miss Lee, lookin’ up and forecastin’ the comin’ conditions in a flash. “Is dinner over? Oh, and there’s Dr. Toodle!” and off she trips, leavin’ the McCabe fam’ly to hold a reunion.
“Well, I never!” says Sadie, givin’ me the gimlet gaze. And say, she puts plenty of expression into them three words.
“Me either,” says I. “Not very often, anyway. But a chance is a chance.”
“I hope I didn’t intrude?” says she, her eyes snappin’.
“There’s no tellin’,” says I.
“It was a very touching scene!” says she. “Very!”
“Wa’n’t it?” says I. “Nice girl, Violet.”
“Violet! Humph!” says she. “There’s no accounting for tastes!”
“Just what I was thinkin’ when I see youwith the timelock clutch on that freak doctor’s south wing,” says I.
“Dr. Toodle,” says she, “was explaining to me his wonderful self healing theories.”
“And dear Violet,” says I, “was puttin’ me through a course of sprouts in the automatic toothache cure.”
“Oh, indeed!” says Sadie. “Was patting your cheek part of it?”
“I hope so,” says I.
“Huh!” says she. “I suppose it worked?”
“Like a charm,” says I. “All that bothers me now is how I can dig up another pain.”
“You might have your dear Violet see what can be done for that soft spot in your head!” she snaps. “Only next time take her off out of sight, please.”
“Oh, we’ll attend to that, all right,” says I. “This havin’ a green eyed wife buttin’ in just at the interestin’ point is something fierce!” And that’s where I spread it on too thick.
“Don’t be a chump, Shorty!” says Sadie, lettin’ loose a sudden giggle and mussin’ my hair up with both hands. It’s a way she has of gettin’ out of a corner, and she’s skipped off before I’m sure whether she’s still got a grouch, or is only lettin’ on.
By that time my appetite has come back; so I holds up the butler and has him lay out a solitaire feed. And when I goes back to the crowdagain I finds Toodle has the center of the stage, with the spotlight full on him. All the women are gathered round, listening to his guff like it was sound sense. Seems he’s organized a new deal on the thought cure stunt, and he’s workin’ it for all it’s worth. The men, though, don’t appear so excited over what he’s sayin’.
“Confounded rubbish, I call it!” says Mr. Purdy-Pell.
“You ought to hear it from Violet,” says I. “She’s the star explainer of that combination.”
But Violet seems to have faded into the background. We don’t see anything more of her that evenin’, nor she wa’n’t in evidence next mornin’. Doc. Toodle was, though. He begins by tellin’ how he never takes anything but hot water and milk on risin’; but that in the middle of the forenoon he makes it a point to put away about three fresh laid eggs, raw, in a glass of sherry.
“How interesting!” says Mrs. Purdy-Pell. “Then we must drive over to Fernbrook Farm, right after breakfast, and get some of their lovely White Leghorn eggs.”
That was the sort of excursion I was rung into; so the bunch of us piles into the wagonette and starts for a fresh supply of hen fruit. When we gets to the farm the superintendent invites us to take a tour through the incubatorhouses, and of course they all wants to see the dear little chickies and so on. All but me. I stays and chins with the coachman while he walks the horses around the driveway.
In about half an hour they comes troopin’ back, Toodle in the lead, luggin’ a paper bag full of warm eggs. He don’t wait for the others, but pikes for the wagonette and climbs in one of the side seats facin’ me. We was just turnin’ to back up to the block for the ladies, when a yellow kyoodle dashes around the corner after a cat. Them skittish horses was just waitin’ for some such excuse as that, and before Mr. Driver can put the curb bit on ’em hard enough they’ve done a quick pivot, cramped the wheels, and turned us over on the soggy grass as neat as anything you ever see.
Me bein’ on the low side, I strikes the ground first; but before I can squirm out, down comes Toodle on top, landin’ his one hundred and ninety pounds so sudden that it knocks the wind clear out of me. He’s turned over on the way down, so I’ve got his shoulder borin’ into my chest and the heavy part of him on my leg.
Course, the women squeals, and the horses cut up some; but the driver has landed on his feet and has them by the head in no time at all, so we wa’n’t dragged around any. Noticin’ that, I lays still and waits for Toodle to pry himselfloose. But the Doc. don’t seem in any hurry to move, and the next thing I know I hear him groanin’ and mumblin’ under his breath. Between groans he was tryin’ to say over that rigmarole of his.
“I am a child of light—Oh, dear me!—of light and goodness!” he was pantin’ out. “Evil and fear and—Oh, my poor back!—and pain are creatures of—Oh my, oh my!—of darkness! Nothing can harm me!”
“Say, something is goin’ to harm you mighty sudden,” says I, “if you don’t let me up out of this.”
“Oh, my life blood!” he groans. “I can feel my life blood! Oh, oh! I am a child of——”
“Ah, slush!” says I. “Get up and shake yourself. Think I’m a bloomin’ prayer rug that you can squat on all day? Roll over!” and I manages to hand him a short arm punch in the ribs that stirs him up enough so I can slide out from under. Soon’s I get on my feet and can hop around once or twice I finds there’s no bones stickin’ through, and then I turns to have a look at him.
And say, I wouldn’t have missed that exhibition for twice the shakin’ up I got! There he is, stretched out on the wet turf, his eyelids flutterin’, his breath comin’ fast, and his two hands huggin’ tight what’s left of that bu’stedpaper bag, right up against the front of his preacher’s vest. And can you guess what’s happened to them eggs?
“Oh, my life blood!” he keeps on moanin’. “I can feel it oozing through——”
“Ah, you’re switched, Toodle!” says I. “Your brain kodak is out of register, that’s all. It ain’t life blood you’re losin’; it’s only your new laid omelet that’s leakin’ over your vest front.”
About then I gets a squint at Sadie and Mrs. Purdy-Pell, and they’re almost chokin’ to death in a funny fit.
Well, say, that was the finish of Toodleism with the Rockywold bunch. The Doc. didn’t have a scratch nor a bruise on him, and after he’d been helped up and scraped off, he was almost as good as new. But his conversation works is clogged for good, and he has his chin down on his collar. They sends him and Violet down to catch the next train, and Sadie and Mrs. Purdy-Pell spends the rest of the day givin’ imitations of how Toodle hugged up the eggs and grunted that he was a child of light.
“Not that I don’t believe there was something in what he said,” Sadie explains to me afterwards; “only—only——”
“Only he was a false alarm, eh?” says I. “Well, Violet wa’n’t that kind, anyway.”
“Pooh!” says she. “I suppose you’ll brag about Violet for the rest of your life.”
Can you keep ’em guessin’ long, when it comes to things of that kind? Not if they’re like Sadie.
CHAPTER XVTHE CASE OF THE TISCOTTS
What I had on the slate for this part’cular afternoon was a brisk walk up Broadway as far as the gasoline district and a little soothin’ conversation with Mr. Cecil Slattery about the new roadster he’s tryin’ to Paladino me into placin’ my order for. I’d just washed up and was in the gym. giving my coat a few licks with the whisk broom, when Swifty Joe comes tiptoein’ in, taps me on the shoulder, and points solemn into the front office.
“That’s right,” says I, “break it to me gentle.”
“Get into it quick!” says he, grabbin’ the coat.
“Eh?” says I. “Fire, police, or what?”
“S-s-sh!” says he. “Lady to see you.”
“What kind,” says I, “perfect, or just plain lady? And what’s her name?”
“Ahr-r-r chee!” he whispers, hoarse and stagy. “Didn’t I tell you it was a lady? Get a move on!” and he lifts me into the sleeves and yanks away the whisk broom.
“See here, Swifty,” says I, “if this is anotherof them hot air demonstrators, or a book agent, there’ll be trouble comin’ your way in bunches! Remember, now!”
Here was once, though, when Swifty hadn’t made any mistake. Not that he shows such wonderful intelligence in this case. With her wearin’ all them expensive furs, and the cute little English footman standin’ up straight in his yellow topped boots over by the door, who wouldn’t have known she was a real lady?
She’s got up all in black, not exactly a mournin’ costume, but one of these real broadcloth regalias, plain but classy. She’s a tall, slim party, and from the three-quarters’ view I gets against the light I should guess she was goin’ on thirty or a little past it. All she’s armed with is a roll of paper, and as I steps in she’s drummin’ with it on the window sill.
Course, we has all kinds driftin’ into the studio here, by mistake and otherwise, and I gen’rally makes a guess on ’em right; but this one don’t suggest anything at all. Even that rat faced tiger of hers could have told her this wa’n’t any French millinery parlor, and she didn’t look like one who’d get off the trail anyway. So I plays a safety by coughin’ polite behind my hand and lettin’ her make the break. She ain’t backward about it, either.
“Why, there you are, Professor McCabe!” says she, in that gushy, up and down tone, likeshe was usin’ language as some sort of throat gargle. “How perfectly dear of you to be here, too!”
“Yes, ain’t it?” says I. “I’ve kind of got into the habit of bein’ here.”
“Really, now!” says she, smilin’ just as though we was carryin’ on a sensible conversation. And it’s a swagger stunt too, this talkin’ without sayin’ anything. When you get so you can keep it up for an hour you’re qualified either for the afternoon tea class or the batty ward. But the lady ain’t here just to pay a social call. She makes a quick shift and announces that she’s Miss Colliver, also hoping that I remember her.
“Why, sure,” says I. “Miss Ann, ain’t it?”
As a matter of fact, the only time we was ever within speakin’ distance was once at the Purdy-Pells’ when she blew in for a minute just at dinner time, lifted a bunch of American Beauties off the table with the excuse that they was just what she wanted to send to the Blind Asylum, and blew out again.
But of course I couldn’t help knowin’ who she was and all about her. Ain’t the papers always full of her charity doin’s, her funds for this and that, and her new discoveries of shockin’ things about the poor? Ain’t she built up a rep as a lady philanthropist that’s too busy doing good to ever get married? Maybe Mrs.Russell Sage and Helen Gould has gained a few laps on her lately; but when it comes to startin’ things for the Tattered Tenth there ain’t many others that’s got much on her.
“Gee!” thinks I. “Wonder what she’s going to do for me?”
I ain’t left long in doubt. She backs me up against the desk and cuts loose with the straight talk. “I came in to tell you about my new enterprise, Piny Crest Court,” says she.
“Apartment house, is it?” says I.
“No, no!” says she. “Haven’t you read about it? It’s to be a white plague station for working girls.”
“A white—white——Oh! For lungers, eh?”
“We never speak of them in that way, you know,” says she, handin’ me the reprovin’ look. “Piny Crest Court is the name I’ve given to the site. Rather sweet, is it not? Really there are no pines on it, you know; but I shall have a few set out. The buildings are to be perfectly lovely. I’ve just seen the architect’s plans,—four open front cottages grouped around an administration infirmary, the superintendent’s office to be finished in white mahogany and gold, and the directors’ room in Circassian walnut, with a stucco frieze after della Robbia. Don’t you simply love those Robbia bambinos?”
“Great!” says I, lyin’ as easy and genteel as if I had lots of practice.
“I am simply crazy to have the work started,” she goes on; “so I am spending three afternoons a week in filling up my lists. Everyone responds so heartily, too. Now, let me see, I believe I have put you down for a life membership.”
“Eh?” says I, gaspin’ some; for it ain’t often I’m elected to things.
“You will have the privilege of voting for board members and of recommending two applicants a year. A life membership is two hundred and fifty dollars.”
“You mean I get two-fifty,” says I, “for—for just——”
Then I came to. And, say, did you ever know such a bonehead? Honest, though, from all I’d heard of the way she spreads her money around, and the patronizin’ style she has of puttin’ this proposition up to me, I couldn’t tell for a minute how she meant it. And when I suddenly surrounds the idea that it’s me gives up the two-fifty, I’m so fussed that I drops back into the chair and begins to hunt through the desk for my checkbook. And then I feels myself growin’ a little warm behind the ears.
“So you just put me down offhand for two hundred and fifty, did you?” says I.
“If you wish,” says she, “you may take outa life certificate for each member of your family. Several have done that. Let me show you my list of subscribers. See, here are some of the prominent merchants and manufacturing firms. I haven’t begun on the brokers and bankers yet; but you will be in good company.”
“Ye-e-es?” says I, runnin’ my eye over the firm names. “But I don’t know much about this scheme of yours, Miss Colliver.”
“Why, it is for working girls,” says she, “who are victims of the white plague. We take them up to Piny Crest and cure them.”
“Of working?” says I.
“Of the plague,” says she. “It is going to be the grandest thing I’ve done yet. And I have the names of such a lot of the most interesting cases; poor creatures, you know, who are suffering in the most wretched quarters. I do hope they will last until the station is finished. It means finding a new lot, if they don’t, and the public organizations are becoming so active in that sort of thing, don’t you see?”
Somehow, I don’t catch it all, she puts over her ideas so fast; but I gather that she’d like to have me come up prompt with my little old two-fifty so she can get busy givin’ out the contracts. Seein’ me still hangin’ back, though, she’s willin’ to spend a few minutes more in describin’ some of the worst cases, which she proceeds to do.
“We estimate,” says Miss Ann as a final clincher, “that the average cost is about fifty dollars per patient. Now,” and she sticks the subscription list into my fist, “here is an opportunity! Do you wish to save five human lives?”
Ever had it thrown into you like that? The sensation is a good deal like bein’ tied to a post and havin’ your pockets frisked by a holdup gang. Anyway, that’s the way I felt, and then the next minute I’m ashamed of havin’ any such feelings at all; for there’s no denyin’ that dozens of cases like she mentions can be dug up in any crowded block. Seems kind of inhuman, too, not to want chip in and help save ’em. And yet there I was gettin’ grouchy over it, without knowin’ why!
“Well,” says I, squirmin’ in the chair, “I’d like to save five hundred, if I could. How many do you say you’re going to take care of up at this new place?”
“Sixty,” says she. “I select the most pitiful cases. I am taking some things to one of them now. I wish you could see the awful misery in that home! I could take you down there, you know, and show you what a squalid existence they lead, these Tiscotts.”
“Tiscotts!” says I, prickin’ up my ears. “What Tiscotts? What’s his first name?”
“I never heard the husband mentioned,”says Miss Ann. “I doubt if there is one. The woman’s name, I think, is Mrs. Anthony Tiscott. Of course, unless you are really interested——”
“I am,” says I. “I’m ready to go when you are.”
That seems to jar Miss Colliver some, and she tries a little shifty sidestepping; but I puts it up to her as flat as she had handed it to me about savin’ the five lives. It was either make good or welsh, and she comes to the scratch cheerful.
“Very well, then,” says she, “we will drive down there at once.”
So it’s me into the Victoria alongside of Miss Ann, with the fat coachman pilotin’ us down Fifth-ave. to 14th, then across to Third-ave., and again down and over to the far East Side.
I forget the exact block; but it’s one of the old style double-deckers, with rusty fire escapes decorated with beddin’ hung out to air, dark hallways that has a perfume a garbage cart would be ashamed of, rickety stairs, plasterin’ all gone off the halls, and other usual signs of real estate that the agents squeeze fifteen per cent. out of. You know how it’s done, by fixin’ the Buildin’ and Board of Health inspectors, jammin’ from six to ten fam’lies in on a floor, never makin’ any repairs, and collectin’ weeklyrents or servin’ dispossess notices prompt when they don’t pay up.
Lovely place to hang up one of the “Home, Sweet Home” mottoes! There’s a water tap in every hall, so all the tenants can have as much as they want, stove holes in most of the rooms, and you buy your coal by the bucket at the rate of about fourteen dollars a ton. Only three a week for a room, twelve dollars a month. Course, that’s more per room than you’d pay on the upper West Side with steam heat, elevator service, and a Tennessee marble entrance hall thrown in; but the luxury of stowin’ a whole fam’ly into one room comes high. Or maybe the landlords are doin’ it to discourage poverty.
“This is where the Tiscotts hang out, is it?” says I. “Shall I lug the basket for you, Miss Colliver?”
“Dear no!” says she. “I never go into such places. I always send the things in by Hutchins. He will bring Mrs. Tiscott down and she will tell us about her troubles.”
“Let Hutchins sit on the box this time,” says I, grabbin’ up the basket. “Besides, I don’t want any second hand report.”
“But surely,” puts in Miss Ann, “you are not going into such a——”
“Why not?” says I. “I begun livin’ in one just like it.”
At that Miss Ann settles back under the robe, shrugs her shoulders into her furs, and waves for me to go ahead.
Half a dozen kids on the doorstep told me in chorus where I’d find the Tiscotts, and after I’ve climbed up through four layers of stale cabbage and fried onion smells and felt my way along to the third door left from the top of the stairs, I makes my entrance as the special messenger of the ministerin’ angel.
It’s the usual fam’ly-room tenement scene, such as the slum writers are so fond of describin’ with the agony pedal down hard, only there ain’t quite so much dirt and rags in evidence as they’d like. There’s plenty, though. Also there’s a lot of industry on view. Over by the light shaft window is Mrs. Tiscott, pumpin’ a sewin’ machine like she was entered in a twenty-four-hour endurance race, with a big bundle of raw materials at one side. In front of her is the oldest girl, sewin’ buttons onto white goods; while the three younger kids, includin’ the four-year-old boy, are spread out around the table in the middle of the room, pickin’ nut meat into the dishpan.
What’s the use of tellin’ how Mrs. Tiscott’s stringy hair was bobbed up, or the kind of wrapper she had on? You wouldn’t expect her to be sportin’ a Sixth-ave. built pompadour, or a lingerie reception gown, would you? Andwhere they don’t have Swedish nursery governesses and porcelain tubs, the youngsters are apt not to be so——But maybe you’ll relish your nut candy and walnut cake better if we skip some details about the state of the kids’ hands. What’s the odds where the contractors gets such work done, so long as they can shave their estimates?
The really int’restin’ exhibit in this fam’ly group, of course, is the bent shouldered, peaked faced girl who has humped herself almost double and is slappin’ little pearl buttons on white goods at the rate of twenty a minute. And there’s no deception about her being a fine case for Piny Crest. You don’t even have to hear that bark of hers to know it.
I stands there lookin’ ’em over for a whole minute before anybody pays any attention to me. Then Mrs. Tiscott glances up and stops her machine.
“Who’s that?” she sings out. “What do you——Why! Well, of all things, Shorty McCabe, what brings you here?”
“I’m playin’ errand boy for the kind Miss Colliver,” says I, holdin’ up the basket.
Is there a grand rush my way, and glad cries, and tears of joy? Nothing doing in the thankful hysterics line.
“Oh!” says Mrs. Tiscott. “Well, let’s see what it is this time.” And she proceeds todump out Miss Ann’s contribution. There’s a glass of gooseb’ry bar le duc, another of guava jelly, a little can of pâté de foie gras, and half a dozen lady fingers.
“Huh!” says she, shovin’ the truck over on the window sill. As she’s expressed my sentiments too, I lets it go at that.
“Looks like one of your busy days,” says I.
“One of ’em!” says she with a snort, yankin’ some more pieces out of the bundle and slippin’ a fresh spool of cotton onto the machine.
“What’s the job?” says I.
“Baby dresses,” says she.
“Good money in it?” says I.
“Oh, sure!” says she. “Forty cents a dozen is good, ain’t it?”
“What noble merchant prince is so generous to you as all that?” says I.
Mrs. Tiscott, she shoves over the sweater’s shop tag so I can read for myself. Curious,—wa’n’t it?—but it’s the same firm whose name heads the Piny Crest subscription list. It’s time to change the subject.
“How’s Annie?” says I, lookin’ over at her.
“Her cough don’t seem to get any better,” says Mrs. Tiscott. “She’s had it since she had to quit work in the gas mantle shop. That’s where she got it. The dust, you know.”
Yes, I knew. “How about Tony?” says I.
“Tony!” says she, hard and bitter. “Howdo I know? He ain’t been near us for a month past.”
“Sends in something of a Saturday, don’t he?” says I.
“Would I be lettin’ the likes of her—that Miss Colliver—come here if he did,” says she, “or workin’ my eyes out like this?”
“I thought Lizzie was in a store?” says I, noddin’ towards the twelve-year-old girl at the nut pickin’ table.
“They always lays off half the bundle girls after Christmas,” says Mrs. Tiscott. “That’s why we don’t see Tony regular every payday any more. He had the nerve to claim most of Lizzie’s envelope.”
Then it was my turn to say “Huh!”
“Why don’t you have him up?” says I.
“I’m a-scared,” says she. “He’s promised to break my head.”
“Think he would?” says I.
“Yes,” says she. “He’s changed for the worse lately. He’d do it, all right, if I took him to court.”
“What if I stood ready to break his, eh?” says I. “Would that hold him?”
Say, it wa’n’t an elevatin’ or cheerful conversation me and Mrs. Tiscott indulged in; but it was more or less to the point. She’s some int’rested in the last proposition of mine, and when I adds a few frills about givin’ a butcher’sorder and standin’ for a sack of potatoes, she agrees to swear out the summons for Tony, providin’ I’ll hand it to him and be in court to scare the liver out of him when she talks to the Justice.
“I hate to do it too,” says she.
“I know,” says I; “but no meat or potatoes from me unless you do!”
Sounds kind of harsh, don’t it? You’d think I had a special grudge against Tony Tiscott too. But say, it’s only because I know him and his kind so well. Nothing so peculiar about his case. Lots of them swell coachmen go that way, and in his day Tony has driven for some big people. Him and me got acquainted when he was wearin’ the Twombley-Crane livery and drawin’ down his sixty-five a month. That wa’n’t so long ago, either.
But it’s hard waitin’ hours on the box in cold weather, and they get to boozin’. When they hit it up too free they lose their places. After they’ve lost too many places they don’t get any more. Meantime they’ve accumulated rheumatism and a fam’ly of kids. They’ve got lazy habits too, and new jobs don’t come easy at forty. The next degree is loafin’ around home permanent; but they ain’t apt to find that so pleasant unless the wife is a good hustler. Most likely she rows it. So they chuck the fam’ly and drift off by themselves.
That’s the sort of chaps you’ll find on the bread lines. But Tony hadn’t quite got to that yet. I knew the corner beer joint where he did odd jobs as free lunch carver and window cleaner. Also I knew the line of talk I meant to hand out to him when I got my fingers on his collar.
“Well?” says Miss Ann, when I comes back with the empty basket. “Did you find it an interesting case?”
“Maybe that’s the word,” says I.
“You saw the young woman, did you?” says she, “the one who——”
“Sure,” says I. “She’s got it—bad.”
“Ah!” says Miss Ann, brightenin’ up. “And now about that life membership!”
“Well,” says I, “the Piny Crest proposition is all right, and I’d like to see it started; but the fact is, Miss Colliver, if I should put my name down with all them big people I’d be runnin’ out of my class.”
“You would be—er——Beg pardon,” says she, “but I don’t think I quite get you?”
I’d suspected she wouldn’t. But how was I going to dope out to her clear and straight what’s so muddled up in my own head? You know, all about how Annie got her cough, and my feelin’s towards the firms that’s sweatin’ the Tiscotts, from the baby up, and a lot of other things that I can’t state.
“As I said,” goes on Miss Colliver, “I hardly think I understand.”
“Me either,” says I. “My head’s just a merry go round of whys and whatfors. But, as far as that fund of yours goes, I don’t come in.”
“Humph!” says she. “That, at least, is quite definite. Home, Hutchins!”
And there I am left on the curb lookin’ foolish. Me, I don’t ride back to the studio on any broadcloth cushions! Serves me right too, I expect. I feels mean and low down all the rest of the day, until I gets some satisfaction by huntin’ up Tony and throwin’ such a scare into him that he goes out and finds a porter’s job and swears by all that’s holy he’ll take up with the fam’ly again.
But think of the chance I passed up of breakin’ into the high toned philanthropy class!