CHAPTER XIIITORCHY STRAYS FROM BROADWAY
"I must say it listens kind of complicated," says I, after Vee has explained how I am to arrive at this country house weddin' fest.
"Why, Torchy, it's perfectly simple," says she.
And once more she sketches out the plan, how I'm to take the express to Springfield, catch a green line trolley that's bound northwest, get off at Dorr's Crossing, and wait until this Barry Crane party picks me up in his car.
You see this friend of Vee's who's billed for the blushin' bride act has decided to have the event pulled off at Birch Crest, the family's summer home up in the hills of old N. H. Vee has promised to motor up the day before with the bridesmaid, leavin' me to follow the next mornin'. But when we come to look up train schedules it develops that the only way to get to Birch Crest by train is via Boston.
"How about runnin' up to Montreal and droppin' down?" I suggests sarcastic.
And then comes the word that this organist guy will be on his way up across lots, after an over-night stop in New Haven, and will takeme aboard if I can make the proper connection.
"Suppose I make a slip, though?" says I. "There I'll be stranded up in the pie belt with nothing but my feet to ride fifty miles on. Sorry, Vee, but I guess your old boardin' school chum will have to break into matrimony without my help."
Maybe you think that settled it. If you do you ain't tried being married. Inside of half an hour we'd agreed on the usual compromise—I'm to do as Vee says.
So here at 11:15 on a bright summer mornin' I'm dumped off a trolley car way out on the upper edge of Massachusetts. It's about as lonesome a spot as you could find on the map. Nothing but fields and woods in sight, and a dusty road windin' across the right of way. Not a house to be seen, not even a barn.
"You're sure this is Dorr's Crossin', eh?" I asks of the conductor as I hesitates on the step.
"Oh, yes," says he, cheerful.
"Don't seem to be usin' it much, does he?" says I.
"Ding, ding!" remarks the fare collector to the motorman, and it was a case of hoppin' lively for me.
There's nothing left to do but hoist myself conspicuous onto a convenient wayside rock and hope that this Barry Crane person was runnin'somewhere near on time. About then I begun to wish I knew more about him, his general habits and so on. Was his memory good? Could he be depended on to keep dates with strangers? Would he know Dorr's Crossing when he saw it?
Vee hadn't touched on any of these points when she was convincin' me how simple it would be for him and me to get together. Course, she'd given me a chatty little sketch of Mr. Crane, but mostly it had been about what a swell organist he was. Played in a big church. Not only that, but made up pieces, all out of his own head. Also she'd mentioned about his hopeless romance with a certain Ann McLeod.
Seems Barry had been strong for Miss McLeod for five or six years. She'd kind of strung him along at first, too. Couldn't help likin' Barry some. Everybody did. He was that kind—good natured, always sayin' clever things. You know. But when it came to hitchin' up with him permanent, Miss McLeod had balked. Nobody knew just why. Bright girl, Ann. Brainy, too, and with lots of pep. She was secretary for some big efficiency expert. Maybe that was why she couldn't stand for Barry's musical temperament. She thought 9 a.m. was absolutely the last call for pushin' back the roll-top and openin' the mornin' mail, while Barry's idea of beginnin'a perfect day was for someone to bring in a breakfast tray about eleven o'clock and hand him a cigarette before he tumbled out of the straw. So while he'd qualified as a Dear Old Thing and she'd got to the point where she'd let him call her Playmate Mine, that's where the romance hung on the rocks. Also he'd been described as a chunky party with a round face decorated with a cute little mustache and baby blue eyes.
All of which don't help me dope out how long I'm due to lend a human note to an otherwise empty landscape. And there's more excitin' outdoor sports than sittin' on a rock waitin' to be rescued by someone who hasn't even seen a snapshot of you. I'll tell the world that. During the first twenty minutes I answered two false alarms. One was a gasoline truck going the wrong way and the other turns out to be an R. F. D. flivver with a baby's go-cart tied on the side. It was good and hot on the perch I'd picked out and I could feel the sun doing things to the back of my neck and ears, but I didn't dare climb down for fear I'd be missed.
Where was this musical gent and his tourin' car? Or would it be a limousine? Somehow from the way Vee had talked, sayin' he was bugs on motorin', I sort of favored the limousine proposition. Uh-huh. Most likely one lined with cretonne, and a French chauffeur at the wheel. But nothing like that was rollin'past Dorr's Crossing. Not while I was watchin'.
The rock wasn't gettin' a bit softer, either. Once a bluejay balanced himself on a nearby bush and after lookin' me over curious screeched himself hoarse tryin' to say what he thought of a city guy who didn't know enough to get in the shade. It got to be noon. Still no Barry Crane. I was just wonderin' when that trolley car was due for a return trip and was workin' up a few cuttin' remarks to hand Vee when I got her on the long distance, when I hears something approachin' from down the road. First off I thought it might be one of these hay mowers runnin' wild, but pretty soon out of a cloud of dust jumps a little roadster. It sure was humpin' itself and makin' as much noise about it as a Third Avenue surface car with two flat wheels. Didn't look very promisin' but I got up and stretched my neck until I saw there was two people in it. Next thing I knew though one of 'em, a young lady, is motionin' to me, and with a squeal of brake bands the little car pulls up opposite the rock. And sure enough the young gent drivin' has a sketchy mustache and baby blue eyes.
"What ho!" he sings out cheerful. "Torchy, isn't it? Sorry if we've kept you waiting, but Adelbaran wasn't performing quite as well as usual this morning. Stow your bag on the fender and climb in."
"In where?" says I, glancin' at the single seat.
"Oh, really there's plenty of room for three," says the young lady. "And for fear Barry will forget to mention it, I am Miss McLeod. He persuaded me at the last minute to come with him in this crazy machine."
"Oh, I say, Ann!" protests Barry. "Not so rough, please. You've no notion how sensitive Adelbaran is to unkind criticism. Besides, he's brought us safely so far, hasn't he?"
Ann shrugs her shoulders and moves over to make room for me. "If you can make another fifty miles in it I shall almost believe in miracles," says she.
"And in me too, I trust," says Barry. "Hearest thou, Adelbaran? Then on, on, pride of the desert! The women are singing in the tents and—and all that sort of thing. Ho, ho! for the roaring road!"
He's some classy little driver, Barry. Inside of a hundred yards he has her doin' better than twenty-six on an up grade over a dirt road sprinkled free with rocks and waterbreaks. Slam bang, bumpety-bump, ding-dong we go, with more jingles and squeaks and rattles than a junk cart rollin' off a roof.
"Don't mind a few little noises," says Miss McLeod. "Barry doesn't. A loose fender or a worn roller bearing means nothing to him. Why, he started with a cracked spark-plug thatwas spitting like a tom-cat, the carburetor popping from too lean a mixture, and a half filled radiator boiling away merrily. It was stopping to get those things fixed up, and having some air pumped into the spare tire, that made us so late."
"You see!" says Barry. "She admits it. Wonderful girl though, Ann. She can tell at a glance just what's the matter with anything or anyone. Take me, for instance; she——"
"Sharp curve ahead, Barry," breaks in Ann.
"Right-o!" says he, takin' it on two wheels and then stepping on the gas button to rush a hill.
"Lucky we're wedged in tight," says I, "or some of us might be spilled out."
"Yes," says Miss McLeod, "and Barry never would miss us."
"Cruel words!" says Barry. "How often have I said, Ann, that I miss you every hour?"
"He's off again," says Ann. "But if you must be sentimental, Barry, I shall insist on doing the driving myself."
"Squelched!" says Barry. "I'll be good."
Say, they made a great team, them two, when it came to exchangin' persiflage. It was snappy stuff and it helped a lot towards taking my mind off Barry's jazz-style drivin'. For he sure does bear down heavy with his foot. If he plays the organ the way he runs a car I should think he'd raise the roof. And the speedhe gets out of that dinky little roadster is amazin'. Might have been all right on smooth macadam, but on this country road he had her jumpin' around on that short wheel-base like a jackrabbit with the itch. We might have been so many kernels of pop-corn being shaken over a hot fire. Barry seems to be enjoyin' every minute of it, though. He makes funny cracks, whistles, and now and then breaks into song.
"Driving a car seems to go to his head," remarks Miss McLeod. "It appears to make him wild." "It does," says Barry. "For——
I'm a wild prairie flower,I grow wilder hour by hour.Nobody cares to cultivate me,I'm wild. Whe-e-e-e!"
He warbles that for the next five minutes, until Miss McLeod suggests that it's time for lunch.
"Let's stop at the next shady place we come to," says she.
"Oh, bother!" says Barry. "Just when Adelbaran is striking his best pace. Why not take our nourishment on the fly?"
So she gets out the sandwiches and the thermos bottle and we take it that way. Rather than let Barry take either hand off the wheel she feeds him herself, even if he does complain about gettin' his countenance smeared up withmustard some. Anyway, we didn't lose any time if we did spill more or less of the coffee.
"Cheerie oh!" sings out Barry, readin' a sign board. "Only twenty miles more!"
"But such up-and-downy miles!" says Ann.
She was dead right about that, for the further we got into New Hampshire the more the road looked like it had been built by a roller coaster fan. I always had a notion this was a small state, from the way it looks on the map, but I'll bet if it could be rolled flat once it would spread out near as big as Texas. All we did was to climb up and up and then slide down and down. Generally at the bottom was one of these covered wooden bridges, like a hay barn with both ends knocked out, and the way we'd roar through those was enough to make you think you was goin' forward with a barrage. Then just ahead would be another long hill windin' up to the top of the world.
"Only five miles to go!" sings out Barry at last, along about three o'clock. "Now, Ann, it's nearly time for you to be saying a few kind words to Adelbaran and me."
"I'll be thinking them up," says Ann.
Perhaps she did. I can't say. For it was somewhere in the middle of the second or third hill after this that the little roadster began to splutter and cough like it had swallowed a monkey wrench.
"Come, come now, Adelbaran!" says Barrycoaxin'. "Don't go misbehaving at this late hour. Remember the women singing in the tents, the palm waving over the——"
"Barry," says Ann, "something has gone wrong with your engine."
"Say not so," says Barry, steppin' on the accelerator careless.
"But I'm sure!" says Ann. "There!"
With a final cough the thing has quit cold. All Barry can seem to do though is to jiggle the spark and look surprised. "Why—why, that's odd!" says he.
"Yes, but sitting here isn't going to help," says Miss McLeod. "Get out and see what's happened. Come on."
And while she's liftin' the hood and pawin' around among the wires and things, with Barry lookin' on puzzled and helpless, I sort of wanders about inspectin' Adelbaran curious. It's some relic, all right, and my guess is that it was assembled by a cross-eyed mechanic from choice pieces he rescued off'm a scrap heap. All of a sudden I notices something peculiar.
"Say, folks," I calls out, "where's the gas tank on this chariot?"
"Why, it's on the back," says Barry.
"Well, it ain't now," says I. "It's gone."
"Gone!" echoes Ann. "The gas tank? Oh, that can't be possible."
"Take a look," says I.
And sure enough, when they comes aroundall they can find is the rusted straps that held it in place and the feed pipe twisted off short.
"Ha, ha!" says Barry. "How utterly absurd. I've rattled off a lot of things before, but never the gas tank. And I suppose that's rather important to have."
"Quite," says Ann. "One doesn't go motoring nowadays without one."
"But—but what's to be done?" says Barry. "I simply must get to Birch Crest in time to play the wedding march. The ceremony is to be at 4:30, you know, and here we are——"
"I should say," breaks in Ann, "that we'd better find that tank and see if we can't screw it on or something. It can't be far behind, of course."
That seemed sensible enough. So we spreads out across the road and goes scoutin' down the hill. Didn't seem likely a thing as big as that could hide itself completely, even if it had bounced off into the bushes. But we got clear to the bottom without findin' so much as its track. On we goes, pawin' through the bushes, scoutin' the ditches on both sides, and peekin' behind trees.
"Come, little tankey, come to your master," calls Barry persuasive. Then he tries whistlin' for it.
"Well, we're sure to find it somewhere down that next hill," says Ann. "Probably near thatwater-break where you gave us such a hard jolt."
But we didn't. In fact, we scouted back over the road for nearly a mile with no signs of the bloomin' thing.
"Then we've missed it," finally decides Ann. "Of course no car could run this far without gas."
"You don't know Adelbaran," says Barry. "He's quite used to running without things. I've trained him to do it."
"Barry, this is no time to be funny," says she. "Now you take the left side going back. I'll bet you overlooked it."
Well, we made a regular drag-net on the return trip, scourin' the bushes for twenty feet on either side, but no tank turns up.
"Looks like we were stranded," says I, as we fetches up at the roadster once more.
Miss Ann McLeod, though, ain't one to give up easy. Besides, she's had all that efficiency trainin'.
"I don't suppose you carry such a thing as an emergency can of gasoline anywhere in the car?" she asks Barry.
"I'm sure I don't know," says he. "The fellow in the garage insisted on selling me a lot of stuff once. It's all stowed under the seat."
"Let's see," says she, liftin' out the cushion. "Why yes, here it is—a whole quart. And alittle funnel, too. Now if we could pour enough into the feed pipe to fill the carburetor——"
It was a grand little scheme, only the funnel end was too big to fit into the feed pipe.
"Any tire tape?" demands Ann.
Barry thought there was, but we couldn't find it. Then he remembered he'd used it to wrap the handle of his tennis racquet once.
"I got some gum," says I.
"The very thing!" says Ann. "It must be chewed first though. Here, Barry, take two or three pieces."
"But I don't care for gum," says Barry. "Really!"
"If you don't wish to spend the night here, chew—and chew fast," says Ann.
So he chewed. We all chewed. And with the three fresh gobs Ann did a first aid plumbin' job that didn't look so worse. She got the funnel so it would stick on the pipe.
"But it must be held there," she announces. "I'll tell you, Barry; you will have to hang out over the back and keep the funnel in place with one hand and pour in the gas with the other, while I drive."
"Oh, I say!" says Barry. "I'd look nice, wouldn't I?"
"Torchy will hold you by the legs to keep you from falling off," she goes on. "Come, unbutton the back curtain and roll it up. There! Now out you go. And don't spill a drop, mind."
It sure was an ingenious way of feedin' gas to an engine, and I had my doubts about whether it would work or not. But it does. First thing I knew we'd started off with a roar and were tearin' up the hill on second. We made the top, too.
"Now hold tight and save the gas," sings out Ann. "I'm going to coast down this one full tilt."
Which she does. Barry bounces around a lot on his elbows and stomach, but I had a firm grip on his legs and we didn't lose him off.
"More gas now!" calls Ann as we hits the bottom.
"Ouch! My tummy!" groans Barry.
"Never mind," says Ann. "Only three miles more."
Say, it was the weirdest automobilin' I ever did, but Ann ran with everything wide open and we sure were coverin' the distance. Once we passed a big tourin' car full of young folks and as we went by they caught sight of Barry, actin' as substitute gas tank, and they all turned to give him the haw-haw.
"Probably they—they think I—I'm doing this on a bub-bet," says Barry. "I—I wish I were. I—I'd pay."
"Store ahead!" announces Ann. "Perhaps we can get some more gas."
It was a good guess. We fills the can and starts on again, with less than two miles to go.I think Barry must have been a bit reckless with that last quart for we hadn't gone more'n a mile before the engine begins to choke and splutter. We were almost to the top of a hill, too.
"Gas all gone," says Barry, tryin' to climb back in.
"Go back!" says Ann. "Take the funnel off and blow in the feed pipe. There! That's it. Keep on blowing."
You couldn't beat Ann. The machine takes a fresh spurt, we makes the top of the hill, and halfway down the other side we sees Birch Crest. Hanged if we don't roll right up to the front door too, before the engine gives its last gasp, and Barry, covered with dust and red in the face, is hauled in. We're only half an hour late, at that.
Course, the whole weddin' party is out there to see our swell finish. They'd been watchin' for us this last hour, wonderin' what had happened, and now they crowds around to ask Barry why he arrives hangin' over the back that way. And you should have heard 'em roar when they gets the explanation.
"See!" says Barry on the side to Ann. "I told you folks would laugh at me."
"Poor boy!" says Miss McLeod, hookin' her arm into his. "Don't mind. I think you were perfectly splendid about it."
"By Jove, though! Do you?" says he."Would—would you risk another ride with me, Ann? I know Adelbaran didn't show up very well but——"
"But your disposition did," cuts in Ann. "And if you're going to insist on driving around the country in such a rattle-trap machine I—I think I'd better be with you—always."
And say, I don't think I ever heard so much pep thrown into the weddin' march as when Barry Crane pumps it out that afternoon. He's wearin' a broad grin, too.
Soon as I has a chance I whispers the news to Vee. "Really?" says she. "Isn't that fine! And I must say Barry is a lucky chap."
"Well, he's some whizz himself," says I. "Bound to be or else he couldn't run a car a mile and a half just on his breath."
CHAPTER XIVSUBBING FOR THE BOSS
How's that? Has something happened to me? Course there has. Something generally does, and if I ever get to the point where it don't I hope I shall have pep enough left to use the self-starter. Uh-huh. That's the way I give the hail to a new day—grinnin' and curious.
Now some folks I know of works it just opposite, and they may be right, too. Mr. Piddie, our office manager, for instance. He's always afraid something will happen to him. I've heard him talk about it enough. Not just accidents that might leave him an ambulance case, or worse, but anything that don't come in his reg'lar routine; little things, like forgettin' his commutation ticket, or gettin' lost in Brooklyn, or havin' his new straw lid blow under a truck and walkin' bareheaded a few blocks. Say, I'll bet he won't like it in Heaven if he can't punch a time card every mornin', or if they shift him around much to different harp sections.
While me, I ain't worryin' what tomorrow will be like if it's only some different from yesterday. And generally it is. Take this last little whirl of mine. I'll admit it leaves me abit dizzy in the head, like I'd been side-swiped by a passing event. Also my pride had had a bump when I didn't know I had such a thing. Maybe that's why I look so dazed.
What led up to it all was a little squint into the past that me and Old Hickory indulged in here a week or so back. I'd been openin' the mornin' mail, speedy and casual as a first-class private sec. ought to do, and sortin' it into the baskets, when I runs across this note which should have been marked "Personal." I'd only glanced at the "Dear old pal" start and the "Yours to a finish, Bonnie," endin' when I lugs it into the private office.
"I expect this must have been meant for Mr. Robert; eh, Mr. Ellins?" says I, handin' it over.
It's written sort of scrawly and foreign on swell stationery and Old Hickory don't get many of that kind, as you can guess. He reads it clear through, though, without even a grunt. Then he waves me into a chair.
"As it happens, Torchy," says he, "this was meant for no one but me."
"My error," says I. "I didn't read it, though."
He don't seem to take much notice of that statement, just sits there gazin' vacant at the wall and fingerin' his cigar. After a minute or so of this he remarks, sort of to himself: "Bonnie, eh? Well, well!"
I might have smiled. Probably I did, for the last person in the world you'd look for anything like mushy sentiments from would be Old Hickory Ellins. Couldn't have been much more than a flicker of a smile at that. But them keen old eyes of his don't miss much that's going on, even when he seems to be in a trance. He turns quick and gives me one of them quizzin' stares.
"Funny, isn't it, son," says he, "that I should still be called Dear Old Pal by the most fascinating woman in the world?"
"Oh, I don't know," says I, tryin' to pull the diplomatic stuff.
"You young rascal!" says he. "Think I'm no judge, eh? Here! Wait a moment. Now let's see. Um-m-m-m!"
He's pullin' out first one desk drawer and then another. Finally he digs out a faded leather photograph case and opens it.
"There!" he goes on. "That's Bonnie Sutton. What about her?"
Course, her hair is done kind of odd and old-fashioned, piled up on top of her head that way, with a curl or two behind one ear; and I expect if much of her costume had showed it would have looked old-fashioned, too. But there wasn't much to show, for it's only a bust view and cut off about where the dress begins. Besides, she's leanin' forward on her elbows. A fairly plump party, I should judge, with substantial, well-rounded shoulders and kind of abig face. Something of a cut-up, too, I should say, for she holds her head a little on one side, her chin propped in the palm of the left hand, while between the fingers of the right she's holdin' a cigarette. What struck me most, though, was the folksy look in them wide-open eyes of hers. If it hadn't been for that I might have sized her up for a lady vamp.
"Good deal of a stunner, I should say, Mr. Ellins," says I; "and no half portion, at that."
"Of queenly stature, as the society reporters used to put it," says Old Hickory. "She had her court, too, even if some of the sessions were rather lively ones."
At that he trails off into what passes with him as a chuckle and I waits patient while he does a mental review of old stuff. I could guess near enough how some of them scenes would show up: the bunch gatherin' in one of the little banquet rooms upstairs at Del's., and Bonnie surrounded three deep by admirin' males, perhaps kiddin' Ward McAllister over one shoulder and Freddie Gebhard whisperin' over the other; or after attendin' one of Patti's farewell concerts there would be a beefsteak and champagne supper somewhere uptown—above Twenty-third Street—and some wild sport would pull that act of drinking Bonnie's health out of her slipper. You know? And I expect they printed her picture on thefront page of the "Clipper" when she broke into private theatricals.
"And she's still on deck?" I suggests.
Old Hickory nods. He goes on to say how the last he heard of her she'd married some rich South American that she'd met in Washington and gone off to live in Brazil, or the Argentine. That had been quite a spell back, I take it. He didn't say just how long ago. Anyway, she'd dropped out for good, he'd supposed.
"And now," says he, "she has returned, a widow, to settle on the old farm, up somewhere near Cooperstown. It appears, however, that she finds it rather dull. I can't fancy Bonnie on a farm somehow. Anyway, she has half a mind, she says, to try New York once more before she finally decides. Wants to see some of the old places again. And by the great cats, she shall! No matter what my fool doctors say, Torchy, I mean to take a night or two off when she comes. If Bonnie can stand it I guess I can, too."
"Yes, sir," says I, grinnin' sympathetic.
Well, that was 1:15 a.m. And at exactly 2:30 he limps out with his hand to his right side and his face the color of cigar ashes. He's in for another spell. I gets his heart specialist on the 'phone and loads Mr. Ellins into a taxi. Just before closin' time he calls up from the house to say that he's off to the sanitarium for another treatment and may be gone a couple ofweeks. I must tell Mr. Robert about those options, have him sub. in at the next directors' meetin', and do a lot of odd jobs that he'd left unfinished.
"And by the way, Torchy," he winds up, "about Bonnie."
"Oh, yes," says I. "The lady fascinator."
"If she should show up while I am away," says Old Hickory, "don't—don't bother to tell her I'm a sick old man. Just say I—I've been called out of town, or something."
"I get you," says I. "Business trip."
"She'll be disappointed, I suppose," goes on Mr. Ellins. "No one to take her around town. That is, unless—By George, Torchy!—You must take my place."
"Eh?" says I, gaspy.
"Yes," says he. "You lucky young rascal! You shall be the one to welcome Bonnie back to New York. And do it right, son. Draw on Mr. Piddie for any amount you may need. Nothing but the best for Bonnie. You understand. That is, if she comes before I get back."
Say, I've had some odd assignments from Old Hickory, but never one just like this before. Some contract that, to take an ex-home wrecker in tow and give her the kind of a good time that was popular in the days of Berry Wall. If I could only dig up some old sport with a good memory he might coach me so that I might make a stab at it, but I didn't know where to find one.And for three days there I made nervous motions every time Vincent came in off the gate with a card.
But a week went by and no Bonnie blew in from up state. Maybe she'd renigged on the proposition, or had hunted up some other friend of the old days. Anyway, I'd got my nerves soothed down considerable and was almost countin' the incident as closed, when here the other day as I drifts back from lunch Vincent holds me up.
"Lady to see Mr. Ellins," says he. "She's in the private office."
"Sad words, Vincent," says I. "Don't tell me it's Bonnie."
"Nothing like that," says he. "Here's her name," and he hands me a black-bordered card.
"Huh!" says I, taking a glance. "Señora Concita Maria y Polanio. All of that, eh? Must be some whale of a female?"
"Whale is near it," says Vincent. "You ought to see her."
"The worst of it is," says I, "I gotta see her."
He's no exaggerator, Vincent. This female party that I finds bulgin' Old Hickory's swing desk chair has got any Jonah fish I ever saw pictured out lookin' like a pickerel. I don't mean she's any side-show freak. Not as bad as that. But for her height, which is about medium, I should say, she sure is bulky. Theway she sits there with her skirts spreadin' wide around her feet, she has all the graceful outlines of a human water tower. Above the wide shoulders is a big, high-colored face, and wabblin' kind of unsteady on top of her head is a black velvet hat with jet decorations. You remember them pictures we used to see of the late Queen Victoria? Well, the Señora is an enlarged edition.
I was wonderin' how long since she came up from Cuba, and if I'd need a Spanish interpreter to find out why she thinks she has to call on the president of the Corrugated Trust, when she rolls them big dark eyes of hers my way and remarks, in perfectly good United States: "Ah! A ray of sunshine!"
It comes out so unexpected that for a second or so I just gawps at her, and then I asks: "Referrin' to my hair?"
"Forgive me, young man," says she. "But it is such a cheerful shade."
"Yes'm," says I. "So I've been told. Some call it fire-hydrant red, but I claim it's only super-pink."
"Anyway, I like it very much," says she. "I hope they don't call you Reddy, though?"
"No, ma'am," says I. "Torchy."
"Why, how clever!" says she. "May I call you that, too? And I suppose you are one of Mr. Ellins' assistants?"
"His private secretary," says I. "So youcan see what luck he's playin' in. Did you want to talk to him 'special, or is it anything I can fix up for you?"
"It's rather personal, I'm afraid," says she. "The boy at the door insisted that Mr. Ellins wasn't in, but I told him I didn't mind waiting."
"That's nice," says I. "He'll be back in a week or so."
"Oh!" says she. "Then he went away before my note came?"
Which was where I begun to work up a hunch. Course, it's only a wild suspicion at first. She don't fit the description at all. Still, if she should be the one—I could feel the panicky shivers chasin' up and down my backbone just at the thought. I expect my voice wavered a little as I put the question.
"Say," says I, "you don't happen to be Bonnie Sutton, do you?"
That got a laugh out of her. It's no throaty, old-hen cackle, either. It's clear and trilly.
"Thank you, Torchy," says she. "You've guessed it. But please tell me how?"
"Why," says I, draggy, "I—er—you see——" And then I'm struck with this foolish idea. Honest, I couldn't help pullin' it. "Mr. Ellins," I goes on, "happened to show me your picture."
"What!" says she. "My picture? I—I can hardly believe it."
"Wait," says I. "It's right here in the drawer. That is, it was. Yep! This one. There!"
And say, as I flashed that old photo on her I didn't have the nerve to watch her face. You get me, don't you? If you'd changed as much as she had how would you like to be stacked up sudden against a view of what you was once? So I looked the other way. Must have been a minute or more before I glanced around again. She was still starin' at the picture and brushin' something off her eyelashes.
"Torchy," says she, "I could almost hug you for that. What a really talented young liar you are! And how thoroughly delightful of you to do it!"
"Oh, I don't know," says I. "Anyway, it's the picture he showed me when he was tellin' about you."
"Perhaps you wouldn't mind, Torchy," she goes on, "telling me just what he said."
"Why, for one thing," says I, "he let out that you was the most fascinatin' woman in the world."
Another ripply laugh from Bonnie. "The old dear!" says she. "But then, he always was a little silly about me. Think of his never having gotten over it in all these years, though! But he didn't stay to meet me. How was that?"
I hope I made it convincin' about his beingcalled before a Senate Committee and how he was hoping to get back before she showed up. I told it as well as I could with them wise friendly eyes watchin' me.
"Perhaps, after all," says she, "it's just as well. If I had known he had this photo I never would have risked coming. Now that I'm here, however, I wish there was someone who——"
"Oh, he fixed that up," says I. "I'm the substitute."
"You!" says she. Then she shakes her head. "You're a dear boy," she goes on, "but I couldn't ask it of you. Really!"
"Sure you can," says I. "You want to see what the old town looks like, have a little dinner in one of the old joints, and maybe make a little round of the bright spots afterwards. Well, I got it all planned out. Course, I can't do it just the way Mr. Ellins would but——"
"Listen, Torchy," she breaks in. "I regret to admit the fact, but I am a fat, shapeless, freaky-looking old woman. Ordinarily that doesn't worry me in the least. After fifteen years in the tropics one doesn't worry about how one looks. It has been a long time since I've given it a thought. But now—Well, it's different. Seeing that picture. No, I can't ask it of you."
"Mr. Ellins will ask me, though, when he gets back," says I. "Besides, I don't mind. Maybe you are a little overweight, but I'm beginnin'to suspect you're a reg'lar person, after all; and if I can qualify as a guide——"
Say, don't let on to Vee, but that's where I got hugged. It seems Bonnie does want to have one glimpse of New York with the lights on; wants it the worst way. For when she'd come up from Rio her one idea was to get back to the old farm, fix it up regardless of expense, and camp down there quiet for the rest of her days. She'd had a bully time doin' it, too, for three or four months. She'd enjoyed havin' people around her who could talk English, and watchin' the white clouds sail over the green hills, and seein' her cattle and sheep browsin' about the fields. It had rested her eyes and her soul.
And then, all of a sudden, she had this hunch that maybe she was missin' something. Not that she thought she could come back reg'lar, or break into the old life where she left off. She says she wasn't so foolish in the head as all that. Her notion was that she might be happier and more contented if she just looked on from the side-lines.
"I wanted to hear music," says she, "and see the lights, and watch gay and beautiful young people doing the things I used to do. It might—Well, it might shake off some of my years. Who knows?"
"Sure! That's the dope," says I. "Course, a lot of their old-time joints ain't runnin' now—Koster & Bial's, Harrigan's, the Café Martinbut maybe some you remember are still open."
"Silly!" says she, shakin' a pudgy forefinger at me. "That isn't what I want at all. Not the old, but the new; the very newest and most fashionable. I'm not trying to go back, but trying to keep up."
"Oh!" says I. "In that case it'll be easy. How about startin' in with the tea dance at the Admiral, just opened? Begins at 4:15."
"Tell me, Torchy," says she, "did you ever see anyone as—as huge as I am at a tea dance? No, I think we'll not start with that."
"Then suppose we hop off with dinner on the Plutoria roof?" I suggests. "The Tortonis are doing a dancin' turn there and they have the swellest jazz band in town."
"It sounds exciting," says Bonnie. "I will try to be ready by 7:30. And you surely are a nice boy. Now if you will help me out to the elevator——"
And it's while I'm tryin' to steady her on one side as she goes rollin' waddly through the main office that I gets a little hint of what's comin' to me. Maybe you've seen a tug-boat bobbin' alongside a big liner in a heavy sea. I expect we must have looked something like that. Even so, that flossy bunch of lady typists showed poor taste in cuttin' loose with the smothered snickers as we wobbles past.
And I could get a picture of myself towin' the Señora Concita Maria What's-Her-Name,alias Bonnie Sutton, through the Plutoria corridors. What if her feet should skid and after ten or a dozen bell hops had boosted her up again they should find me underneath? Still I was in for it. No scoutin' around for back-number restaurants, as I'd planned at first. No, Bonnie had asked to be brought up-to-date. So she should, too. But I did wish she'd come to town in something besides that late Queen Victoria costume.
Yet I maps out the evenin' as if I had a date with Peggy Hopkins or Hazel Dawn. At 5:30 I'm slippin' a ten-spot into the unwillin' palm of a Plutoria head waiter to cinch a table for two next to the dancin' surface, and from there I drops into a cigar store where I pays two prices for a couple of end seats at the Midnight Follies. Then I slicks up a bit at a Turkish bath and at 7:25 I'm waitin' with the biggest taxi I can find in front of Bonnie's hotel.
I expect I must have let out a sigh of relief when she shows up and I notice that she's shed the unsteady velvet lid. It's some creation she's swapped it for, a pink satin affair with a wing spread of about three feet, but I must admit it kind of sets off that big face of hers and the grayish hair.
That's nothing to the jolt I gets, though, after she's been loaded into the cab and the fur-trimmed opera cape slips back a bit. Say, take it from me, Bonnie has bloomed out. She musthave speeded up some Fifth Avenue modiste's establishment to the limit, but she's turned the trick, I'll say. Uh-huh! Not only the latest model evening gown, but she's had her hair done up spiffy, and she's got on a set of jewels that would make a pawnbroker's bride turn green.
"Z-z-zing!" says I, catchin' my breath. "Excuse me, but I didn't know you were going to dress the part."
"You didn't think I could, did you, Torchy?" says she. "Well, I haven't quite forgotten, you see."
So all them gloomy thoughts I'd indulged in was so much useless worry, as is usually the case. I'll admit we was some conspicuous durin' the evenin', with folks stretchin' their necks our way, but I didn't hear any snickers. They gazed at Bonnie sort of awed and impressed, like tourists starin' at the Woolworth Buildin' when it's lighted up.
Some classy dinner that was we had, even if I did order it myself, with only two waiters to coach me. I couldn't say exactly what it was we had for nourishment, only I know it was all tasty and expensive. You wouldn't expect me to pick out the cheap things for a lady plutess from Brazil, would you? So we dallies with Canaps Barbizon, Portage de la Reine, breasts of milk-fed pheasants, and such trifles as that. Bonnie says it's all good. But she can't seemto get used to the band brayin' out impetuous just as she's about to take another bite of something.
"Tell me," says she, "is that supposed to be music?"
"Not at all," says I. "That's jazz. We've got so we can't eat without it, you know."
Also I suspect the Tortonis' dancin' act jarred her a bit. You've seen 'em do the shimmy-plus?
"Well!" says she, drawin' in a long breath and lookin' the other way. "So that is an example of modern dancing, is it?"
"It's the kind of stunt the tired business man has to have before he gets bright in the eyes again," says I. "But wait until we get to the Follies if you want to see him really begin to live."
We had to kill a couple of hours between times so we took in the last half of the latest bedroom farce and I think that got a rise or two out of Bonnie. I gathered from her remarks that Lillian Russell or Edna Wallace Hopper never went quite that far in her day.
"It's pajamas or nothing now," says I.
"And occasionally," she adds, "I suppose it is—Well, I trust not, at least."
After the Follies she hadn't a word to say. Only, as I landed her back at her hotel, along about 2:30 a.m., she slumps into a big chair in the Egyptian room and lets her chin sag.
"It's no use, Torchy," says she. "I—I couldn't."
"Eh?" says I.
"End my days to jazz time," says she. "No. I shall go back to my quiet hills and my calm-eyed Holsteins. And I shall go entirely contented. I can't tell you either, how thankful I am that it was you who showed me my mistake instead of my dear old friend. You've been so good about it, too."
"Me?" says I. "Why, I've had a big night. Honest."
"Bless you!" says she, pattin' my hand. "And just one thing more, Torchy. When you tell Mr. Ellins that I've been here, and gone, couldn't you somehow forget to say just how I looked? You see, if he remembers me as I was when that photo was taken—Well, where's the harm?"
"Trust me," says I. "And I won't be strainin' my conscience any at that."
But I didn't need to juggle even a word. When Old Hickory hears how I've subbed in for him with Bonnie he just pulls out the picture, gazes at it fond for a minute or so, and then remarks:
"Ah, you lucky young rascal!" Then he picks up a note from his desk. "Oh, by the way," he goes on, "here's a little remembrance she sent you in my care."
Little! Say, what do you guess? Oh, onlyan order for a 1920 model roadster with white wire wheels to be delivered to me when I calls for it! She's merely tipped me an automobile, that's all. And after I'd read it through for the third time, and was sure it was so, I manages to gasp out:
"Lucky is right, Mr. Ellins; that's the only word."