Say, the longer I knocks around and the more kinds I meet, the slower I am about sizin' folks up on a first view. I used to think there was only two classes, them that was my kind and them that wa'n't; but I've got over that. I don't try to grade 'em up any more; for they're built on so many different plans it would take a card index the size of a flat buildin' to keep 'em all on file. All I can make out is that there's some good points about the worst of 'em, and some of the best has their streak of yellow.
Anyway, I'm glad I ain't called on to write a tag for Langdon. First news I had of him was what I took for inside information, bein' as it was handed me by his maw. When I gets the note askin' me to call up in the 70's between five and six I don't know whether it's a bid to a tea fest or a bait for an auction. The stationery was real swell, though, and the writin' was this up and down kind that goes with the gilt crest. What I could puzzle out of the name, though, wa'n't familiar. But I follows up the invite and takes a chance.
So about five-thirty I'm standin' outside the glass doors pushin' the bell. A butler with boiled egg eyes looks me over real frosty from behind the lace curtains; but the minute I says I'm Shorty McCabe he takes off the tramp chain and says, "Yes, sir. This way, sir." I'm towed in over the Persian hall runner to the back parlour, where there's a lady and gent sittin' on opposite sides of the coal grate, with a tea tray between 'em.
"I'll be drinkin' that stuff yet, if I ain't careful," thinks I.
But I didn't even have to duck. The lady was so anxious to get to talkin' that she forgot to shove the cups at me, and the gent didn't act like it was his say. It was hard to tell, the way she has the lights fixed, whether she was twenty-five or fifty. Anyway, she hadn't got past the kittenish stage. Some of 'em never does. She don't overdo the thing, but just gushes natural; usin' her eyes, and eyebrows, and the end of her nose, and the tip of her chin when she spoke, as well as throwin' in a few shoulder lifts once in awhile.
"It's so good of you to come up, professor!" says she. "Isn't it, Pembroke?"
Pembroke—he's the gent on the other side of the tray—starts to say that it was, but she don't give him a chance. She blazes right ahead, tellin' how she's heard of me and my Studio through friends, and the minute she hears of it, she knows that nothing would suit Langdon better. "Langdon's my son, you know," says she.
"Honest?" says I.
"Te-he!" says she. "How sweet of you! Hardly anyone believes it at first, though. But he's a dear boy; isn't he, Pembroke?"
This was Pembroke's cue for fair. It's up to him to do the boost act. But all he produces is a double barrelled blink from behind the glasses. He's one of these chubby chaps, Pembroke is, especially around the belt. He has pink cheeks, and a nice white forehead that almost meets the back of his collar. But he knows when to let things slide with a blink.
"I guess some one's been givin' you the wrong steer," says I. "I ain't started any kindergarten class yet. The Y. M. C. A. does that sort of——"
"Oh, dear! but Langdon isn't a child, you know," says the lady. "He's a great big fellow, almost twenty-two. Yes, really. And I know you'll get to be awfully fond of him. Won't he, Pembroke?"
"We-e-e-ell——" says Pembroke.
"Oh, he's bound to," says she. "Of course, Langdon doesn't always make friends easily. He is so apt to be misunderstood. Why, they treated him perfectly horrid at prep. school, and even worse at college. A lot of the fellows, and, actually, some of the professors, were so rude to him that Langdon said he just wouldn't stay another day! I told him I didn't blame him a bit. So he came home. But it's awfully dull for a young man like Langdon here in New York, you know."
"Crippled, or blind or something, is he?" says I.
"Who, Langdon? Why, he's perfect—absolutely perfect!" says she.
"Oh, that accounts for it," says I, and Pembroke went through some motions with his cheeks like he was tryin' to blow soap bubbles up in the air.
Well, it seems that mother has been worryin' a lot over keepin' Langdon amused. Think of it, in a town like this!
"He detests business," says she, "and he doesn't care for theatres, or going to clubs, or reading, or society. But his poor dear father didn't care for any of those things either, except business. And Langdon hasn't any head for that. All he takes an interest in is his machine."
"Singer or Remington?" says I.
"Why, his auto, of course. He's perfectly devoted to that," says she; "but the police are so dreadfully particular. Oh, they make such lots of trouble for Langdon, and get him into such stupid scrapes. Don't they, Pembroke?"
Pembroke didn't blink at that. He nods twice.
"It just keeps me worried all the time," she goes on. "It isn't that I mind paying the absurd fines, of course; but—well, you can understand. No one knows what those horrid officers will do next, they're so unreasonable. Just think, that is the poor boy's only pleasure! So I thought that if we could only get Langdon interested in something of an athletic nature—he's a splendid boxer, you know—oh, splendid!"
"That's different," says I. "You might send him down a few times and——"
"Oh, but I want you to meet him first," says she, "and arouse his enthusiasm. He would never go if you didn't. I expect he will be in soon, and then— Why, that must be Langdon now!"
It might have been an axe brigade from the district attorney's office, or a hook and ladder company, by the sound. I didn't know whether he was comin' through the doors or bringin' 'em in with him. As I squints around I sees the egg eyed butler get shouldered into the hall rack; so I judges that Langdon must be in something of a hurry.
He gets over it, though, for he stamps into the middle of the room, plants his feet wide apart, throws his leather cap with the goggles on into a chair, and chucks one of them greasy bootleg gloves into the middle of the tea tray.
"Hello, maw!" he growls. "Hello, Fatty! You here again?"
Playful little cuss, Langdon was. He's about five feet nine, short necked, and broad across the chest. But he's got a nice face—for a masked ball—eyes the colour of purple writin' ink, hair of a lovely ripe tomato shade growin' down to a peak in front and standin' up stiff and bristly; a corrugated brow, like a washboard; and an undershot jaw, same's a bull terrier. Oh, yes, he was a dear boy, all right. In his leggin's and leather coat he looks too cute for any use.
"Who's this?" says he, gettin' sight of me sittin' sideways on the stuffed chair.
"Why, Langdon dear," says maw, "this is Professor McCabe. I was speaking to you of him, you know."
He looks me over as friendly as if I was some yegg man that had been hauled out of the coal cellar. "Huh!" says he. I've heard freight engines coughin' up a grade make a noise a good deal like that.
Say, as a rule I ain't anxious to take on new people, and it's gettin' so lately that we turn away two or three a week; but it didn't take me long to make up my mind that I could find time for a session with Langdon, if he wanted it.
"Your maw says you do a little boxin'?" says I, smooth and soothin'.
"What of it?" says he.
"Well," says I, "down to my Studio we juggle the kid pillows once in awhile ourselves, when we ain't doin' the wand drill, or playin' bean bag."
"Huh!" says he once more.
For a parlour conversationalist, Langdon was a frost, and he has manners that would turn a subway guard green. But maw jumps in with enough buttered talk for both, and pretty soon she tells me that Langdon's perfectly delighted and will be down next day.
"Me and Mr. Gallagher'll be on the spot," says I. "Good evenin', ma'am."
At that Pembroke jumps up, makes a quick break away, and trails along too, so we does a promenade together down West End-ave.
"Charming young fellow, eh?" says Pembroke.
"Sure!" says I. "But he hides it well."
"You think Langdon needs exercise?" says he.
"Never saw anyone that needed it much worse," says I.
"Just my notion," says he. "In fact I am so interested in seeing that Langdon gets it that I am quite willing to pay something extra for——"
"You don't have to," says I. "I'm almost willin' to do the payin' myself."
That pleases Pembroke so much he has to stop right in his tracks and shake hands. Funny, ain't it, how you can get to be such good friends with anyone so sudden? We walks thirty blocks, chinnin' like brothers, and when we stops on the corner of 42d I've got the whole story of maw and Langdon, with some of Pembroke's hist'ry thrown in.
It was just a plain case of mother bein' used as a doormat by her dear, darling boy. She was more or less broke in to it, for it seems that the late departed had been a good deal of a rough houser in his day, havin' been about as gentle in his ways as a 'Leventh-ave. bartender entertainin' the Gas House Gang. He hadn't much more'n quit the game, though, before Langdon got big enough to carry out the program, and he'd been at it ever since.
As near as I could figure, Pembroke was a boyhood friend of maw's. He'd missed his chance of bein' anything nearer, years ago, but was still anxious to try again. But it didn't look like there'd be any weddin' bells for him until Langdon either got his neck broke or was put away for life. Pemby wa'n't soured, though. He talked real nice about it. He said he could see how much maw thought of Langdon, and it showed what good stuff she was made of, her stickin' to the boy until he'd settled on something, or something had settled on him. Course, he thought it was about time she had a let up and was treated white for awhile.
Accordin' to the hints he dropped, I suspicions that Pembroke would have ranked her A-1 in the queen class, and I gathers that the size of her bank account don't cut any ice in this deal, him havin' more or less of a surplus himself. I guess he'd been a patient waiter; but he'd set his hopes hard on engagin' the bridal state room for a spring trip to Europe.
It all comes back, though, to what could be done with Langdon, and that was where the form sheet wa'n't any help. There's a million or so left in trust for him; but he don't get it until he's twenty-five. Meantime, it was a question of how you're goin' to handle a youngster that's inherited the instincts of a truck driver and the income of a bank president.
"It's a pity, too," says Pembroke. "He hasn't any vicious habits, he's rather bright, and if he could be started right he would make quite a man, even now. He needs to be caged up somewhere long enough to' have some of the bully knocked out of him. I'm hoping you can do a little along that line."
"Too big a contract," says I. "All I want is to make his ears buzz a little, just as a comeback for a few of them grunts he chucked at me."
And who do you suppose showed up at the Studio next forenoon? Him and maw; she smilin' all over and tickled to death to think she'd got him there; Langdon actin' like a bear with a sore ear.
"Maybe you hadn't better wait," says I to her.
"Oh, yes," says she. "I am going to stay and watch dear Langdon box, you know."
Well, unless I ruled her out flat, there was no way of changin' her mind; so I had to let her stay. And she saw Langdon box. Oh, yes! For an amateur, he puts up a fairly good exhibition, and as I didn't have the heart to throw the hook into him with her sittin' there lookin' so cheerful, about all I does is step around and block his swings and jabs. And say, with him carryin' his guard high, and leavin' the way to his meat safe open half the time, it was all I could do to hold myself back.
The only fun I gets is watchin' Swifty Joe's face out of the corner of my eye. He was pipin' us off from the start. First his mouth comes open a foot or so as he sees me let a chance slide, and when I misses more openin's he takes on a look like some one had fed him a ripe egg.
Langdon is havin' the time of his life. He can hit as hard as he likes, and he don't get hit back. Must have seemed real homelike to him. Anyway, soon's he dopes it out that there ain't any danger at all, he bores in like a snow plough, and between blockin' and duckin' I has my hands full.
Just how Langdon has it sized up I couldn't make out; but like as not I made somethin' of a hit with him. I put it down that way when he shows up one afternoon with his bubble, and offers to take me for a spin. It was so unexpected to find him tryin' to do somethin' agreeable that I don't feel like I ought to throw him down. So I pulls on a sweater and climbs in next to the steerin' wheel.
There wa'n't anything fancy about Langdon's oil waggon. He'd had the tonneau stripped off, and left just the front seat—no varnished wood, only a coat of primin' paint and a layer of mud splashed over that. But we hadn't gone a dozen blocks before I am wise to the fact that nothin' was the matter with the cog wheels underneath.
"Kind of a high powered cart, ain't it?" says I.
"Only ninety horse," says Langdon, jerkin' us around a Broadway car so fast that we grazed both ends at once.
"You needn't hit 'er up on my account," says I, as we scoots across the Plaza, makin' a cab horse stand on his hind legs to give us room.
"I'm only on the second speed," says he. "Wait," and he does some monkeyin' with the lever.
Maybe it was Central Park; but it seemed to me like bein' shot through a Christmas wreath, and the next thing I knows we're tearin' up Amsterdam-ave. Say, I can see 'em yet, them folks and waggons and things we missed—women holdin' kids by the hand, old ladies steppin' out of cars, little girls runnin' across the street with their arms full of bundles, white wings with their dust cans, and boys with delivery carts. Sometimes I'd just shut my eyes and listen for the squashy sound, and when it didn't come I'd open 'em and figure on what would happen if I should reach out and get Langdon's neck in the crook of my arm.
And it wa'n't my first fast ride in town, either. But I'd never been behind the lamps when a two-ton machine was bein' sent at a fifty-mile clip up a street crowded with folks that had almost as much right to be livin' as we did.
It was a game that suited Langdon all right, though. He's squattin' behind the wheel bareheaded, with his ketchup tinted hair plastered back by the wind, them purple eyes shut to a squint, his under jaw stuck out, and a kind of half grin—if you could call it that—flickerin' on and off his thick lips. I don't wonder men shook their fists at us and women turned white and sick as we cleared 'em by the thickness of a sheet of paper. I expect we left a string of cuss words three blocks long.
I don't know how far we went, or where. It was all a nightmare to me, just a string of gasps and visions of what would be in the papers next day, after the coroner's jury got busy. But somehow we got through without any red on the tires, and pulls up in front of the Studio. I didn't jump out in a hurry, like I wanted to. I needed a minute to think, for it seemed to me something was due some one.
"Nice little plaything you've got here," says I. "And that was a great ride. But sittin' still so long has kind of cramped my legs. Don't feel like limberin' up a bit with the mitts, do you?"
"I'd just as soon," says Langdon.
I was tryin' not to look the way I felt; but when we'd sent Swifty down to sit in the machine, and I'd got Langdon peeled off and standin' on the mat, with the spring lock snapped between him and the outside door, it seemed too good to be true. I'd picked out an old set of gloves that had the hair worked away from the knuckles some, for I wa'n't plannin' on any push ball picnic this time.
Just to stir his fightin' blood, and partly so I could be sure I had a good grip on my own temper, I let him get in a few facers on me. Then I opens up with the side remarks I'd been thinkin' over.
"Say, Langy," says I, sidesteppin' one of his swings for my jaw, "s'posin' you'd hit some of them people, eh? S'posin' that car of yours had caught one of them old women—biff!—like that?" and I lets go a jolt that fetches him on the cheek bone.
"Ugh!" says Langdon, real surprised. But he shakes his head and comes back at me.
"Ever stop to think," says I, "how one of them kids would look after you'd got him—so?" and I shoots the left into that bull neck of his.
"S-s-s-say!" sputters Langdon. "What do you think you're doing, anyway?"
"Me?" says I. "I'm tryin' to get a few points on the bubble business. Is it more fun to smash 'em in the ribs—bang!—like that? Or to slug 'em in the head—biff!—so? That's right, son; come in for more. It's waitin'. There! Jarred your nut a bit, that one did, eh? Yes, here's the mate to it. There's plenty more on tap. Oh, never mind the nose claret. It'll wipe off. Keep your guard up. Careful, now! You're swingin' wide. And, as I was sayin'—there, you ran into that one—this bubble scorchin' must be great sport. When you don't—biff!—get 'em—biff! you can scare 'em to death, eh? Wabbly on your feet, are you? That's the stuff! Keep it up. That eye's all right. One's all you need to see with. Gosh! Now you've got a pair of 'em."
If it hadn't been for his comin' in so ugly and strong I never could have done it. I'd have weakened and let up on him long before he'd got half what was owin'. But he was bound to have it all, and there's no sayin' he wa'n't game about it. At the last I tried to tell him he'd had enough; but as long as he could keep on his pins he kept hopin' to get in just one on me; so I finally has to drop him with a stiff one behind the ear.
Course, if we'd had ring gloves on he'd looked like he'd been on the choppin' block; but with the pillows you can't get hurt bad. Inside of ten minutes I has him all washed off and up in a chair, lookin' not much worse than before, except for the eye swellin's. And what do you guess is the first thing he does?
"Say, McCabe," says he, shovin' out his paw, "you're all right, you are."
"So?" says I. "If I thought you was any judge that might carry weight."
"I know," says he. "Nobody likes me."
"Oh, well," says I, "I ain't rubbin' it in. I guess there's white spots in you, after all; even if you do keep 'em covered."
He pricks up his ears at that, and wants to know how and why. Almost before I knows it we've drifted into a heart to heart talk that a half hour before I would have said couldn't have happened. Langdon ain't turned cherub; but he's a whole lot milder, and he takes in what I've got to say as if it was a bulletin from headquarters.
"That's all so," says he. "But I've got to do something. Do you know what I'd like best?"
I couldn't guess.
"I'd like to be in the navy and handle one of those big thirteen-inch guns," says he.
"Why not, then?" says I.
"I don't know how to get in," says he. "I'd go in a minute, if I did."
"You're as good as there now, then," says I. "There's a recruitin' office around on Sixth-ave., not five blocks from here, and the Lieutenant's somethin' of a friend of mine. Is it a go?"
"It is," says Langdon.
Hanged if he didn't mean it too, and before he can change his mind we've had the papers all made out.
In the mornin' I 'phones Pembroke, and he comes around to lug me up while he breaks the news to maw; for he says she'll need a lot of calmin' down. I was lookin' for nothin' less than cat fits, too. But say, she don't even turn on the sprayer.
"The navy!" says she. "Why, how sweet! Oh, I'm so glad! Won't Langdon make a lovely officer?"
I don't know how it's goin' to work out; but there's one sure thing: it'll be some time before Langdon'll be pestered any more by the traffic cops.
And, now that the state room's engaged, you ought to see how well Pembroke is standin' the blow.
When me and art gets into the ring together, you might as well burn the form sheet and slip the band back on your bettin' roll, for there's no tellin' who'll take the count.
It was Cornelia Ann that got me closer to art than I'd ever been before, or am like to get again. Now, I didn't hunt her up, nor she didn't come gunnin' for me. It was a case of runnin' down signals and collidin' on the stair landin'; me makin' a grand rush out of the Studio for a cross town car, and she just gettin' her wind 'fore she tackled the next flight.
Not that I hit her so hard; but it was enough to spill the paper bundles she has piled up on one arm, and start 'em bouncin' down the iron steps. First comes a loaf of bread; next a bottle of pickles, that goes to the bad the third hop; and exhibit C was one of these ten-cent dishes of baked beans—the pale kind, that look like they'd floated in with the tide. Course, that dinky tin pan they was in don't land flat. It slips out of the bag as slick as if it was greased, stands up on edge, and rolls all the way down, distributin' the mess from top to bottom, as even as if it was laid on with a brush.
"My luncheon!" says she, in a reg'lar me-che-e-ild voice.
"Lunch!" says I. "That's what I'd call a spread. This one's on the house, but the next one will be on me. Will to-morrow do?"
"Ye-es," says she.
"Sorry," says I, "but I'm runnin' behind sched. now. What's the name, miss?"
"C. A. Belter, top floor," says she; "but don't mind about——"
"That'll be all right, too," says I, skippin' down over the broken glass and puntin' the five-cent white through the door for a goal.
It's little things like that, though, that keeps a man from forgettin' how he was brought up. I'm ready enough with some cheap jolly, but when it comes to throwin' in a "beg pardon" at the right place I'm a late comer. I thinks of 'em sometime next day.
Course, I tries to get even by orderin' a four-pound steak, with mushroom trimmin's, sent around from the hotel on the corner; but I couldn't get over thinkin' how disappointed she looked when she saw that pan of beans doin' the pinwheel act. I know I've seen the time when a plate of pork-and in my fist would have been worth all the turkey futures you could stack in a barn, and maybe it was that way with her.
Anyway, she didn't die of it, for a couple of days later she knocks easy on the Studio door and gets her head in far enough to say how nice it was of me to send her that lovely steak.
"Forget it," says I.
"Never," says she. "I'm going to do a bas relief of you, in memory of it."
"A barrel which?" says I.
Honest, I wa'n't within a mile of bein' next. It comes out that she does sculpturing and wants to make a kind of embossed picture of me in plaster of paris, like what the peddlers sell around on vacant stoops.
"I'd look fine on a panel, wouldn't I?" says I. "Much obliged, miss, but sittin' for my halftone is where I draws the line. I'll lend you Swifty Joe, though."
She ain't acquainted with the only registered assistant professor of physical culture in the country, but she says if he don't mind she'll try her hand on him first, and then maybe I'll let her do one of me. Now, you'd thought Swifty, with that before-takin' mug of his, would have hid in the cellar 'fore he'd let anybody make a cast of it; but when the proposition is sprung, he's as pleased as if it was for the front page of Fox's pink.
That was what fetched me up to that seven by nine joint of hers, next the roof, to have a look at what she'd done to Swifty Joe. He tows me up there. And say, blamed if she hadn't got him to the life, broken nose, ingrowin' forehead, whopper jaw, and all!
"How about it?" says Joe, grinnin' at me as proud as if he'd broke into the Fordham Heights Hall of Fame.
"I never see anything handsomer—of the kind," says I.
Then I got to askin' questions about the sculpturin' business, and how the market was; so Miss Belter and me gets more or less acquainted. She was a meek, slimpsy little thing, with big, hungry lookin' eyes, and a double hank of cinnamon coloured hair that I should have thought would have made her neck ache to carry around.
Judgin' by the outfit in her ranch, the sculp-game ain't one that brings in sable lined coats and such knickknacks. There was a bed couch in one corner, a single burner gas stove on an upended trunk in another, and chunks of clay all over the place. Light housekeepin' and art don't seem to mix very well. Maybe they're just as tasty, but I'd as soon have my eggs cooked in a fryin' pan that hadn't been used for a mortar bed.
We passed the time of day reg'lar after that, and now and then she'd drop into the front office to show me some piece she'd made. I finds out that the C. A. in her name stands for Cornelia Ann; so I drops the Miss Belter and calls her that.
"Father always calls me that, too," says she.
"Yes?" says I.
That leads up to the story of how the old folks out in Minnekeegan have been backin' her for a two years' stab at art in a big city. Seems it has been an awful drain on the fam'ly gold reserve, and none of 'em took any stock in such foolishness anyway, but she'd jollied 'em into lettin' her have a show to make good, and now the time was about up.
"Well," says I, "you ain't all in, are you?"
Her under lip starts to pucker up at that, and them hungry eyes gets foggy; but she takes a new grip on herself, makes a bluff at grinnin', and says, throaty like, "It's no use pretending any longer, I—I'm a failure!"
Say, that makes me feel like an ice cream sign in a blizzard. I hadn't been lookin' to dig up any private heart throbs like that. But there it was; so I starts in to cheer her up the best I knew how.
"Course," says I, "it's a line I couldn't shake a nickel out of in a year; but if it suited me, and I thought I was onto my job, I'd make it yield the coin, or go good and hungry tryin'."
"Perhaps I have gone hungry," says she, quiet like.
"Honest?" says I.
"That steak lasted me for a week," says she.
There was more particulars followed that throws Cornelia Ann on the screen in a new way for me. Grit! Why, she had enough to sand a tarred roof. She'd lived on ham knuckles and limed eggs and Swiss cheese for months. She'd turned her dresses inside out and upside down, lined her shoes with paper when it was wet, and wore a long sleeved shirt waist when there wa'n't another bein' used this side of the prairies. And you can judge what that means by watchin' the women size each other up in a street car.
"If they'd only given me half a chance to show what I could do!" says she. "But I didn't get the chance, and perhaps it was my fault. So what's the use? I'll just pack up and go back to Minnekeegan."
"Minnekeegan!" says I. "That sounds tough. What then?"
"Oh," says she, "my brother is foreman in a broom factory. He will get me a job at pasting labels."
"Say," says I, gettin' a quick rush of blood to the head, "s'posen I should contract for a full length of Swifty Joe to hang here in——"
"No you don't!" says she, edgin' off. "It's good of you, but charity work isn't what I want."
Say, it wa'n't any of my funeral, but that broom fact'ry proposition stayed with me quite some time. The thoughts of anyone havin' to go back to a place with a name like Minnekeegan was bilious enough; but for a girl that had laid out to give Macmonnies a run for the gold medal, the label pastin' prospect must have loomed up like a bad dream.
There's one good thing about other folks's troubles though—they're easy put on the shelf. Soon's I gets to work I forgets all about Cornelia Ann. I has to run out to Rockywold that afternoon, to put Mr. Purdy Pell through his reg'lar course of stunts that he's been takin' since some one told him he was gettin' to be a forty-fat. There was a whole bunch of swells on hand; for it's gettin' so, now they can go and come in their own tourin' cars, that winter house parties are just as common as in summer.
"Thank heaven you've come!" says Mr. Pell. "It gives me a chance to get away from cards for an hour or so."
"Guess you need it," says I. "You look like the trey of spades."
Then Pinckney shows up in the gym., and he no sooner sees us at work with the basket ball than he begins to peel off. "I say there!" says he. "Count me in on some of that, or I'll be pulled into another rubber."
About an hour later, after they'd jollied me into stayin' all night, I puts on a sweater and starts out for some hoof exercise in the young blizzard that was makin' things white outside. Sadie holds me up at the door. Her cheeks was blazin', and I could see she was holdin' the Sullivan temper down with both hands.
"Hello!" says I. "What's been stirrin' you up?"
"Bridge!" snaps she. "I guess if you'd been glared at for two hours, and called stupid when you lost, and worse names when you won, you'd feel like throwing the cards at some one."
"Well, why didn't you?" says I.
"I did," says she, "and there's an awful row on; but I don't care! And if you don't stop that grinnin', I'll——"
Well, she does it. That's the way with Sadie, words is always too slow for her. Inside of a minute she's out chasin' me around the front yard and peltin' me with snow balls.
"See here," says I, diggin' a hunk of snow out of one ear, "that kind of sport's all to the merry; but if I was you I'd dress for the part. Snowballin' in slippers and silk stockin's and a lace dress is a pneumonia bid, even if you are such a warm one on top."
"Who's a red head?" says she. "You just wait a minute, Shorty McCabe, and I'll make you sorry for that!"
It wa'n't a minute, it was nearer fifteen; but when Sadie shows up again she's wearin' the slickest Canuck costume you ever see, all blanket stripes and red tassels, like a girl on a gift calendar.
"Whe-e-e!" says she, and the snow begins to fly in chunks. It was the damp, packy kind that used to make us go out and soak the tall hats when we was kids. And Sadie hasn't forgot how to lam 'em in, either. We was havin' it hot and lively, all over the lawn, when the first thing I knows out comes Mrs. Purdy Pell and Pinckney and a lot of others, to join in the muss. They'd dragged out a whole raft of toboggan outfits from the attic, and the minute they gets 'em on they begins to act as coltish as two-year-olds.
Well say, you wouldn't have thought high rollers like them, that gets their fun out of playin' the glass works exhibit at the op'ra, and eatin' one A. M. suppers at Sherry's, and doublin' no trumps at a quarter a point, could unbuckle enough to build snow forts, and yell like Indians, and cut up like kids generally. But they does—washed each other's faces, and laughed and whooped it up until dark. Didn't need the dry Martinis to jolly up appetites for that bunch when dinner time come, and if there was anyone awake in Rockywold after ten o'clock that night it was the butler and the kitchen help.
I looked for 'em to forget it all by mornin' and start in again on their punky card games; but they was all up bright and early, plannin' out new stunts. There'd been a lot of snow dropped durin' the night, and some one gets struck with the notion that buildin' snow men would be the finest sport in the world. They couldn't hardly wait to eat breakfast before they gets on their blanket clothes and goes at it. They was rollin' up snow all over the place, as busy as 'longshoremen—all but Pinckney. He gives out that him and me has been appointed an art committee, to rake in an entrance fee of ten bones each and decide who gets the purse for doin' the best job.
"G'wan!" says I. "I couldn't referee no such fool tournament as this."
"That's right, be modest!" says he. "Don't mind our feelings at all."
Then Sadie and Mrs. Pell butts in and says I've just got to do it; so I does. We gives 'em so long to pile up their raw material, and half an hour after that to carve out what they thinks they can do best, nothin' barred. Some starts in on Teddy bears, one gent plans out a cop; but the most of 'em don't try anything harder'n plain snow men, with lumps of coal for eyes, and pipes stuck in to finish off the face.
It was about then that Count Skiphauser moves out of the background and begins to play up strong. He's one of these big, full blooded pretzels that's been everywhere, and seen everything, and knows it all, and thinks there ain't anything but what he can do a little better'n anybody else.
"Oh, well," says he, "I suppose I must show you what snow carving really is. I won a prize for this sort of thing in Berlin, you know."
"It's all over now," says I to Pinckney. "You heard Skippy pickin' himself for a winner, didn't you?"
"He's a bounder," says Pinckney, talkin' corner-wise—"lives on his bridge and poker winnings. He mustn't get the prize."
But Skiphauser ain't much more'n blocked out a head and shoulders 'fore it was a cinch he was a ringer, with nothin' but a lot of rank amateurs against him. Soon's the rest saw what they was up against they all laid down, for he was makin' 'em look like six car fares. Course, there wa'n't nothin' to do but join the gallery and watch him win in a walk.
"Oh, it's a bust of Bismarck, isn't it?" says one of the women. "How clever of you, Count!"
At that Skippy throws out his chest and begins to chuck in the flourishes. That kind of business suited him down to the ground. He cocks his head on one side, twists up his lip whiskers like Billy the Tooth, and goes through all the motions of a man that knows he's givin' folks a treat.
"Hates himself, don't he?" says I. "He must have graduated from some tombstone foundry."
Pinckney was wild. So was Sadie and Mrs. Purdy Pell, on account of the free-for-all bein' turned into a game of solitaire.
"I just wish," says Sadie, "that there was some way of taking him down a peg. If I only knew of someone who——"
"I do, if you don't," says I.
Say, what do you reckon had been cloggin' my thought works all that time. I takes the three of 'em to one side and springs my proposition, tellin' 'em I'd put it through if they'd stand for it. Would they? They're so tickled they almost squeals.
I gets Swifty Joe at the Studio on the long distance and gives him his instructions. It was a wonder he got it straight, for sometimes you can't get an idea into his head without usin' a brace and bit, but this trip he shows up for a high brow. Pretty quick we gets word that it's all O. K. Pinckney bulletins it to the crowd that, while Sadie's pulled out of the competition, she's asked leave to put on a sub, and that the prize awardin' will be delayed until after the returns are all in.
Meantime I climbs into the sleigh and goes down to meet the express. Sure enough, Cornelia Ann was aboard, a bit hazy about the kind of a stunt that's expected of her, but ready for anything. I don't go into many details, for fear of givin' her stage fright; but I lets her know that if she's got any sculpturin' tricks up her sleeve now's the time to shake 'em out.
"I've been tellin' some friends of mine," says I, "that when it comes to clay art, or plaster of paris art, you was the real lollypop; and I reckoned that if you could do pieces in mud, you could do 'em just as well in snow."
"Snow!" says she. "Why, I never tried."
Maybe I'd banked too much on Cornelia, or perhaps she was right in sayin' this was out of her line. Anyway, it was a mighty disappointed trio that sized her up when I landed her under the porte cochère.
When she's run her eye over the size and swellness of the place I've brought her to, and seen a sample of the folks, she looks half scared to death. And you wouldn't have played her for a fav'rite, either, if you'd seen the cheap figure she cut, with them big eyes rollin' around, as if she was huntin' for the nearest way out. But we give her a cup of hot tea, makes her put on a pair of fleece lined overshoes and somebody's Persian lamb jacket, and leads her out to make a try for the championship.
Some of 'em was sorry of her, and tried to be sociable; but others just stood around and snickered and whispered things behind their hands. Honest, I could have thrown brickbats at myself for bein' such a mush head. That wouldn't have helped any though, so I gets busy and rolls together a couple of chunks of snow about as big as flour barrels and piles one on top of the other.
"It's up to you, Cornie," says I. "Can't you dig something or other out of that?"
She don't say whether she can or can't, but just walks around it two or three times, lookin' at it dreamy, like she was in a trance. Next she braces up a bit, calls for an old carvin' knife and a kitchen spoon, and goes to work, the whole push watchin' her as if she was some freak in a cage.
I pipes off her motions for awhile real hopeful, and then I edges out where I could look the other way. Why say, all she'd done was to hew out something that looks like a lot of soap boxes piled up for a bonfire. It was a case of funk, I could see that; and maybe I wa'n't feelin' like I'd carried a gold brick down to the subtreasury and asked for the acid test.
Then I begins to hear the "Oh's!" and "Ah's!" come from the crowd. First off I thought they was guyin' her, but when I strolls back near enough for a peek at what she was up to, my mouth comes open, too. Say, you wouldn't believe it less'n you'd seen it done, but she was just fetchin' out of that heap of snow, most as quick and easy as if she was unpackin' it from a crate, the stunningest lookin' altogether girl that I ever see outside a museum.
I don't know who it was supposed to be, or why. She's holdin' up with one hand what draperies she's got—which wa'n't any too many—an' with the other she's reachin' above her head after somethin' or other—maybe the soap on the top shelf. But she was a beaut, all right. And all Cornelia was doin' to bring her out was just slashin' away careless with the knife and spoon handle, hardly stoppin' a second between strokes. She simply had 'em goggle eyed. I reckon they'd seen things just as fine and maybe better, but they hadn't had a front seat before, while a little ninety-pound cinnamon top like Cornelia Ann stepped up and yanked a whitewashed angel out of a snow heap.
"It's wonderful!" says Mrs. Purdy Pell.
"Looks to me like we had Skippy fingerin' the citrus, don't it?" says I.
The Count he's been standin' there with his mouth open, like the rest of us, only growin' redder 'n' redder.
But just then Cornelia makes one last swipe, drops her tools, and steps back to take a view. We all quits to see what's comin' next. Well, she looks and looks at that Lady Reacher she's dug out, never sayin' a word; and before we knows it she's slumped right down there in the snow, with both hands over her face, doin' the weep act like a kid.
In two shakes it was Sadie and Mrs. Purdy Pell to the rescue, one on each side, while the rest of us gawps on and looks foolish.
"What is it, you poor darling?" says Sadie.
Finally, after a good weep, Cornie unloosens her trouble. "Oh, oh!" says she. "I just know it's going to rain to-morrow!"
Now wouldn't that give you a foolish fit?
"What of it?" says Sadie.
"That," says she, pointin' to the snow lady. "She'll be gone forever. Oh, it's wicked, wicked!"
"Well," says I, "she's too big to go in the ice box."
"Never mind, dear," says Mrs. Purdy Pell; "you shall stay right here and do another one, in solid marble. I'll give you a thousand for a duplicate of that."
"And then you must do something for me," says Sadie.
"And me, too," says Mrs. Dicky Madison.
I didn't wait to hear any more, for boostin' lady sculpturesses ain't my reg'lar work. But, from all I hear of Cornelia Ann, she won't paste labels in any broom fact'ry.
For your simple liver and slow quitter, art's all right; but it's a long shot, at that. What?
Say, there's no tellin', is there? Sometimes the quietest runnin' bubbles blows up with the biggest bang. Now look at Ferdy. He was as retirin' and modest as a new lodge member at his first meetin'. Why, he's so anxious to dodge makin' a show of himself that when he comes here for a private course I has to lock the Studio door and post Swifty Joe on the outside to see that nobody butts in.
All the Dobsons is that way. They're the kind of folks that lives on Fifth-ave., with the front shades always pulled down, and they shy at gettin' their names in the papers like it was bein' served with a summons.
Course, they did have their dose of free advertisin' once, when that Tootsy Peroxide bobbed up and tried to break old Peter Dobson's will; but that case happened so long ago, and there's been so many like it since, that hardly anybody but the Dobsons remembers it. Must have been a good deal of a jolt at the time, though; for as far as I've seen, they're nice folks, and the real thing in the fat wad line, specially Ferdy. He's that genteel and refined he has to have pearl grey boxin' gloves to match his gym. suit.
Well, I wa'n't thinkin' any of him, or his set, havin' just had a session with a brewer's son that I've took on durin' the dull season, when I looks out into the front office and sees my little old Bishop standin' there moppin' his face.
"Hello, Bishop!" I sings out. "Thought you was in Newport, herdin' the flock."
"So I was, Shorty," says he, "until six hours ago. I came down to look for a stray lamb."
"Tried Wall Street?" says I.
"He is not that kind of a lamb," says the Bishop. "It is Ferdinand Dobson. Have you seen him recently?"
"What! Ferdy?" says I. "Not for weeks. They're all up at their Lenox place, ain't they?"
No, they wa'n't. And then the Bishop puts me next to a little news item that hadn't got into the society column yet. Ferdy, after gettin' to be most twenty-five, has been hooked. The girl's name was Alicia, and soon's I heard it I placed her, havin' seen her a few times at different swell ranches where I've been knockin' around in the background. As I remembers her, she has one of these long, high toned faces, and a shape to match—not what you'd call a neck twister, but somethin' real classy and high browed, just the sort you'd look for Ferdy to tag.
Seems they'd been doin' the lovey-dovey for more'n a year; but all on the sly, meetin' each other at afternoon teas, and now and then havin' a ten-minute hand holdin' match under a palm somewhere. They was so cute about it that even their folks didn't suspect it was a case of honey and honey boy; not that anyone would have raised a kick, but because Ferdy don't want any fuss made about it.
When Alicia's mother gets the facts, though, she writes a new program. She don't stand for springin' any quiet weddin's on her set. She plans a big party, where the engagement bulletin is to be flashed on the screen reg'lar and proper, so's folks can be orderin' their dresses and weddin' presents.
Ferdy balks some at the thought of bein' dragged to the centre of the stage; but he grits his teeth and tells 'em that for this once they can go as far as they like. He even agrees to leave home for a week and mix it at a big house party, just to get himself broke in to meetin' strangers.
Up to within two days of the engagement stunt he was behavin' lovely; and the next thing they knows, just when he should be gettin' ready to show up at Newport, he can't be found. It has all the looks of his leavin' his clothes on the bank and jumpin' the night freight. Course, the Dobsons ain't sayin' a word to Alicia's folks yet. They gets their friends together to organise a still hunt for Ferdy; and the Bishop bein' one of the inside circle, he's sent out as head scout.
"And I am at my wits' ends," says he. "No one has seen him in Newport, and I can't find him at any of his clubs here."
"How about the Fifth-ave. mausoleum?" says I.
"His man is there," says the Bishop; "but he seems unable to give me any information."
"Does, eh?" says I. "Well, you take it from me that if anyone's got a line on Ferdy, it's that clam faced Kupps of his. He's been trained so fine in the silence business that he hardly dares open his mouth when he eats. Go up there and put him through the wringer."
"Do what?" says the Bishop.
"Give him the headquarters quiz," says I. "Tell him you come straight from mother and sisters, and that Ferdy's got to be found."
"I hardly feel equal to doing just that," says the Bishop in his mild way. "Now if you could only——"
"Why, sure!" says I. "It'd do me good to take a whirl out of that Englishman. I'll make him give up!"
He's a bird though, that Kupps. I hadn't talked with him two minutes before I would have bet my pile he knew all about where Ferdy was roostin' and what he was up to; but when it come to draggin' out the details, you might just as well have been tryin' to pry up a pavin' stone with a fountain pen. Was Ferdy in town, or out of town, and when would he be back? Kupps couldn't say. He wouldn't even tell how long it was since he had seen Ferdy last. And say, you know how pig headed one of them hen brained Cockneys can be? I feels my collar gettin' tight.
"Look here, Hiccups!" says I. "You——"
"Kupps, sir," says he. "Thomas Kupps is my full nyme, sir."
"Well, Teacups, then, if that suits you better," says I. "You don't seem to have got it into your head that the Bishop ain't just buttin' in here for the fun of the thing. This matter of retrievin' Ferdy is serious. Now you're sure he didn't leave any private messages, or notes or anything of that kind?"
"Nothink of the sort, sir; nothink whatever," says Kupps.
"Well, you just show us up to his rooms," says I, "and we'll have a look around for ourselves. Eh, Bishop?"
"Perhaps it would be the best thing to do," says the Bishop.
Kupps didn't want to do it; but I gives him a look that changes his mind, and up we goes. I was thinkin' that if Ferdy had got chilly feet at the last minute and done the deep dive, maybe he'd left a few lines layin' around his desk. There wa'n't anything in sight, though; nothin' but a big photograph of a wide, full chested lady, propped up against the rail.
"That don't look much like the fair Alicia," says I.
The Bishop puts on his nigh-to glasses and says it ain't. He thinks it must have been took of a lady that he'd seen Ferdy chinnin' at the house party, where he got his last glimpse of him.
"Good deal of a hummin' bird, she is, eh?" says I, pickin' it up. "Tutty tut! Look what's here!" Behind it was a photo of Alicia.
"And here's somethin' else," says I. On the back of the big picture was scribbled, "From Ducky to Ferdy," and the date.
"Yesterday!" gasps the Bishop.
"Well, well!" says I. "That's advancin' the spark some! If he meets her only a week or so ago, and by yesterday she's got so far as bein' his ducky, it looks like Alicia'd have to get out and take the car ahead."
The Bishop acts stunned, gazin' from me to the picture, as if he'd been handed one on the dizzy bone. "You—you don't mean," says he, "that you suspect Ferdy of—of——"
"I hate to think it," says I; "but this looks like a quick shift. Kupps, who's Ferdy's lady friend?"
"Mr. Dobson didn't sye, sir," says Kupps.
"Very thoughtless of him," says I. "Come on, Bishop, we'll take this along as a clue and see what Vandy has to say."
He's a human kodak, Vandy is—makes a livin' takin' pictures for the newspapers. You can't break into the swell push, or have an argument with Teddy, or be tried for murder, without Vandy's showin' up to make a few negatives. So I flashes the photo of Ducky on him.
"Who's the wide one?" says I.
"Why, don't you know who that is, Shorty?" says he.
"Say, do you think I'd be chasin' up any flashlight pirate like you, if I did?" says I. "What's her name?"
"That's Madam Brooklini, of course," says he.
"What, the thousand-dollar-a-minute warbler?" says I. "And me seein' her lithographs all last winter! Gee, Bishop! I thought you followed grand opera closer'n that."
"I should have recalled her," says the Bishop; "but I see so many faces——"
"Only a few like that, though," says I. "Vandy, where do you reckon Mrs. Greater New York could be located just about now?"
Vandy has the whole story down pat. Seems she's been over here out of season bringin' suit against her last manager; but havin' held him up for everything but the gold fillin' in his front teeth, she is booked to sail back to her Irish castle at four in the mornin'. He knows the steamer and the pier number.
"Four A. M., eh?" says I. "That means she's likely to be aboard now, gettin' settled. Bishop, if that Ducky business was a straight steer, it's ten to one that a friend of ours is there sayin' good-bye. Shall we follow it up?"
"I can hardly credit it," says he. "However, if you think——"
"It's no cinch," says I; "but this is a case where it won't do to bank on past performances. From all the signs, Ferdy has struck a new gait."
The Bishop throws up both hands. "How clearly you put it," says he, "and how stupid of me not to understand! Should we visit the steamer, or not?"
"Bishop," says I, "you're a good guesser. We should."
And there wa'n't any trouble about locatin' the high artist. All we has to do is to walk along the promenade deck until we comes to a suite where the cabin stewards was poppin' in and out, luggin' bunches of flowers and baskets of fruit, and gettin' the book signed for telegrams. The Bishop was for askin' questions and sendin' in his card; but I gets him by the sleeve and tows him right in.
I hadn't made any wrong guess, either. There in the corner of the state room, planted in a big wicker arm chair, with a jar of long stemmed American beauts on one side, was Madam Brooklini. On the other side, sittin' edgeways on a canvas stool and holdin' her left hand, was Ferdy.
I could make a guess as to how the thing had come around; Ferdy breakin' from his shell at the house party, runnin' across Brooklini under a soft light, and losin' his head the minute she begins cooin' low notes to him. That's what she was doin' now, him gazin' up at her, and her gazin' down at him. It was about the mushiest performance I ever see.
"Ahem!" says the Bishop, clearin' his throat and blushin' a lovely maroon colour. "I—er—we did not intend to intrude; but——"
Then it was up to Ferdy to show the red. He opens his mouth and gawps at us for a whole minute before he can get out a word. "Why—why, Bishop!" he pants. "What—how——"
Before he has time to choke, or the Bishop can work up a case of apoplexy, I jumps into the ring. "Excuse us doin' the goat act," says I; "but the Bishop has got some word for you from the folks at home, and he wants to get it off his mind."
"Ah, friends of yours, Ferdy?" says Madam Brooklini, throwin' us about four hundred dollars' worth of smile.
There was nothin' for Ferdy to do then but pull himself together and make us all acquainted. And say, I never shook hands with so much jewelry all at once before! She has three or four bunches of sparks on each finger, not to mention a thumb ring. Oh, there wa'n't any mistakin' who skimmed the cream off the box office receipts after you'd took a look at her!
And for a straight front Venus she was the real maraschino. Course, even if the complexion was true, you wouldn't put her down as one of this spring's hatch; but for a broad, heavy weight girl she was the fancy goods. And when she cuts loose with that eighteen-carat voice of hers, and begins to roll them misbehavin' eyes, you forgot how the chair was creakin' under her. The Bishop has all he can do to remember why he was there; but he manages to get out that he'd like a few minutes on the side with Ferdy.
"If your message relates in any way to my return to Newport," says Ferdy, stiffenin' up, "it is useless. I am not going there!"
"But, my dear Ferdy——" begins the Bishop, when the lady cuts in.
"That's right, Bishop," says she. "I do hope you can persuade the silly boy to stop following me around and teasing me to marry him."
"Oh, naughty!" says I under my breath.
The Bishop just looks from one to the other, and then he braces up and says, "Ferdinand, this is not possible, is it?"
It was up to Ferdy again. He gives a squirm or two as he catches the Bishop's eye, and the dew was beginnin' to break out on his noble brow, when Ducky reaches over and gives his hand a playful little squeeze. That was a nerve restorer.
"Bishop," says he, "I must tell you that I am madly, hopelessly, in love with this lady, and that I mean to make her my wife."
"Isn't he the dearest booby you ever saw!" gurgles Madam Brooklini. "He has been saying nothing but that for the last five days. And now he says he is going to follow me across the ocean and keep on saying it. But you must stop, Ferdy; really, you must."
"Never!" says Ferdy, gettin' a good grip on the cut glass exhibit.
"Such persistence!" says Ducky, shiftin' her searchlights from him to us and back again. "And he knows I have said I would not marry again. I mustn't. My managers don't like it. Why, every time I marry they raise a most dreadful row. But what can I do? Ferdy insists, you see; and if he keeps it up, I just know I shall have to take him. Please be good, Ferdy!"
Wouldn't that make you seasick? But the Bishop comes to the front like he'd heard a call to man the lifeboat.
"It may influence you somewhat," says he, "to learn that for nearly a year Ferdinand has been secretly engaged to a very estimable young woman."
"I know," says she, tearin' off a little giggle. "Ferdy has told me all about Alicia. What a wicked, deceitful wretch he is! isn't he? Aren't you ashamed, Ferdy, to act so foolish over me?"
If Ferdy was, he hid it well. All he seemed willin' to do was to sit there, holdin' her hand and lookin' as soft as a custard pie, while the Lady Williamsburg tells what a tough job she has dodgin' matrimony, on account of her yieldin' disposition. I didn't know whether to hide my face in my hat, or go out and lean over the rail. I guess the Bishop wa'n't feelin' any too comfortable either; but he was there to do his duty, so he makes one last stab.
"Ferdinand," says he, "your mother asked me to say that——"
"Tell her I was never so happy in my life," says Ferdy, pattin' a broadside of solitaires and marquise rings.
"Come on, Bishop," says I. "There's only one cure for a complaint of that kind, and it looks like Ferdy was bound to take it."
We was just startin' for the deck, when the door was blocked by a steward luggin' in another sheaf of roses, and followed by a couple of middle aged, jolly lookin' gents, smokin' cigars and marchin' arm in arm. One was a tall, well built chap in a silk hat; the other was a short, pussy, ruby beaked gent in French flannels and a Panama.
"Hello, sweety!" says the tall one.
"Peekaboo, dearie!" sings out the other.
"Dick! Jimmy!" squeals Madam Brooklini, givin' a hand to each of 'em, and leavin' Ferdy holdin' the air. "Oh, how delightfully thoughtful of you!"
"Tried to ring in old Grubby, too," says Dick; "but he couldn't get away. He chipped in for the flowers, though."
"Dear old Grubby!" says she. "Let's see, he was my third, wasn't he?"
"Why, dearie!" says Dicky boy, "I was Number Three. Grubby was your second."
"Really!" says she. "But I do get you so mixed. Oh!" and then she remembers Ferdy. "Ducky, dear," she goes on, "I do want you to know these gentlemen—two of my former husbands."
"Wha-a-at!" gasps Ferdy, his eyes buggin' out.
I hears the Bishop groan and flop on a seat behind me. Honest, it was straight! Dick and Jimmy was a couple of discards, old Grubby was another, and inside of a minute blamed if she hadn't mentioned a fourth, that was planted somewhere on the other side. Course, for a convention there wouldn't have been a straight quorum; but there was enough answerin' roll call to make it pass for a reunion, all right.
And it was a peach while it lasted. The pair of has-beens didn't have long to stay, one havin' to get back to Chicago and the other bein' billed to start on a yachtin' trip. They'd just run over to say by-by; and tell how they was plannin' an annual dinner, with the judges and divorce lawyers for guests. Yes, yes, they was a jolly couple, them two! All the Bishop could do was lay back and fan himself as he listens, once in awhile whisperin' to himself, "My, my!" As for Ferdy, he looked like he'd been hypnotised and was waitin' to be woke up.
The pair was sayin' good-bye for the third and last time, when in rushes a high strung, nervous young feller with a pencil behind his ear and a pad in his hand.
"Well, Larry, what is it now?" snaps out Madam Brooklini, doin' the lightnin' change act with her voice. "I am engaged, you see."
"Can't help it," says Larry. "Got fourteen reporters and eight snapshot men waiting to do the sailing story for the morning editions. Shall I bring 'em up?"
"But I am entertaining two of my ex-husbands," says the lady, "and——"
"Great!" says Larry. "We'll put 'em in the group. Who's the other?"
"Oh, that's only Ferdy," says she. "I haven't married him yet."
"Bully!" says Larry. "We can get half a column of space out of him alone. He goes in the pictures too. We'll label him 'Next,' or 'Number Five Elect,' or something like that. Line 'em up outside, will you?"
"Oh, pshaw!" says Madam Brooklini. "What a nuisance these press agents are! But Larry is so enterprising. Come, we'll make a splendid group, the four of us. Come, Ferdy."
"Reporters!" Ferdy lets it come out of him kind of hoarse and husky, like he'd just seen a ghost.
But I knew the view that he was gettin'; his name in the headlines, his picture on the front page, and all the chappies at the club and the whole Newport crowd chucklin' and nudgin' each other over the story of how he was taggin' around after an op'ra singer that had a syndicate of second hand husbands.
"No, no, no!" says he. It was the only time I ever heard Ferdy come anywhere near a yell, and I wouldn't have believed he could have done it if I hadn't had my eyes on him as he jumps clear of the corner, makes a flyin' break through the bunch, and streaks it down the deck for the forward companionway.
Me and the Bishop didn't wait to see the finish of that group picture. We takes after Ferdy as fast as the Bishop's wind would let us, he bein' afraid that Ferdy was up to somethin' desperate, like jumpin' off the dock. All Ferdy does, though, is jump into a cab and drive for home, us trailin' on behind. We was close enough at the end of the run to see him bolt through the door; but Kupps tells us that Mr. Dobson has left orders not to let a soul into the house.
Early next mornin', though, the Bishop comes around and asks me to go up while he tries again, and after we've stood on the steps for ten minutes, waitin' for Kupps to take in a note, we're shown up to Ferdy's bed room. He's in silk pajamas and bath robe, lookin' white and hollow eyed. Every mornin' paper in town is scattered around the room, and not one of 'em with less than a whole column about how Madam Brooklini sailed for Europe.
"Any of 'em got anything to say about Number Five?" says I.
"Thank heaven, no!" groans Ferdy. "Bishop, what do you suppose poor dear Alicia thinks of me, though?"
"Why, my son," says the Bishop, his little eyes sparklin', "I suppose she is thinking that it is 'most time for you to arrive in Newport, as you promised."
"Then she doesn't know what an ass I've been?" says Ferdy. "No one has told her?"
"Shorty, have you?" says the Bishop.
And when Ferdy sees me grinnin', and it breaks on him that me and the Bishop are the only ones that know about this dippy streak of his, he's the thankfulest cuss you ever saw. Alicia? He could hardly get there quick enough to suit him; and the knot's to be tied inside of the next month.
"Marryin's all right," says I to Ferdy, "so long's you don't let the habit grow on you."