Part 18 (1/2)

You see, Mr. Jarvis had treated me so white, and he was such a nice decent chap, that I was feelin' mighty cut up about givin' him the quick exit right before the girl he was gone on. Sure, he'd played for it; but I could see I shouldn't have done it. Knock-outs ain't in my line any more, anyway; but to spring one right before women folks, and in a swell joint like Blenmont--say, it made me feel like a last year's straw hat on the first day of June.

”Shorty,” says I, ”you're a throw-back. You better quit travelin' with real gents, and commence eatin' with your knife again. Here's Mr. Jarvis gets you to help him out in a little society affair, and you overdoes it so bad he can't square himself in a hundred years. Back to the junction for yours.”

Well, I was that grouchy I wouldn't look at myself in the gla.s.s. But I rubs down and gets into my Rialto wardrobe that I'd brought along in a suit-case. Then I waits for Jarvis. Oh, I didn't want to see him, but it was up to me to say my little piece.

It was near an hour before he shows up, wearin' his bathrobe, an'

lookin' as gay as a flower-shop window.

”On the level, now,” says I, before he had a show to make any play at me, ”if I'd known what a pinhead I was, I'd stayed in the cus.h.i.+on. How bad did I queer you?”

”Shorty,” says he, shovin' out his hand, ”you're a brick.”

”An' cracked in the bakin', eh?” says I.

”But you don't understand,” says he. ”She's mine, Shorty! The Lady Evelyn--she's promised to marry me.”

”Serves you right,” says I, as we shakes hands. ”But how does she allow to get back at me?”

”Oh, she knows all about everything now,” says Jarvis, ”and she wants to apologize.”

Say, he wasn't stringin' me either. Blow me if she didn't. And sister?

”You're horrid!” says she. ”Perfectly horrid. So there!” Now can you beat 'em? But, as I've said before, when it comes to figurin' on what women or horses'll do, I'm a four-flusher.

CHAPTER VII

No, I ain't goin' out to Blenmont these days. Jarvis does his exercisin'

here, and he says his mother's havin' a ball room made out of that gym.

I've been stickin' to the pavements, like I said I would. Lookin'

cheerful, too? Why not? If you'd been a minute sooner you'd heard me wobblin' ”Please, Ma-ma, nail a rose on me.” But say, I'll give you the tale, and then maybe you can write your own ticket.

You see, I'd left Swifty Joe runnin' the Physical Culture Studio, and I was doin' a lap up the sunny side of the avenue, just to give my holiday regalia an airing. I wasn't thinkin' a stroke, only just breathin' deep and feelin' glad I was right there and nowhere else--you know how the avenue's likely to go to your head these spring days, with the carriage folks swampin' the traffic squad, and everybody that is anybody right on the spot or hurrying to get there, and everyone of 'em as fit and finished as so many prize-winners at a fair?

Well, I wasn't lookin' for anything to come my way, when all of a sudden I sees a goggle-capped tiger throw open the door of one of them plate-gla.s.s benzine broughams at the curb, and bend over like he has a pain under his vest. I was just side-steppin' to make room for some upholstered old battle-ax that I supposed owned the rig, when I feels a hand on my elbow and hear some one say: ”Why, Shorty McCabe! is that you?”

She was a dream, all right--one of your princess-cut girls, with the kind of clothes on that would make a turkey-red check-book turn pale.

But you couldn't fool me, even if she had put a Marcelle crimp in that carroty hair of hers, and washed off the freckles and biscuit flour. You can't change Irish-blue eyes, can you? And when you've come to know a voice that's got a range from maple-sugar to mixed pickles, you don't forget it, either. Know her? Say, I was brought up next door to Sullivan's boarding-house.

”You didn't take me for King Eddie, did you, Miss Sullivan?” says I.

”I might by the clothes,” says she, runnin' her eyes over me, ”only I see you've got him beat a mile. But why the Miss Sullivan?”

”Because I've mislaid your weddin'-card, and there's been other things on my mind than you since our last reunion,” says I. ”But I'm chawmed to meet you again, rully,” and I begins to edge off.

”You act it,” says she. ”You look tickled to death--almost. But I'm pleased enough for two. Anyway, I'm in need of a man of about your weight to take a ride with me. So step lively, Shorty, and don't stand there scaring trade away from the silver shop. Come, jump in.”

”Not me,” says I. ”I never b.u.t.ts into places where there's apt to be a hubby to ask who's who and what's what.”

”But there isn't any hubby now,” says she.