"Got his wheels all under cover," says I."Got his wheels all under cover," says I.
"Don't you think, Sir Peter—" says he.
"Yes; but you don't," says Sir Peter. "Hurry on, now!"
And I'll be welched if Danvers didn't dig a wooden pail out of that hat-case and hand it over. Sir Peter chucks the cap, puts on the pail, drops the handle under his chin, and stretches out on a corner sofa as peaceful as a bench-duster in the park.
"Looks like he's got his wheels all under cover," says I. "Great scheme—every man his own garage."
"Who is he?" says Mr. Gordon to Danvers.
"Lord, sir, you don't mean to sye you don't know Sir Peter, sir?" says Danvers. "Why, 'e's Sir Peter—theSir Peter. 'E's a bit heccentric at times, sir."
Well, we let it go at that. Sir Peter seemed to be enjoying himself; so we piles all the wicker chairs around him, opens the ventilators, and peels down for business.
Ever try hand-ball in a car that's being snaked over switches at fifty miles an hour? So far as looks went, we were just as batty as Sir Peter with his wooden hat. We caromed around like a couple of six-spots in a dice-box, and some of the foot-work we did would have had a buck-and-wing artist crazy. We was using a tennis-ball,and when we'd get in three strokes without missing we'd stop and shake hands. There wa'n't any more sense to it than to a musical comedy; but it was makin' Mr. Gordon forget his troubles, and it was doing his liver good. Danvers watched us from behind some chairs. He looked disgusted.
By the time we'd got half-way across Jersey we was ready for the bath tub. And say, that's the way to travel and stay at home, all to once. A private car for mine. While we was puttin' on a polish with the Turkish towels, Rufus Rastus was busy with the dinner.
"Now, we'll have another talk with Sir Peter of the Pail," says Mr. Gordon.
We took the barricade down, and found him just as we'd left him. Then he an' Pyramid gets together; but it was the wizziest brand of conversation I ever heard. You'd have thought they was talkin' over the 'phone to the wrong numbers. Sir Peter would listen to all Mr. Gordon had to say, just as if he was gettin' next to every word, but his come-backs didn't fit by a mile.
"Sorry to disturb you," says Mr. Gordon; "but I'll have to ask you to change to a forward car next stop."
Sir Peter blinked his lamps at him a minute, and then he says: "Yes, it keeps the decimals out," and he taps the bucket, knowing like. "My owninvention, sir. I'd advise you to try it if they ever bother you."
"Yes, I'll take your word for that," says Mr. Gordon; "but I'm afraid you'll have to be getting ready to move. This is my private car, you see."
"They always come point first," says Sir Peter; "that's how they get in. It's only the bucket that makes 'em shy off."
"Oh, the deuce!" says Pyramid. "Here, Shorty, you try your luck with him."
"Sure," says I. "I've talked sense through thicker things than a wooden pail." First I raps on his cupola with me knuckles, just to ring him up. Then, when I gets his eye, I says, kind of coaxin': "Pete, it's seventeen after six. That's twenty-three for you. Are you next?"
Now say, you'd thought most anyone would have dropped for a hint like that, dippy or not. But Sir Peter sizes me up without battin' an eye. He had a kind of dignified, solemn way of lookin', too, with eyes wide open, same's a judge chargin' a jury.
"You'll never need a bucket," says he.
Just then I heard something that sounded like pouring water from a jug, and I looks around, to see Mr. Gordon turnin' plum color and holdin' himself by the short ribs. I knew what hadhappened then. The nutty one had handed me the lemon.
"Scratch me off," says I. "I'm in the wrong class. If there's to be any more Bloomingdale repartee, just count me out."
Naw, I wa'n't sore, or nothin' like that. If anyone can get free vawdyville from me I'll write 'em an annual pass; but I couldn't see the use of monkeyin' with that bug-house boarder. Say, if you was payin' for five rooms and bath when you went on the road, like Mr. Gordon was, would you stand for any machinery-loft butt-in like that? I was waitin' for the word to pile Sir Peter on the baggage truck, Danvers and all.
Think I got it? Nix! Some folks is easy pleased. And Pyramid Gordon, with seventeen different kinds of trouble bein' warmed up for him behind his back, stood there and played kid. Said he couldn't think of losin' Sir Peter after that. He'd got to have dinner with us. Blessed if he didn't too, pail and all! Couldn't fall for any talk about changin' cars; oh, no! But when he sees the pink candles, and the oysters on the half, and the quart bott' in the ice bath, he seemed to get his hearin' back by wireless.
"Dinner?" says he. "Ah, yes! Danvers, has the prime minister come yet? It was to-night that he was to dine with me, wasn't it?"
"To-morrow night, Sir Peter," says Danvers.
"Oh, very well. But you gentlemen will share the joint with me, eh? Welcome to Branscomb Arms! And let's gather around, sirs, let's gather around!"
You should have seen the way he did it, though. Reg'lar John Drew manners, the old duffer had. Lord knows where he thought he was, though; somewhere on Highgate Road, I suppose. But wherever it was, he was right to home—called Rufus Rastus Jenkins, and told Danvers he could go for the day. Gave me the goose-flesh back until I got used to it; but Mr. Gordon seemed to take it all as part of the game.
It beat all the dinners I ever had, that one. There we were poundin' over the rails through Pennsylvania at a mile-a-minute clip, the tomato soup doin' a merry-go-round in the plates, the engine tootin' for grade crossin's; and Sir Peter, wearin' his pail as dignified as a cardinal does a red hat, talkin' just as if he was back on the farm, up north of London. I don't blame Rufus Rastus for wearin' his eyes on the outside. They stuck out like the waist-buttons on a Broadway cop, and he hardly knew whether he was waitin' on table, or makin' up a berth.
With his second glass of fizz Sir Peter began to thaw a little. He hadn't paid much attentionto me for a while, passin' most of his remarks over to Mr. Gordon; but all of a sudden he comes at me with:
"You're a Home Ruler, I expect?"
"Sure," says I. "Now, spring the gag."
But if there was a stinger to it, he must have lost it in the shuffle; for he opens up a line of talk that I didn't have the key to at all. Mr. Gordon tells me afterwards it was English politics and that Sir Peter was tryin' to register me as a Conservative. Anyway, I've promised to vote for Balfour, or somebody like that next election; so I'm goin' to send word to Little Tim that he needn't come around. Had to do it, just to please the old gent. By the time we'd got to the little cups of black he'd switched to something else.
"I don't suppose you know anything about railroads?" says he to Mr. Gordon.
Then it was my grin. Railroads is what Pyramid plays with, you know. He's a director on three or four lines himself, and is always lookin' for more. It's about as safe to leave a branch road out after nightfall when Gordon's around as it would be to try to raise watermelons in Minetta Lane. He grinned, too, and said something about not knowing as much about 'em as he did once.
With that Sir Peter lights up one of Mr. Gordon's Key West night-sticks and cuts adrift on the railroad business. That made the boss kind of sick at first. Railroads was something he was tryin' to forget for the evenin'. But there wasn't any shuttin' the old jay off. And say! he knew the case-cards all right. There was too much high finance about it for me to follow close; but anyways I seen that it made Mr. Gordon sit up and take notice. He'd peg in a question now and then, and got the old one so stirred up that after a while he shed the bucket, lugged out one of his bags, and flashed a lot of papers done up in neat little piles. He said it was a report he was goin' to make to some board or other, if ever the decimals would quit bothering him long enough.
Well, that sort of thing might keep Mr. Gordon awake, but not for mine. Half-way to Baltimore I turns in, leaving 'em at it. I had a good snooze, too.
Mr. Gordon comes to my bunk in the mornin', very mysterious. "Shorty," says he, "we're in. I've got to go up to the State Department for an hour or so, and while I'm gone I'd like you to keep an eye on Sir Peter. If he takes a notion to wander off, you persuade him to stay until I get back."
"What you say goes," says I.
I shoved up the shade and sees that they'd put the Adeline down at the end of the train-shed. About all I could see of Washington was the top of old George's headstone stickin' up over a freight-car. I fixed myself up and had breakfast, just as if I was in a boardin'-house, and then sits around waitin' for Sir Peter. He an' Danvers shows up after a while, and the old gent calls for tea and toast and jam. Then I knows he's farther off his base than ever. Think of truck like that for breakfast! But he gets away with it, and then says to Danvers:
"Time we were off for the city, my man."
I got a glimpse of trouble ahead, right there; for that chump of a Danvers never made a move when I gives him the wink. All he could get into that peanut head of his at one time was to collect those leather bags and get ready to trot around wherever that long-legged old lunatic led the way.
"They've changed the time on that train of yours, Sir Pete," says I. "She don't come along until ten-twenty-six now, spring schedule," and I winks an eye loose at Danvers.
"'Pon my word!" says Sir Peter, "you here yet? Danvers, show this person to the gates."
"Yes, sir," says Danvers. He comes up to me an' whispers, kind of ugly: "I sye now, you'll 'ave to stop chaffin' Sir Peter. I won't 'ave it!"
"Help!" says I. "There's a rat after me."
"Hi'll bash yer bloomin' nose in!" says he, gettin' pink behind the ears.
"Hi'll write to the bloomin' pypers habout it if you do," says I.
I was wishin' that would fetch him, and it did. He comes at me wide open, with a guard like a soft-shell crab. I slips down the state-room passage, out of sight of Sir Peter, catches Danvers by the scruff, chucks him into a berth, and ties him up with the sheets, as careful as if he was to go by express.
"Now make all the holler you want," says I. "It won't disturb us none," and I shut the door.
But Sir Peter was a different proposition. I didn't want to rough-house him. He was too ancient; and anyway, I kind of liked the old chap's looks. He'd forgot all about Danvers, and was makin' figures on an envelope when I got back. I let him figure away, until all of a sudden he puts up his pencil and lugs out that bucket again.
"It's quit raining," says I.
"What do you know about it?" says he. "It's pouring decimals, just pouring 'em. But I've got to get my report in." With that he claps on the bucket, grabs a bag and starts for the car door.
It was up to me to make a quick play; for he was just ripe to go buttin' around those tracks andrun afoul of a switch-engine. And I hated to collar him. Just then I spots the tennis-ball.
"Whoop-ee!" says I, grabbin' it up and slammin' it at his head. I made a bull's-eye on the pail, too. "That's a cigar you owe me," says I, "and I gets two more cracks for my nickel." He tried to dodge; but I slammed it at him a couple more times. "Your turn now," says I. "Gimme the bucket."
Sounds foolish, don't it? I'll bet it looked a heap foolisher than it sounds; but I'd just thought of something a feller told me once. He was a young doctor in the bat ward at Bellevue. "They're a good deal like kids," says he, "and if you remember that, you can handle 'em easy."
And say, Sir Peter seemed to look tickled and interested. The first thing I knew he'd chucked the bucket on my head and was doin' a war-dance, lambastin' that tennis-ball at me to beat the cars. It was working, all right.
When he got tired of that I organized a shinny game, with an umbrella and a cane for sticks, and a couple of wicker chairs for goals. He took to that, too. First he shed his frock-coat, then his vest, and after a while we got down to our undershirts. It was a hot game from the word go. There wa'n't any half-way business about Sir Peter. When he started out to drive a goalthrough my legs he whacked good and strong and often. My shins looked like a barber's pole afterwards; but I couldn't squeal then. There was no way to duck punishment but to get the ball into his territory and make him guard goal. It wa'n't such a cinch to do, either, for he was a lively old gent on his pins.
After about half an hour of that, you can bet I wished I'd stuck to the bucket game. But Sir Peter was as excited over it as a boy with a new pair of roller-skates. He wouldn't stand for any change of program, and he wouldn't stop for breathin'-spells. Rufus Rastus came out of his coop once to see what the row was all about; but when he saw us mixed up in a scrimmage for goal he says: "Good Lawd ermighty!" lets out one yell, and shuts himself up with his canned soup and copper pans. I guess Danvers thought I was draggin' his boss around by the hair; for I heard him yelp once in a while, but he couldn't get loose.
Sir Peter began to leak all over his head, and his gray hair got mussed up, and his eyes was bulgin' out; but I couldn't get him switched to anything else. Not much! Shinny was a new game to him and he was stuck on it. "Whee-yee!" he'd yell, and swing that crooked-handled cane, and bang would go a fancy gas globe into a millionpieces. But a little thing like that didn't feaze him. He was out for goals, and he wasn't particular what he hit as long as the ball was kept moving.
It was a hot pace he set, all right. Every time he swung I had to jump two feet high, or else get it on the shins. And say! I jumped when I could. I'd have given a sable-lined overcoat for a pair of leg-guards just about then; and if I could have had that young bug-ward doctor to myself for about ten minutes—well, he'd have learned something they didn't tell him at Bellevue.
Course, I don't keep up reg'lar ring trainin' these days; but I'm generally fit for ten rounds or so any old time. I thought I was in good trim then, until that dippy old snoozer had rushed me for about twenty-five goals. Then I began to breathe hard and wish someone would ring the gong on him. There was no counting on when Mr. Gordon would show up; but his footsteps wouldn't have made me sad. I've let myself in for some jay stunts in my time; but this gettin' tangled up with a bad dream that had come true—well, that was the limit. And I'd started out to do something real cute. You could have bought me for a bunch of pink trading stamps.
And just as I was wondering if this Bloomingdale séance was to go on all day, Sir Peter gives out like a busted mainspring, slumps all over the floor, andlays as limp as if his jaw had connected with a pile-driver. For a minute or so I was scared clear down to my toe-nails; but after I'd sluiced him with ice-water and worked over him a little, he came back to the boards. He was groggy, and I reckon things was loopin' the loops when he looked at 'em; but his blood pump was doing business again, and I knew he'd feel better pretty soon.
I helped him up on the bucket, that being handiest, and threw a three-finger slug of rye into him, and then he began to take an inventory of things in general, kind of slow and dignified. He looks at the broken glass on the car carpet, at the chairs turned bottom up, at me in my hard-work costume, and at his own rig.
"Really, you know, really—I—I don't quite understand," he says. "Where—what—"
"Oh, you're ahead," says I. "I wouldn't swear to the score; but it's your odds."
This didn't seem to satisfy him, though. He kept on lookin' around, as though he'd lost something. I guessed he was hunting for that blasted cane.
"See here," says I. "You get the decision, and there ain't goin' to be any encore. I've retired. I've had enough of that game to last me until I'm as old as you are, which won't be fortwo or three seasons on. If you're dead anxious for more, you wait until Mr. Gordon comes back and challenge him. He's a sport."
But Sir Peter seemed to be clear off the alley. "My good man," says he, "I—I don't follow you at all. Will you please tell me where I am?"
Now say, how was I to know where he thought he was? What was the name of that place—Briskett Arms? I didn't want to chance it.
"This is the same old stand," says I, "right where you started an hour ago."
"But," says he—"but Lord Winchester?"
"He's due on the next trolley," says I. "Had to stop off at the gun-factory, you know."
Ever try to tear off a lot of extemporaneous lies, twenty to the minute? It's no pipe. Worse than being on the stand at an insurance third degree. I couldn't even refuse to answer on advice of counsel, and in no time at all he had me twisted up into a bow-knot.
"Young man," says he, "I think you're prevaricating."
"I'm doin' me best," says I; "but let's cut that out. P'raps you'd feel better if you wore the bucket awhile."
"Bucket?" says he. And I'll be put on the buzzer if he didn't throw the bluff that he'd never had the thing on his head.
"Oh, well," says I, "you've got a right to lie some if you want to. It's your turn, anyway. But let me swab you off a little."
He didn't kick on that, and I was gettin' busy with warm water and towels when the door opens, and in drifts Mr. Gordon with three well-fed gents behind him.
"Great cats!" says he, throwin' up both hands. "Shorty, what in blazes has happened?"
"Nothin' much," says I. "We've been playin' a little shinny."
"Shinny?" says he, just as though it was something I'd invented.
"Sure," says I. "And Sir Peter won out. As a shinny player he's a bird."
Then the three other ducks swarms in, and the way they powwows around there for a few minutes was enough to make a curtain scene for a Third avenue melodrama.
Mr. Gordon calmed 'em down though after a bit, and then I got a chance. I was a little riled by that time, I guess. I offered to tie pillows on both hands and take 'em all three at once, kickin' allowed.
"Oh, come, Shorty," says Mr. Gordon. "These gentlemen have been a little hasty. They don't understand, and they're great friends of Sir Peter. This is the British Ambassador, Lord Winchester,and these are his two secretaries. Now, what about this shinny?"
"It was a stem-winder," says I. "Sir Peter was off side most of the time; but I don't carry no grouch for that."
Then I told 'em how I'd done it to keep him off the tracks, and how he got so warmed up he couldn't stop until he ran out of steam. They were polite enough after that. We shook hands all round, and I went in and resurrected Danvers, and they got Sir Peter fixed up so that he was fit to go in a cab, and the whole bunch clears out.
In about an hour Mr. Gordon comes back. He wears one of the won't-come-off kind, and steps like he was feelin' good all over. "Professor," says he, "you needn't be surprised at getting a medal of honor from the British Government. You seem to have cured Sir Peter of the bucket habit."
"We're quits, then," says I. "He's cured me of wanting to play shinny. Say, did you find out who the old snoozer was, anyway?"
"The old snoozer," says he, "is the crack financial expert of England, and a big gun generally. He'd been over here looking into our railroads, and when he gets back he's to make a report that will be accepted as law and gospel in every capital of Europe. It was while hewas working on that job that his brain took a vacation; and it was your shinny game, the doctors say, that saved him from the insane asylum. You seem to have brought him back to his senses."
"He's welcome," says I; "but I wish the British Government would ante up a bottle of spavin-cure. Look at that shin."
"We'll make 'em pay for that shin," says he, with a kind of it's-coming-to-us grin. "And by the way, Shorty; those few after-dinner remarks that Sir Peter made about his report—you could forget about hearing 'em, couldn't you?"
"I can forget everything but the bucket," says I.
"Good," says Mr. Gordon. "It—it's a private matter for a while."
We took a hansom ride around town until the noon limited was ready to pull out. Never saw a car ride do a man so much good as that one back to New York seemed to do Mr. Gordon. He was as pleased with himself as if he was a red apple on the top branch.
It was a couple of weeks, too, before I knew why. He let it out one day after we'd had our little kaffee klatch with the gloves. Seems that hearing Sir Peter tell what he was goin' to report about American railroads was just like givin' Gordon an owner's tip on a handicap winner;and Pyramid don't need to be hit on the head with a maul, either. Near as I can get it, he worked that inside information for all it was worth and there's a bunch down around Broad street that don't know just what hit 'em yet.
Me? Little Rollo? Oh, I'm satisfied. With what I got out of that trip I could buy enough shin salve to cure up all the bruises in New York. That's on the foot rule, too.
CHAPTER V
It was that little excursion with Mr. Gordon that puts me up to sendin' over to Williamsburg after Swifty Joe Gallagher, and signin' him as my first assistant. Thinks I; if I'm liable to go strollin' off like that any more, I've got to have someone that'll keep the joint open while I'm gone. I didn't pick Swifty for his looks, nor for his mammoth intellect. But he's as straight as a string, and he'll mind like a setter dog.
Well, say, it was lucky I got him just as I did. I hadn't much more'n broke him in before I runs up against this new one. Understand, I ain't no fad chaser. I don't pine for the sporting-extra life, with a new red-ink stunt for every leaf on the calendar-pad. I got me studio here, an' me real-money reg'lars that keeps the shop runnin', and a few of the boys to drop around now and then; so I'm willing to let it go at that. Course, though, I ain't no side-stepper. I takes what's comin' an' tries to look pleasant.
But this little hot-foot act with Rajah and Pinckney had me dizzy for a few rounds, sure as ever. And I wouldn't thought it of Pinckney. Why, when he first shows up here I says to myself:"Next floor, Reginald, for the manicure." He was one of that kind: slim, white-livered, feather-weight style of chap—looked like he'd been trainin' on Welch rabbits and Egyptian cigarettes at the club for about a year.
"Is this Professor McCabe?" says he.
"You win," says I. "What'll it be? Me class in crochet ain't begun yet."
He kind of looked me over steady like, and then he passes out a card which says as how he was Lionel Pinckney Ogden Bruce.
"Do I have my choice?" says I. "Cause if I do I nips onto Pinckney—it's cute. Well, Pinckney, what's doing?"
He drapes himself on a chair, gets his little silver-headed stick balanced just so between his knees, pulls his trousers up to high-water mark, and takes an inventory of me from the mat up. And say! when he got through I felt as though he knew it all, from how much I'd weigh in at to where I had my laundry done. Yes, Pinckney had a full set of eyes. They were black; not just ordinary black, same's a hole in a hat, but shiny an' sparklin', like patent leathers in the sun. If it hadn't been for them eyes you might have thought he was one of the eight-day kind that was just about to run down. I ought to have got next to Pinckney's model, just by his lamps; butI didn't. I'm learnin', though, and if I last long enough I'll be a wise guy some day.
Well, when Pinckney finishes his census of me he says: "Professor, I wish to take a private course, or whatever you call it. I would like to engage your exclusive services for about three weeks."
"Chic, chic!" says I. "Things like that come high, young man."
Pinckney digs up a sweet little check-book, unlimbers a fountain-pen, and asks: "How much, please?"
"Seein' as this is the slack season with me, I'll make it fifty per," says I.
"Hour or day?" says he.
Maybe I was breathin' a bit hard, but I says careless like: "Oh, call it fifty a day and expenses."
Business with the pen. "That's for the first week," says Pinckney, and I see he'd reckoned in Sunday and all.
"When can you come on?" says I.
"I'll begin now, if you don't mind," says he.
Then it was up to me; so I goes to work. Inside of ten minutes I had a fair notion of how Pinckney was put up. He wasn't as skimpy as he'd looked from the outside, but I saw that it wouldn't be safe to try the mitts: I might forget and put alittle steam into the punch—then it would be a case of sweepin' up the pieces.
"Hold that out," says I, chuckin' him the shot-bag.
He put it out; but all there was in him was bracin' that arm.
"What you need," says I, "is a little easy track-work in the open, plenty of cold water before breakfast, and sleep in ten-hour doses."
"I couldn't sleep five hours at a stretch, much less ten," says he.
"We'll take something for that," says I.
We gets together a couple suits of running-togs, sweaters, towels and things, and goes downstairs where Pinckney has a big plum-colored homicide wagon waitin' for him.
"Tell Goggles to point for Jerome-ave.," says I. "There's a track out there we can use."
On the way up Pinckney lets loose a hint or two that gives me an outline map of his particular case. He hadn't been hittin' up any real paresis pace, so far as I could make out. He'd just been trying to keep even with the coupons and dividends that the old man had left him, burnin' it as it came in, and he'd run out of matches. Guess there was a bunch of millinery somewhere in the background too, for he was anxious about how he'd feel around Horse-Show time. Maybe Pinckney had made hisplans to be more or less agreeable about then; but when he got a kinetoscope picture of himself in a sanitarium he had a scare thrown into him. Next some one gives him a tip on the Physical Culture Studio and he pikes for Shorty McCabe.
Well, I've trained a good many kinds, but I'd never tried to pump red corpuscles into an amateur Romeo before. There was the three-fifty, though, and I sails in.
"Head up now, elbows in, weight on your toes, an' we're off in a bunch!" says I. "Steady there, take it easy! This ain't no hundred-yard sprint; this is a mile performance. There, that's better! Dog-trot it to the three-quarters, and if your cork ain't pulled by then you can spurt under the wire."
But Pinckney had lost all his ambition before we'd got half round. At the finish he was breathin' more air than his wind-tanks had known in months.
"Now for the second lap," says I.
"What? Around that fence again?" says Pinckney. "Why, I saw all there was to see last time. Can't we try a new one?"
"Do you think mile tracks come in clusters?" says I.
"Why not just run up the road?" asks Pinckney.
"The road it is," says I.
We fixed it up that Goggles was to follow alongwith the goose-cart and honk-honk the quarters to us as he read 'em on his speed-clock. We were three miles nearer Albany when we quit, and Pinckney was leakin' like a squeezed sponge.
"Throw her wide open and pull up at the nearest road-house," says I to Goggles.
He found one before I'd got all the wraps on Pinckney, and in no time at all we were under the shower. There was less of that marble-slab look about Pinckney when he began to harness up again. He thought he could eat a little something, too. I stood over the block while the man cut that three-inch hunk from the top of the round, and then I made a mortal enemy of the cook by jugglin' the broiler myself. But Pinckney did more than nibble. After that he wanted to turn in. Sleep? I had to lift him out at four G. M. The water-cure woke him, though. He tried to beg off on the last few glasses, but I made him down 'em. Then we starts towards Boston, Goggles behind, and Pinckney discovers the first sunrise he's seen for years.
Well, that's the way we went perambulatin' up into the pie-belt. First we'd jog a few miles, then hop aboard the whiz-wagon and spurt for running water. We didn't travel on any schedule or try to make any dates. Half the time we didn't know where we were, and didn't care. Whenbath-tubs got scarce we'd hunt for a pond or a creek in the woods. In one of the side-hampers on the car I found a quick-lunch outfit, so I gets me a broiler, lays in round steak and rye bread, and twice a day I does the hobo act over a roadside fire. That tickled Pinckney to death. Nights we'd strike any place where they had beds to let. Pinckney didn't punch the mattress or turn up his nose at the quilt patterns. When it came dark he was glad enough to crawl anywhere.
Now this was all to the good. Never saw quite so much picnic weather rattled out of the box all at one throw. And the work didn't break your back. Why, it was like bein' laid off for a vacation on double pay—until Rajah butted in and began to mix things.
We'd pulled into some little town or other up in Connecticut soon after sun-up, lookin' for soft boiled eggs, when a couple of real gents in last-year ulsters pipes us off and saunters up to the car. They spots Pinckney for the cash-carrier and makes the play at him.
It was a hard-luck symposium, of course; but there was more to it than just a panhandle touch. They were all there was left of the Imperial Consolidated Circus and Roman Menagerie. They had lost their top and benches in a fire, deputy-sheriffs had nabbed the wagons and horses, the companywas hoofing back to Broadway, and all they had left was Rajah. Would the honorable gentleman come and take a squint at Rajah?
For why? Well, it was this way: They hated to do it, Rajah being an old friend, just like one of the family, you might say, but there wasn't anything else. They'd just got to hock Rajah to put the Imperial Consolidated in commission again. The worst of it was, these here villagers didn't appreciate what gilt-edged security Rajah was. But his honor would see that the two-fifty was nothing at all to lend out for a beggarly week or so on such a magnificent specimen. Why, Rajah was as good as real estate or Government bonds. As for selling him, ten thousand wouldn't be a temptation. Would the gentlemen just step around to the stable?
It was then I began to put up the odds on Pinckney. I got a wink from them black eyes of his, and there was the very divil an' all in 'em, with his face as straight as a crowbar.
"Certainly," says he, "we'll be happy to meet Rajah."
They had him moored to one of the floor-beams with an ox-chain around his nigh hind foot. He wasn't as big as all out doors, nor he wasn't any vest-pocket edition either. As elephants go, he wouldn't have made the welter-weight class byabout a ton. He was what I'd call just a handy size, about two bureaus high by one wide. His iv'ry stoop rails had been sawed off close to his jaw, so he didn't look any more wicked than a foldin'-bed. And his eyes didn't have that shifty wait-till-I-get-loose look they generally does. They were kind of soft, widowy, oh-me-poor-child eyes.
"He is sad, very sad, about all this," says one of the real gents. "Know? Rajah knows almost as much as we do, sir."
Pinckney took his word for it. "I think I shall accommodate you with that loan," says he. "Come into the hotel."
Say, I didn't think you could gold-brick Pinckney as easy as that. One of the guys wrote out a receipt and Pinckney shoved it into his pocket handin' over a wad of yellow-backs. They didn't lose any time about headin' southeast, those two in the ulsterets. Then we goes back to have another look at Rajah.
"It's a wonderful thing, professor, this pride of possession," says Pinckney. "Only a few persons in the world own elephants. I am one of them. Even though it is only for a week, and he is miles away, I shall feel that I own Rajah, and it will make me glad."
Then he winks, so I knows he's just bein' gay. But Rajah didn't seem so gladsome. He wasrockin' his head back and forth, and just as we gets there out rolls a big tear, about a tumblerful.
"Can't we do something to chirk him up a bit?" says I. "He seems to take it hard, being hung up on a ticket."
"There's something the matter with this elephant," says Pinckney, taking a front view of him. "He's in pain. See if you can't find a veterinary, professor."
Yes, they said there was a horse-doctor knockin' around the country somewhere. He worked in the shingle-mill by spells, and then again in the chair-factory, or did odd jobs. A blond-haired native turned up who was sure the Doc had gone hog-killin' up to the corners. So I goes back to the stable.
"I've found out," says Pinckney. "It's toothache. He showed me. Open up, Rajah, and let the professor see. Up, up!"
Rajah was accommodatin'. He unhinged the top half of his face to give me a private view. We used a box of matches locating that punky grinder. There was a hole in it big enough to drop a pool-ball into. Talk about your chamber of horrors! Think what it must be to be as big as that and feel bad all over.
"I never worked in an open-all-night painlessshop," says I, "but I think I could do something for that if I could tap a drug store."
"Good," says Pinckney. "We passed one down the road."
They kept grindstones and stove-polish and dress-patterns there too, but they had a row of bottles in one corner.
"Gimme a roll of cotton-battin' an' a quart of oil of cloves," says I to the man.
He grinned and ripped a little ten-cent bottle of toothache drops off a card. "It may feel that way, but you'll find this plenty," says he.
"You get busy with my order," says I. "This ain't my ache, it's Rajah's, and Rajah's an elephant."
"Sho!" says he, and hands over all he had in stock. I went back on the jump. We made a wad half as big as your head, soaked it in the clove oil and rammed it down with a nail-hammer. It was thefromage, all right. And say! Ever see an elephant grin and look tickled and try to say thank you? The way he talked deaf and dumb with his trunk and shook hands with us and patted us on the back was almost as human as the way a man acts when the jury brings in "Not guilty." Inside of three minutes Rajah was that kinky he tried to do a double-shuffle and nearly wrecked the barn. It made us feel good too, andwe stood around there and threw bouquets at ourselves for what we'd done.
Then the cook came out and wanted to know should she keep right on boiling them eggs or take 'em off; so we remembers about breakfast. Callin' for a new deal on the eggs, we sent out word for 'em to fix up a tub of hot mash for Rajah and told the landlord to give our friend the best in the stable.
Rajah was fetchin' the bottom of the tub when we went out to say good-by. He stretched his trunk out after us as we went through the door. We'd climbed into the car and was just gettin' under way when we hears things smash, and looks back to see Rajah, with a section of the stable floor draggin' behind, coming after us on the gallop.
"Beat it!" says I to Goggles, and he was reachin' for the speed lever, when he sees a town constable, with a tin badge like a stove-lid, pull a brass watch on us.
"What's the limit?" shouts Pinckney.
"Ten an hour or ten dollars," says he.
"Here's your ten and costs," says Pinckney, tossing him a sawbuck. "Go ahead, François."
We jumped into that village ordinance at a forty-mile an hour clip and would have had Rajah hull down in about two minutes, but Pinckney hadto take one last look. The poor old mutt had quit after a few jumps. He had squat in the middle of the road, lifted up his trombone frontispiece and was bellowin' out his grief like a calf that has lost its mommer. Pinckney couldn't stand for that for a minute.
"I say now, we'll have to go back," says he. "That wail would haunt me for days if I didn't."
So back we goes to Rajah, and he almost stands on his head, he's so glad to see us again.
"We'll just have to slip away without his knowing it next time," says Pinckney. "Perhaps he will get over his gratitude in an hour or so."
We unhitches Rajah from the stable floor and starts back for the hotel. The landlord met us half-way.
"Don't you bring that critter near my place ag'in!" shouts he. "Take him away before he tears the house down."
An' no jollyin' nor green money would change that hayseed's mind. The whole population was with him too. While we were jawin' about it, along comes the town marshal with some kind of injunction warnin' us to remove Rajah, the same bein' a menace to life and property.
There wa'n't nothing for it but to sneak. We moves out of that burg at half speed, with oldRajah paddin' close behind, his trunk restin' affectionately on the tonneau-back and a kind of satisfied right-to-home look in them little eyes of his. Made me feel like a pair of yellow shoes at a dance, but Pinckney seemed to think there was something funny about it. "'And over the hills and far away the happy Princess followed him,' as Tennyson puts it," says he.
"Tennyson was dead onto his job," says I. "But when do we annex the steam calliope and the boys in red coats with banners? We ought to have the rest of the grand forenoon parade, or else shake Rajah."
"Oh, perhaps we can find quarters for him in the next town, where he hasn't disgraced himself," says Pinckney.
Pinckney hadn't counted on the telephone, though. A posse with shot-guns and bench-warrants met us a mile out from the next place and shooed us away. They'd heard that Rajah was a man-killer and they had brought along a pound of arsenic to feed him. After they'd been coaxed from behind their barricade, though, and had seen what a gentle, confidin' beast Rajah really was, they compromised by letting us take a road that led into the next county.
"This is gettin' sultry," says I as we goes on the side-track.
"I am enjoying it," says Pinckney. "Now let's have some road work."
Say, you ought to have seen that procession. First comes me and Pinckney, in running gear; then Rajah, hoofing along at our heels, as joyous as a chowder party; and after him Goggles, with the benzine wagon. Seems to me I've heard yarns about how grateful dumb beasts could be to folks that had done 'em a good turn, but Rajah's act made them tales seem like sarsaparilla ads. He was chock full of gratitude. He was nutty over it. Seemed like he couldn't think of anything else but that wholesale toothache of his and how he'd got shut of it. He just adopted us on the spot. Whenever we stopped he'd hang around and look us over, kind of admirin', and we couldn't move a step but he was there, flappin' his big ears and swingin' his trunk, just as though he was sayin': "Whoope-e-e, me fellers! You're the real persimmons, you are."
We couldn't find a hotel where they'd take us in that night, so we had to bribe a farmer to let us use his spare bed rooms. We tethered Rajah to a big apple-tree just under our windows to keep him quiet, and let him browse on a Rose of Sharon bush. He only ripped off the rain pipe and trod a flower-bed as hard as a paved court.
At breakfast Pinckney remarks, sort of soothin':
"We might as well enjoy Rajah's society while we have it. I suppose those circus men will be after him in a few days."
Then he remembers that receipt and pulls it out. I could see something was queer by the way he screwed up his mouth. He tosses the paper over to me. Say! do you know what them two ulsteret guys had done? They'd given Pinckney a bill of sale, makin' over all rights, privileges and good-will entire.
"You're it," says I.
"So it seems," says Pinckney. "But I hardly know whether I've got Rajah or Rajah's got me."
"If I owned something I didn't want," says I, "seems to me I'd sell it. There must be other come-ons."
"We will sell him," says Pinckney.
Well, we tried. For three or four days we didn't do anything else; and say, when I think of them days they seem like a mince-pie dream. We did our handsomest to make those Nutmeggers believe that they needed Rajah in their business, that he would be handy to have around the place. But they couldn't see it. We argued with about fifty horny-handed plow-pushers, showin' 'em how Rajah could pull more'n a string of oxen a block long, and could be let out for stump-digging in summer, or as a snow-plough in winter. Wetried liverymen, storekeepers, summer cottagers; but the nearest we came to making a sale was to a brewer who'd just built a new house with red and yellow fancy woodwork all over the front of it. He thought Rajah might do for a lawn ornament and make himself useful as a fountain during dry spells, but when he noticed that Rajah didn't have any tusks he said it was all off. He knew where he could buy a whole cast-iron menagerie, with all the frills thrown in, at half the price.
And we wa'n't holding Rajah at any swell figure. He was on the bargain counter when the sale began. Every day was a fifty-per-cent. clearance with us. We were closing out our line of elephants on account of retiring from business, and Rajah was a remnant.
But they wouldn't buy. Generally they threatened to set the dogs on us. It was worse than trying to sell a cargo of fur overcoats in Panama. In time it began to leak through into our heads that Rajah wa'n't negotiable. Didn't seem to trouble him any. He was just as glad to be with us as at first, followed us around like a pet poodle, and got away with his bale of hay as regular as a Rialto hamfatter raidin' the free lunch.
"Is it a life sentence, Pinckney?" says I. "Is this twin foster-brother act to a mislaid elephantto be a continuous performance? If it is we'd better hit the circuit regular and draw our dough on salary day. For me, I'm sick of havin' folks act like we was a quarantine station. Let's anchor Rajah to something solid and skiddoo."
But Pinckney couldn't stand it to think of Rajah being left to suffer. He was gettin' kind of sore on the business, just the same. Then he plucks a thought. We wires to a friend of his in Newport to run down to the big circus headquarters and jolly them into sending an elephant-trainer up to us.
"A trainer will know how to coax Rajah off," says he, "and perhaps he will take him as a gift."
"It's easy money," says I.
But it wasn't. That duck at Newport sends back a message that covers four sheets of yellow paper, tellin' how glad he was to get track of Pinckney again and how he must come down right away. Oh, they wanted Pinckney bad! It was like the tap of the bell for a twenty-round go with the referee missin'. Seems that Mrs. Jerry Toynbee was tryin' to pull off one of those back-yard affairs that win newspaper space—some kind of a fool amateur circus—and they'd got to have Pinckney there to manage it or the thing would fush. As for the elephant-trainer, he'd forgot that.
"By Jove!" says Pinckney, real sassy like.
"That's drawin' it mild," says I. "Would you like the loan of a few able-bodied cuss-words?"
"But I have an idea," says Pinckney.
"Handcuff it," says I; "it's a case of breakin' and enterin'."
But he didn't have so much loft-room to let, after all. His first move was to hunt up a railroad station and charter a box-car. We carpets it with hay, has a man knock together a couple of high bunks in one end, and throws in some new horse-blankets.
"Now," says Pinckney, "you and I and Rajah will start for Newport on the night freight."
"Have you asked Rajah?" says I.
But Rajah knew all about riding in box-cars. He walked up the plank after us just like we was a pair of Noahs. Goggles was sent off over the road with the cart, all by his lonesome.
I've traveled a good deal with real sports, and once I came back from St. Louis with the delegates to a national convention, but this was my first trip in an animal car. It wasn't so bad, though, and it was all over by daylight next morning. There wasn't anyone in sight but milkmen and bakers' boys as we drove down Bellevue-ave., with Rajah grippin' the rear axle of our cab. I don't know how he felt about buttin' into Newport society at thattime of day, but I looked for a cop to pinch us as second-story men.
We fetches up at the swellest kind of a ranch you ever saw, iron gates to it like a storage warehouse, and behind that trees and bushes and lawn, like a slice out of Central Park. Pinckney wakes up the lodge-keeper and after he lets down the bars we pikes around to the stable. It looked more like an Episcopal church than a stable, and we didn't find any horses inside, anyway, only seven different kinds of gasoline carts. The stable-hands all seemed to know Pinckney and to be proud of it, but they shied some at Rajah and me.
"This is part of a little affair I'm managing for Mrs. Toynbee," says Pinckney. "Professor McCabe and Rajah will stay here for a day or two, strictlyin cog., you know."
What Pinckney says seemed to be rules and regulations there, so Rajah and I got the glad hand after that. And for a stable visit it was the best that ever happened. I've stopped at lots of two-dollar houses that would have looked like Bowery lodgings alongside of that stable. And one of the boys thought he could handle the mitts some. Yes, thatin cog.business wasn't so worse, at fifty per.
All this time Pinckney was as busy as the man at the ticket window, only droppin' in once ortwice after dark to see if Rajah was stayin' good. The show was being knocked into shape and Pinckney was master of ceremonies. I knew he was goin' to work Rajah in somehow; but he didn't have any time to put me next and I never tumbled until he'd sprung the trick.
About the third day things began to hum around the Toynbee place. A gang of tentmen came with a round top and put it up. They strung a lot of side-show banners too, and built lemonade-stands in the shrubbery. If it hadn't been for the Johnnie boys in hot clothes strollin' around you'd thought a real one-ring wagon-show had struck town. But say, that bunch of clowns and bum bareback riders had papas who could have given 'em a Forepaugh outfit every birthday.
Early next morning I got the tip from Pinckney to sneak Rajah out of the stable and over into the dressin'-tent. The way that old chap's eyes glistened when he saw the banners and things was a wonder. He sure did know a heap, that Rajah. He was as excited and anxious as a new chorus girl at a fall opening; but when I gave him the word he held himself in.
Just before the grand entry I got a peek at the house, and it was a swell mob: same folks that you'll see at the Horse Show, only there wasn't no dollar-a-head push to rubber at 'em, as theywa'n't on exhibition. They was just out for fun, and I guess they know how to have it, seein' that's their steady job.
Number four on the programme was put down as: "Mr. Lionel Pinckney Ogden Bruce, with his wonderfully life-like elephant Rajah." I heard the barker givin' his song an' dance about the act, and he got a great hand. Then Pinckney goes on and the crowd howls.
You see, he'd had a loose canvas suit, like pajamas, made for Rajah, and stuffed out with straw. It was painted to look something like elephant hide, but some of the straw had been left sticking through the seams. With Rajah sewed inside of this, he looked like a rank imitation of himself.
"Fake, fake!" they yells at 'em as they showed up. "Who's playing the hind legs, Lionel?" and a lot of things like that. They threw peanuts and apples at Rajah, and generally enjoyed themselves.
Then all of a sudden Pinckney pulls the puckering string, yanks off the padding, and out walks old Rajah as chipper as Billy Jerome. Fetch 'em? Well, say! You've seen a gang of school-kids when the sleight-of-hand man makes a pass over the egg in the hat and pulls out a live rabbit? These folks acted the same way. They howled, theyhee-hawed, they jumped up and down on the seats.
They'd been lookin' for the same old elephant with two men inside, the good old chestnut that they'd been tryin' to laugh over for years, and when this philopena was sprung on 'em they were as tickled as a baby with a jack-in-the-box. It wouldn't have got more'n one laugh out of a crowd of every-day folks, but that swell mob just went wild over it. It was a new stunt, done special for them by one of their own crowd.
Was Pinckney it? Why, he was the whole show! They kept him and Rajah in the ring for half an hour, and they let loose every time Rajah lifted his trunk or napped his ears. When he got 'em quiet Pinckney made a speech. He said he was happy to say that the grand door prize, as announced on the hand-bills, had been drawn by Mrs. Jeremiah Toynbee, and that Rajah was the prize. Would she take it with her, or have it sent?
You've heard of Mrs. Jerry. She's a real sport, she is. She's the one that stirred up all that fuss by takin' her tame panther down to Bailey's Beach with her. And Mrs. Jerry wasn't goin' back on her reputation or missin' any two-page ads. in the papers.
"You may send him, please," says Mrs. Jerry.
Maybe they thought that was all a part ofPinckney's fake. They didn't know how hard we'd tried to unload Rajah. We didn't do any lingerin' around. While the show was goin' on we sneaks out of the back of the tent with Rajah and across to the stable. The rest was easy. He'd got so used to seein' me there that I reckon he'd sized it up for my regular hang-out, so when we ties him up fast and slides out easy, one at a time, he never mistrusts.
"Professor," says Pinckney, "it seems to me that this is an excellent opportunity for us to go away."
"It's all of that," says I, "and let's make it a quick shift."
We did. Goggles shook us up some on the way down, but we hit Broadway in time for breakfast.