CHAPTER X
But say, I guess Buddy'll work out all right. There's good stuff in him. Anyways, I ain't losin' my eyesight, tryin' to follow his curves. And my date book's been full lately. That's the way I like it. If you know how to take things there's a whole lot of fun in just bein' alive; ain't there? Now look at the buffo combination I've been up against.
First off I meets Jarvis—you know, Mr. Jarvis of Blenmont, who's billed to marry that English girl, Lady Evelyn, next month. Well, Jarvis he was all worked up. Oh, you couldn't guess it in a week. It was an awful thing that happened to him. Just as he's got his trunk packed for England, where the knot-tyin' is to take place, he gets word that some old lady that was second cousin to his mother, or something like that, has gone and died and left him all her property.
"Real thoughtless of her, wa'n't it?" says I.
"Well," says Jarvis, lookin' kind of foolish, "I expect she meant well enough. I don't mind the bonds, and that sort of thing, but there's this Nightingale Cottage. Now, what am I to do with that?"
"Raise nightingales for the trade," says I.
Jarvis ain't one of the joshin' kind, though, sameas Pinckney. He had this weddin' business on his mind, and there wa'n't much room for anything else. Seems the old lady who'd quit livin' was a relative he didn't know much about.
"I remember seeing her only once," says Jarvis, "and then I was a little chap. Perhaps that's why I was such a favorite of hers. She always sent me a prayer-book every Christmas."
"Must have thought you was hard on prayer-books," says I. "She wa'n't batty, was she?"
Jarvis wouldn't say that; but he didn't deny that there might have been a few cobwebs in the belfry. Aunt Amelia—that's what he called her—had lived by herself for so long, and had coaxed up such a case of nerves, that there was no tellin'. The family didn't even know she was abroad until they heard she'd died there.
"You see," says Jarvis, "the deuce of it is the cottage is just as she stepped out of it, full of a lot of old truck that I've either got to sell or burn, I suppose. And it's a beastly nuisance."
"It's a shame," says I. "But where is this Nightingale Cottage?"
"Why, it's in Primrose Park, up in Westchester County," says he.
With that I pricks up my ears. You know I've been puttin' my extra-long green in pickle for the last few years, layin' for a chance to place 'emwhere I could turn 'em over some day and count both sides. And Westchester sounded right.
"Say," says I, leadin' him over to the telephone booth, "you sit down there and ring up some real-estate guy out in Primrose Park and get a bid for that place. It'll be about half or two-thirds what it's worth. I'll give you that, and ten per cent. more on account of the fixin's. Is it a go?"
Was it? Mr. Jarvis had central and was callin' up Primrose Park before I gets through, and inside of an hour I'm a taxpayer. I've made big lumps of money quicker'n that, but I never spent such a chunk of it so swift before. But Jarvis went off with his mind easy, and I was satisfied. In the evenin' I dropped around to see the Whaleys.
"Dennis, you low-county bog-trotter," says I, "about all I've heard out of you since I was knee high was how you was achin' to quit the elevator and get back to diggin' and cuttin' grass, same's you used to do on the old sod. Now here's a chance to make good."
Well, say, that was the only time I ever talked ten minutes with Dennis Whaley without bein' blackguarded. He'd been fired off the elevator the week before and had been job-huntin' ever since. As for Mother Whaley, when she saw a chance to shake three rooms back and a fire-escape for a place where the trees has leaves on 'em, she upand cried into the corned beef and cabbage, just for joy.
"I'll send the keys in the mornin'," says I. "Then you two pack up and go out there to Nightingale Cottage and open her up. If it's fit to live in, and you don't die of lonesomeness, maybe I'll run up once in a while of a Sunday to look you over."
You see, I thought it would be a bright scheme to hang onto the place for a year or so, before I tries to unload. That gives the Whaleys what they've been wishin' for, and me a chance to do the weekend act now and then. Course, I wa'n't lookin' for no complications. But they come along, all right.
It was on a Saturday afternoon that I took the plunge. You know how quick this little old town can warm up when she starts. We'd had the Studio fans goin' all the mornin', and the first shirtwaist lads was paradin' across Forty-second street with their coats off, and Swifty'd made tracks for Coney Island, when I remembers Primrose Park.
I'd passed through in expresses often enough, so I didn't have to look it up on the map; but that was about all. When I'd spoiled the best part of an hour on a local full of commuters and low-cut high-brows, who killed time playin' whist and cussin' the road, I was dumped down at a cute little station about big enough for a lemonade stand. As the carswent off I drew in a long breath. Say, I'd got off just in time to escape bein' carried into Connecticut.
I jumps into a canopy-top surrey that looks like it had been stored in an open lot all winter, and asks the driver if he knows where Nightingale Cottage is.
"Sure thing!" says he. "That's the place Shorty McCabe's bought."
"Do tell!" says I. "Well, cart me out to the front gate and put me off."
It was a nice ride. If it had been a mile longer I'd had facts enough for a town history. Drivin' a depot carriage was just a side issue with that Primrose blossom. Conversin' was his long suit. He tore off information by the yard, and slung it over the seat-back at me like one of these megaphone lecturers on the rubber-neck wagons. Accordin' to him, Aunt 'Melie had been a good deal of a she-hermit.
"Why," says he, "Major Curtis Binger told me himself that in the five years he lived neighbors to her he hadn't seen her more'n once or twice. They say she hadn't been out of her yard for ten years up to the time she went abroad for her health and died of it."
"Anyone that could live in this town that long and not die, couldn't have tried very hard," says I. "Who's this Major Binger?"
"Oh, he's a retired army officer, the major is; widower, with two daughters," says he.
"Singletons?" says I.
"Yep, and likely to stay so," says he.
About then he turns in between a couple of fancy stone gate-posts, twists around a cracked bluestone drive, and lands me at the front steps of Nightingale Cottage. For the kind, it wa'n't so bad—one of those squatty bay-windowed affairs, with a roof like a toboggan chute, a porch that did almost a whole lap around outside, and a cobblestone chimney that had vines growin' clear to the top. And sure enough, there was Dennis Whaley with his rake, comin' as near a grin as he knew how.
Well, he has me in tow in about a minute, and I makes a personally conducted tour of me estate. Say, all I thought I was gettin' was a couple of buildin' lots; but I'll be staggered if there wa'n't a slice of ground most as big as Madison Square Park, with trees, and shrubbery, and posy beds, and dinky little paths loopin' the loop all around. Out back was a stable and goosb'ry bushes and a truck garden.
"How's thim for cabbages?" says Dennis.
"They look more like boutonnieres," says I. But he goes on to tell as how they'd just been set out and wouldn't be life-size till fall. Then he shows the rows that he says was goin' to be praties andbeans and so on, and he's as proud of the whole shootin'-match as if he'd done a miracle.
When we got around to the front again, where Dennis has laid out a pansy harp, I sees a little gatherin' over in front of the cottage next door. There was three or four gents, and six or eight women-folks. They was lookin' my way, and talkin' all to once.
"Hello!" says I. "The neighbors seem to be holdin' a convention. Wonder if they're plannin' to count me in?"
I ain't more'n got that out before one of the bunch cuts loose and heads for me. He was a nice-lookin' old duck, with a pair of white Chaunceys and a frosted chin-splitter. He stepped out brisk and swung his cane like he was on parade. He was got up in white flannels and a square-topped Panama, and he had the complexion of a good liver.
"I expect that this is Mr. McCabe," says he.
"You're a good guesser," says I. "Come up on the front stoop and sit by."
"My name," says he, "is Binger, Curtis Binger."
"What, Major Binger, late U. S. A.?" says I. "The man that did the stunt at the battle of What-d'ye-call-it?"
"Mission Ridge, sir," says he, throwin' out his chest.
"Sure! That was the place," says I. "Well,well! Who'd think it? I'm proud to know you. Put 'er there."
With that I had him goin'. He was up in the air, and before he'd got over it I'd landed him in a porch rocker and chased Dennis in to dig a box of Fumadoras out of my suit-case.
"Ahem," says the Major, clearin' his speech tubes, "I came over, Mr. McCabe, on rather a delicate errand."
"If you're out of butter, or want to touch me for a drawin' of tea, speak right up, Major," says I. "The pantry's yours."
"Thank you," says he; "but it's nothing like that; nothing at all, sir. I came over as the representative of several citizens of Primrose Park, to inquire if it is your intention to reside here."
"Oh!" says I. "You want to know if I'll join the gang? Well, seein' as you've put it up to me so urgent, I don't care if I do. Course I can't sign as a reg'lar, this bein' my first jab at the simple life; but if you can stand for the punk performance I'll make at progressive euchre and croquet, you can put me on the Saturday night sub list, for a while, anyway."
Now, say, I was layin' out to do the neighborly for the best that was in me; but it seemed to hit the Major wrong. He turned about two shades pinker, coughed once or twice, and then got a freshhold. "I'm afraid you fail to grasp the situation, Mr. McCabe," says he. "You see, we lead a very quiet life here in Primrose Park, a very domestic life. As for myself, I have two daughters—"
"Chic, chic, Major!" says I, pokin' him gentle in the ribs with me thumb. "Don't you try to sick any girls on me, or I'll take to the tall timber. I'm no lady's man, not a little bit."
Then the explosion came. For a minute I thought one of them 'Frisco ague spells had come east. The Major turns plum color, blows up his cheeks, and bugs his eyes out. When the language flows it was like turnin' on a fire-pressure hydrant. An assistant district attorney summin' up for the State in a murder trial didn't have a look-in with the Major. What did I mean—me, a rough-house scrapper from the red-light section—by buttin' into a peaceful community and insultin' the oldest inhabitants? Didn't I have no sense of decency? Did I suppose respectable people were goin' to stand for such?
Honest, that was the worst jolt I ever had. All I could do was to sit there with my mouth ajar and watch him prancin' up and down, handin' me the layout.
"Say," says I, after a bit, "you ain't got me mixed up with Mock Duck, or Paddy the Gouge, or Kangaroo Mike, or any of that crowd, have you?"
"You're known as Shorty McCabe, aren't you?" says he.
"Guilty," says I.
"Then there's no mistake," says he. "What will you take, cash down, for this property, and clear out now?"
"Say, Major," says I, "do you think it would blight the buds or poison the air much if I hung on till Monday morning? That is, unless you've got the tar all hot and the rail ready?"
That fetched a grunt out of him. "All we desire to do, sir," says he, "is to maintain the respectability of the neighborhood."
"Do the other folks over there feel the same way about me?" says I.
"Naturally," says he.
"Well," says I, "I don't mind telling you, Major, that you've thrown the hooks into me good an' plenty, and it looks like I'd have to make a new book. I didn't come out here' to break up any peaceful community; but before I changes my program I'll have to sleep on it. Suppose you slide over again some time to-morrow, when your collar don't fit so tight, and then we'll see if there's anything to arbitrate."
"Very well," says he, does a salute to the colors, and marches back stiff-kneed to tell his crowd how he'd read the riot act to me.
Now, say, I ain't one of the kind to lose sleepbecause the conductor speaks rough when I asks for a transfer. I generally takes what's comin' and grins. But this time I wa'n't half so joyful as I might have been. Even the sight of Mother Whaley's hot biscuits and hearin' her singin' "Cushla Mavourneen" in the kitchen couldn't chirk me up. I'd been keen for lookin' the house over and seein' what I'd got in the grab; but it was all off. Course I knew I had the rights of the thing. I'd put down me good money, and there wa'n't any rules that could make me pull it out. But I've lived quite some years without shovin' in where I knew I'd get the frigid countenance, and I didn't like the idea of beginnin' now.
I couldn't go back on my record, either. In my time I've stood up in the ring and put out my man for two thirds of the gate receipts. I ain't so proud of that now as I was once; but I ain't never had any call to be ashamed of the way I done it. What's more, no soubrette ever had a chance to call herself Mrs. Shorty McCabe, and I never let 'em put my name over the door of any Broadway jag parlor.
You got to let every man frame up his own argument, though. If these Primrose Parkers had listed me for a tough citizen, that had come out to smash crockery and keep the town constable busy, it wa'n't my cue to hold any debate. All the campaign I could figure out was to back into the wingsand sell to some well-behaved stock-broker or life-insurance grafter.
It was goin' to be tough on the Whaleys, though. I didn't let on to Dennis, and after supper we sat on the back steps while he smoked his cutty and gassed away about the things he was goin' to raise, and how the flower-beds would look in a month or so. About nine o'clock he shows me a place where I can turn in, and I listens to the roosters crowin' most of the night.
Next mornin' I had Dennis get me a Sunday paper, and after I'd read the sportin' notes, I turns to the suburban real estate ads. "Why not own a home?" most of 'em asks. "I know the answer to that," says I. And say, a Luna Park Zulu that had strayed into young Rockefeller's Bible class would have felt about as much at home as I did there on my own porch. The old Major was over on his porch, walkin' up and down like he was doin' guard duty, and once in a while I could see some of the women-folks takin' a careful squint at me from behind a window blind. If I'm ever quarantined, it won't be any new sensation.
It wasn't exactly a weddin' breakfast kind of a time I was havin'; but I didn't dodge it. I was just lettin' it soak in, "for the good of me soul," as Father Connolly used to say, when I sees a pair of everfed blacks, hitched to a closed carriage, switchin from the pike and make for the Major's. "Company for dinner," says I. "That's nice."
I didn't get anything but a back view as he climbed out on the off side and was led in by the Major; but you couldn't fool me on them short-legged, baggy-kneed pants, or that black griddle-cake bonnet. It was my little old Bishop, that I keeps the fat off from with the medicine-ball work.
"Lucky he didn't see me," says I, "or he'd hollered out and queered himself with the whole of Primrose Park."
I was figurin' on fadin' away to the other side of the house before he showed up again; but I didn't hurry about it, and when I looks up again there was the Bishop, with them fat little fingers of his stuck out, and a three-inch grin on his face, pikin' across the road right for me. He'd come out to wig-wag his driver, and, gettin' his eyes on me, he waddles right over. I tried to give him the wink and shoo him off, but it was no go.
"Why, my dear professor!" says he, walkin' up and givin' me the inside-brother grip with one hand and the old-college-chum shoulder-pat with the other.
I squints across the way, and there was the Major and the girls, catchin' their breath and takin' it all in, so I sees it's no use throwin' a bluff.
"How's the Bishop?" says I. "You've made abad break; but I guess it's a bit too late to hedge."
He only chuckles, like he always does. "Your figures of speech, professor, are too subtle for me, as usual. However, I suppose you are as glad to see me as I am to find you."
"Just what I was meanin' to spring next," says I, pullin' up a rocker for him.
We chins awhile there, and the Bishop tells me how's he been out to lay a cornerstone, and thought he'd drop in on his old friend, Major Binger.
"Well, well, what a charming place you have here!" says he. "You must take me all over it, professor. I want to see if you've shown as good taste on the inside as you apparently have on the out." And before I has time to say a word about Jarvis's Aunt 'Melie, he has me by the arm and we're headed for the parlor. I hadn't even opened the door before, but we blazes right in, runs up the shades, throws open the shutters, and stands by for a look.
Say, it was worth it! That was the most ladyfied room I ever put me foot in. First place, I never see so many crazy lookin' little chairs, or bow-legged tables, or fancy tea-cups before in my life. There wa'n't a thing you could sit on without havin' to call the upholstery man in afterward. Even the gilt sofa looked like it ought to have been in a picture.
But what had me button-eyed was the wall decorations.If I hadn't been ridin' on the sprinker for so long I'd thought it was time for me to hunt a D. T. institute right then. First off I couldn't make 'em out at all; but after the shock wore away I see they were dolls, dozens of 'em, hangin' all over the walls in rows and clusters, like hams in a pork shop. And say, that was the wooziest collection ever bunched together! They wa'n't ordinary Christmas-tree dolls, the store kind. Every last one of 'em was home-made, white cotton heads, with hand-painted faces. Course, I tumbled. This was some of that half-batty Aunt 'Melie's work. This was what she'd put in her time on. And she sure had produced.
For face paintin' it was well done, I guess, only she must have been shut up so long away from folks that she'd sort of forgot just how they looked. Some of the heads had sunbonnets on, and some nightcaps; but they were all the same shape, like a hardshell clam, flat side to. The eyes were painted about twice life-size—some rolled up, some canted down, some squintin' sideways, and a lot was just cross-eye. There was green eyes, yellow eyes, pink eyes, and the regular kinds. They gave me the creeps.
When I turns around, the Bishop stands there with his mouth open. "Why," says he—"why, professor!" That was as far as he could get.He gasps once or twice and gets out something that sounds like "Remarkable, truly remarkable!"
"That's the word," says I. "I'll bet there ain't another lot like this in the country."
"I—I hope not," says he. "No offence meant, though. Do you—er—do this sort of thing yourself?"
Well, I had to loosen up then. I told him about Aunt 'Melie, and how I'd bought the place unsight and unseen. And when he finds this was my first view of the parlor it gets him in the short ribs. He has a funny fit. Every time he takes a look at them dolls he has another spasm. I gets him out on the porch again, and he sits there slappin' his knees and waggin' his head and wipin' his eyes.
By-'m'-by the Bishop calms down and says I've done him more good than a trip to Europe. "You must let me bring Major Binger over," says he. "I want him to see those dolls. You two are bound to be great cronies."
"I've got my doubts about that," says I. "But don't you go to mixin' up in this affair, Bishop. I don't want to lug you in for any trouble with any of your old friends."
You couldn't stave the Bishop off, though. He had to hear the whole yarn, and the minute he gets it straight he jumps up.
"Binger's a hot-headed old—well," says he, catchin' himself just in time, "the Major has a way of acting first, and then thinking it over. I must have a talk with him."
I guess he did, too; for they were at it some time before the Bishop waves by-by to me and drives off.
I'd just got up from one of Mrs. Whaley's best chicken dinners, when I hears a hurrah outside, and horses stampin' and a horn tootin'. I rushes out front, and there was Pinckney, sittin' up on a coach box, just pullin' his leaders out of Dennis's pansy bed. There was about a dozen of his crowd on top of the coach, includin' Mrs. Dipworthy—Sadie Sullivan that was—and Mrs. Twombley Crane, and a lot more.
"Hello, Shorty!" says Pinckney. "Is the doll exhibition still open? If it is, we want to come in."
They'd met the Bishop; see? And he'd steered 'em along.
Well say, I might have begun the day kind of lonesome, but it had a lively finish, all right. Inside of ten minutes Sadie has on one of Mother Whaley's white aprons and is takin' charge. She has some of them fancy tables and chairs lugged out on the porch, and the first thing I knows I'm holdin' forth at a pink tea that's the swellest thing of the kind Primrose Park ever got its eyes on.
CHAPTER XI
No, Nightingale Cottage ain't in the market, and it looks like I'd got a steady job introducin' Aunt 'Melie's doll collection to society; for Pinckney carts down a new gang every Sunday. As Sadie's generally on hand to help out, I'm ready to stand for it. Anyways, I've bought a fam'ly ticket and laid in a stock of fancy groceries.
The Maje? Oh, him and me made it up handsome. He comes over and tells me about that Mission Ridge stunt of his every chance he gets. But say, I'm beginnin' to find out there's others. It's a great place, Primrose Park is, and when I sized it up as a sort of annex to a cemetery I'd mistook the signs.
It don't make much difference where you are, all you've got to do to keep your blood from thinnin' out, is to mix in with folks. Beats all how much excitement you can dig up that way.
Now, I wa'n't huntin' for anything of the kind, but I was just usin' my eyes and keepin' my ears open, so I notices that out on the main road, in front of the Park, is one of those swell big ranches that hog the shore front all the way from Motthaven up to the jumpin'-off place. From the outside all you can see is iron gates and stone wall andstretches of green-plush lawn. Way over behind the trees you can get a squint at the chimney tops, and you know that underneath is a little cottage about the size of the Grand Central station. That's the style you live in when you've hit the stock-market right, or in case you've got to be a top-notch grafter that the muck-rakers ain't jungled yet.
I'd been wonderin' what kind of folks hung out in there, but I'd never seen any of 'em out front, only gardeners killin' time, and coachmen exercisin' the horses. But one mornin' I gets a private view that was worth watchin' for.
The first thing on the program was an old duffer dodgin' in and out around the bushes and trees like he was tryin' to lose somebody. That got me curious right away, and I begins to pipe him off. He was togged out in white ducks, somethin' like a window cook in a three-off joint, only he didn't sport any apron, and his cap had gold braid on it. His hair was white, too, and his under lip was decorated with one of them old-fashioned teasers—just a little bunch of cotton that the barber had shied. He was a well-built old boy, but his face had sort of a sole leather tint to it that didn't look healthy.
From his motions I couldn't make out whether he was havin' a game of hide-and-go-seek or was bein' chased by a dog. The last thought seemedmore likely, so I strolls over to the stone wall and gets ready to hand out a swift kick to the kioodle, in case it was needed.
When he sees me the old gent begins to dodge livelier than ever and make signals with his hands. Well, I didn't know his code. I couldn't guess whether he wanted me to run for a club, or was tryin' to keep me from buttin' in, so I just stands there with my mouth open and looks foolish.
Next thing I sees is a wedge-faced, long-legged guy comin' across the lawn on the jump. First off I thought he was pushin' one of these sick-abed chairs, like they use on the board walk at Atlantic City. But as he gets nearer I see it was a green wicker tea-wagon—you know. I ain't got to the tea-wagon stage myself, but I've seen 'em out at Rockywold and them places. Handy as a pocket in a shirt, they are. When you've got company in the afternoon the butler wheels the thing out on the veranda and digs up a whole tea-makin' outfit from the inside. When it's shut it looks a good deal like one of them laundry push-carts they have in Harlem.
Now, I ain't in love with tea at any time of the day except for supper, and I sure would pass it up just after breakfast, but I don't know as I'd break my neck to get away from it, same's the old gent was doin'. The minute he gets a look at the wagoncomin' his way he does some lively side-steppin'. Then he jumps behind a bush and hides, givin' me the sign not to let on.
The long-legged guy knew his business, though. He came straight on, like he was followin' a scent, and the first thing old Whitey knows he's been run down. He gives in then, just as if he'd been tagged.
"Babbitt," says he, "I had you hull down at one time, didn't I?"
But either Babbitt was too much out of breath, or else he wasn't the talkative kind, for he never says a word, but just opens up the top of the cart and proceeds to haul out some bottles and a glass. First he spoons out some white powder into a tumbler. Then he pours in some water and stirs it with a spoon. When the mess is done he sticks it out to the old gent. The old one never lifts a finger, though.
"Salute, first, you frozen-faced scum of the earth!" he yells. "Salute, sir!"
Babbitt made a stab at salutin' too, and mighty sudden.
"Now, you white-livered imitation of a man," says the old gent, "you may hand over that villainous stuff! Bah!" and he takes a sniff of it.
Babbitt keeps his eyes glued on him until the last drop was down, then he jumped. Lucky he was quick on the duck, for the glass just whizzedover the top of his head. While he was stowin' the things away the old fellow let loose. Say, you talk about a cussin', I'll bet you never heard a string like that. It wasn't the longshoreman's kind. But the way he put together straight dictionary words was enough to give you a chill. It was the rattlin' style he had of rippin' 'em out, too, that made it sound like swearin'. If there was any part of that long-legged guy that he didn't pay his respects to, from his ears to his toe-nails, I didn't notice it.
"It's the last time you get any of that slush into me, Babbitt," says he. "Do you hear that, you peanut-headed, scissor-shanked whelp?"
"Ten-thirty's the next dose, Commodore," says he as he starts off.
"It is, eh, you wall-eyed deck swab?" howls the Commodore. "If you mix any more of that infant food for me I'll skin you alive, and sew you up hind side before. Do you hear that, you?"
I was wearin' a broad grin when the old Commodore turns around to me.
"If that fellow keeps this up," says he, "I shall lose my temper some day. Ever drink medicated milk, eh? Ugh! It tastes the way burnt feathers smell. And I'm dosed with it eight times a day! Think of it, milk! But what makes me mad is to have it ladled out to me by that long-faced, fish-eyed food destroyer, whose only joy in life is to huntme down and gloat over my misery. Oh, I'll get square with him yet, sir; I swear I will."
"I wish you luck," says I.
"Who are you, anyway?" says he.
"Nobody much," says I, "so there's two of us. I'm livin' in the cottage across the way."
"The deuce you say!" says he. "Then you're Shorty McCabe, aren't you?"
"You're on," says I. "How'd you guess it?"
Well, it seems one of my reg'lars was a partner of his son-in-law, who owned the big place, and they'd been talkin' about me just the day before. After that it didn't take long for the Commodore and me to get a line on each other, and when I finds out he's Roaring Dick, the nervy old chap that stood out on the front porch of his ship all through the muss at Santiago Bay and hammered the daylights out of the Spanish fleet, I gives him the hand.
"I've read about you in the papers," says I.
"Not so often as I used to read about you," says he.
And say, inside of ten minutes we was like a couple of G. A. R. vets, at a reunion. Then he told me all about the medicated-milk business.
It didn't take any second sight to see that the Commodore was a gay old sport. He'd been onthe European station for three years, knockin' around with kings and princes, and French and Russian naval officers that was grand dukes and such when they was ashore; and he'd carried along with him a truck-driver's thirst and the capacity of a ward boss. The fizzy stuff he'd stowed away in that time must have been enough to sail a ship on. I guess he didn't mind it much, though, for he'd been in pickle a long time. It was the seventeen-course night dinners and the foreign cooking that gave him the knockout.
All of a sudden his digester had thrown up the job, and before he knew it he was in a state where a hot biscuit or a piece of fried potato would lay him out on his back for a week. He'd come home on sick leave to visit his daughter, and his rich son-in-law had steered him up against a specialist who told him that if he didn't quit and obey orders he wouldn't last three weeks. The orders was to live on nothin' but medicated milk, and for a man that had been livin' the way he had it was an awful jolt. He couldn't be trusted to take the stuff himself, so they hired valets to keep him doped with it.
"I scared the first one half to death," says the Commodore, "and the next one I bribed to smuggle out ham sandwiches. Then they got this fellow Babbitt to follow me around with that cursed gocart,and I haven't had a moment's peace since. He's just about equal to a job like that, Babbitt is. I make him earn his money, though."
You'd have thought so if you could have seen the old Commodore work up games to throw Babbitt off the track. I put in most of the day watchin' 'em at it, and it was as good as a vaudeville act. About a quarter of an hour before it was time for the dose the valet would come out and begin to look around the grounds. Soon as he'd located the Commodore he'd slide off after his tea wagon. That was just where the old boy got in his fine work. The minute Babbitt was out of sight the Commodore makes a break for a new hidin' place, so the valet has to wheel that cart all over the lot, playin' peek-a-boo behind every bush and tree until he nailed his man.
Now you'd think most anyone with a head would have cracked a joke now and then with the old gent, and kind of made it easy all round. But not Babbitt. He'd been hired to get medicated milk into the Commodore, and that was all the idea his nut could accommodate at one time. He was one of these stiff-necked, cold-blooded flunkies, that don't seem much more human than wooden Indians. He had an aggravatin' way, too, of treatin' the old chap when he got him cornered. He was polite enough, so far as what he had to say, but itwas the mean look in his ratty little eyes that grated.
With every dose the Commodore got madder and madder. Some of the names he thought up to call that valet was worth puttin' in a book. It seemed like a shame, though, to stir up the old gent that way, and I don't believe the medicine did him any more good. He took it, though, because he'd promised his daughter he would. Course, I had my own notions of that kind of treatment, but I couldn't see that it was up to me to jump in the coacher's box and give off any advice.
Next mornin' I'd been out for a little leg-work and I was just joggin' into the park again, when I hears all kinds of a ruction goin' on over behind the stonewall. There was screams and yells and shouts, like a Saturday-night riot in Double Alley. I pokes up a giraffe neck and sees a couple of women runnin' across the lawn. Pretty soon what they was chasin' comes into view. It was the Commodore. He was pushin' the tea-wagon in front of him, and in the top of that, with just his legs and arms stickin' out, was Babbitt.
I knew what was up in a minute. He'd lost his temper, just as he was afraid he would, and before he'd got it back again he'd grabbed the valet and jammed him head first into the green cart. But where he was goin' with him was more'n I could guess. Anyway, it was somewhere that he was in a hurry to get to, for the old boy was rushin' the outfit across the front yard for all he was worth.
In the top of the tea wagon, was Babbitt.In the top of the tea wagon, was Babbitt.
"Oh, stop him, stop him!" screams one of the women, that I figures out must be the daughter.
"Stop 'im! Stop 'im!" yells the other. She looked like one of the maids.
"I'm no backstop," thinks I to myself. "Besides, this is a family affair."
I'd have hated to have blocked that run, too; for it was doin' me a lot of good, just watchin' it and thinkin' of the bumps Babbitt was gettin', with his head down among the bottles.
I follows along on the outside though, and in a minute or so I sees what the Commodore was aimin' at. Out to one side was a cute little fish-pond, about a hundred feet across, and he was makin' a bee line for that. It was down in a sort of hollow, with nice smooth turf slopin' clear to the edge.
When the Commodore gets half-way down he gives the cart one last push, and five seconds later Mr. Babbitt, with his head still stuck in the wagon, souses into the water like he'd been dropped from a balloon. The old boy stays just long enough to see the splash, and then he keeps right on goin' towards New York.
At that I jumps the stone wall and prepares to do some quick divin', but before I could fetch thepond Babbitt comes to the top, blowin' muddy water out of his mouth and threshin' his arms around windmill fashion. Then his feet touches bottom and he finds he ain't in any danger of bein' drowned. The wagon comes up, too, and the first thing he does is to grab that. By the time I gets there he was wadin' across with the cart, and the women had made up their minds there wa'n't any use fainting.
"Babbitt," says the Commodore's daughter, "explain your conduct instantly. What were you doing standing on your head in that tea-wagon?"
"Please, ma'am, I—I forget," splutters Babbitt, wipin' the mud out of his eyes.
"You forget!" says the lady. And say, anyone that knew the old Commodore wouldn't have to do any guessin' as to who her father was. "You forget, do you? Well, I want you to remember. Out with it, now!"
"Yes, ma'am," says Babbitt, tryin' to prop up his wilted collar. "I'd just give him his first dose for the day, and I'd dodged the glass, when somethin' catches me from behind, throws me into the tea-wagon, and off I goes. But that dose counts, don't it, ma'am? He got it down."
I sees how it was then; Babbitt had been gettin' a commission for every glass of the medicated stuff he pumped into the Commodore.
"Will you please run after my father and tell him to come back," says the lady to me.
"Sorry," says I, "but I'm no antelope. You'd better telegraph him."
I didn't stay to see any more, I was that sore on the whole crowd. But I hoped the old one would have sense enough to clear out for good.
I didn't hear any more from my neighbors all day, but after supper that night, just about dusk, somebody sneaks in through the back way and wabbles up to the veranda where I was sittin'. It was the old Commodore. He was about all in, too.
"Did—did I drown him?" says he.
"You made an elegant try," says I; "but there wasn't water enough."
"Thank goodness!" says he. "Now I can die calmly."
"What's the use dyin'?" says I. "Ain't there no thin' else left to do but that?"
"I've got to," says he. "I can't live on that cursed stuff they've been giving me, and if I eat anything else I'm done for. The specialist said so."
"Oh, well," says I, "maybe he's made a wrong guess. It's your turn now. Suppose you come in and let me have Mother Whaley broil you a nice juicy hunk of steak?"
Say, he was near starved. I could tell that by the way he looked when I mentioned broiled steak.He shook his head, though. "If I did, I'd die before morning," says he.
"I'll bet you a dollar you wouldn't," says I.
That almost gets a grin out of him. "Shorty," says he, "I'm going to risk it."
"It's better'n starving to death," says I.
And he sure did eat like a hungry man. When he'd put away a good square meal, includin' a dish of sliced raw onions and two cups of hot tea, I plants him in an arm chair and shoves out the cigar box. He looks at the Fumadoras regretful.
"They've kept those locked away from me for two weeks," says he, "and that was worse than going without food."
"Smoke up, then," says I. "There's one due you."
"As it will probably be my last, I guess I will," says he.
Honest, the old gent was so sure he'd croak before mornin' that he wanted to write some farewell letters, but he was too done up for that. I tucked him into a spare bed, opened all the windows, and before I could turn out the light he was sawin' wood like a hired man.
He was still workin' the fog horn when I went in to rout him out at five o'clock. It was a tough job gettin' him up, but I got him out of his trance at last.
"Come on," says I, "we've got to do our three miles and have a rub-down before breakfast."
First off he swore he couldn't move, and I guess he was some stiff from his sprint the day before, but by the time he'd got out where the birds was singin', and the trees and grass looked like they'd been done over new durin' the night, I was able to coax him into a dog-trot. It was a gentle little stunt we did, but it limbered the old boy up, and after we'd had a cold shower and a quick rub he forgot all about his joints.
"Well, are you set on keepin' that date in the obituary column, or will we have breakfast?" says I.
"I could eat cold lobscouse," says he.
"Mother Whaley's got somethin' better'n that in the kitchen," says I.
"I suppose this will finish me," says he, tacklin' the eggs and corn muffins.
Now, wouldn't that give you the pip? Why, with their specialists and medicated dope, they'd got the old chap so leery of good straight grub that he was bein' starved to death. And even after I'd got him braced up into something like condition, he didn't think it was hardly right to go on eatin'.
"I expect I ought to go back and start in on that slop diet again," says he.
I couldn't stand by and see him do that, though.He was too fine an old sport to be polished off in any such style. "See here, Commodore," says I, "if you're dead stuck on makin' a livin' skeleton of yourself, why, I throws up me hands. But if you'll stay here for a couple of weeks and do just as I say, I'll put you in trim to hit up the kind of life I reckon you think is worth livin'.
"By glory!" says he, "if you can do that I'll—"
"No you won't," say I. "This is my blow."
Course, it was a cinch. He wa'n't any invalid. There was stuff enough in him to last for twenty years, if it was handled right. He begun to pick up right away. I only worked him hard enough to make the meals seem a long ways apart and the mattress feel good. Inside of a week I had the red back in his cheeks, and he was chuckin' the medicine ball around good and hard, and tellin' me what a scrapper he used to be when he first went to the cadet mill, down to Annapolis. You can always tell when these old boys feel kinky—they begin to remember things like that. Before the fortnight was up he wasn't shyin' at anything on the bill of fare, and he was hintin' around that his thirst was comin' back strong.
"Can't I ever have another drink?" says he, as sad as a kid leavin' home.
"I'd take as little as I could get along with," says I.
"I'll promise to do that," says he.
He did, too. About the second day after he'd gone back to his son-in-law's place, he sends for me to come over. I finds him walkin' around the grounds as spry as a two-year-old.
"Well," says I, "how did the folks take it?"
He chuckles. "They don't know what to say," says he. "They can't see how a specialist who charges five hundred dollars for an hour's visit can be wrong; but they admit I'm as good as new."
"How's Babbitt?" says I.
"That's why I wanted you to come over," says he. "Now watch." Then he lets out a roar you could have heard ten blocks away, and in about two shakes old wash-day shows up. "Ha! You shark-nosed sculpin!" yells the Commodore. "Where's your confounded tea cart? Go get it, sir."
"Yes, sir; directly, sir," says Babbitt.
He comes trottin' back with it in a hurry.
"Got any of that blasted decayed milk in it?" says the Commodore.
"No, sir," says Babbitt.
"Are you glad or sorry? Speak up, now," says the Commodore.
"I'm glad, sir," says Babbitt, givin' the salute.
"Good!" says the Commodore. "Then open up your wagon and mix me a Scotch high-ball."
And Babbitt did it like a little man.
"I find," says the Commodore, winkin' at me over the top of his glass, "that I can get along with as few as six of these a day. To your very good health, Professor McCabe."
Stand it? Well, I shouldn't wonder. He's a tough one. And ten years from now, if there's another Dago fleet to be filled full of shot holes, I shouldn't be surprised to find my old Commodore fit and ready to turn the trick.