CHAPTER VI
You didn't happen to see Pinckney at the last Horse Show, did you? Well, you'd never known him for the same ambulance fare that dropped into the Studio that day. He's been on the 'rock for two months now, and his nerves are as steady as a truck horse. There's more meat on him, too, than there was. I don't have to have a dustpan ready, in case I should jolt him one.
But say, next time any two-by-four chappy floats in here for a private course, I gets plans and specifications before I takes him on. No more Rajah business in mine. See?
There's another thing, too. I'm thinkin' of hirin' a husky boy with a club to do the turnkey act for me. Or maybe I could get out an injunction against myself to keep me from leavin' home. What I need is a life sentence to stay in little old New York. It's the only place where things happen reg'lar and sensible. If you see rocks flyin' round in the air, or a new building doin' the hoochee-coochee an' sheddin' its cornices, or manhole covers poppin' off, you know just what's up—nothing but a little stick dynamite handled careless, or some mislaid gas touched off by a plumber.
But the minute I lets some one lead me across aferry, or beyond the Bronx, the event card is on the blink, and I'm a bunky-doodle boy. Long's I don't get more'n a mile from Forty-Second-st., I'm Professor McCabe, and the cops pass me the time of day. Outside of that I'm a stray, and anyone that gets the fit ties a can to me.
It was my mix-up with that Blenmont aggregation that stirs me up. Pinckney was at the bottom of this, too. Course, I can't register any kick; for when it comes to doing the hair-trigger friendship act, Pinckney's the real skookum preferred. But this was once when he slipped me a blank.
Looked like bein' fed with a spoon, too, at the start. All I had to do was to take the one-thirty-six out to Blenmont, put in an hour with Jarvis, catch the three-fifty back, and charge anything I had the front to name. What's more, I kind of cottoned to Jarvis, from the drop of the hat.
He was waitin' at the station for me, with a high-wheeled cart, and a couple of gingery circus horses hitched one in front of the other like two links of wienerwurst. They were tryin' to play leap-frog as the train comes in; but it didn't seem to worry Jarvis any more'n if he was drivin' a pair of mail-wagon plugs.
One of those big pink-and-white chaps, Jarvis was, with nice blue eyes and ashes-of-roses hair.There was a lot of him, and it was well placed. He had sort of a soothing, easy way of talking, too, like a church organ with the soft pedal on.
Me and Jarvis got acquainted right away. He said he didn't care much about the physical-culture game—didn't exactly need it, and he'd been through all that before, anyway—but, mother and sister wanted him to take it up again, and Pinckney'd told what a crackerjack I was; so he thought he might as well go in for it. He said he'd had a little hole fixed up where one could do that sort of thing, y'know, and he hoped I wouldn't find it such a beastly bore, after all.
Oh, he was a gent, Mr. Jarvis. But what got me was the careless way he juggled the reins over those two bob-tailed nags that was doin' a ragtime runaway, and him usin' only three fingers, and touchin' 'em up with the whip. It was his lucky day, though, and we got there without an ambulance.
It was somethin' of a place to get to, yes—about a hundred and 'steen rooms and bath, I should say, with a back yard that must have slopped over into Connecticut some. That's what you get by havin' a grandpop who put his thumb-print on every dollar that came his way.
I guess Jarvis was used to livin' in a place like that, though. He didn't stop to tell what anythingcost, or show off any of the bric-à-brac. He just led the way through seven or eight parlors and palm-rooms, until we fetched up in the hole he'd fixed up to exercise in. It was about three times as big as the Studio here, and if there was anything missing from the outfit I couldn't have told what it was—flyin'-rings, bars, rowin'-machine, punchin'-bags, dumb-bells—say! with a secretary and a few wall mottos, there was the makin's of a Y. M. C. A. branch right on the ground. Then there was dressin'-rooms, a shower bath, and a tiled plunge tank like they have in these Turkish places.
"Lucky you don't go in strong for exercise," says I. "If you did, I s'pose you'd fix up Madison Square Garden?"
"That architect was an ass," says Jarvis; "but mother told him to go ahead. Fancy he thought I was a Sandow, you know."
Well, we gets into our gym. clothes, picks out a set of kid pillows, and had just stepped out on the rubber for a little warmin' up, when in sails a fluff delegation. There was a fat old one, that looked as though she might be mother; a slim baby-eyed one, that any piker would have played for sister; and another, that I couldn't place at all. She wasn't a Fifth-ave. girl—you could tell that by the way she wore her hair bunched down on the nape of her neck—but it was a cinch she wasn't any poor relation.
Mother, sister, and Lady Evelyn.Mother, sister, and Lady Evelyn.
"Lost their way goin' to the matinée, eh?" says I.
Jarvis, he gets pink clear down to his collarbone. "I beg pardon, professor," says he. "It's only mother and the girls. I'll send them off."
"That's right; shoo 'em," says I.
But mother wouldn't shoo any more'n a trolley-car. "Now, don't be silly about it, Jarvis, dear," says she. "You know how Lady Evelyn dotes on athletics, and how your sister and I do, too. So we're just going to stay and watch you."
"Oh, come, mother," says Jarvis; "it isn't just the thing, you know."
"Ask Lady Evelyn," says mother. "Why, she's one of the patronesses of the Oldwich Cricket Club, and pours tea for the young men at their games. Now, go ahead, Jarvis; there's a dear."
He looks at me for a tip, and that gives him a hunch. "But the professor—" says he.
"Oh, Professor McCabe doesn't mind us a bit; do you now, professor?" says sister, buttin' in, real coy and giddy.
"I can stand it if you can," says I, and she tips me a goo-goo smile that was all to the candied violets.
"There!" says the mother. "Now go right onas though we were not here at all. But remember not to be too rough, Jarvis, dear."
I grins at that, and Jarvis dear looks foolisher than ever. But the ladies had settled themselves in front seats, and there didn't seem to be anything to do but to play marbles or quit an' go home. And say, I don't know which looked more like a stage-hand caught in front of the drop, Jarvis or me. We went through some kind of motions, though, until I begins to get over bein' rattled. Then I tries to brace him up.
"Little faster with that right counter there," says I. "And block more with your elbow. Ah, you're wide open—see?" and I taps him once or twice. "Now look out for this left lead to the face. Come, use that right a little. 'Tain't in a sling, is it? Foot-work, now. You side-step like a truck-horse. There, that's the article. Now let 'em come—block, counter, guard!"
You see, I was doin' my best to work up a little excitement and get Jarvis to forget the audience; but it wasn't much use. About all we did was to walk around and pat each other like a pair of kittens. There'd been as much exercise in passin' the plate at church.
Mother thought it was lovely, though, and sister had that gushy look in her eyes that her kind wears after they've been to see Maude Adams.Lady Evelyn, though, didn't seem to be struck silly by our performance. She acted as though someone had been tryin' to sell her a gold brick. Her nose was up in the air, and she'd turned a shoulder to us, like she was wonderin' how long it would be before the next act was put on. Couldn't blame her, either. That was the weakest imitation of a sparrin' bout I ever stood up in.
But there was no stirrin' Jarvis. He'd got stage-fright, or cold feet, or something of the kind. It wa'n't that he didn't know how, for he had all the tags of a good amateur about his moves; but somehow he'd been queered. So, as soon as we can, we quits. Then sister gets her chance to gush. She rushes to the front and turns the baby stare on me like I was all the goods.
"Oh, it was just too sweet for anything!" says she. "Do you know, professor, I've always wanted to see a real boxing-match; but Jarvis would never let me before. He's told me horrid stories about how brutal they were. Now I know they're nothing of the sort. I shall come every time you and Jarvis have one, and so will Lady Evelyn. You didn't think it was brutal, did you, Evelyn?"
Lady Evelyn humped her eyebrows and gave me one look. "No," says she, "I shouldn't call itbrutal, exactly," and then she swallows a polite, society snicker in a way that made me mad from the ground up. Jarvis didn't lose any of that, either. I got a glimpse of him turnin' automobile red, and tryin' to choke himself with his tongue.
"It's something like the wand drill we used to do at college," says sister. "Don't you like the wand drill, professor?"
"When it ain't done too rough, I'm dead stuck on it," says I.
"I just knew you didn't like rough games," says she. "You don't look as though you would, you know."
"That's right," say I.
"Jarvis says that once you knocked out three men in one evening; but I'm sure you weren't rude about it," she gurgles.
"And that's no pipe, either," says I. "I wouldn't be rude for money."
"What is a knockout, anyway?" says she.
"Why," says I, "it's just pushin' a feller around the platform until he's too dizzy to stand up."
"What fun!" says sister.
We makes a break for the dressin'-room about then, and the delegation clears out. On the way back to the station Jarvis apologizes seven different ways, and ends up by givin' me the cue to the whole game.
Seems that mother's steady job in life was to get him married off to some one that suited her for a daughter-in-law. She'd been at it for five or six years; but Jarvis had always blocked her moves, until Lady Evelyn shows up. I guessed that he'd picked her out himself, and was gettin' along fine, when mother begins to mix in and arrange things. Evelyn shies at that, and commences to hand Jarvis the frappéd smile. This little visit to the sparrin' exhibition the old lady had planned for Evelyn's special benefit.
"But hang it all!" says Jarvis, "I couldn't stand up there and show off, like a Sunday-school boy spouting a piece. Made me feel like a silly ass, you know."
"You looked the part," says I. "About one more of those stunts, and Lady Evelyn'll want to adopt the two of us."
"No more," says he. "She must think I'm a milksop. Why, she's got brothers that are officers in the British army, fellows who get themselves shot, and win medals, and all that sort of thing."
Well, I was sorry for Jarvis; for the girl was a good looker, all right, and they'd have mated up fine. But I'm noschatchen. Physical culture's my game, an' I ain't takin' on no marriage bureau as a side line. So we shook hands and called it acanceled contract. Then Jarvis jerks those circus horses out of a bow-knot and rounds the corner on one wheel, while I climbs aboard the choo-choo cars and gets back near Broadway.
I wasn't lookin' to run across Jarvis again, seein' as how me and him has our own particular sets; but 'twasn't more'n three days before he shows up at the Studio. He was lookin' down an' out, too.
"Dropped in for a real rough game of pussy-wants-a-corner," says I, "or shall we make it ring-around-the-rosy?"
"I say, now, Shorty," says he, "if you'd had it rubbed in as hard as I have, you'd let up."
"Heard from Lady Evelyn?" says I.
He kind of groaned and fell into a chair. "I tried to tell her about it," says he; "but she wouldn't listen to a word. She only asked if you were a professor of dancing."
"Hully chee!" says I. "Say, you tell her from me that I'm a cloak-model, an' proud of it. Dancin'-master, eh? Do you stand for a josh like that?"
"Hang me if I do!" says he, jumpin' up and measurin' off three-foot steps across the floor. "The Lady Evelyn's going back to England in a few days, but before she leaves I want her to have a chance to—well, to see that I'm not the sortshe thinks I am. And I want you to help me out, professor."
"Ah, say, you got the wrong transfer," says I. "I'm nothin' but a dub at anything like that. What you want is to get Clyde Fitch to build you a nice little one-act scene where you can play leadin' gent to her leadin' lady."
"You're mistaken, Shorty," says he. "I'm not putting up a game. No heroics for me. I'm just a plain, ordinary chump, and willing to let it go at that. But I'm no softy, and she's got to know it. There's another thing: mother and sister have carried this athletic nonsense about far enough. They'd like to exhibit me to all the fool women they know, as a kind of modern Hercules, and I'm sick of it. Now, I've got a plan that ought to cure 'em of that."
For Jarvis, it wa'n't so slow. Say, he ain't half so much asleep as he looks. His proposition is to spring the real thing on 'em, a five-round go for keeps, with ring-weight gloves, and all the trimmin's.
"They've been bothering me for more," says he. "I haven't heard anything else since you were there. And Lady Evelyn's been putting them up to it, I'll bet a hat. What do you say, professor? Wouldn't you give it to them?"
"I sure would," says I. "It's comin' to 'em.And I know of two likely Red Hook boys that's just achin' to get at each other in the ring for a fifty-dollar purse."
"No, no," says Jarvis. "I mean to be in this myself. It's—it's necessary, you know."
"Oh!" says I, looking him over kind of curious. "But see here, do you think you'd be good for five rounds?"
"I'm not quite in condition now," says he; "but there was a time—"
You know. You've seen these college-trained boxers, that think they're hittin' real hard when their punch wouldn't dent a cheese-pie.
"We'd have to fake it some," says I.
"Oh, no, that wouldn't do at all," says Jarvis. "This must be a genuine match. I'll put up ten to one, five hundred to fifty; and if I stay the five rounds I get the fifty."
"Whe-e-ew!" says I. "It'd be like takin' candy from a kid. I couldn't do it."
Jarvis, he kind of colored up at that, but he didn't go off his nut. "I beg pardon," says he; "but I have an idea, you know, that it wouldn't be so one-sided as you think."
Well, say, I've made lots of easy money off'n ideas just like that, and when it was put up to me as a personal favor to do it, I couldn't renig. It did go against the grain to play myself for a longshot,though; but Jarvis wouldn't listen to anything else, claimin' his weight and reach made it an even thing. So I takes him on, an' we bills the go for the next afternoon.
"I may have to bring up Swifty Joe for a bottle-holder," says I, "an' Swifty ain't just what you'd call parlor broke."
"All the better for that," says Jarvis. "And I'd be much obliged if you'd find another like him for my corner."
Course, there's only one Swifty. He's got a bent-in nose, an' a lop ear, an' a jaw like a hippo. He's won more bouts by scarin' his man stiff than any plug in the business. He'd been a champ long ago, if it wa'n't for a chunk of yellow in him as big as a grape fruit. No, I couldn't match up Swifty. I done the next best thing, though; I sent for Gorilla Quigley, and gets Mike Slattery to hold the watch on us.
Mike gets the hint that this was a swell joint we was goin' to; so he shows up in South Brooklyn evenin' dress—plug hat, striped shirt, and sack coat. I makes him chuck the linen for a sweater; but I couldn't separate him from the shiny top piece. The Gorilla always wears a swimmin' jersey with a celluloid dicky; so he passes muster.
Anyways, when old Knee Pants, the Blenmontbutler, sees us lined up at the front entrance, we had him pop-eyed. He was goin' to ring up the police reserves, when Mr. Jarvis comes out and passes us in.
"They're a group of forty-nine per cents.," says I; "but you said you wanted that kind."
"It's all right," says he. "I've explained to the ladies that a few of my friends interested in physical culture were coming up to-day, and that perhaps they'd better stay out; but they'll be there just the same."
He'd got 'em right, too. Just as we'd fixed the ropes, and got out the pails and towels, in they floats; mother beamin' away like a head-light, sister all fixed ready to blow bubbles, and the Lady Evelyn with her nose stickin' up in the air.
"Professor, will you do the honors?" says Jarvis to me.
And I did 'em. "Ladies," says I, "lemme put you next to some sure-fire talent. This gent with the ingrowin' Roman nose-piece is me assistant Swifty Joe Gallagher. He's just as han'some as he looks."
"Aw, cut it out!" says Swifty.
"Back under the sink with the rest of the pipes," says I, out of the side of my mouth. Then I does another duck. "And this here gooseb'ry blond in the Alice-blue jersey, is Mr. Gorilla Quigley, thatput Gans out once—all but. The other gent you may have met before, seein' as he's from one of the first families of Brooklyn—lives under the bridge. His name's Mike Slattery. Now, if you'll excuse us, we'll get busy."
As I takes my corner, I could see mother beginnin' to look worried; but sister opens a box of chocolate creams and prepares to have the time of her life. Lady Evelyn springs her lorgnette and sizes us up like we was a bunch of Buffalo Bill Indians just off the reservation.
I'd forgot to tip off Slattery that there wasn't any postprandials expected of him; so the first thing I knew he was makin' his little ring speech, just the same's if he was announcin' events at the Never Die Athletic club.
"Now gents—and ladies," says he, "this is a five-round go for a stay, between Professor Shorty McCabe, ex-light-weight champeen of the world, and another gent what goes on the cards as an unknown. It's catch weights, an' the winner pulls down the whole basket of greens. There ain't goin' to be no hittin' after the clinch, and if there's any fouls, you leave it to me. Don't come buttin' in. It's been put up to me to keep time an' referee this mix-up, and I don't want no help. You bottle-holders stay in your corners till the count's over. Now are you ready? Then go!"
There was a squeal or two when we sheds our bath-robes and steps to the middle, and I guesses that the ladies was gettin' their first view of ring clothes. But I wasn't lookin' anywhere but at Jarvis. And say, he would have made a hit anywhere. He had just paddin' enough to round him out well, and not so much as to make him look ladyfied. Course, he was a good many pounds over-weight for the job he'd tackled, but he'd have looked mighty well on a poster. Honest, it seemed a shame to have to muss him.
Jarvis wa'n't there to stand in the lime-light, though. He went right to work as though he meant business. I'd kind of figured on lettin' him have his own way for a couple of rounds, takin' it easy, an' jockeyin' him into making a showin'; but the first thing I knows he lands a right swing that near lifts me off my feet, an' Swifty sings out to me to stop my kiddin'.
"Beg pardon," says Jarvis; "but I'm after that fifty."
"If I'd had a putty jaw, you'd got it then," says I. "Here's the twin to that."
But my swipe didn't reach him by an inch, and the best I could do was to swap half-arm jolts until I'd got steadied down again. Well say, I wasn't more'n an hour findin' out that I couldn't monkey much with Jarvis. He knew how to lethis weight follow the glove, and he blocked as pretty as if he was punchin' the bag.
"You didn't learn that in no college," says I, fiddlin' for a place to plant my left.
"You're quite right," says he, and bores in like a snow-plough.
We steamed up a little in the second; but it was an even break at that, barrin' the fact that I played more for the wind, and had Jarvis breathin' fast when Slattery called quits. Gorilla Quigley was onto his job, though, an' he gives him good advice while he was wavin' the towel. I could hear him coachin' Jarvis to save his breath and make me do the rushin'.
"Don't waste no time on that cast-iron mug of his," says Gorilla. "All you gotter do is cover up an' stay the limit."
But that wa'n't Jarvis's program. He begins like a bridge car-rusher makin' for a seat, and he had me back into my corner in no time at all. We mixed it then, mixed it good and plenty. Jarvis wa'n't handin' out any love-taps, either; and I didn't have beef enough to stop a hundred-an'-eighty pound swing without feelin' the jar. I was dizzy from 'em all right; but I jumps in close an' pounds away on his ribs until he gives ground. Then I comes the Nelson crouch, and rips a few cross-overs in where they'd do the most good.
That didn't stop him, though. Pretty soon he comes in for more. Say, I never see a guy that could look pleasanter while he was passin' out hot ones. It wasn't a fightin' grin, same as Terry wears; it was just a calm, steady, business-like proposition, one of the kind that goes with a "Sorry to trouble you, but I've got to knock your block off." Now, I can grin, too, until I makes up my mind that it's time to pull the other chap's cork. But I was never up against any of this polite business before. It wins me, though. Right there I says to myself: "Jarvis, if you can keep that up for two rounds more, you're welcome to win out." It was worth the money.
And just as I gets this notion in my nut, he cuts loose with a bunch of rapid-fire jabs that had me wonderin' where I'd be if one landed just right. I ain't got it mapped out yet just how it happened; for about then the ladies let go a lot of squeals; but I remembers stoppin' a facer that showed me pin-wheels, an' then I quits fancy boxin'.
We was roughin' it all over the ring, and Swifty an' the Gorilla was yellin' things, an' Slattery was yellin' back at them, and the muss was as pretty as any ten-dollar-a-head crowd ever paid to see, when all of a sudden Jarvis misses a swing, and Ithrows all I had into an upper cut. It connected with his chin dimple like a hammer on a nut. The next thing I knows Swifty has the elbow-lock on me from behind, and Mike is standin' over Mr. Jarvis makin' the count.
Well, there wa'n't any cheerin' and shoutin'. I didn't have to shake hands with any crazy bunch, or be toted off to the dressin'-room on their shoulders. When I gets so I can look straight I sees mother keeled over in her chair, and sister fannin' her with the chocolate box. And say, I felt like a lead quarter. Next I takes a squint at Lady Evelyn. She was standin' up as stiff as a tin soldier on parade, with her eyes snappin' and her fingers clinched.
Just one of them looks was enough for me. I gets busy with a pail, and goes to work on Jarvis. He was clean out, of course, but restin' as easy as a baby. We was bringin' him round all right, when I feels a push that shoves me to one side, and in rushes Lady Evelyn. She gets one arm under his neck just as he opens his eyes with that kind of a "What's the matter now?" way they has of comin' back.
Course, it don't last long, that wizzy feelin' and there ain't any hurt to speak of afterward; but I reckon Lady Evelyn don't know much about knock-outs. The way she hugs him upyou'd thought he'd been half killed. We was all lookin' foolish and useless, I guess, when the lady turns to me and snaps out:
"Brute! I hope you're satisfied!"
Say, it wouldn't have been worse if I'd been caught robbin' a poor box. "Thank you, ma'am," says I, and fades into the background.
"Go away, all of you!" says she.
So Swifty and the other two comes taggin' along behind, and we had a little reunion in the dressin'-room.
"On the dead, now," says Slattery, "what was the foul?"
"Who's claimin' foul?" says Swifty, bristlin'.
"Why the lady gives it to Shorty straight," says he.
"Ah, go dream about it!" says Swifty. "She don't know a foul from a body wallop."
"See here," says I, "you can talk all that over while you're hoofin' it back to the station; and you're due to be on your way in just four minutes by the clock; so chuck it!"
"I ain't heard no step-lively call," says Slattery. "Besides, I likes the place."
"Well, it don't like you," says I. "Mr. Jarvis and me have had enough of your rough-house society to last us a time and a half. Now bunky-doodle!"
They was a sore-head trio for fair, after that; but when I'd paid 'em off, with a fiver extra for luck, they drops out of a window onto the lawn and pikes off like a squad of jail-breakers. I was some easier in my mind then; but I wa'n't joyful, at that.
You see, Mr. Jarvis had treated me so white, and he was such a nice decent chap, that I was feelin' mighty cut up about givin' him the quick exit right before the girl he was gone on. Sure, he'd played for it; but I could see I shouldn't have done it. Knock-outs ain't in my line any more, anyway; but to spring one right before women folks, and in a swell joint like Blenmont—say, it made me feel like a last year's straw hat on the first day of June.
"Shorty," says I, "you're a throw-back. You better quit travelin' with real gents, and commence eatin' with your knife again. Here's Mr. Jarvis gets you to help him out in a little society affair, and you overdoes it so bad he can't square himself in a hundred years. Back to the junction for yours."
Well, I was that grouchy I wouldn't look at myself in the glass. But I rubs down and gets into my Rialto wardrobe that I'd brought along in a suit-case. Then I waits for Jarvis. Oh, I didn't want to see him, but it was up to me to say my little piece.
It was near an hour before he shows up, wearin' his bathrobe, an' lookin' as gay as a flower-shop window.
"On the level, now," says I, before he had a show to make any play at me, "if I'd known what a pinhead I was, I'd stayed in the cushion. How bad did I queer you?"
"Shorty," says he, shovin' out his hand, "you're a brick."
"An' cracked in the bakin', eh?" says I.
"But you don't understand," says he. "She's mine, Shorty! The Lady Evelyn—she's promised to marry me."
"Serves you right," says I, as we shakes hands. "But how does she allow to get back at me?"
"Oh, she knows all about everything now," says Jarvis, "and she wants to apologize."
Say, he wasn't stringin' me either. Blow me if she didn't. And sister? "You're horrid!" says she. "Perfectly horrid. So there!" Now can you beat 'em? But, as I've said before, when it comes to figurin' on what women or horses'll do, I'm a four-flusher.
CHAPTER VII
No, I ain't goin' out to Blenmont these days. Jarvis does his exercisin' here, and he says his mother's havin' a ball room made out of that gym.
I've been stickin' to the pavements, like I said I would. Lookin' cheerful, too? Why not? If you'd been a minute sooner you'd heard me wobblin' "Please, Ma-ma, nail a rose on me." But say, I'll give you the tale, and then maybe you can write your own ticket.
You see, I'd left Swifty Joe runnin' the Physical Culture Studio, and I was doin' a lap up the sunny side of the avenue, just to give my holiday regalia an airing. I wasn't thinkin' a stroke, only just breathin' deep and feelin' glad I was right there and nowhere else—you know how the avenue's likely to go to your head these spring days, with the carriage folks swampin' the traffic squad, and everybody that is anybody right on the spot or hurrying to get there, and everyone of 'em as fit and finished as so many prize-winners at a fair?
Well, I wasn't lookin' for anything to come my way, when all of a sudden I sees a goggle-capped tiger throw open the door of one of them plate-glass benzine broughams at the curb, and bendover like he has a pain under his vest. I was just side-steppin' to make room for some upholstered old battle-ax that I supposed owned the rig, when I feels a hand on my elbow and hear some one say: "Why, Shorty McCabe! is that you?"
She was a dream, all right—one of your princess-cut girls, with the kind of clothes on that would make a turkey-red check-book turn pale. But you couldn't fool me, even if she had put a Marcelle crimp in that carroty hair of hers, and washed off the freckles and biscuit flour. You can't change Irish-blue eyes, can you? And when you've come to know a voice that's got a range from maple-sugar to mixed pickles, you don't forget it, either. Know her? Say, I was brought up next door to Sullivan's boarding-house.
"You didn't take me for King Eddie, did you, Miss Sullivan?" says I.
"I might by the clothes," says she, runnin' her eyes over me, "only I see you've got him beat a mile. But why the Miss Sullivan?"
"Because I've mislaid your weddin'-card, and there's been other things on my mind than you since our last reunion," says I. "But I'm chawmed to meet you again, rully," and I begins to edge off.
"You act it," says she. "You look tickled todeath—almost. But I'm pleased enough for two. Anyway, I'm in need of a man of about your weight to take a ride with me. So step lively, Shorty, and don't stand there scaring trade away from the silver shop. Come, jump in."
"Not me," says I. "I never butts into places where there's apt to be a hubby to ask who's who and what's what."
"But there isn't any hubby now," says she.
"North Dakotaed him?" says I.
"No," says she; "I've got a decree good in any State. His friends called it heart failure. I can't because I used to settle his bar bills. You're not shy of widows, are you?"
Now say, there's widows and widows—grass, baled hay, and other kinds—and most of 'em I passes up on general principles, along with chorus girls and lady demonstrators; but somehow I couldn't seem to place Sadie Sullivan in that line. Why, her mother 'n' mine used to borrow cupfuls of flour of each other over the back fence, and it was to lick a feller who'd yelled "brick-top" after Sadie that started me to takin' my first boxin' lessons in Mike Quigley's barn.
"I ain't much used to traveling in one of these rubber-tired show windows," says I; "but for the sake of old times I'll chance it once," and with that I climbs in; the tiger puts on the time-lock,and we joins the procession. "Your car's all to the giddy," I remarks. "Didn't it leave you some short of breath after blowin' yourself to this, Sadie?"
"I buy it by the month," says she, "including Jeems and Henri in front. It comes higher that way; but who cares?"
"Oh," says I, "he left a barrel, then?"
"A cellarful," says Sadie.
And on the way up towards the park I gets the scenario of the acts I'd missed. His name was Dipworthy—you've seen it on the labels, "Dipworthy's Drowsy Drops, Younsgters Yearn for 'Em"—only he was Dipworthy, jr., and knew as little about the "Drop" business as only sons usually do about such things. Drops wa'n't his long suit; quarts came nearer being his size.
It was while he was having a sober spell that he married Sadie; but that was about the last one he ever had. She stuck to him, though; let him chase her with guns and hammer her with the furniture, until the purple monkeys got him for good and all. Then she cashed in the "Drop" business, settled a life-insurance president's salary on her mother, bought a string of runnin' ponies for her kid brother, and then hit New York, with the notion that here was where you could get anything you had the price to pay for.
"But I made a wrong guess, Shorty," says she. "It isn't all in having the money; it's in knowing how to make it get you the things you want."
"There's plenty would like to give you lessons in that," says I.
"You?" says she.
"Say, do I look like a con. man?" says I.
"There, there, Shorty!" says she. "I knew better, only I've been gold-bricked so much lately that I'd almost suspect my own grandmother. I've got two maids who steal my dresses and rings; a lady companion who nags me about the way I talk, and who hates me alive because I can afford to hire her; and even the hotel manager makes me pay double rates because I look too young for a real widow. Do you know, there are times when I almost miss the late Dippy. Were you ever real lonesome, Shorty?"
"Once or twice," says I, "when I was far from Broadway."
"That's nothing," says she, "to being lonesomeonBroadway. And I've been so lonesome in a theatre box, with two thousand people in plain sight, that I've dropped tears down on the trombone player in the orchestra. And I was lonesome just now, when I picked you up back there. I had been into that big jewelry store, buying things Ididn't want, just for the sake of having some one to talk to."
"Ah, say," says I, "cut it in smaller chunks, Sadie. I'm no pelican."
"You don't believe me?" says she.
"I know this little old burg too well," says I. "Why, with a hundred-dollar bill I can buy more society than you could put in a hall."
"But don't you see, Shorty," says she, "that the kind you can buy isn't worth having? You don't buy yours, do you? And I don't want to buy mine. I want to swap even. I'm not a freak, nor a foreigner, nor a quarantine suspect. Look at all these women going past—what's the difference between us? But they're not lonesome, I'll bet. They have friends and dear enemies by the hundreds, while I haven't either. There isn't a single home on this whole island where I can step up and ring the front door-bell. I feel like a tramp hanging to the back of a parlor-car. What good does my money do me? Suppose I want to take dinner at a swell restaurant—I wouldn't know the things to order, and I'd be afraid of the waiters. Think of that, Shorty."
I tried to; but it was a strain. If anyone else had put it up to me that Sadie Sullivan, with a roll of real money as big as a bale of cotton, could lose her nerve just because she didn't have avisitin'-list, I'd have told 'em to drop the pipe. She was giving me straight goods, though. Why, her lip was tremblin' like a lost kid's.
"Chuck it!" says I. "For a girl that had a whole bunch of Johnnies on the waitin' list, and her with only one best dress to her name at the time, you give me an ache. I don't set up for no great judge of form and figure; but my eyesight's still good, I guess, and if I was choosin' a likely looker, I'd back you against the field."
That makes her grin a little, and she pats my hand kind of sisterly like. "It isn't men I want, you goose; it's women—my own kind," says she, and the next minute she gives me the nudge and whispers: "Now, watch—the one in the chiffon Panama."
"Shiff which?" says I. But I sees the one she means—a heavy-weight person, rigged out like a dry-goods exhibit and topped off with millinery from the spring openin', coming toward us behind a pair of nervous steppers. She had her lamps turned our way, and I hears Sadie give her the time of day as sweet as you please. She wasn't more'n six feet off, either; but it missed fire. She stared right through Sadie, just as if there'd been windows in her, and then turned to cuddle a brindle pup on the seat beside her.
"Acts like she owed you money," says I.
"We swapped tales of domestic woe for two weeks at Colorado Springs season before last," said Sadie; "but it seems that she's forgotten. That's Mrs. Morris Pettigrew, whose husband—"
"That one?" says I. "Why, she ain't such a much, either. I know folks that think she's a joke."
"She feels that she can't afford to recognize me on Fifth-ave., just the same. That's where I stand," says Sadie.
"It's a crooked deal, then," says I.
And right there I began to get a glimmer of the kind of game she was up against. Talk about freeze-outs!
"I'll show her, though, and the rest of 'em!" says Sadie, stickin' out her cute little chin. "I'm not going to quit yet."
"Good for you!" says I. "It's a pastime I ain't up in at all; but if you can ever find use for me behind the scenes anywhere, just call on."
"I will, Shorty," says she, "and right now. Come on down to Sherry's with me for luncheon."
"Quit your kiddin'," says I. "You don't want to queer the whole program at the start. I'd be lost in a place like that—me in a sack suit and round-top dicer! Why, the head waiter'd say 'Scat!' and I'd make a dive under the table."
She said she didn't care a red apple for that. She wanted to sail in there and throw a bluff, onlyshe couldn't go alone, and she guessed I'd do just as I was.
Course, I couldn't stand for no fool play of that kind; but seein' as she was so dead set on the place, I said we'd make it a 'leven-o'clock supper, after the theatre; but it must be my blow.
"I've got the clothes that'll fit into a night racket," says I, "and besides, I've got to get a few points first."
"It's a go," says she.
So we made a date, and Sadie drops me at the Studio. I goes right to the 'phone and calls up Pinckney at the club. Didn't I tell you about him? Sure, that's the one. You wouldn't think though, to see him and me tappin' each other with the mitts, that he was a front ranker in the smart push. But he's all of that. He's a pacemaker for the swiftest bunch in the world. Say, if he should take to walkin' on his hands, there wouldn't be no men's shoes sold on Fifth-ave. for a year.
Well, he shows up here about an hour later, lookin' as fresh as though he'd just come off the farm. "Did you say something about wanting advice, Shorty?" says he.
"I did," says I.
"Religious, or otherwise?" says he. "But it makes no difference; I'm yours to command."
"I don't ask you to go beyond your depth," says I. "It's just a case of orderin' fancy grub. I'm due to blow a lady friend of mine to the swellest kind of a supper that grows in the borough; no two-dollar tabble-doty, understand; but a special, real-lace, eighteen-carat feed, with nothing on the bill of fare that ain't spelled in French."
"Ah!" says he, "something likeBarquettes Bordellaise,poulet en casserole,fraises au champagne, and so on, eh?"
"I was about to mention them very things," says I. "But my memory's on the blink. Couldn't you write 'em down, with a diagram of how they look, and whether you spear 'em with a fork, or take 'em in through a straw?"
"Why, to be sure," says he. So he did, and it looked something like this:
"Consomme au fumet d'estaragon(chicken soup—big spoon).
"Barquettes Bordellaise(marrow on toast, with mushrooms—fork only).
"Fonds d'artichauts Monegosque(hearts of artichokes in cream sauce—fork and breadsticks)."
There was a lot more to it, and it wound up with some kind of cheese with a name that sounded like breakin' a pane of glass.
I threw up my hands at that. "It's no go," says I. "I couldn't learn to say all that in amonth. How would it do for me to slip the waiter that program and tell him to follow copy?"
"We'll do better than that?" says Pinckney. "Where's your 'phone?"
Pretty soon he gets some one on the wire that he calls Felix, and they has a heart-to-heart talk in French for about ten minutes.
"It's all arranged," says he. "You are to hand my card to the man at the door as you go in, and Felix will do the rest. Eleven-fifteen is the hour. But I'm surprised at you, Shorty. A lady, eh? Ah, well! In the spring the young man's fancy gently turns—"
"Ah, say!" says I. "There ain't no call for any funny cracks about this. You know me, and you can guess I'm no Willie-boy. When I get a soft spot in my head, and try to win a queen, it'll be done on the dead quiet, and you won't hear no call for help. But this is a different proposition. This is a real lady, who's been locked out by the society trust, and who takes an invite from me just because we happened to know each other when we was kids."
"Oh-ho!" says Pinckney, snappin' them black eyes the way he does when he gets real waked up. "That sounds quite romantic."
"It ain't," says I. "It's just as reg'lar as takin' your aunt to a sacred concert."
He seemed to want to know the details, though; so I told him all about Sadie, and how she'd been ruled out of her class by a lot of stiffs who wa'n't one-two-sixteen with her, either for looks or lucre.
"And it's a crooked decision," says I. "Maybe Sadie wasn't brought up by a Swedish maid and a French governess from Chelsea, Mass.; but she's on velvet now, and she's a real hand-picked pippin, too. What's more, she's a nice little lady, with nothin' behind her that you couldn't print in a Sunday-school weekly. All she aims to do is to travel with the money-burners and be sociable. And say, that's natural, ain't it?"
"It's quite human," says Pinckney, "and what you've told me about her is very interesting. I hope the little supper goes off all right. Ta-ta, Shorty."
Well, it began frosty enough; for when it came to pilotin' a lady into that swell mob, I had the worst case of stage-fright you ever saw. Say, them waiters is a haughty-lookin' lot, ain't they? But after we'd found Felix, and I'd passed him a ten-spot, and he'd bowed and scraped and towed us across the room like he thought we held a mortgage on the place, I didn't feel quite so much as if I'd got into the wrong flat.
I did have something of a chill when I caught sight of a sheepish-looking cuss in the glass. Helooked sort of familiar, and I was wondering what he'd done to be ashamed of, when I sees it was me. Then I squints around at the other guys and say, more'n half of 'em wore the same kind of a look. It was only the women that seemed right to home. There wasn't one in sight that didn't have her chin up and her shoulders back, and carrying all the dog the law allows. They treated them stiff-necked food-slingers like they was a lot of wooden Indians. You'd see 'em pilin' their wraps on one of them lordly gents just as if he was a chair. Then they'd plant themselves, spread out their dry-goods, peel off their elbow gloves, and proceed to rescue the cherry from the bottom of the glass.
And Sadie? Well, say, you'd thought she'd never had a meal anywhere else in her life. The way she bossed Felix around, and sized up the other folks, calm as a Chinaman, was a caution. And talk! I never had so much rapid-fire conversation passed out to me all in a bunch before. Course, she was just keepin' her end up, and makin' believe I was doing my share, too. But it was a mighty good imitation. Every now and then she'd tear off a little laugh so natural that I could almost swear I'd said something funny, only I knew I hadn't opened my head.
As for me, I was busy tryin' to guess what wasunder the silver covers that Felix kept bringin' in, and rememberin' what Pinckney had said about forks and spoons. Say, I suppose you've been up against one of those little after-the-play-is-over suppers that they serve behind the lace curtains on Fifth-ave.; but this was my first offense. Little suppers! Honest, now, there was more'n I'd want if I hadn't been fed for a week. Generally I can worry along with three squares a day, and when I do feel like havin' a bite before I hit the blankets, asweitzerkasesandwich does me. But this affair had seven acts to it, and everyone was a mystery.
"Why, I didn't know you were such an epicure," says Sadie.
"Me either," says I; "but I'd never let myself loose before. Have some morepulleyfrom thecarrouselland help yourself to the—the other thing."
"Shorty, tell me how you managed it," says she.
"I've been taking lessons by mail," says I.
"You're a dear to do it, anyway," says she. "Just think of the figure I'd cut coming here by my lonesome. It's bad enough at the hotel, with only Mrs. Prusset. And I've been wanting to come for weeks. What luck it was, finding you to-day!"
"Say, don't run away with the idea that I'm makin' a day's work of this," says I. "I'mhavin' a little fun out of this myself. There's worse company than you, y'know."
"And I've met a heap of men stupider than Shorty McCabe," says she, givin' me the jolly with that sassy grin of hers, and lettin' go one of those gurgly laughs that sounds as if it had been made on a clarinet.
It was just about then that I looks up and finds Pinckney standing on one foot, waitin' for a chance to butt in.
"Why, professor! This is a pleasure," says he.
"Hello!" says I. "Where'd you blow in from?"
Then I makes him acquainted with Sadie, and asks him what it'll be. Oh, he did it well; seemed as surprised as if he hadn't seen me for a year, and begins to get acquainted with Sadie right away. I tried to give her the wink, meanin' to put her next to the fact that here was where she ought to come out strong on the broad A's, and throw in the dontcher-knows frequent; but it was no go. She didn't care a rap. She talked just as she would to me, asked Pinckney all sorts of fool questions, and inside of two minutes them two was carryin' on like a couple of kids.
"I'm a rank outsider here, you know," says she, "and if it hadn't been for Shorty I'd never got in at all. Oh, sure, Shorty and I are oldchums. We used to slide down the same cellar door."
S'elp me, I was plumb ashamed of Sadie then, givin' herself away like that. But Pinckney seemed to think it was great sport. Pretty soon he says he's got some friends over at another table, and did she mind if he brought 'em over.
"Think you'd better?" says she. "I'm the Mrs. Dipworthy of the 'Drowsy Drops,' you know, and that's a tag that won't come off."
"If you'll allow me," says he, "I'll attend to the tag business. They'll be delighted to meet you."
"Say," says I, soon as he'd left, "don't be a sieve, Sadie. Just forget auld lang syne, and remember that you're travelin' high."
"They've got to take me for what I am, or not at all," says she.
"Yes, but you ain't got no cue to tell the story of your life," says I.
"That's my whole stock in trade, Shorty," says she.
I was lookin' for her to revise that notion when I sees the kind of company Pinckney was luggin' up to spring on us. I'd seen their pictures in the papers, and knew 'em on sight. And the pair wasn't anything but the top of the bunch. You know the Twombley-Cranes, that cut more ice in July than the Knickerbocker Trust does allwinter. Why say, to see the house rubber at 'em as they came sailin' our way, you'd thought they was paid performers stepping up to do their act. It was a case of bein' in the lime-light for us, from that on.
"Hully chee!" says I. "Here's where I ought to fade."
But there wasn't any show to duck; for Felix was chasin' over some more chairs, and Pinckney was doin' the honors all round, and the first thing I knew we was a nice little fam'ly party, chuckin' repartee across the pink candle shades, and behavin' like star boarders that had paid in advance.
It was Sadie, though, that had the centre of the stage, and I'll be staggered if she didn't jump in to make her bluff good. She let out everything that she shouldn't have told, from how she used to wait on table at her mother's boarding-house, to the way she'd got the frozen face ever since she came to town.
"But what am I expected to do?" says she. "I've got no Hetty Green grip on my bankbook. There's a whole binful of the 'Drowsy Drop' dollars, and I'm willing to throw 'em on the bonfire just as liberal as the next one, only I want a place around the ring. There's no fun in playing a lone hand, is there? I've been trying to find out what's wrong with me, anyway?"
"My dear girl," says Mrs. Twombley-Crane, "there's nothing wrong with you at all. You're simply delicious. Isn't she, now, Freddie?"
And Freddie just grinned. Say, some men is born wise. "Professor McCabe and I are exchanging views on the coming light-weight contest," says he. "Don't mind us, my dear."
Perhaps that's what we were gassin' about, or why is a hen. You can search me. I was that rattled with Sadie's nerve display that I didn't follow anything else real close.
But when it was all over, and I'd been brought to by a peep at the bill the waiter handed me, I couldn't figure out whether she'd made a bull's-eye or rung in a false alarm.
One thing I did notice, as we sails out, and that was the stout Pettigrew person who'd passed Sadie the pickled pig's foot on the avenue that afternoon. She was sitting opposite a skimpy little runt with a bald head, at a table up near the door where the waiters juggled soup over her feathers every time they passed. Her eyes were glued on Sadie as we came up, and by the spread of the furrows around her mouth I see she was tryin' to crack a smile.
"Now," thinks I, "here's where she collects chilblains and feels the mercury drop."
But say! would you look for it in a dream book?What does Sadie do but pass her out the glad hand and coo away, like a pouter pigeon on a cornice, about being tickled to see her again. Oh, they get me dizzy, women do!
That wa'n't a marker though, to the reverse English carom Sadie takes after we'd got into a cab and started for her hotel. Was there a jolly for me, or a "Thank you, Shorty, I've had the time of my life?" Nothin' like it. She just slumped into her corner and switched on the boo-hoos like a girl that's been kept after school.
"Enjoy yourself, Sadie," says I. "Only remember that this is a hansom, not a street sprinkler."
That didn't fetch her; so after a while I tries her again. "What went wrong?" says I. "Was she stringin' you, or was it the way I wore my face that queered the show?"
"It's all right, Shorty," says she between weeps. "And nothing's wrong, nothing at all. Mrs. What's-Her-Name's asked me to stay a week with her at their Newport place, and old Mrs. Pettigrew will turn green before morning thinking of me, and I've shaken the hoodoo at last. But it all came so much in a lump that I just had to turn on the sprayer. You know how I feel, don't you, Shorty?"
"Sure," says I, "just as well as if you'd sentme a picture postal of the place you boarded last."
But say, I turned the trick, didn't I? I didn't know what was comin' out of the box, of course; and maybe I was some jolted at throwin' three sixes to a pair, but there they lay.
No, I ain't goin' into the boostin' line as a reg'lar thing; but I guess if any amateur in the business gets a rose nailed on him, I ought to be the gent. Not?