Part 34 (1/2)

”You didn't think you could lose me so easy, did you?” says I.

”What a persistent fellow you are!” says she. ”But, after you behaved so heroically last night, I suppose I must forgive you. Wasn't it silly of me to be so frightened?”

”Oh, well,” says I, ”the best of us is apt to go off our nut sometimes.”

”How sweet of you to put it that way!” says she, and then she uncorks a giggle. ”You did carry me so nicely, too.”

That was a sample. I wouldn't go on and give you the whole book of the opera for money. It's somethin' I'm tryin' to forget. But we swapped that kind of slush for near half an hour, and when the show broke up and the crowd began to swarm towards the buffet lunch, we was sittin' out on the porch in the moonlight, still at it. Pinckney says we was holdin'

hands and gazin' at each other like a couple of spoons in the park.

Maybe we was; I wouldn't swear different.

All I know is that after a while I looks up and sees Sadie standin'

there pipin' us off, with her nose in the air and the heat lightnin'

kind of glimmerin' in them blue eyes of hers. The spell was broke quicker'n when the curtain goes down and the ushers open the lobby doors. 'Course, Sadie's nothin' more'n an old friend of mine, and I'm no more to her, but you see it hadn't been so long ago that I'd been tellin' her what a sweat I was in to get away. She never said a word, only just sticks her chin up and laughs, and then goes on.

Next minute there shows up in front of us a fat old lady, with three chins and a waist like a clothes hamper.

”Miriam!” says she, and there was wire nails and broken gla.s.s in the way she said it, ”Miriam, I think it was high time you retired.”

”Bully for you, old girl!” I sings out. ”And say, I'll give you a dollar if you'll lock her in until I can get away.”

Perhaps that was a low-down thing to say, but I couldn't help lettin' it come. I didn't wait for any more remarks from either of 'em, but I grabs my hat and makes a dash across lots. I never stopped runnin' until I fetched the station, and it wasn't until after the train pulled out that I breathed real easy.

Bein' safe here in the Studio, with Swifty on guard, I might grin at the whole thing, if it wasn't for that laugh of Sadie's. That cut in deep.

Two or three days later I hears from Pinckney.

”Shorty,” says he, ”you're a wonder. I fancy you don't know what you did in getting so chummy with Miriam under the very nose of that old watch-dog aunt of hers. Why, I know of fellows who've waited years for that chance.”

”Back up!” says I. ”She's a freak.”

”But Miriam's worth three or four millions,” says he.

”I don't care if she owns a bond factory,” says I. ”I'm no bone connoisseur, nor I don't make a specialty of collectin' autumn leaves.

Do you know what I'd do if I was her aunt?”

”What?” says he.

”Well,” says I, ”I'd hang a red lantern on her.”

CHAPTER XIV

You never can tell, though. The next thing I hears from Sadie is that she's so tickled over that Miriam mix-up that she wakes up in the night to snicker at it.

That makes me feel a lot easier in my mind, and just by way of bein'

reckless, I starts out to buy a bull pup. I'd have got him, too, if it hadn't been for Doc Pinphoodle. Seein' the way things turned out, though, I don't bear no grudge.

It was the Doc I met first. I'd noticed him driftin' up and down the stairs once or twice, but didn't pipe him off special. There's too many freaks around 42nd-st. 'to keep cases on all of 'em.