Part 12 (1/2)

Come, you'd better be going now.”

It was a case of ”Here's your hat--what's your hurry!”

”Say,” says I, ”don't you go to swallowin' any tale about the Lady Mildred havin' a brother that's a crook. There's lots of Morgans besides her and J. P.”

But all Aunt Laura does is hold the door open for me; so I beats it, feelin' about as chipper as though I'd been turnin' State's evidence.

The more I thinks of it, the cheaper I feels. Here I'd been playin'

myself for Mr. Foxy Cute, and had let an old lemon squeezer like Aunt Laura wring me dry!

Just what she's got up her sleeve about the penitentiary business, I didn't know; but I wa'n't long in findin' out. Next day there was all kinds of a row. Aunt Laura has looked up the invitation list for the weddin', and, sure enough, among the also rans was a Mr. William Morgan, with a State penitentiary address. With that, and what she'd heard over the 'phone, Aunt Laura makes out a strong case. Was she goin' to stand by and see her only nephew marry into a family of jailbirds? Not if she could help it! So she calls in Mr. Robert and puts the layout before him.

It looks like a bad mess, with Mildred on the toboggan; for Mr. Robert has said he'd see what could be done. He don't promise anything; but Benny's always been such a willin' performer that he guesses maybe he can talk him out of wantin' to get married. He didn't know Benny, though. These short, fat, dimpled boys are just the ones to fool you, and when it came to tellin' Benny about Brother Bill, that was doin'

time, Benny works his lips at high speed sayin' that he don't believe it.

”Anyway,” says Benny, ”it ithn't Bill I'm marrying. I don't give a cuth for him. I'd juth ath thoon marry Mildred if her whole doothed family wath in jail.”

”That settles it, Benny,” says Mr. Robert. ”If that's the way you feel.

I'll stand by you.”

Maybe Aunt Laura wa'n't wild, though, when she finds she can't block the game. I was handlin' the office switchboard the afternoon she calls Mr.

Robert up to give him the rake-over, and the old girl warms up the wires until she near has the lightnin' arresters out of business. It comes out too that she's sore on Benny's bein' married because she sees the finish of her steady job as boss of the house on the avenue. She can't queer Mr. Robert though.

”Benny seems to have a clear idea as to just whom he wants to marry,”

says he, ”and that's enough for me. If Miss Morgan has a brother in the penitentiary, and Benny doesn't mind, I'm sure I don't. I've known lots of fellows who wished their brothers-in-law were in the same place.

Anyway, he'll not trouble us by showing up at the wedding, even if she did send him an invitation.”

That's the kind of a sport Mr. Robert is. He's dead game, and when you've got him for a friend you'll know who to send for if you should ever get run in. So we goes along gettin' ready for the weddin' same's if nothin's happened. It's billed for a church hitch; but there ain't been any advertisin' done, so they don't expect any crowd. Look when they has it too--right at lunch time!

”Chee!” says I to Mr. Robert, who's running the thing, ”you must be playin' for a frost. Now if you'd hire one of them Third-ave. halls and band, you might give 'em somethin' of a send-off; but it'll be hard to tell this racket from one of these noonday prayin' bees they has down in the wholesale crock'ry district.”

Mr. Robert says that Benny bein' so bashful, and Mildred not knowin'

many folks on East, they wanted to make it as quiet as they could.

”It'll have a pantomime show beat to death on quiet,” says I. ”Put me on the door, will you, so's I can keep awake jos.h.i.+n' the sidewalk cop?”

Mr. Robert says he thinks that'll be a good place for me, as they ain't goin' to let anyone in without a ticket and I'm used to shuntin' cranks.

But say, I'm so rattled when I get inside of that suit they sent around for me to wear that I don't know whether I'm goin' up or comin' down.

Honest, that coat made me feel like I was wearin' a dress. I didn't mind the striped pants,--they was all to the good,--but them skirts flappin'

around my knees was the limit.

Think I had the face to spring that outfit on the folks at the boardin'

house? Never in a year! Why, some of them Lizzie girls rangin' the block would have guyed me out of the borough. I just folds the thing inside out over my arm, like it was some one's overcoat I was takin' around to have a b.u.t.ton s.h.i.+fted, and when I gets to the church I slides up into the gallery and makes a quick change. Mr. Robert looks me over and says no one would guess it was me.

”I'm hopin' they don't,” says I.