It'ly! Oh, yes, I want to go there again—when I get to be a mummy.
CHAPTER III
Say, you can't always tell, can you? Here a couple of weeks back I thought I'd wiped It'ly off the map. We'd settled down in this little old burg, me and the Boss and Mister 'Ankins, nice and comfortable, and not too far from Broadway. And we was havin' our four o'clock teas with the mitts, as reg'lar as if there was money comin' to us for each round, when this here Sherlock proposition turns up.
Mister 'Ankins, he was the first to spot it, and he comes trottin' in where we was prancin' around the mat, his jaw loose, and his eyebrows propped up like Eddie Foy's when he wears his salary face.
"Hit's most hunnacountable, sir," says he.
"Time out!" says I, blockin' the Boss's pet upper cut. "Mister 'Ankins seems to have something on the place where his mind ought to be."
"Hankins," says the Boss, putting down his guard reluctant, "haven't I told you never to——"
"Yes, sir; yes, sir," says Mister 'Ankins, "but there's that houtrageous thing fawst to the door and, Lor' 'elp me, sir, Hi cawnt pull it hoff."
The Boss he looks at me, and I looks at the Boss, and then we both looks at Mister 'Ankins. Seein' as how he couldn't reveal much with that cheesepie face of his, we goes and takes a look at the door. It was the outside one, just as you gets off the elevator.
And therewassomething there, too; the dizziest kind of a visitin' card that was ever handed out, I suspicion, in those particular swell chambers for single gents. It was a cuff, just a plain, every day wrist chafer, pinned up with the wickedest little blood letter that ever came off the knife rack. Half an inch of the blade stuck through the panel, so the one who put it there must have meant that it shouldn't blow away. The Boss jerks it loose, sizes it up a minute, and says:
"Stiletto, eh? Made in Firenze—that's Florence. Shorty, have you any friends from abroad that are in the habit of leaving their cutlery around promiscuous?"
"I know folks as far west as Hoboken, if that's what you mean," says I, "but there ain't none of them in the meat business."
Well, we takes the thing inside under the bunch light and has another squint.
"Here's writin' in red ink," says I, and holds up the cuff.
"Read it," says the Boss.
"I could play it better on a flute," says I. "You try."
We didn't have to try hard. The minute heskinned his eye over that his jaw goes loose like he'd stopped a body wallop with his short ribs.
"It's Tuscan," says he, "and it means that someone's in trouble and wants help."
"Do they take this for police headquarters, or a Charity Organization?" says I. "Looks to me like a new kind of wireless from the wash lady. Why don't you pay her?"
"That's one of my cuffs," says the Boss.
"It's too well ventilated to get into the bag again," says I.
"Shorty," says he, lettin' my Joe-Weber go over his shoulder, "do you know where I saw that cuff last? It was in North Italy!"
Then he figured out by the queer laundry marks just where he'd shed this identical piece of his trousseau. We'd left it, with a few momentoes just as valuable, when we made that quick move away from that punky old palace after our little monkey shine with the brigands.
"You don't mean—?" says I. But there wa'n't no use wasting breath on that question. He was blushin'. We fiddled some on its having come from old Vincenzo, or maybe from Blue Beak, the Count that rented us the place; but the minute we tied that cuff up with the castle we knew that the one who sent it meant to ring up a hurry call on us for help, and that it wasn'tanybody but the Lady Brigandess herself, the one that put us next and kept the Boss from being sewed up in a blanket.
"That's a Hey Rube for me," says I. "How about-cher?"
But the Boss was kicking off his gym. shoes and divin' through his shirt. In five minutes by the watch we were dressed for slootin'.
"I know a Dago roundsman—" says I.
"No police in this," says the Boss.
"Guess you're right," says I. "Too much lime-light and too little headwork. We'll cut the cops out. Where to first?"
"I'm going to call on the Italian consul," says the Boss. "He's a friend of mine."
So we opened the sloot business with a ride in one of those heavy weight 'lectric hansoms, telling the throttle pusher to shove her wide open. Maybe we broke the speed ord'nance some, but we caught Mr. Consul on the fly, just as he was punchin' the time card. He wore a rich set of Peter Cooper whiskers, but barring them he was a well finished old gent, with a bow that was an address of welcome all by itself. The way that he shoved out leather chairs you'd thought he was makin' a present of 'em to us.
But the Boss hadn't any time to waste on flourishes. We got right down to cases. Hewanted to know about where the Tuscans usually headed for when they left Ellis Island, what sort of gangs they had in New York and what kind of Black Hand deviltry they were most given to. He asked a hundred questions and never answered one. Then he shook hands with Mr. Consul and we chased out.
"It looks like the Malabistos," says the Boss. "They have a kind of headquarters over a basement restaurant. Perhaps they've shut her up there. We'll take a look at the place anyway."
A lot of good it did us, too. The spaghetti works was in full blast, with a lot of husky lowbrows goin' in and out, smokin' cheroots half as long as your arm, and acting as if the referee had just declared a draw. The opening for a couple of bare fisted investigators wasn't what you might call promisin'. Not having their grips and passwords, we didn't feel as though we could make good in their lodge.
"I could round up a gang and then we could rush 'em," says I.
"That wouldn't do," says the Boss. "Strategy is what we need here."
"I'm just out of that," says I.
"Perhaps there's a back door," says the Boss.
So we moseys around the block, huntin' for a family entrance. But that ain't the way theybuild down in Mulberry Bend. They chucks their old rookeries slam up against one another, to keep 'em from fallin' over, I guess. Generally though, there's some sort of garlic flue through the middle of the block, but you need a balloon to find it.
"Hist!" says I. "Hold me head while I thinks a thunk. Didn't I come down here once to watch a try-out? Sure! And it was pulled off in the palatial parlors of Appetite Joe Cardenzo's Chowder Association, the same being a back room two flights up. Now if we could dig up Appetite Joe—"
We did. He was around the corner playing 'scope for brandied plums, but he let go the cards long enough to listen to my fairy tale about wantin' a joint where I could give my friend a private lesson.
"Sure!" said Joe, passing out the key, "but you breaka da chair I charga feefty cent."
There were two back windows and the view wasn't one you'd want to put in a frame. Down below was a court filled with coal boxes and old barrels, and perfumed like the lee side of Barren Island. But catty-corners across was the back of that spaghetti mill. We could tell it by the two-decker bill board on the roof. In the upper windows we could see Dago women and kids, but the windows on the second floor were black.
"Iron shutters," says the Boss. "And that's where she is if anywhere."
"Got a scalin' ladder and a jimmy in your pocket?" says I. "Then I'll have to run around to a three ball exchange and see if I can't dig up an outfit."
A patent fire escape and a short handled pick-axe was the best I could do. We made the board jumper fast inside and down I went. Then there was acrobatics; swingin' across to that three inch window ledge, balancin' with one foot on nothing, and single hand work with the pick-axe. Lucky that shutter-bar was half rusted away. She came open with a bang when she did come, and it near sent me down into the barrels. Me eyelashes held though, and there I was, up against a window.
"See anything?" says the Boss.
"Room to rent," says I, for it looked like we'd pried open a vacant flat.
Just then the sash goes up and something shiny glitters in the dark. I was just lettin' go with one hand to swing for a head when someone lets loose a Dago remark that was mighty business like and more or less familiar.
"Is it you?" says I. "If you're the Lady Brigandess own up sudden."
"Ah-h-h!" says she, thankful like, as if she'dseen her horse win by a nose. Then she puts up the rib tickler and grabs me by the wrist.
"Guess your lady friend's here," I sings out to the Boss.
"Have you got her?" says he.
"No," says I; "she's got me."
But no sooner does she hear him than she lets go of me, shoves her head out of the window and calls up to him. The Boss says something back and for the next two minutes they swaps Dago talk to beat the cars.
"How shall I pass her up?" says I.
Just then she made a spring for that rope ladder of ours and overhands up like a trapeze star. An' me thinkin' we'd need a derrick or a bo's'n's chair!
It wa'n't no time for reunions at that stage of the game, nor for hard luck stories, either. None of us was pining to hold any sociables with the Malabistos. We quit the chowder club on the jump, streaked up the hill into Mott street, and piled into one of those fuzzy two horse chariots that they keep hooked up for weddin's and funerals.
"Where to?" says the bone thumper.
"Head her for Buffalo and let loose to beat the Empire State express," says I, "but hunt for asphalt."
That fetched us up Second Avenue, but therewasn't any conversin' done until we'd put fifty blocks behind us. Then I reckon the Boss asked the Lady Brigandess if she'd missed any meals lately. From the way he gave orders to steer for a food refinery she must have allowed that she had.
Not having time to be particular, we hit a goulash emporium where they spell the meat card mostly with cz's. But they gave us a private room upstairs, which was what we wanted. And it wasn't until we got inside that we had a full length view of her. Say, I was glad we'd landed so far east of Broadway. Post me for a welcher if she wasn't rigged out in the same kind of a chorus costume that she wore when we saw her last, over there in It'ly! Only it was more so. It was the kind of costume that'd been all right on a cigarette card, or outside a Luna Park joint, and it would have let her into the Arion ball without a ticket; but it wasn't built for circulatin' 'round New York in.
"Piffle! Piffle!" says I to the Boss. "They'll think we've pinched her out of a Kiralfy ballet. Hadn't we better send for yer lady-fren's trunk?"
The Boss grinned, but he looked her over as satisfied as if she'd been dressed accordin' to his own water color sketches. She was something of a star, yes, yes! If you were lookin' for figureand condition, she had 'em. And when it came to the color scheme—well, no grease paint manipulator ever mixed caffy-o-lay and raspb'ry pink the way it grew on her. For a made-in-It'ly girl she was the real meringue.
"We'll see about clothes later," says the Boss, and ordered up seventeen kinds of sckeezedsky, to be served in relays.
She brought her appetite with her, all right, even if she had mislaid her suit case. And, while she was pitchin' into what passes for grub on Second Avenue, she told the Boss the story of her life. Leastways, that's what it sounded like to me.
The way I gets it from the Boss was like this: Her father, the old brigand pantanta, couldn't get over the way we'd bansheed his bunch of third rate kidnappers with our tin armor play. He accumulated a sort of ingrowin' grouch and soured on the whole push because they wouldn't turn state's evidence as to who had given us the dope to do 'em.
The Lady Brigandess she had stood that for a while, until one day she gets her Irish up, tells the old man how she tipped us off herself, and then makes tracks out of the country. One way and another she'd heard a lot about America. So she takes out yellow tickets on a few sparesparks and buys a steerage berth for New York.
Well, she hadn't more'n got past Sandy Hook before a Malabisto runner spotted her. So did the advance man of another gang. They sized up the gold hoops in her ears, her real money necklace and some of the other furniture she sported, and they invited her home to tea. Just how the scrap began or what it was all about she didn't know, so the story by rounds hasn't been told. The next thing she knew though, they'd hustled her into the Bend and bottled her up in that back room, but not before she'd done a little extemporaneous carvin' on her own account. I gathered that three or four of the Malabistos needed some plain sewin' done on 'em after the bell rang, and that the rest wasn't so anxious for her society as at first. She'd been cooped up for two days when she managed to get hold of a Dago woman who promised to carry that cuff to the place where old Vincenzo had told her we hung out in New York.
"So far it's as good as playin' leading heavy in 'The Shadows of a Great City,'" says I, "but what's down for the next act? Where does she want to go now?"
Say, you'd thought the Boss had been nipped with the goods on. He goes strawb'ry colorback to his ears. Next he takes a look across the table at her where she sits, quiet and easy, and as much to home as Lady Graftwad on the back seat of the tonneau. She was takin' notice of him, too, kind of runnin' over his points like he was something rich she'd won at a raffle and was glad to get. But the Boss he braced up and looked me straight in the eye.
"Shorty," says he, "I want to call your attention to the fact that this young lady is something like three thousand miles from home, that we're the only two human beings on this side of the ocean she knows by sight, and that once she risked a good deal to do us a service."
"I'll put my name to all that," says I, "but what does it lead up to; where do we exit?"
"That," says the Boss, "is a conundrum."
"Ain't she got any programme?" says I.
"She—er—that is," says the Boss, trying to duck, "she says she wants to go with us."
"Whe-e-e-ew!" says I, through my front teeth. "This issosudden. Just tell the lady, will you, that I've resigned."
"No you don't, Shorty," says the Boss. "You'll see this thing through."
"But look at them circus clothes," says I. "I've got no aunts or grandmothers, or second cousins that I could unload a Lady Brigandess on."
"Nor I," says the Boss.
But he didn't look half so worried as he might. Say, when I came to figure out what we were up against, I could feel little cold storage whiffs on my shoulder blades. Suppose someone should meet you in the middle of Herald Square, hand you a ring-tailed tiger, and then skiddoo. What? That would be an easy one compared to our proposition. It wasn't a square deal to shake her, and she'd made up her mind not to stay put anywhere again.
"Wait here until I telephone someone," says the Boss.
"De-lighted!" says I. "Better ring up the Gerry Society, too, while you're about it. They might help us out."
The Lady Brigandess and I didn't have a real sociable time while the Boss was gone. I could see she was watchin' every move I made, as much as to say, "You can't lose me, Charlie." It was just as cheery as waitin' in the Sergeant's room for bail.
When the Boss does show up he wears a regular breakfast food smile that made me leary, for when he looks tickled it don't signify that things are coming his way. Generally it only means that he's goin' to break out in a new spot.
"It just occurred to me," says he, "that I hadaccepted an invitation from the Van Urbans for the opera."
"What kind of a bluff did you throw?" says I.
"None at all, Shorty," says he. "I just asked if they would have room for three, and they said they would."
Say, the Boss don't need no nerve tonic, does he? You know about the Van Urbans, don't you? They weigh in at something like forty millions and are a good fifth on Mrs. Astor's list.
"Straight goods, now," says I, "you don't reckon to spring this aggregation on the diamond horse-shoe, do you?"
"We must put in the time somehow," says he.
I thought it might be all a grand josh, until I'd watched some of his moves. First we drives over to Fift' avenue and stops at one of those places where it says "Robes" on a brass plate outside. The Boss stays in there four minutes and comes out with a piece of dry goods that they must have stood him up a hundred for—kind of an opera cloak, ulster length, all rustly black silk outside and white inside. The Lady Brigandess she puts it on with no more fuss than as if she'd been brought up on such things and had ordered this one a month ahead.
Next we heads for our own quarters, having shifted our Mott street chariot for the real article,with rubber tires and silver plated lamps. About that time I got wise to the fact that the Boss and her Ladyship were ringin' me into their talk, and I was gettin' curious. I see the Boss shaking his head like he was tryin' to prove an alibi, and every once in a while pointin' to me. First thing I knows she'd quit his side of the carriage and was snugglin' up alongside of me, and cooin' away in some outlandish kind of baby talk that I was glad I didn't savvy. I made no kick though, until she begins to pat me on the head.
"Call her off, will you?" says I. "I'm no lost kid."
"The young lady is just expressing her thanks," says the Boss, "to the gallant young hero who so nobly rescued her from the Malabistos. Don't shy, Shorty; she says that anyone so brave as you are needn't worry about not being handsome."
He was kiddin' me, see? I knew he'd given her some fairy tale or other, but I didn't have any come back that she could understand. I felt like a monkey though, having my hair mussed and thinkin' maybe next minute she'd give me the knife. And the Boss he sat there grinnin' like a Jack lantern.
I didn't get a chance to break away until we got to our own ranch. Then we left her sitting in the buggy while we went up to make a lightnin'change. Sure, I've got a head waiter's rig; bought it the time I had to lead off the grand march at the Tim Grogan Association's tenth annual ball, but I never looked to wear it out attendin' grand opera.
"I hope the Van Urbans will appreciate that I'm givin' 'em a treat," says I.
"They'll be blind if they don't," says the Boss. "Is it your collar that hurts?"
"No, it's the shoes," says I, "but the pain'll numb down by the time we get there."
We made our grand entry about the end of the second spasm. The Van Urbans had taken their corners. There was Papa Van Urban, lookin' like ready money; and Mamma Van Urban, made up regardless; and Sis Van Urban, one of those tall Gainsborough girls that any piker could pick for a winner on form and past performance.
Say, it took all the front I had in stock just to tag along as an also ran, but when I thought of the Boss, headin' the procession, I was dead sorry for him. And what kind of a game do you think he hands out? Straight talk, nothin' but! Course he didn't make no family hist'ry out of tellin' who his lady-fren' was, but as far as he went it tallied with the card, even to lettin' on that she was a Lady Brigandess.
"Out we go now," says I to myself, and looks to see Mamma Van Urban throw a cat fit. But she didn't. She just squealed a little, same's if someone had tickled her behind the ear, and then she began slingin' that gurgly-gurgly Newport talk that the Sixt' avenue sales ladies use. Sis Van Urban caught the same cue, and to hear 'em you'd thought the Boss had done something real cute. They gave the Lady Brigandess the High Bridge wig-wag and shooed her into a stage corner chair.
She never made a kick at anything until they tried to take away her cloak. Not much! She was just beginnin' to be stuck on that. She kept it wrapped around her like she knew the proprietor wa'n't responsible for overcoats. The Boss tried to tell her how there wa'n't any grand larceny intended, but it was no go. She had her suspicions of the crowd, so they just had to let her sit there draped in black. And at that she wa'n't any misfit.
Now I'd been inside the Metropolitan once or twice before, havin' blown myself to a standee just for the sake of lookin' at the real things with their war paint on, but I wasn't feelin' any more to home in the back of that box than I would in the pilot house of an air ship.
But the Lady Brigandess didn't show no morestage fright than an auctioneer. She just holds her chin up and looks out at all that display of openwork dressmaking and cut glass exhibit without so much as battin' an eyelash. She was takin' it all in, too, from the bargain hats in the fam'ly circle, to the diamond tummy warmers in the parterre, but you'd never guessed that she'd just escaped from a Dago back district where they have one mail a week. If I hadn't seen her chumming with a hold-up gang that couldn't have bought fifteen cent lodgings on the Bowery, I'd bet the limit that she was a thoroughbred in disguise.
There was some rubberin' at her, of course, and I expect we had the safety vault crowd guessin' as to what kind of a prize the Van Urbans had won, but it didn't feaze her a bit. She just gave 'em the Horse Show stare, as cool as a mint frappé. The ringin' up of the curtain didn't disturb her any, either. When a chesty baritone sauntered down toward the footlights and began callin' the chorus names she glanced over her shoulder, casual like, just to see what the row was all about, and then went on sizin' up the folks in the boxes. She couldn't have done it better if she'd taken lessons by mail.
"If she would only talk!" gurgles Mrs. Van Urban. "Doesn't she speak anything but Italian?"
"Pure Tuscan is all she knows," says the Boss, "and the way she talks it is better than any music you'll hear to-night. Wait until she has satisfied her eyes."
Pretty soon the baritone quits jawin' the chorus and a prima donna in spangled clothes comes to the front. Maybe it was Melba, or Nordica. Anyway, she was an A-1 warbler. She hadn't let go of more'n a dozen notes before the Lady Brigandess begins to sit up and take notice. First she has a kind of surprised look, as if a ringer had been sprung on her; and then, as the high C artist begins to let herself go, she swings around and listens with both ears. The music didn't seem to go in one side and out the other. It stuck somewhere between, and swayed and lifted her like a breeze in a posy bush. I could hear her toe tappin' out the tune and see her head keep time to it. Why, if I could get my money's worth out of music like that I'd buy a season ticket.
When the prima donna had cut it off, with her voice way up in the flies somewhere, and the house had rose to her, as the bleachers do when one of the Giants knocks a three bagger, the Lady Brigandess was still sittin' there, waitin' for more.
Her trance didn't last long, though. She just cast one eye around the boxes, where the folkswere splittin' gloves and wavin' fans and yellin' "Bravo! Bravo!" so that you'd 'a-thought somebody'd carried Ohio by a big majority, and then she takes a notion to get into the game herself.
Shuckin' that high priced opera cloak she jumps up, drops one hand on her hip, holds the other up to her lips and peels off a kind of whoop-e-e-e yodel that shakes the skylight. Talk about your cornet bugle calls! That little ventriloquist pass of hers had 'em stung to a whisper. It cut through all that patter and screech like a siren whistle splittin' a fish horn serenade, and it was as clear as the ring of silver sleigh bells on a frosty night.
After that it was all up to her. The other folks quit and turned to see who had done it. Two or three thousand pairs of double barrelled opera glasses were pointed our way. The folks behind 'em found something worth lookin' at, too. Our Brigandess wasn't in disguise any more. She stood up there at the box rail, straight as a Gibson girl, her black hair hangin' in two thick braids below her waist, the gold hoops in her ears all ajiggle, her little fringed jacket risin' and fallin', and her black eyes snappin' like a pair of burning trolley fuses. Well, say, if she wa'n't a pastelle I never saw one! I guess the star singer thought so, too. She'd just smiled and nodded at theothers, but she blew a kiss up to our lady before she left.
I don't know just what would have happened next if someone hadn't shown up at the back of the box and asked for the Boss. It was the Italian consul that we'd been to see earlier in the day.
"Where'd you find her?" says he.
"Meanin' who?" says the Boss.
"Why, her highness the Princess Padova."
"Beg pardon," says the Boss, "but if you mean the young lady there, you're wrong. She's the daughter of a poor but honest brigand chief, and she's just come from Tuscany to discover New York."
"She's the Princess Padova or I'm a Turk," says the Consul. "Ask her to step back here a moment."
It sounded like a pipe dream, all right. Who ever saw a princess rigged out for the tambourine act and mixin' with a lot of chestnut roasters? But old whiskers had the evidence down pat, though. As he told it, she was a sure enough princess, so far as the tag went, only the family had been in the nobility business so long that the pedigree had lasted out the plunks.
It seemed that away back, before the Chicago fire or the Sayers-Heenan go, her great-grandpop had princed it in regulation shape. Then there'dcome a grand mix-up, a war or something, and a lot of princes had either lost their jobs or got on the blacklist. Her great-grandpop had been one of the kind that didn't know when he was licked. They euchred him out of his castle and building lots, but he gathered up what was left of his gang and slid for the tall timber, where he went on princing the best he knew how. As he couldn't disgrace himself by workin', and hadn't lost the hankerin' for reg'lar meals, he got into the habit of taking up contributions from whoever came along, calling it a road tax. And that's how the Padova family fell into playing the hold-up game.
But the old man Padova, the Princess' father, never forgot that if he'd had his rights he would have been boss of his ward, and he always acted accordin'. So when he picked the Consul up on the road one night with a broken leg he gave him the best in the house, patched him up like an ambulance surgeon, and kept him board free until he could walk back to town. And so, when Miss Padova takes it into her head to elope to America with a tin trunk, Papa Padova hikes himself down to the nearest telegraph office and cables over a general alarm to his old friend, who's been made consul.
"I've been having Mulberry Bend raked witha fine toothed comb," says he, "but when I saw her highness stand up here in the box I knew her at a glance, although it's been ten years since I saw her last."
Then he asked her if he hadn't called the trick, and she said he had.
"Now," says he, "perhaps you'll tell us why you came to America?"
"Sure," says she, or something that meant the same, "I've come over after me best feller. I've made up my mind that I'll marry him," and she slips an arm around the Boss's neck just as cool as though they'd been on a moonlight excursion.
Mr. Consul's face gets as red as a fireman's shirt, the Van Urbans catch their breath with both fists, and I begins to see what a lovely mess I'd been helping the Boss to get himself into. He never turned a hair though.
"The honor is all mine," says he, just as if he meant every word of it.
"Ahem!" says the Consul, kind of steadying himself against the curtains. "Perhaps it would be best, before anything more is said on this subject, for the Princess to have a talk with my wife. We'll take her home."
Well, they settled it that way and I was mighty glad to get her off our hands so easy.
Next afternoon the Consul shows up at our ranch as gay as an up-state deacon who's seeing the town incog.
"Sir," says he to the Boss, givin' him the right hand of fellowship, "you're a real gent. After what you did last night I'm proud to know you; and I'm happy to state that it's all off with the Princess."
Then he went on to tell how Miss Padova, being out of her latitude, hadn't got her book straight. She'd carried away the notion that when a Princess went out of her class she had a right to sign on any chap that she liked the looks of, without waitin' for him to make the first move. They did it that way at home. But when the Consul's wife had explained the United States way, and how the Boss was a good deal of a rooster himself, with real money enough to buy up a whole rink full of Dago princes, why Miss Padova feels like a plush Christmas box at a January sale. She turns on the sprinkler, wants to know what they suppose the Boss thinks of her, and says she wants to go back to It'ly by the next trolley.
"But she'll get over feeling bad," says the Consul. "We'll ship her back next Friday, and you can take it from me that the incident is closed."
I was lookin' for the Boss to open a bottle ortwo on that. But he didn't. For a pleased man he held in well.
"Poor little girl!" says he, looking absent minded towards the Bronx. Then he cheers up a minute. "I say, do you mind if I run up and see her once before she sails?"
"You may for all of me," says the Consul, "but if you'll listen to my advice you won't go."
He did though, and lugged me along for a chaperone, which is some out of my line.
"I'm afraid they've rather overdone the explaining business," says he on the way up; and while I had my own idea as to that, I had sense enough, for once, not to butt in.
That was an ice house call, all right. They left us on the mat while our cards went up, and after a while the hired girl comes down to give us the book-agent glare.
"Th' Missus," says she, "says as how the young lady begs to be 'xcused."
"Does the young lady know we're here?" says the Boss.
"She does," says the girl, and shuts the door.
"Gee!" says I, "that's below the belt."
The Boss hadn't a word left in him, but I wouldn't have met him in the ring about then for anything less'n a bookie's bundle.
Just as we hit the sidewalk we hears a frontwindow go up, and down comes a red rose plunk in front of us.
"Many happy returns of the day," says I, handing it to the Boss.
"I suppose you're right," says he. "It's the only way to look at it, I expect; and yet—oh, hang it all, Shorty, what's the use?"
"Ahr-r, say!" says I. "Switch off! It's all over, and you've side stepped takin' the count."
CHAPTER IV
Does the Boss let it go at that? Say, I was just thick enough to guess that he would. I was still havin' that dream, a few days later, when the Boss says to me:
"Shorty, you remember that old castle of ours?"
"You don't think I've been struck with softenin' of the brain, do you?" says I. "That'll be the last thing I'll forget. What's happened to it?"
"It's mine," says he.
"G'way!" says I. "They couldn't force you to take it."
"I've bought it," says he. "I cabled over an offer, and the Count has accepted."
"Goin' to blow it up?" I says.
"I hope," says he, gettin' a little red under the eyes, "to spend my honeymoon there; that is, if the Princess Padova—"
"The who?" says I. "Oh, you mean the lady brigandess?"
"If the Princess Padova," says he, keepin' straight on, "doesn't prefer some other place. We sail to-morrow."
"Then—then—" says I, catchin' my breath, "you've done it?"
It was silly askin' him. Why, it stuck out allover his face. I don't know what I said next, but it didn't matter much. He was too far up in the air to hear anything in particular. Just as we shakes hands though, he passes me an envelope and says:
"Shorty, I wish you'd take this down to my lawyer next Monday morning. It's a little matter I haven't had time to fix up."
"Sure," says I. "I'll tie up any loose ends. And don't forget to give my regards to old Vincenzo."
Say, I s'pose I'd ought to told him what a mark he'd made of himself, takin' a chance with any such wild-rose runnin' mate as that; but somehow it seemed all right, for him. I couldn't get a view of the Boss mated up with any silk-lined, city-broke girl. I guess Miss Padova was about his style, after all; and I reckon it would take a man like him to manage one of her high flyin' kind. Anyway, I'm glad he got her.
I was sorry to lose the Boss, though. "It's me to go back to trainin' four flush comers again," says I, when he'd gone. And say, I wa'n't feelin' gay over the prospect. Some of these mitt artists is nice, decent boys, but then again you'll find others that you can't take much pride in.
You see, I'd been knockin' around for months with someone who was clean all the waythrough—washed clean, spoke clean, thought clean—and now there was no tellin' what kind of a push I'd fall in with. You've had a peek at trainin' camps, eh? Them rubbers is apt to be a scousy lot. It was the goin' back to eatin' with sword swallowers that came hardest, though. I can stand for a good many things, but when I sees a guy loadin' up his knife for the shovel act, I rubs him off my list.
I was goin' over all this, on the way down to the office of that lawyer the Boss wanted me to see. I'd met him a few times, so when I sends in my name there wa'n't any waitin' around in the ante-room with the office boy.
"Bring Mr. McCabe right in," says he. "Mister McCabe," mind you. He's one of those wiry, brisk little chaps, with x-ray eyes, and a voice like a telephone bell. "Ah, yes!" says he, takin' the letter. "I know about that—some stock I was to turn into cash. Franklin!" he sings out. Franklin comes in like he'd come through a tube. "Bring me Mr. McCabe's bank book."
"Bank book!" says I. "I guess you've dipped into the wrong letter file. I don't sport any bank book."
"Perhaps you didn't yesterday," says he, "but to-day you do."
And say, what do you think the Boss had goneand done? Opened an account in my name, and fatted it up good and sweet, as a starter.
"But he didn't owe me anything like that," says I.
"A difference of opinion, Mr. McCabe," says the lawyer. "'For services rendered,' that was the way his instructions to me read. I sold the stock and made the deposit to your credit. That's all there is to it. Good day. Call again."
And the next thing I knew I was goin' down in the elevator with me fist grippin' that bank book like it was a life raft. First off I has to go and have a look at the outside of that bank. That's right, snicker. But say, I've had as much dough as that before, only I'd always carried it in a bundle. There's a lot of difference. Every tinhorn sport has his bundle, you know; but it's only your real gent that can flash a check book. I could feel my chest swellin' by the minute.
"Shorty," says I, "you've broke into a new class. Now you've got to make good."
And how do you s'pose I begins? Why, I hires one of these open faced cabs by the hour, and tells the chap up top to take me up Fifth ave. I wanted to think, and there ain't any better place for brain exercise than leanin' back in a hansom, squintin' out over the foldin' doors. I'd got pretty near up to the Plaza before Ihooks what I was fishin' after. It came sudden, too.
It was like this: Whilst I was sparrin' secretary to the Boss I'd met up with a lot of his crowd, and some of 'em had tried the gloves on with me. I didn't go in for sluggin' their blocks off, just to show 'em I could do it. There's no sense in that, unless you're out for a purse. Sparrin' for points is the best kind of fun, and for an all 'round tonic it can't be beat. They liked the way I handled 'em, and they used to say they wished they could take a dose of that medicine reg'lar, same as the Boss did.
"And that's just the chance I'm goin' to give 'em," says I.
With that I heads back for Forty-second street, picks out a vacant floor I'd noticed, and signs a lease. Inside of a week I has the place fixed up with mat, chest weights, and such; lays in a stock of soft gloves, buys a medicine ball or two, gets me some cards printed, and has me name done in gold letters on the ground glass. Boxin' instructor? Not on your accident policy. Nor private gym., either.
Professor M'Cabe'sStudio of Physical Culture
That's the way the door plate reads. It may be a bluff, but it scares off the cheap muggs thatwould hang around a boxin' school. They don't know what it means, any more'n if it was Chinese.
Well, when I gets things all in shape I gives out word to some of those gents, and before I'd been runnin' a fortnight I'd booked business enough to see that I'd struck it right. What's the use monkeyin' with comers when you can take on men that's made their pile? They're a high-toned lot, too, and they don't care what it costs, so long as I keeps 'em in shape. Some of 'em don't put on the mitts at all, but most of 'em works up to that.
Now there was Mr. Gordon. Sure, Pyramid Gordon. But I'll have to tell you about the game he stacks me up against. I'd had him as a reg'lar for about a month—Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays, from five to six—and he was just gettin' so he knew what real livin' was, when somethin' breaks loose down on the street that makes him forget everything but the figures on the tape. So he quits trainin'. About ten days later he drops in one afternoon, with fur on his tongue, and his eyes lookin' like a couple of cold fried eggs.
"Are you comin' or goin', Mr. Gordon?" says I.
"Where, Shorty?" says he.
"Hospital," says I.
He grinned a little, the kind of grin a feller wearswhen he's bein' helped to his corner, after the count.
"I know," says he; "but when you've been sitting for two weeks on a volcano, Shorty, wondering whether it would blow you up, or open and let you fall in, you're apt to forget your liver."
"It ain't apt to forget you, though," says I. "Shall we have a little session right now?"
And then he springs his proposition. He'd got to go to Washington and back inside of the next two breakfasts, and he wanted me to go along, some on account of his liver, but mostly so's he could forget that he was still on the lid. His private car was hitched to the tail of the Flyer, and he had just forty-five minutes to get aboard. Would I come?
"If I'm wiped out by the time we get back," says he, "I'll make you a preferred creditor."
"I'll take chances on that," says I.
They did do the trick to Pyramid once, you know; but they'd never got him right since. They had him worried some this time, though. You could tell that by the way he smiled at the wrong cues, and combed his deacon whiskers with his fingers. They're the only deacon whiskers I ever had in the Studio. Used to make me nervous when I hit 'em, for fear I'd drive 'em in. But he's dead game, Pyramid is, whether he's stoppin'mitts, or buckin' the Upright Oil push. So I grabs a few things off the wall, and we pikes for the ferry.
"Where's the other parties?" says I, when I'd sized up the inside of the Adeline. There was room enough for a minstrel troupe.
"We're to have it all to ourselves, professor," says he. "And it's almost time for us to pull out; there's the last Cortlandt-st. boat in."
About then we hears Mr. Rufus Rastus, the Congo brunet that's master of ceremonies on the car, havin' an argument out in the vestibule. He was tryin' to shunt somebody. They didn't shunt though, and in comes a long-geared old gent, wearin' one of those belted ulsters that they make out of horse-blankets for English tourists. He had a dinky cloth cap of the same pattern, and the lengthiest face I ever saw on a man. It wasn't a cheerful face, either; looked like he was huntin' for his own tombstone, and didn't care how soon he found it.
Rufus Rastus was hangin' to one of his arms, splutterin' things about this being a private car, and gettin' no more notice taken of himself than as if he'd been an escape-valve. Behind 'em, totin' a lot of leather bags of all shapes, was a peaked-nosed chap, who looked like he was doin' all the frettin' for a Don't Worry Club.
"It's honly Sir Peter," says the worried chap."'E's myde a mistyke, y' know. Hi'll get 'im out, sir."
"Danvers, shut up!" says Sir Peter.
"Yes, sir; directly, sir; but—" says he.
"Shut up now and sit down!" Sir Peter wasn't scrappy about it. He just said it as though he was tired. But Danvers wilted.
"Shall I give 'em the run?" says I.
"No," says Mr. Gordon; "there's the bell. We can get rid of them at the first stop."
Then he goes over to Sir Peter, tells him all about the Adeline's bein' a private snap, and how he can change to a parlor-car at Trenton.
The old fellow seems to take it all in, lookin' him straight in the eye, without turnin' a hair, and then he says, just as if they'd been talkin' about it for a month: "You'd better wear a bucket, as I do. It looks a little odd, you know; but the decimals can't get through a bucket. Danvers!" he sings out.
"But you don't understand," says Pyramid. "I said this was a private car—private car!"
"Don't shout," says Sir Peter. "I'm not deaf. I'd lend you a bucket if I had an extra one; but I haven't. Danvers!"
This time Danvers edged in with one of those sole-leather cases that an Englishman carries his plug-hat in.