Then he asked her if he hadn't called the trick, and she said he had.

"Now," says he, "perhaps you'll tell us why you came to America?"

"Sure," says she, or something that meant the same, "I've come over after me best feller. I've made up my mind that I'll marry him," and she slips an arm around the Boss's neck just as cool as though they'd been on a moonlight excursion.

Mr. Consul's face gets as red as a fireman's shirt, the Van Urbans catch their breath with both fists, and I begins to see what a lovely mess I'd been helping the Boss to get himself into. He never turned a hair though.

"The honor is all mine," says he, just as if he meant every word of it.

"Ahem!" says the Consul, kind of steadying himself against the curtains. "Perhaps it would be best, before anything more is said on this subject, for the Princess to have a talk with my wife. We'll take her home."

Well, they settled it that way and I was mighty glad to get her off our hands so easy.

Next afternoon the Consul shows up at our ranch as gay as an up-state deacon who's seeing the town incog.

"Sir," says he to the Boss, givin' him the right hand of fellowship, "you're a real gent. After what you did last night I'm proud to know you; and I'm happy to state that it's all off with the Princess."

Then he went on to tell how Miss Padova, being out of her latitude, hadn't got her book straight. She'd carried away the notion that when a Princess went out of her class she had a right to sign on any chap that she liked the looks of, without waitin' for him to make the first move. They did it that way at home. But when the Consul's wife had explained the United States way, and how the Boss was a good deal of a rooster himself, with real money enough to buy up a whole rink full of Dago princes, why Miss Padova feels like a plush Christmas box at a January sale. She turns on the sprinkler, wants to know what they suppose the Boss thinks of her, and says she wants to go back to It'ly by the next trolley.

"But she'll get over feeling bad," says the Consul. "We'll ship her back next Friday, and you can take it from me that the incident is closed."

I was lookin' for the Boss to open a bottle or two on that. But he didn't. For a pleased man he held in well.

"Poor little girl!" says he, looking absent minded towards the Bronx. Then he cheers up a minute. "I say, do you mind if I run up and see her once before she sails?"

"You may for all of me," says the Consul, "but if you'll listen to my advice you won't go."

He did though, and lugged me along for a chaperone, which is some out of my line.

"I'm afraid they've rather overdone the explaining business," says he on the way up; and while I had my own idea as to that, I had sense enough, for once, not to butt in.

That was an ice house call, all right. They left us on the mat while our cards went up, and after a while the hired girl comes down to give us the book-agent glare.

"Th' Missus," says she, "says as how the young lady begs to be 'xcused."

"Does the young lady know we're here?" says the Boss.

"She does," says the girl, and shuts the door.

"Gee!" says I, "that's below the belt."

The Boss hadn't a word left in him, but I wouldn't have met him in the ring about then for anything less'n a bookie's bundle.

Just as we hit the sidewalk we hears a front window go up, and down comes a red rose plunk in front of us.

"Many happy returns of the day," says I, handing it to the Boss.

"I suppose you're right," says he. "It's the only way to look at it, I expect; and yet—oh, hang it all, Shorty, what's the use?"

"Ahr-r, say!" says I. "Switch off! It's all over, and you've side stepped takin' the count."



CHAPTER IV

Does the Boss let it go at that? Say, I was just thick enough to guess that he would. I was still havin' that dream, a few days later, when the Boss says to me:

"Shorty, you remember that old castle of ours?"

"You don't think I've been struck with softenin' of the brain, do you?" says I. "That'll be the last thing I'll forget. What's happened to it?"

"It's mine," says he.

"G'way!" says I. "They couldn't force you to take it."

"I've bought it," says he. "I cabled over an offer, and the Count has accepted."

"Goin' to blow it up?" I says.

"I hope," says he, gettin' a little red under the eyes, "to spend my honeymoon there; that is, if the Princess Padova—"

"The who?" says I. "Oh, you mean the lady brigandess?"

"If the Princess Padova," says he, keepin' straight on, "doesn't prefer some other place. We sail to-morrow."

"Then—then—" says I, catchin' my breath, "you've done it?"

It was silly askin' him. Why, it stuck out all over his face. I don't know what I said next, but it didn't matter much. He was too far up in the air to hear anything in particular. Just as we shakes hands though, he passes me an envelope and says:

"Shorty, I wish you'd take this down to my lawyer next Monday morning. It's a little matter I haven't had time to fix up."

"Sure," says I. "I'll tie up any loose ends. And don't forget to give my regards to old Vincenzo."

Say, I s'pose I'd ought to told him what a mark he'd made of himself, takin' a chance with any such wild-rose runnin' mate as that; but somehow it seemed all right, for him. I couldn't get a view of the Boss mated up with any silk-lined, city-broke girl. I guess Miss Padova was about his style, after all; and I reckon it would take a man like him to manage one of her high flyin' kind. Anyway, I'm glad he got her.

I was sorry to lose the Boss, though. "It's me to go back to trainin' four flush comers again," says I, when he'd gone. And say, I wa'n't feelin' gay over the prospect. Some of these mitt artists is nice, decent boys, but then again you'll find others that you can't take much pride in.

You see, I'd been knockin' around for months with someone who was clean all the way through—washed clean, spoke clean, thought clean—and now there was no tellin' what kind of a push I'd fall in with. You've had a peek at trainin' camps, eh? Them rubbers is apt to be a scousy lot. It was the goin' back to eatin' with sword swallowers that came hardest, though. I can stand for a good many things, but when I sees a guy loadin' up his knife for the shovel act, I rubs him off my list.

I was goin' over all this, on the way down to the office of that lawyer the Boss wanted me to see. I'd met him a few times, so when I sends in my name there wa'n't any waitin' around in the ante-room with the office boy.

"Bring Mr. McCabe right in," says he. "Mister McCabe," mind you. He's one of those wiry, brisk little chaps, with x-ray eyes, and a voice like a telephone bell. "Ah, yes!" says he, takin' the letter. "I know about that—some stock I was to turn into cash. Franklin!" he sings out. Franklin comes in like he'd come through a tube. "Bring me Mr. McCabe's bank book."

"Bank book!" says I. "I guess you've dipped into the wrong letter file. I don't sport any bank book."

"Perhaps you didn't yesterday," says he, "but to-day you do."

And say, what do you think the Boss had gone and done? Opened an account in my name, and fatted it up good and sweet, as a starter.

"But he didn't owe me anything like that," says I.

"A difference of opinion, Mr. McCabe," says the lawyer. "'For services rendered,' that was the way his instructions to me read. I sold the stock and made the deposit to your credit. That's all there is to it. Good day. Call again."

And the next thing I knew I was goin' down in the elevator with me fist grippin' that bank book like it was a life raft. First off I has to go and have a look at the outside of that bank. That's right, snicker. But say, I've had as much dough as that before, only I'd always carried it in a bundle. There's a lot of difference. Every tinhorn sport has his bundle, you know; but it's only your real gent that can flash a check book. I could feel my chest swellin' by the minute.

"Shorty," says I, "you've broke into a new class. Now you've got to make good."

And how do you s'pose I begins? Why, I hires one of these open faced cabs by the hour, and tells the chap up top to take me up Fifth ave. I wanted to think, and there ain't any better place for brain exercise than leanin' back in a hansom, squintin' out over the foldin' doors. I'd got pretty near up to the Plaza before I hooks what I was fishin' after. It came sudden, too.

It was like this: Whilst I was sparrin' secretary to the Boss I'd met up with a lot of his crowd, and some of 'em had tried the gloves on with me. I didn't go in for sluggin' their blocks off, just to show 'em I could do it. There's no sense in that, unless you're out for a purse. Sparrin' for points is the best kind of fun, and for an all 'round tonic it can't be beat. They liked the way I handled 'em, and they used to say they wished they could take a dose of that medicine reg'lar, same as the Boss did.

"And that's just the chance I'm goin' to give 'em," says I.

With that I heads back for Forty-second street, picks out a vacant floor I'd noticed, and signs a lease. Inside of a week I has the place fixed up with mat, chest weights, and such; lays in a stock of soft gloves, buys a medicine ball or two, gets me some cards printed, and has me name done in gold letters on the ground glass. Boxin' instructor? Not on your accident policy. Nor private gym., either.

PROFESSOR M'CABE'S STUDIO OF PHYSICAL CULTURE

That's the way the door plate reads. It may be a bluff, but it scares off the cheap muggs that would hang around a boxin' school. They don't know what it means, any more'n if it was Chinese.

Well, when I gets things all in shape I gives out word to some of those gents, and before I'd been runnin' a fortnight I'd booked business enough to see that I'd struck it right. What's the use monkeyin' with comers when you can take on men that's made their pile? They're a high-toned lot, too, and they don't care what it costs, so long as I keeps 'em in shape. Some of 'em don't put on the mitts at all, but most of 'em works up to that.

Now there was Mr. Gordon. Sure, Pyramid Gordon. But I'll have to tell you about the game he stacks me up against. I'd had him as a reg'lar for about a month—Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays, from five to six—and he was just gettin' so he knew what real livin' was, when somethin' breaks loose down on the street that makes him forget everything but the figures on the tape. So he quits trainin'. About ten days later he drops in one afternoon, with fur on his tongue, and his eyes lookin' like a couple of cold fried eggs.

"Are you comin' or goin', Mr. Gordon?" says I.

"Where, Shorty?" says he.

"Hospital," says I.

He grinned a little, the kind of grin a feller wears when he's bein' helped to his corner, after the count.

"I know," says he; "but when you've been sitting for two weeks on a volcano, Shorty, wondering whether it would blow you up, or open and let you fall in, you're apt to forget your liver."

"It ain't apt to forget you, though," says I. "Shall we have a little session right now?"

And then he springs his proposition. He'd got to go to Washington and back inside of the next two breakfasts, and he wanted me to go along, some on account of his liver, but mostly so's he could forget that he was still on the lid. His private car was hitched to the tail of the Flyer, and he had just forty-five minutes to get aboard. Would I come?

"If I'm wiped out by the time we get back," says he, "I'll make you a preferred creditor."

"I'll take chances on that," says I.

They did do the trick to Pyramid once, you know; but they'd never got him right since. They had him worried some this time, though. You could tell that by the way he smiled at the wrong cues, and combed his deacon whiskers with his fingers. They're the only deacon whiskers I ever had in the Studio. Used to make me nervous when I hit 'em, for fear I'd drive 'em in. But he's dead game, Pyramid is, whether he's stoppin' mitts, or buckin' the Upright Oil push. So I grabs a few things off the wall, and we pikes for the ferry.

"Where's the other parties?" says I, when I'd sized up the inside of the Adeline. There was room enough for a minstrel troupe.

"We're to have it all to ourselves, professor," says he. "And it's almost time for us to pull out; there's the last Cortlandt-st. boat in."

About then we hears Mr. Rufus Rastus, the Congo brunet that's master of ceremonies on the car, havin' an argument out in the vestibule. He was tryin' to shunt somebody. They didn't shunt though, and in comes a long-geared old gent, wearin' one of those belted ulsters that they make out of horse-blankets for English tourists. He had a dinky cloth cap of the same pattern, and the lengthiest face I ever saw on a man. It wasn't a cheerful face, either; looked like he was huntin' for his own tombstone, and didn't care how soon he found it.

Rufus Rastus was hangin' to one of his arms, splutterin' things about this being a private car, and gettin' no more notice taken of himself than as if he'd been an escape-valve. Behind 'em, totin' a lot of leather bags of all shapes, was a peaked-nosed chap, who looked like he was doin' all the frettin' for a Don't Worry Club.

"It's honly Sir Peter," says the worried chap. "'E's myde a mistyke, y' know. Hi'll get 'im out, sir."

"Danvers, shut up!" says Sir Peter.

"Yes, sir; directly, sir; but—" says he.

"Shut up now and sit down!" Sir Peter wasn't scrappy about it. He just said it as though he was tired. But Danvers wilted.

"Shall I give 'em the run?" says I.

"No," says Mr. Gordon; "there's the bell. We can get rid of them at the first stop."

Then he goes over to Sir Peter, tells him all about the Adeline's bein' a private snap, and how he can change to a parlor-car at Trenton.

The old fellow seems to take it all in, lookin' him straight in the eye, without turnin' a hair, and then he says, just as if they'd been talkin' about it for a month: "You'd better wear a bucket, as I do. It looks a little odd, you know; but the decimals can't get through a bucket. Danvers!" he sings out.

"But you don't understand," says Pyramid. "I said this was a private car—private car!"

"Don't shout," says Sir Peter. "I'm not deaf. I'd lend you a bucket if I had an extra one; but I haven't. Danvers!"

This time Danvers edged in with one of those sole-leather cases that an Englishman carries his plug-hat in.



"Don't you think, Sir Peter—" says he.

"Yes; but you don't," says Sir Peter. "Hurry on, now!"

And I'll be welched if Danvers didn't dig a wooden pail out of that hat-case and hand it over. Sir Peter chucks the cap, puts on the pail, drops the handle under his chin, and stretches out on a corner sofa as peaceful as a bench-duster in the park.

"Looks like he's got his wheels all under cover," says I. "Great scheme—every man his own garage."

"Who is he?" says Mr. Gordon to Danvers.

"Lord, sir, you don't mean to sye you don't know Sir Peter, sir?" says Danvers. "Why, 'e's Sir Peter—the Sir Peter. 'E's a bit heccentric at times, sir."

Well, we let it go at that. Sir Peter seemed to be enjoying himself; so we piles all the wicker chairs around him, opens the ventilators, and peels down for business.

Ever try hand-ball in a car that's being snaked over switches at fifty miles an hour? So far as looks went, we were just as batty as Sir Peter with his wooden hat. We caromed around like a couple of six-spots in a dice-box, and some of the foot-work we did would have had a buck-and-wing artist crazy. We was using a tennis-ball, and when we'd get in three strokes without missing we'd stop and shake hands. There wa'n't any more sense to it than to a musical comedy; but it was makin' Mr. Gordon forget his troubles, and it was doing his liver good. Danvers watched us from behind some chairs. He looked disgusted.

By the time we'd got half-way across Jersey we was ready for the bath tub. And say, that's the way to travel and stay at home, all to once. A private car for mine. While we was puttin' on a polish with the Turkish towels, Rufus Rastus was busy with the dinner.

"Now, we'll have another talk with Sir Peter of the Pail," says Mr. Gordon.

We took the barricade down, and found him just as we'd left him. Then he an' Pyramid gets together; but it was the wizziest brand of conversation I ever heard. You'd have thought they was talkin' over the 'phone to the wrong numbers. Sir Peter would listen to all Mr. Gordon had to say, just as if he was gettin' next to every word, but his come-backs didn't fit by a mile.

"Sorry to disturb you," says Mr. Gordon; "but I'll have to ask you to change to a forward car next stop."

Sir Peter blinked his lamps at him a minute, and then he says: "Yes, it keeps the decimals out," and he taps the bucket, knowing like. "My own invention, sir. I'd advise you to try it if they ever bother you."

"Yes, I'll take your word for that," says Mr. Gordon; "but I'm afraid you'll have to be getting ready to move. This is my private car, you see."

"They always come point first," says Sir Peter; "that's how they get in. It's only the bucket that makes 'em shy off."

"Oh, the deuce!" says Pyramid. "Here, Shorty, you try your luck with him."

"Sure," says I. "I've talked sense through thicker things than a wooden pail." First I raps on his cupola with me knuckles, just to ring him up. Then, when I gets his eye, I says, kind of coaxin': "Pete, it's seventeen after six. That's twenty-three for you. Are you next?"

Now say, you'd thought most anyone would have dropped for a hint like that, dippy or not. But Sir Peter sizes me up without battin' an eye. He had a kind of dignified, solemn way of lookin', too, with eyes wide open, same's a judge chargin' a jury.

"You'll never need a bucket," says he.

Just then I heard something that sounded like pouring water from a jug, and I looks around, to see Mr. Gordon turnin' plum color and holdin' himself by the short ribs. I knew what had happened then. The nutty one had handed me the lemon.

"Scratch me off," says I. "I'm in the wrong class. If there's to be any more Bloomingdale repartee, just count me out."

Naw, I wa'n't sore, or nothin' like that. If anyone can get free vawdyville from me I'll write 'em an annual pass; but I couldn't see the use of monkeyin' with that bug-house boarder. Say, if you was payin' for five rooms and bath when you went on the road, like Mr. Gordon was, would you stand for any machinery-loft butt-in like that? I was waitin' for the word to pile Sir Peter on the baggage truck, Danvers and all.

Think I got it? Nix! Some folks is easy pleased. And Pyramid Gordon, with seventeen different kinds of trouble bein' warmed up for him behind his back, stood there and played kid. Said he couldn't think of losin' Sir Peter after that. He'd got to have dinner with us. Blessed if he didn't too, pail and all! Couldn't fall for any talk about changin' cars; oh, no! But when he sees the pink candles, and the oysters on the half, and the quart bott' in the ice bath, he seemed to get his hearin' back by wireless.

"Dinner?" says he. "Ah, yes! Danvers, has the prime minister come yet? It was to-night that he was to dine with me, wasn't it?"

"To-morrow night, Sir Peter," says Danvers.

"Oh, very well. But you gentlemen will share the joint with me, eh? Welcome to Branscomb Arms! And let's gather around, sirs, let's gather around!"

You should have seen the way he did it, though. Reg'lar John Drew manners, the old duffer had. Lord knows where he thought he was, though; somewhere on Highgate Road, I suppose. But wherever it was, he was right to home—called Rufus Rastus Jenkins, and told Danvers he could go for the day. Gave me the goose-flesh back until I got used to it; but Mr. Gordon seemed to take it all as part of the game.

It beat all the dinners I ever had, that one. There we were poundin' over the rails through Pennsylvania at a mile-a-minute clip, the tomato soup doin' a merry-go-round in the plates, the engine tootin' for grade crossin's; and Sir Peter, wearin' his pail as dignified as a cardinal does a red hat, talkin' just as if he was back on the farm, up north of London. I don't blame Rufus Rastus for wearin' his eyes on the outside. They stuck out like the waist-buttons on a Broadway cop, and he hardly knew whether he was waitin' on table, or makin' up a berth.

With his second glass of fizz Sir Peter began to thaw a little. He hadn't paid much attention to me for a while, passin' most of his remarks over to Mr. Gordon; but all of a sudden he comes at me with:

"You're a Home Ruler, I expect?"

"Sure," says I. "Now, spring the gag."

But if there was a stinger to it, he must have lost it in the shuffle; for he opens up a line of talk that I didn't have the key to at all. Mr. Gordon tells me afterwards it was English politics and that Sir Peter was tryin' to register me as a Conservative. Anyway, I've promised to vote for Balfour, or somebody like that next election; so I'm goin' to send word to Little Tim that he needn't come around. Had to do it, just to please the old gent. By the time we'd got to the little cups of black he'd switched to something else.

"I don't suppose you know anything about railroads?" says he to Mr. Gordon.

Then it was my grin. Railroads is what Pyramid plays with, you know. He's a director on three or four lines himself, and is always lookin' for more. It's about as safe to leave a branch road out after nightfall when Gordon's around as it would be to try to raise watermelons in Minetta Lane. He grinned, too, and said something about not knowing as much about 'em as he did once.

With that Sir Peter lights up one of Mr. Gordon's Key West night-sticks and cuts adrift on the railroad business. That made the boss kind of sick at first. Railroads was something he was tryin' to forget for the evenin'. But there wasn't any shuttin' the old jay off. And say! he knew the case-cards all right. There was too much high finance about it for me to follow close; but anyways I seen that it made Mr. Gordon sit up and take notice. He'd peg in a question now and then, and got the old one so stirred up that after a while he shed the bucket, lugged out one of his bags, and flashed a lot of papers done up in neat little piles. He said it was a report he was goin' to make to some board or other, if ever the decimals would quit bothering him long enough.

Well, that sort of thing might keep Mr. Gordon awake, but not for mine. Half-way to Baltimore I turns in, leaving 'em at it. I had a good snooze, too.

Mr. Gordon comes to my bunk in the mornin', very mysterious. "Shorty," says he, "we're in. I've got to go up to the State Department for an hour or so, and while I'm gone I'd like you to keep an eye on Sir Peter. If he takes a notion to wander off, you persuade him to stay until I get back."

"What you say goes," says I.

I shoved up the shade and sees that they'd put the Adeline down at the end of the train-shed. About all I could see of Washington was the top of old George's headstone stickin' up over a freight-car. I fixed myself up and had breakfast, just as if I was in a boardin'-house, and then sits around waitin' for Sir Peter. He an' Danvers shows up after a while, and the old gent calls for tea and toast and jam. Then I knows he's farther off his base than ever. Think of truck like that for breakfast! But he gets away with it, and then says to Danvers:

"Time we were off for the city, my man."

I got a glimpse of trouble ahead, right there; for that chump of a Danvers never made a move when I gives him the wink. All he could get into that peanut head of his at one time was to collect those leather bags and get ready to trot around wherever that long-legged old lunatic led the way.

"They've changed the time on that train of yours, Sir Pete," says I. "She don't come along until ten-twenty-six now, spring schedule," and I winks an eye loose at Danvers.

"'Pon my word!" says Sir Peter, "you here yet? Danvers, show this person to the gates."

"Yes, sir," says Danvers. He comes up to me an' whispers, kind of ugly: "I sye now, you'll 'ave to stop chaffin' Sir Peter. I won't 'ave it!"

"Help!" says I. "There's a rat after me."

"Hi'll bash yer bloomin' nose in!" says he, gettin' pink behind the ears.

"Hi'll write to the bloomin' pypers habout it if you do," says I.

I was wishin' that would fetch him, and it did. He comes at me wide open, with a guard like a soft-shell crab. I slips down the state-room passage, out of sight of Sir Peter, catches Danvers by the scruff, chucks him into a berth, and ties him up with the sheets, as careful as if he was to go by express.

"Now make all the holler you want," says I. "It won't disturb us none," and I shut the door.

But Sir Peter was a different proposition. I didn't want to rough-house him. He was too ancient; and anyway, I kind of liked the old chap's looks. He'd forgot all about Danvers, and was makin' figures on an envelope when I got back. I let him figure away, until all of a sudden he puts up his pencil and lugs out that bucket again.

"It's quit raining," says I.

"What do you know about it?" says he. "It's pouring decimals, just pouring 'em. But I've got to get my report in." With that he claps on the bucket, grabs a bag and starts for the car door.

It was up to me to make a quick play; for he was just ripe to go buttin' around those tracks and run afoul of a switch-engine. And I hated to collar him. Just then I spots the tennis-ball.

"Whoop-ee!" says I, grabbin' it up and slammin' it at his head. I made a bull's-eye on the pail, too. "That's a cigar you owe me," says I, "and I gets two more cracks for my nickel." He tried to dodge; but I slammed it at him a couple more times. "Your turn now," says I. "Gimme the bucket."

Sounds foolish, don't it? I'll bet it looked a heap foolisher than it sounds; but I'd just thought of something a feller told me once. He was a young doctor in the bat ward at Bellevue. "They're a good deal like kids," says he, "and if you remember that, you can handle 'em easy."

And say, Sir Peter seemed to look tickled and interested. The first thing I knew he'd chucked the bucket on my head and was doin' a war-dance, lambastin' that tennis-ball at me to beat the cars. It was working, all right.

When he got tired of that I organized a shinny game, with an umbrella and a cane for sticks, and a couple of wicker chairs for goals. He took to that, too. First he shed his frock-coat, then his vest, and after a while we got down to our undershirts. It was a hot game from the word go. There wa'n't any half-way business about Sir Peter. When he started out to drive a goal through my legs he whacked good and strong and often. My shins looked like a barber's pole afterwards; but I couldn't squeal then. There was no way to duck punishment but to get the ball into his territory and make him guard goal. It wa'n't such a cinch to do, either, for he was a lively old gent on his pins.

After about half an hour of that, you can bet I wished I'd stuck to the bucket game. But Sir Peter was as excited over it as a boy with a new pair of roller-skates. He wouldn't stand for any change of program, and he wouldn't stop for breathin'-spells. Rufus Rastus came out of his coop once to see what the row was all about; but when he saw us mixed up in a scrimmage for goal he says: "Good Lawd ermighty!" lets out one yell, and shuts himself up with his canned soup and copper pans. I guess Danvers thought I was draggin' his boss around by the hair; for I heard him yelp once in a while, but he couldn't get loose.

Sir Peter began to leak all over his head, and his gray hair got mussed up, and his eyes was bulgin' out; but I couldn't get him switched to anything else. Not much! Shinny was a new game to him and he was stuck on it. "Whee-yee!" he'd yell, and swing that crooked-handled cane, and bang would go a fancy gas globe into a million pieces. But a little thing like that didn't feaze him. He was out for goals, and he wasn't particular what he hit as long as the ball was kept moving.

It was a hot pace he set, all right. Every time he swung I had to jump two feet high, or else get it on the shins. And say! I jumped when I could. I'd have given a sable-lined overcoat for a pair of leg-guards just about then; and if I could have had that young bug-ward doctor to myself for about ten minutes—well, he'd have learned something they didn't tell him at Bellevue.

Course, I don't keep up reg'lar ring trainin' these days; but I'm generally fit for ten rounds or so any old time. I thought I was in good trim then, until that dippy old snoozer had rushed me for about twenty-five goals. Then I began to breathe hard and wish someone would ring the gong on him. There was no counting on when Mr. Gordon would show up; but his footsteps wouldn't have made me sad. I've let myself in for some jay stunts in my time; but this gettin' tangled up with a bad dream that had come true—well, that was the limit. And I'd started out to do something real cute. You could have bought me for a bunch of pink trading stamps.

And just as I was wondering if this Bloomingdale seance was to go on all day, Sir Peter gives out like a busted mainspring, slumps all over the floor, and lays as limp as if his jaw had connected with a pile-driver. For a minute or so I was scared clear down to my toe-nails; but after I'd sluiced him with ice-water and worked over him a little, he came back to the boards. He was groggy, and I reckon things was loopin' the loops when he looked at 'em; but his blood pump was doing business again, and I knew he'd feel better pretty soon.

I helped him up on the bucket, that being handiest, and threw a three-finger slug of rye into him, and then he began to take an inventory of things in general, kind of slow and dignified. He looks at the broken glass on the car carpet, at the chairs turned bottom up, at me in my hard-work costume, and at his own rig.

"Really, you know, really—I—I don't quite understand," he says. "Where—what—"

"Oh, you're ahead," says I. "I wouldn't swear to the score; but it's your odds."

This didn't seem to satisfy him, though. He kept on lookin' around, as though he'd lost something. I guessed he was hunting for that blasted cane.

"See here," says I. "You get the decision, and there ain't goin' to be any encore. I've retired. I've had enough of that game to last me until I'm as old as you are, which won't be for two or three seasons on. If you're dead anxious for more, you wait until Mr. Gordon comes back and challenge him. He's a sport."

But Sir Peter seemed to be clear off the alley. "My good man," says he, "I—I don't follow you at all. Will you please tell me where I am?"

Now say, how was I to know where he thought he was? What was the name of that place—Briskett Arms? I didn't want to chance it.

"This is the same old stand," says I, "right where you started an hour ago."

"But," says he—"but Lord Winchester?"

"He's due on the next trolley," says I. "Had to stop off at the gun-factory, you know."

Ever try to tear off a lot of extemporaneous lies, twenty to the minute? It's no pipe. Worse than being on the stand at an insurance third degree. I couldn't even refuse to answer on advice of counsel, and in no time at all he had me twisted up into a bow-knot.

"Young man," says he, "I think you're prevaricating."

"I'm doin' me best," says I; "but let's cut that out. P'raps you'd feel better if you wore the bucket awhile."

"Bucket?" says he. And I'll be put on the buzzer if he didn't throw the bluff that he'd never had the thing on his head.

"Oh, well," says I, "you've got a right to lie some if you want to. It's your turn, anyway. But let me swab you off a little."

He didn't kick on that, and I was gettin' busy with warm water and towels when the door opens, and in drifts Mr. Gordon with three well-fed gents behind him.

"Great cats!" says he, throwin' up both hands. "Shorty, what in blazes has happened?"

"Nothin' much," says I. "We've been playin' a little shinny."

"Shinny?" says he, just as though it was something I'd invented.

"Sure," says I. "And Sir Peter won out. As a shinny player he's a bird."

Then the three other ducks swarms in, and the way they powwows around there for a few minutes was enough to make a curtain scene for a Third avenue melodrama.

Mr. Gordon calmed 'em down though after a bit, and then I got a chance. I was a little riled by that time, I guess. I offered to tie pillows on both hands and take 'em all three at once, kickin' allowed.

"Oh, come, Shorty," says Mr. Gordon. "These gentlemen have been a little hasty. They don't understand, and they're great friends of Sir Peter. This is the British Ambassador, Lord Winchester, and these are his two secretaries. Now, what about this shinny?"

"It was a stem-winder," says I. "Sir Peter was off side most of the time; but I don't carry no grouch for that."

Then I told 'em how I'd done it to keep him off the tracks, and how he got so warmed up he couldn't stop until he ran out of steam. They were polite enough after that. We shook hands all round, and I went in and resurrected Danvers, and they got Sir Peter fixed up so that he was fit to go in a cab, and the whole bunch clears out.

In about an hour Mr. Gordon comes back. He wears one of the won't-come-off kind, and steps like he was feelin' good all over. "Professor," says he, "you needn't be surprised at getting a medal of honor from the British Government. You seem to have cured Sir Peter of the bucket habit."

"We're quits, then," says I. "He's cured me of wanting to play shinny. Say, did you find out who the old snoozer was, anyway?"

"The old snoozer," says he, "is the crack financial expert of England, and a big gun generally. He'd been over here looking into our railroads, and when he gets back he's to make a report that will be accepted as law and gospel in every capital of Europe. It was while he was working on that job that his brain took a vacation; and it was your shinny game, the doctors say, that saved him from the insane asylum. You seem to have brought him back to his senses."

"He's welcome," says I; "but I wish the British Government would ante up a bottle of spavin-cure. Look at that shin."

"We'll make 'em pay for that shin," says he, with a kind of it's-coming-to-us grin. "And by the way, Shorty; those few after-dinner remarks that Sir Peter made about his report—you could forget about hearing 'em, couldn't you?"

"I can forget everything but the bucket," says I.

"Good," says Mr. Gordon. "It—it's a private matter for a while."

We took a hansom ride around town until the noon limited was ready to pull out. Never saw a car ride do a man so much good as that one back to New York seemed to do Mr. Gordon. He was as pleased with himself as if he was a red apple on the top branch.

It was a couple of weeks, too, before I knew why. He let it out one day after we'd had our little kaffee klatch with the gloves. Seems that hearing Sir Peter tell what he was goin' to report about American railroads was just like givin' Gordon an owner's tip on a handicap winner; and Pyramid don't need to be hit on the head with a maul, either. Near as I can get it, he worked that inside information for all it was worth and there's a bunch down around Broad street that don't know just what hit 'em yet.

Me? Little Rollo? Oh, I'm satisfied. With what I got out of that trip I could buy enough shin salve to cure up all the bruises in New York. That's on the foot rule, too.



CHAPTER V

It was that little excursion with Mr. Gordon that puts me up to sendin' over to Williamsburg after Swifty Joe Gallagher, and signin' him as my first assistant. Thinks I; if I'm liable to go strollin' off like that any more, I've got to have someone that'll keep the joint open while I'm gone. I didn't pick Swifty for his looks, nor for his mammoth intellect. But he's as straight as a string, and he'll mind like a setter dog.

Well, say, it was lucky I got him just as I did. I hadn't much more'n broke him in before I runs up against this new one. Understand, I ain't no fad chaser. I don't pine for the sporting-extra life, with a new red-ink stunt for every leaf on the calendar-pad. I got me studio here, an' me real-money reg'lars that keeps the shop runnin', and a few of the boys to drop around now and then; so I'm willing to let it go at that. Course, though, I ain't no side-stepper. I takes what's comin' an' tries to look pleasant.

But this little hot-foot act with Rajah and Pinckney had me dizzy for a few rounds, sure as ever. And I wouldn't thought it of Pinckney. Why, when he first shows up here I says to myself: "Next floor, Reginald, for the manicure." He was one of that kind: slim, white-livered, feather-weight style of chap—looked like he'd been trainin' on Welch rabbits and Egyptian cigarettes at the club for about a year.

"Is this Professor McCabe?" says he.

"You win," says I. "What'll it be? Me class in crochet ain't begun yet."

He kind of looked me over steady like, and then he passes out a card which says as how he was Lionel Pinckney Ogden Bruce.

"Do I have my choice?" says I. "Cause if I do I nips onto Pinckney—it's cute. Well, Pinckney, what's doing?"

He drapes himself on a chair, gets his little silver-headed stick balanced just so between his knees, pulls his trousers up to high-water mark, and takes an inventory of me from the mat up. And say! when he got through I felt as though he knew it all, from how much I'd weigh in at to where I had my laundry done. Yes, Pinckney had a full set of eyes. They were black; not just ordinary black, same's a hole in a hat, but shiny an' sparklin', like patent leathers in the sun. If it hadn't been for them eyes you might have thought he was one of the eight-day kind that was just about to run down. I ought to have got next to Pinckney's model, just by his lamps; but I didn't. I'm learnin', though, and if I last long enough I'll be a wise guy some day.

Well, when Pinckney finishes his census of me he says: "Professor, I wish to take a private course, or whatever you call it. I would like to engage your exclusive services for about three weeks."

"Chic, chic!" says I. "Things like that come high, young man."

Pinckney digs up a sweet little check-book, unlimbers a fountain-pen, and asks: "How much, please?"

"Seein' as this is the slack season with me, I'll make it fifty per," says I.

"Hour or day?" says he.

Maybe I was breathin' a bit hard, but I says careless like: "Oh, call it fifty a day and expenses."

Business with the pen. "That's for the first week," says Pinckney, and I see he'd reckoned in Sunday and all.

"When can you come on?" says I.

"I'll begin now, if you don't mind," says he.

Then it was up to me; so I goes to work. Inside of ten minutes I had a fair notion of how Pinckney was put up. He wasn't as skimpy as he'd looked from the outside, but I saw that it wouldn't be safe to try the mitts: I might forget and put a little steam into the punch—then it would be a case of sweepin' up the pieces.

"Hold that out," says I, chuckin' him the shot-bag.

He put it out; but all there was in him was bracin' that arm.

"What you need," says I, "is a little easy track-work in the open, plenty of cold water before breakfast, and sleep in ten-hour doses."

"I couldn't sleep five hours at a stretch, much less ten," says he.

"We'll take something for that," says I.

We gets together a couple suits of running-togs, sweaters, towels and things, and goes downstairs where Pinckney has a big plum-colored homicide wagon waitin' for him.

"Tell Goggles to point for Jerome-ave.," says I. "There's a track out there we can use."

On the way up Pinckney lets loose a hint or two that gives me an outline map of his particular case. He hadn't been hittin' up any real paresis pace, so far as I could make out. He'd just been trying to keep even with the coupons and dividends that the old man had left him, burnin' it as it came in, and he'd run out of matches. Guess there was a bunch of millinery somewhere in the background too, for he was anxious about how he'd feel around Horse-Show time. Maybe Pinckney had made his plans to be more or less agreeable about then; but when he got a kinetoscope picture of himself in a sanitarium he had a scare thrown into him. Next some one gives him a tip on the Physical Culture Studio and he pikes for Shorty McCabe.

Well, I've trained a good many kinds, but I'd never tried to pump red corpuscles into an amateur Romeo before. There was the three-fifty, though, and I sails in.

"Head up now, elbows in, weight on your toes, an' we're off in a bunch!" says I. "Steady there, take it easy! This ain't no hundred-yard sprint; this is a mile performance. There, that's better! Dog-trot it to the three-quarters, and if your cork ain't pulled by then you can spurt under the wire."

But Pinckney had lost all his ambition before we'd got half round. At the finish he was breathin' more air than his wind-tanks had known in months.

"Now for the second lap," says I.

"What? Around that fence again?" says Pinckney. "Why, I saw all there was to see last time. Can't we try a new one?"

"Do you think mile tracks come in clusters?" says I.

"Why not just run up the road?" asks Pinckney.

"The road it is," says I.

We fixed it up that Goggles was to follow along with the goose-cart and honk-honk the quarters to us as he read 'em on his speed-clock. We were three miles nearer Albany when we quit, and Pinckney was leakin' like a squeezed sponge.

"Throw her wide open and pull up at the nearest road-house," says I to Goggles.

He found one before I'd got all the wraps on Pinckney, and in no time at all we were under the shower. There was less of that marble-slab look about Pinckney when he began to harness up again. He thought he could eat a little something, too. I stood over the block while the man cut that three-inch hunk from the top of the round, and then I made a mortal enemy of the cook by jugglin' the broiler myself. But Pinckney did more than nibble. After that he wanted to turn in. Sleep? I had to lift him out at four G. M. The water-cure woke him, though. He tried to beg off on the last few glasses, but I made him down 'em. Then we starts towards Boston, Goggles behind, and Pinckney discovers the first sunrise he's seen for years.

Well, that's the way we went perambulatin' up into the pie-belt. First we'd jog a few miles, then hop aboard the whiz-wagon and spurt for running water. We didn't travel on any schedule or try to make any dates. Half the time we didn't know where we were, and didn't care. When bath-tubs got scarce we'd hunt for a pond or a creek in the woods. In one of the side-hampers on the car I found a quick-lunch outfit, so I gets me a broiler, lays in round steak and rye bread, and twice a day I does the hobo act over a roadside fire. That tickled Pinckney to death. Nights we'd strike any place where they had beds to let. Pinckney didn't punch the mattress or turn up his nose at the quilt patterns. When it came dark he was glad enough to crawl anywhere.

Now this was all to the good. Never saw quite so much picnic weather rattled out of the box all at one throw. And the work didn't break your back. Why, it was like bein' laid off for a vacation on double pay—until Rajah butted in and began to mix things.

We'd pulled into some little town or other up in Connecticut soon after sun-up, lookin' for soft boiled eggs, when a couple of real gents in last-year ulsters pipes us off and saunters up to the car. They spots Pinckney for the cash-carrier and makes the play at him.

It was a hard-luck symposium, of course; but there was more to it than just a panhandle touch. They were all there was left of the Imperial Consolidated Circus and Roman Menagerie. They had lost their top and benches in a fire, deputy-sheriffs had nabbed the wagons and horses, the company was hoofing back to Broadway, and all they had left was Rajah. Would the honorable gentleman come and take a squint at Rajah?

For why? Well, it was this way: They hated to do it, Rajah being an old friend, just like one of the family, you might say, but there wasn't anything else. They'd just got to hock Rajah to put the Imperial Consolidated in commission again. The worst of it was, these here villagers didn't appreciate what gilt-edged security Rajah was. But his honor would see that the two-fifty was nothing at all to lend out for a beggarly week or so on such a magnificent specimen. Why, Rajah was as good as real estate or Government bonds. As for selling him, ten thousand wouldn't be a temptation. Would the gentlemen just step around to the stable?

It was then I began to put up the odds on Pinckney. I got a wink from them black eyes of his, and there was the very divil an' all in 'em, with his face as straight as a crowbar.

"Certainly," says he, "we'll be happy to meet Rajah."

They had him moored to one of the floor-beams with an ox-chain around his nigh hind foot. He wasn't as big as all out doors, nor he wasn't any vest-pocket edition either. As elephants go, he wouldn't have made the welter-weight class by about a ton. He was what I'd call just a handy size, about two bureaus high by one wide. His iv'ry stoop rails had been sawed off close to his jaw, so he didn't look any more wicked than a foldin'-bed. And his eyes didn't have that shifty wait-till-I-get-loose look they generally does. They were kind of soft, widowy, oh-me-poor-child eyes.

"He is sad, very sad, about all this," says one of the real gents. "Know? Rajah knows almost as much as we do, sir."

Pinckney took his word for it. "I think I shall accommodate you with that loan," says he. "Come into the hotel."

Say, I didn't think you could gold-brick Pinckney as easy as that. One of the guys wrote out a receipt and Pinckney shoved it into his pocket handin' over a wad of yellow-backs. They didn't lose any time about headin' southeast, those two in the ulsterets. Then we goes back to have another look at Rajah.

"It's a wonderful thing, professor, this pride of possession," says Pinckney. "Only a few persons in the world own elephants. I am one of them. Even though it is only for a week, and he is miles away, I shall feel that I own Rajah, and it will make me glad."

Then he winks, so I knows he's just bein' gay. But Rajah didn't seem so gladsome. He was rockin' his head back and forth, and just as we gets there out rolls a big tear, about a tumblerful.

"Can't we do something to chirk him up a bit?" says I. "He seems to take it hard, being hung up on a ticket."

"There's something the matter with this elephant," says Pinckney, taking a front view of him. "He's in pain. See if you can't find a veterinary, professor."

Yes, they said there was a horse-doctor knockin' around the country somewhere. He worked in the shingle-mill by spells, and then again in the chair-factory, or did odd jobs. A blond-haired native turned up who was sure the Doc had gone hog-killin' up to the corners. So I goes back to the stable.

"I've found out," says Pinckney. "It's toothache. He showed me. Open up, Rajah, and let the professor see. Up, up!"

Rajah was accommodatin'. He unhinged the top half of his face to give me a private view. We used a box of matches locating that punky grinder. There was a hole in it big enough to drop a pool-ball into. Talk about your chamber of horrors! Think what it must be to be as big as that and feel bad all over.

"I never worked in an open-all-night painless shop," says I, "but I think I could do something for that if I could tap a drug store."

"Good," says Pinckney. "We passed one down the road."

They kept grindstones and stove-polish and dress-patterns there too, but they had a row of bottles in one corner.

"Gimme a roll of cotton-battin' an' a quart of oil of cloves," says I to the man.

He grinned and ripped a little ten-cent bottle of toothache drops off a card. "It may feel that way, but you'll find this plenty," says he.

"You get busy with my order," says I. "This ain't my ache, it's Rajah's, and Rajah's an elephant."

"Sho!" says he, and hands over all he had in stock. I went back on the jump. We made a wad half as big as your head, soaked it in the clove oil and rammed it down with a nail-hammer. It was the fromage, all right. And say! Ever see an elephant grin and look tickled and try to say thank you? The way he talked deaf and dumb with his trunk and shook hands with us and patted us on the back was almost as human as the way a man acts when the jury brings in "Not guilty." Inside of three minutes Rajah was that kinky he tried to do a double-shuffle and nearly wrecked the barn. It made us feel good too, and we stood around there and threw bouquets at ourselves for what we'd done.

Then the cook came out and wanted to know should she keep right on boiling them eggs or take 'em off; so we remembers about breakfast. Callin' for a new deal on the eggs, we sent out word for 'em to fix up a tub of hot mash for Rajah and told the landlord to give our friend the best in the stable.

Rajah was fetchin' the bottom of the tub when we went out to say good-by. He stretched his trunk out after us as we went through the door. We'd climbed into the car and was just gettin' under way when we hears things smash, and looks back to see Rajah, with a section of the stable floor draggin' behind, coming after us on the gallop.

"Beat it!" says I to Goggles, and he was reachin' for the speed lever, when he sees a town constable, with a tin badge like a stove-lid, pull a brass watch on us.

"What's the limit?" shouts Pinckney.

"Ten an hour or ten dollars," says he.

"Here's your ten and costs," says Pinckney, tossing him a sawbuck. "Go ahead, Francois."

We jumped into that village ordinance at a forty-mile an hour clip and would have had Rajah hull down in about two minutes, but Pinckney had to take one last look. The poor old mutt had quit after a few jumps. He had squat in the middle of the road, lifted up his trombone frontispiece and was bellowin' out his grief like a calf that has lost its mommer. Pinckney couldn't stand for that for a minute.

"I say now, we'll have to go back," says he. "That wail would haunt me for days if I didn't."

So back we goes to Rajah, and he almost stands on his head, he's so glad to see us again.

"We'll just have to slip away without his knowing it next time," says Pinckney. "Perhaps he will get over his gratitude in an hour or so."

We unhitches Rajah from the stable floor and starts back for the hotel. The landlord met us half-way.

"Don't you bring that critter near my place ag'in!" shouts he. "Take him away before he tears the house down."

An' no jollyin' nor green money would change that hayseed's mind. The whole population was with him too. While we were jawin' about it, along comes the town marshal with some kind of injunction warnin' us to remove Rajah, the same bein' a menace to life and property.

There wa'n't nothing for it but to sneak. We moves out of that burg at half speed, with old Rajah paddin' close behind, his trunk restin' affectionately on the tonneau-back and a kind of satisfied right-to-home look in them little eyes of his. Made me feel like a pair of yellow shoes at a dance, but Pinckney seemed to think there was something funny about it. "'And over the hills and far away the happy Princess followed him,' as Tennyson puts it," says he.

"Tennyson was dead onto his job," says I. "But when do we annex the steam calliope and the boys in red coats with banners? We ought to have the rest of the grand forenoon parade, or else shake Rajah."

"Oh, perhaps we can find quarters for him in the next town, where he hasn't disgraced himself," says Pinckney.

Pinckney hadn't counted on the telephone, though. A posse with shot-guns and bench-warrants met us a mile out from the next place and shooed us away. They'd heard that Rajah was a man-killer and they had brought along a pound of arsenic to feed him. After they'd been coaxed from behind their barricade, though, and had seen what a gentle, confidin' beast Rajah really was, they compromised by letting us take a road that led into the next county.

"This is gettin' sultry," says I as we goes on the side-track.

"I am enjoying it," says Pinckney. "Now let's have some road work."

Say, you ought to have seen that procession. First comes me and Pinckney, in running gear; then Rajah, hoofing along at our heels, as joyous as a chowder party; and after him Goggles, with the benzine wagon. Seems to me I've heard yarns about how grateful dumb beasts could be to folks that had done 'em a good turn, but Rajah's act made them tales seem like sarsaparilla ads. He was chock full of gratitude. He was nutty over it. Seemed like he couldn't think of anything else but that wholesale toothache of his and how he'd got shut of it. He just adopted us on the spot. Whenever we stopped he'd hang around and look us over, kind of admirin', and we couldn't move a step but he was there, flappin' his big ears and swingin' his trunk, just as though he was sayin': "Whoope-e-e, me fellers! You're the real persimmons, you are."

We couldn't find a hotel where they'd take us in that night, so we had to bribe a farmer to let us use his spare bed rooms. We tethered Rajah to a big apple-tree just under our windows to keep him quiet, and let him browse on a Rose of Sharon bush. He only ripped off the rain pipe and trod a flower-bed as hard as a paved court.

At breakfast Pinckney remarks, sort of soothin':

"We might as well enjoy Rajah's society while we have it. I suppose those circus men will be after him in a few days."

Then he remembers that receipt and pulls it out. I could see something was queer by the way he screwed up his mouth. He tosses the paper over to me. Say! do you know what them two ulsteret guys had done? They'd given Pinckney a bill of sale, makin' over all rights, privileges and good-will entire.

"You're it," says I.

"So it seems," says Pinckney. "But I hardly know whether I've got Rajah or Rajah's got me."

"If I owned something I didn't want," says I, "seems to me I'd sell it. There must be other come-ons."

"We will sell him," says Pinckney.

Well, we tried. For three or four days we didn't do anything else; and say, when I think of them days they seem like a mince-pie dream. We did our handsomest to make those Nutmeggers believe that they needed Rajah in their business, that he would be handy to have around the place. But they couldn't see it. We argued with about fifty horny-handed plow-pushers, showin' 'em how Rajah could pull more'n a string of oxen a block long, and could be let out for stump-digging in summer, or as a snow-plough in winter. We tried liverymen, storekeepers, summer cottagers; but the nearest we came to making a sale was to a brewer who'd just built a new house with red and yellow fancy woodwork all over the front of it. He thought Rajah might do for a lawn ornament and make himself useful as a fountain during dry spells, but when he noticed that Rajah didn't have any tusks he said it was all off. He knew where he could buy a whole cast-iron menagerie, with all the frills thrown in, at half the price.

And we wa'n't holding Rajah at any swell figure. He was on the bargain counter when the sale began. Every day was a fifty-per-cent. clearance with us. We were closing out our line of elephants on account of retiring from business, and Rajah was a remnant.

But they wouldn't buy. Generally they threatened to set the dogs on us. It was worse than trying to sell a cargo of fur overcoats in Panama. In time it began to leak through into our heads that Rajah wa'n't negotiable. Didn't seem to trouble him any. He was just as glad to be with us as at first, followed us around like a pet poodle, and got away with his bale of hay as regular as a Rialto hamfatter raidin' the free lunch.

"Is it a life sentence, Pinckney?" says I. "Is this twin foster-brother act to a mislaid elephant to be a continuous performance? If it is we'd better hit the circuit regular and draw our dough on salary day. For me, I'm sick of havin' folks act like we was a quarantine station. Let's anchor Rajah to something solid and skiddoo."

But Pinckney couldn't stand it to think of Rajah being left to suffer. He was gettin' kind of sore on the business, just the same. Then he plucks a thought. We wires to a friend of his in Newport to run down to the big circus headquarters and jolly them into sending an elephant-trainer up to us.

"A trainer will know how to coax Rajah off," says he, "and perhaps he will take him as a gift."

"It's easy money," says I.

But it wasn't. That duck at Newport sends back a message that covers four sheets of yellow paper, tellin' how glad he was to get track of Pinckney again and how he must come down right away. Oh, they wanted Pinckney bad! It was like the tap of the bell for a twenty-round go with the referee missin'. Seems that Mrs. Jerry Toynbee was tryin' to pull off one of those back-yard affairs that win newspaper space—some kind of a fool amateur circus—and they'd got to have Pinckney there to manage it or the thing would fush. As for the elephant-trainer, he'd forgot that.

"By Jove!" says Pinckney, real sassy like.

"That's drawin' it mild," says I. "Would you like the loan of a few able-bodied cuss-words?"

"But I have an idea," says Pinckney.

"Handcuff it," says I; "it's a case of breakin' and enterin'."

But he didn't have so much loft-room to let, after all. His first move was to hunt up a railroad station and charter a box-car. We carpets it with hay, has a man knock together a couple of high bunks in one end, and throws in some new horse-blankets.

"Now," says Pinckney, "you and I and Rajah will start for Newport on the night freight."

"Have you asked Rajah?" says I.

But Rajah knew all about riding in box-cars. He walked up the plank after us just like we was a pair of Noahs. Goggles was sent off over the road with the cart, all by his lonesome.

I've traveled a good deal with real sports, and once I came back from St. Louis with the delegates to a national convention, but this was my first trip in an animal car. It wasn't so bad, though, and it was all over by daylight next morning. There wasn't anyone in sight but milkmen and bakers' boys as we drove down Bellevue-ave., with Rajah grippin' the rear axle of our cab. I don't know how he felt about buttin' into Newport society at that time of day, but I looked for a cop to pinch us as second-story men.

We fetches up at the swellest kind of a ranch you ever saw, iron gates to it like a storage warehouse, and behind that trees and bushes and lawn, like a slice out of Central Park. Pinckney wakes up the lodge-keeper and after he lets down the bars we pikes around to the stable. It looked more like an Episcopal church than a stable, and we didn't find any horses inside, anyway, only seven different kinds of gasoline carts. The stable-hands all seemed to know Pinckney and to be proud of it, but they shied some at Rajah and me.

"This is part of a little affair I'm managing for Mrs. Toynbee," says Pinckney. "Professor McCabe and Rajah will stay here for a day or two, strictly in cog., you know."

What Pinckney says seemed to be rules and regulations there, so Rajah and I got the glad hand after that. And for a stable visit it was the best that ever happened. I've stopped at lots of two-dollar houses that would have looked like Bowery lodgings alongside of that stable. And one of the boys thought he could handle the mitts some. Yes, that in cog. business wasn't so worse, at fifty per.

All this time Pinckney was as busy as the man at the ticket window, only droppin' in once or twice after dark to see if Rajah was stayin' good. The show was being knocked into shape and Pinckney was master of ceremonies. I knew he was goin' to work Rajah in somehow; but he didn't have any time to put me next and I never tumbled until he'd sprung the trick.

About the third day things began to hum around the Toynbee place. A gang of tentmen came with a round top and put it up. They strung a lot of side-show banners too, and built lemonade-stands in the shrubbery. If it hadn't been for the Johnnie boys in hot clothes strollin' around you'd thought a real one-ring wagon-show had struck town. But say, that bunch of clowns and bum bareback riders had papas who could have given 'em a Forepaugh outfit every birthday.

Early next morning I got the tip from Pinckney to sneak Rajah out of the stable and over into the dressin'-tent. The way that old chap's eyes glistened when he saw the banners and things was a wonder. He sure did know a heap, that Rajah. He was as excited and anxious as a new chorus girl at a fall opening; but when I gave him the word he held himself in.

Just before the grand entry I got a peek at the house, and it was a swell mob: same folks that you'll see at the Horse Show, only there wasn't no dollar-a-head push to rubber at 'em, as they wa'n't on exhibition. They was just out for fun, and I guess they know how to have it, seein' that's their steady job.

Number four on the programme was put down as: "Mr. Lionel Pinckney Ogden Bruce, with his wonderfully life-like elephant Rajah." I heard the barker givin' his song an' dance about the act, and he got a great hand. Then Pinckney goes on and the crowd howls.

You see, he'd had a loose canvas suit, like pajamas, made for Rajah, and stuffed out with straw. It was painted to look something like elephant hide, but some of the straw had been left sticking through the seams. With Rajah sewed inside of this, he looked like a rank imitation of himself.

"Fake, fake!" they yells at 'em as they showed up. "Who's playing the hind legs, Lionel?" and a lot of things like that. They threw peanuts and apples at Rajah, and generally enjoyed themselves.

Then all of a sudden Pinckney pulls the puckering string, yanks off the padding, and out walks old Rajah as chipper as Billy Jerome. Fetch 'em? Well, say! You've seen a gang of school-kids when the sleight-of-hand man makes a pass over the egg in the hat and pulls out a live rabbit? These folks acted the same way. They howled, they hee-hawed, they jumped up and down on the seats.

They'd been lookin' for the same old elephant with two men inside, the good old chestnut that they'd been tryin' to laugh over for years, and when this philopena was sprung on 'em they were as tickled as a baby with a jack-in-the-box. It wouldn't have got more'n one laugh out of a crowd of every-day folks, but that swell mob just went wild over it. It was a new stunt, done special for them by one of their own crowd.

Was Pinckney it? Why, he was the whole show! They kept him and Rajah in the ring for half an hour, and they let loose every time Rajah lifted his trunk or napped his ears. When he got 'em quiet Pinckney made a speech. He said he was happy to say that the grand door prize, as announced on the hand-bills, had been drawn by Mrs. Jeremiah Toynbee, and that Rajah was the prize. Would she take it with her, or have it sent?

You've heard of Mrs. Jerry. She's a real sport, she is. She's the one that stirred up all that fuss by takin' her tame panther down to Bailey's Beach with her. And Mrs. Jerry wasn't goin' back on her reputation or missin' any two-page ads. in the papers.

"You may send him, please," says Mrs. Jerry.

Maybe they thought that was all a part of Pinckney's fake. They didn't know how hard we'd tried to unload Rajah. We didn't do any lingerin' around. While the show was goin' on we sneaks out of the back of the tent with Rajah and across to the stable. The rest was easy. He'd got so used to seein' me there that I reckon he'd sized it up for my regular hang-out, so when we ties him up fast and slides out easy, one at a time, he never mistrusts.

"Professor," says Pinckney, "it seems to me that this is an excellent opportunity for us to go away."

"It's all of that," says I, "and let's make it a quick shift."

We did. Goggles shook us up some on the way down, but we hit Broadway in time for breakfast.



CHAPTER VI

You didn't happen to see Pinckney at the last Horse Show, did you? Well, you'd never known him for the same ambulance fare that dropped into the Studio that day. He's been on the 'rock for two months now, and his nerves are as steady as a truck horse. There's more meat on him, too, than there was. I don't have to have a dustpan ready, in case I should jolt him one.

But say, next time any two-by-four chappy floats in here for a private course, I gets plans and specifications before I takes him on. No more Rajah business in mine. See?

There's another thing, too. I'm thinkin' of hirin' a husky boy with a club to do the turnkey act for me. Or maybe I could get out an injunction against myself to keep me from leavin' home. What I need is a life sentence to stay in little old New York. It's the only place where things happen reg'lar and sensible. If you see rocks flyin' round in the air, or a new building doin' the hoochee-coochee an' sheddin' its cornices, or manhole covers poppin' off, you know just what's up—nothing but a little stick dynamite handled careless, or some mislaid gas touched off by a plumber.

But the minute I lets some one lead me across a ferry, or beyond the Bronx, the event card is on the blink, and I'm a bunky-doodle boy. Long's I don't get more'n a mile from Forty-Second-st., I'm Professor McCabe, and the cops pass me the time of day. Outside of that I'm a stray, and anyone that gets the fit ties a can to me.

It was my mix-up with that Blenmont aggregation that stirs me up. Pinckney was at the bottom of this, too. Course, I can't register any kick; for when it comes to doing the hair-trigger friendship act, Pinckney's the real skookum preferred. But this was once when he slipped me a blank.

Looked like bein' fed with a spoon, too, at the start. All I had to do was to take the one-thirty-six out to Blenmont, put in an hour with Jarvis, catch the three-fifty back, and charge anything I had the front to name. What's more, I kind of cottoned to Jarvis, from the drop of the hat.

He was waitin' at the station for me, with a high-wheeled cart, and a couple of gingery circus horses hitched one in front of the other like two links of wienerwurst. They were tryin' to play leap-frog as the train comes in; but it didn't seem to worry Jarvis any more'n if he was drivin' a pair of mail-wagon plugs.

One of those big pink-and-white chaps, Jarvis was, with nice blue eyes and ashes-of-roses hair. There was a lot of him, and it was well placed. He had sort of a soothing, easy way of talking, too, like a church organ with the soft pedal on.

Me and Jarvis got acquainted right away. He said he didn't care much about the physical-culture game—didn't exactly need it, and he'd been through all that before, anyway—but, mother and sister wanted him to take it up again, and Pinckney'd told what a crackerjack I was; so he thought he might as well go in for it. He said he'd had a little hole fixed up where one could do that sort of thing, y'know, and he hoped I wouldn't find it such a beastly bore, after all.

Oh, he was a gent, Mr. Jarvis. But what got me was the careless way he juggled the reins over those two bob-tailed nags that was doin' a ragtime runaway, and him usin' only three fingers, and touchin' 'em up with the whip. It was his lucky day, though, and we got there without an ambulance.

It was somethin' of a place to get to, yes—about a hundred and 'steen rooms and bath, I should say, with a back yard that must have slopped over into Connecticut some. That's what you get by havin' a grandpop who put his thumb-print on every dollar that came his way.

I guess Jarvis was used to livin' in a place like that, though. He didn't stop to tell what anything cost, or show off any of the bric-a-brac. He just led the way through seven or eight parlors and palm-rooms, until we fetched up in the hole he'd fixed up to exercise in. It was about three times as big as the Studio here, and if there was anything missing from the outfit I couldn't have told what it was—flyin'-rings, bars, rowin'-machine, punchin'-bags, dumb-bells—say! with a secretary and a few wall mottos, there was the makin's of a Y. M. C. A. branch right on the ground. Then there was dressin'-rooms, a shower bath, and a tiled plunge tank like they have in these Turkish places.

"Lucky you don't go in strong for exercise," says I. "If you did, I s'pose you'd fix up Madison Square Garden?"

"That architect was an ass," says Jarvis; "but mother told him to go ahead. Fancy he thought I was a Sandow, you know."

Well, we gets into our gym. clothes, picks out a set of kid pillows, and had just stepped out on the rubber for a little warmin' up, when in sails a fluff delegation. There was a fat old one, that looked as though she might be mother; a slim baby-eyed one, that any piker would have played for sister; and another, that I couldn't place at all. She wasn't a Fifth-ave. girl—you could tell that by the way she wore her hair bunched down on the nape of her neck—but it was a cinch she wasn't any poor relation.



"Lost their way goin' to the matinee, eh?" says I.

Jarvis, he gets pink clear down to his collarbone. "I beg pardon, professor," says he. "It's only mother and the girls. I'll send them off."

"That's right; shoo 'em," says I.

But mother wouldn't shoo any more'n a trolley-car. "Now, don't be silly about it, Jarvis, dear," says she. "You know how Lady Evelyn dotes on athletics, and how your sister and I do, too. So we're just going to stay and watch you."

"Oh, come, mother," says Jarvis; "it isn't just the thing, you know."

"Ask Lady Evelyn," says mother. "Why, she's one of the patronesses of the Oldwich Cricket Club, and pours tea for the young men at their games. Now, go ahead, Jarvis; there's a dear."

He looks at me for a tip, and that gives him a hunch. "But the professor—" says he.

"Oh, Professor McCabe doesn't mind us a bit; do you now, professor?" says sister, buttin' in, real coy and giddy.

"I can stand it if you can," says I, and she tips me a goo-goo smile that was all to the candied violets.

"There!" says the mother. "Now go right on as though we were not here at all. But remember not to be too rough, Jarvis, dear."

I grins at that, and Jarvis dear looks foolisher than ever. But the ladies had settled themselves in front seats, and there didn't seem to be anything to do but to play marbles or quit an' go home. And say, I don't know which looked more like a stage-hand caught in front of the drop, Jarvis or me. We went through some kind of motions, though, until I begins to get over bein' rattled. Then I tries to brace him up.

"Little faster with that right counter there," says I. "And block more with your elbow. Ah, you're wide open—see?" and I taps him once or twice. "Now look out for this left lead to the face. Come, use that right a little. 'Tain't in a sling, is it? Foot-work, now. You side-step like a truck-horse. There, that's the article. Now let 'em come—block, counter, guard!"

You see, I was doin' my best to work up a little excitement and get Jarvis to forget the audience; but it wasn't much use. About all we did was to walk around and pat each other like a pair of kittens. There'd been as much exercise in passin' the plate at church.

Mother thought it was lovely, though, and sister had that gushy look in her eyes that her kind wears after they've been to see Maude Adams. Lady Evelyn, though, didn't seem to be struck silly by our performance. She acted as though someone had been tryin' to sell her a gold brick. Her nose was up in the air, and she'd turned a shoulder to us, like she was wonderin' how long it would be before the next act was put on. Couldn't blame her, either. That was the weakest imitation of a sparrin' bout I ever stood up in.

But there was no stirrin' Jarvis. He'd got stage-fright, or cold feet, or something of the kind. It wa'n't that he didn't know how, for he had all the tags of a good amateur about his moves; but somehow he'd been queered. So, as soon as we can, we quits. Then sister gets her chance to gush. She rushes to the front and turns the baby stare on me like I was all the goods.

"Oh, it was just too sweet for anything!" says she. "Do you know, professor, I've always wanted to see a real boxing-match; but Jarvis would never let me before. He's told me horrid stories about how brutal they were. Now I know they're nothing of the sort. I shall come every time you and Jarvis have one, and so will Lady Evelyn. You didn't think it was brutal, did you, Evelyn?"

Lady Evelyn humped her eyebrows and gave me one look. "No," says she, "I shouldn't call it brutal, exactly," and then she swallows a polite, society snicker in a way that made me mad from the ground up. Jarvis didn't lose any of that, either. I got a glimpse of him turnin' automobile red, and tryin' to choke himself with his tongue.

"It's something like the wand drill we used to do at college," says sister. "Don't you like the wand drill, professor?"

"When it ain't done too rough, I'm dead stuck on it," says I.

"I just knew you didn't like rough games," says she. "You don't look as though you would, you know."

"That's right," say I.

"Jarvis says that once you knocked out three men in one evening; but I'm sure you weren't rude about it," she gurgles.

"And that's no pipe, either," says I. "I wouldn't be rude for money."

"What is a knockout, anyway?" says she.

"Why," says I, "it's just pushin' a feller around the platform until he's too dizzy to stand up."

"What fun!" says sister.

We makes a break for the dressin'-room about then, and the delegation clears out. On the way back to the station Jarvis apologizes seven different ways, and ends up by givin' me the cue to the whole game.

Seems that mother's steady job in life was to get him married off to some one that suited her for a daughter-in-law. She'd been at it for five or six years; but Jarvis had always blocked her moves, until Lady Evelyn shows up. I guessed that he'd picked her out himself, and was gettin' along fine, when mother begins to mix in and arrange things. Evelyn shies at that, and commences to hand Jarvis the frapped smile. This little visit to the sparrin' exhibition the old lady had planned for Evelyn's special benefit.

"But hang it all!" says Jarvis, "I couldn't stand up there and show off, like a Sunday-school boy spouting a piece. Made me feel like a silly ass, you know."

"You looked the part," says I. "About one more of those stunts, and Lady Evelyn'll want to adopt the two of us."

"No more," says he. "She must think I'm a milksop. Why, she's got brothers that are officers in the British army, fellows who get themselves shot, and win medals, and all that sort of thing."

Well, I was sorry for Jarvis; for the girl was a good looker, all right, and they'd have mated up fine. But I'm no schatchen. Physical culture's my game, an' I ain't takin' on no marriage bureau as a side line. So we shook hands and called it a canceled contract. Then Jarvis jerks those circus horses out of a bow-knot and rounds the corner on one wheel, while I climbs aboard the choo-choo cars and gets back near Broadway.

I wasn't lookin' to run across Jarvis again, seein' as how me and him has our own particular sets; but 'twasn't more'n three days before he shows up at the Studio. He was lookin' down an' out, too.

"Dropped in for a real rough game of pussy-wants-a-corner," says I, "or shall we make it ring-around-the-rosy?"

"I say, now, Shorty," says he, "if you'd had it rubbed in as hard as I have, you'd let up."

"Heard from Lady Evelyn?" says I.

He kind of groaned and fell into a chair. "I tried to tell her about it," says he; "but she wouldn't listen to a word. She only asked if you were a professor of dancing."

"Hully chee!" says I. "Say, you tell her from me that I'm a cloak-model, an' proud of it. Dancin'-master, eh? Do you stand for a josh like that?"

"Hang me if I do!" says he, jumpin' up and measurin' off three-foot steps across the floor. "The Lady Evelyn's going back to England in a few days, but before she leaves I want her to have a chance to—well, to see that I'm not the sort she thinks I am. And I want you to help me out, professor."

"Ah, say, you got the wrong transfer," says I. "I'm nothin' but a dub at anything like that. What you want is to get Clyde Fitch to build you a nice little one-act scene where you can play leadin' gent to her leadin' lady."

"You're mistaken, Shorty," says he. "I'm not putting up a game. No heroics for me. I'm just a plain, ordinary chump, and willing to let it go at that. But I'm no softy, and she's got to know it. There's another thing: mother and sister have carried this athletic nonsense about far enough. They'd like to exhibit me to all the fool women they know, as a kind of modern Hercules, and I'm sick of it. Now, I've got a plan that ought to cure 'em of that."

For Jarvis, it wa'n't so slow. Say, he ain't half so much asleep as he looks. His proposition is to spring the real thing on 'em, a five-round go for keeps, with ring-weight gloves, and all the trimmin's.

"They've been bothering me for more," says he. "I haven't heard anything else since you were there. And Lady Evelyn's been putting them up to it, I'll bet a hat. What do you say, professor? Wouldn't you give it to them?"

"I sure would," says I. "It's comin' to 'em. And I know of two likely Red Hook boys that's just achin' to get at each other in the ring for a fifty-dollar purse."

"No, no," says Jarvis. "I mean to be in this myself. It's—it's necessary, you know."

"Oh!" says I, looking him over kind of curious. "But see here, do you think you'd be good for five rounds?"

"I'm not quite in condition now," says he; "but there was a time—"

You know. You've seen these college-trained boxers, that think they're hittin' real hard when their punch wouldn't dent a cheese-pie.

"We'd have to fake it some," says I.

"Oh, no, that wouldn't do at all," says Jarvis. "This must be a genuine match. I'll put up ten to one, five hundred to fifty; and if I stay the five rounds I get the fifty."

"Whe-e-ew!" says I. "It'd be like takin' candy from a kid. I couldn't do it."

Jarvis, he kind of colored up at that, but he didn't go off his nut. "I beg pardon," says he; "but I have an idea, you know, that it wouldn't be so one-sided as you think."

Well, say, I've made lots of easy money off'n ideas just like that, and when it was put up to me as a personal favor to do it, I couldn't renig. It did go against the grain to play myself for a longshot, though; but Jarvis wouldn't listen to anything else, claimin' his weight and reach made it an even thing. So I takes him on, an' we bills the go for the next afternoon.

"I may have to bring up Swifty Joe for a bottle-holder," says I, "an' Swifty ain't just what you'd call parlor broke."

"All the better for that," says Jarvis. "And I'd be much obliged if you'd find another like him for my corner."

Course, there's only one Swifty. He's got a bent-in nose, an' a lop ear, an' a jaw like a hippo. He's won more bouts by scarin' his man stiff than any plug in the business. He'd been a champ long ago, if it wa'n't for a chunk of yellow in him as big as a grape fruit. No, I couldn't match up Swifty. I done the next best thing, though; I sent for Gorilla Quigley, and gets Mike Slattery to hold the watch on us.

Mike gets the hint that this was a swell joint we was goin' to; so he shows up in South Brooklyn evenin' dress—plug hat, striped shirt, and sack coat. I makes him chuck the linen for a sweater; but I couldn't separate him from the shiny top piece. The Gorilla always wears a swimmin' jersey with a celluloid dicky; so he passes muster.

Anyways, when old Knee Pants, the Blenmont butler, sees us lined up at the front entrance, we had him pop-eyed. He was goin' to ring up the police reserves, when Mr. Jarvis comes out and passes us in.

"They're a group of forty-nine per cents.," says I; "but you said you wanted that kind."

"It's all right," says he. "I've explained to the ladies that a few of my friends interested in physical culture were coming up to-day, and that perhaps they'd better stay out; but they'll be there just the same."

He'd got 'em right, too. Just as we'd fixed the ropes, and got out the pails and towels, in they floats; mother beamin' away like a head-light, sister all fixed ready to blow bubbles, and the Lady Evelyn with her nose stickin' up in the air.

"Professor, will you do the honors?" says Jarvis to me.

And I did 'em. "Ladies," says I, "lemme put you next to some sure-fire talent. This gent with the ingrowin' Roman nose-piece is me assistant Swifty Joe Gallagher. He's just as han'some as he looks."

"Aw, cut it out!" says Swifty.

"Back under the sink with the rest of the pipes," says I, out of the side of my mouth. Then I does another duck. "And this here gooseb'ry blond in the Alice-blue jersey, is Mr. Gorilla Quigley, that put Gans out once—all but. The other gent you may have met before, seein' as he's from one of the first families of Brooklyn—lives under the bridge. His name's Mike Slattery. Now, if you'll excuse us, we'll get busy."

As I takes my corner, I could see mother beginnin' to look worried; but sister opens a box of chocolate creams and prepares to have the time of her life. Lady Evelyn springs her lorgnette and sizes us up like we was a bunch of Buffalo Bill Indians just off the reservation.

I'd forgot to tip off Slattery that there wasn't any postprandials expected of him; so the first thing I knew he was makin' his little ring speech, just the same's if he was announcin' events at the Never Die Athletic club.

"Now gents—and ladies," says he, "this is a five-round go for a stay, between Professor Shorty McCabe, ex-light-weight champeen of the world, and another gent what goes on the cards as an unknown. It's catch weights, an' the winner pulls down the whole basket of greens. There ain't goin' to be no hittin' after the clinch, and if there's any fouls, you leave it to me. Don't come buttin' in. It's been put up to me to keep time an' referee this mix-up, and I don't want no help. You bottle-holders stay in your corners till the count's over. Now are you ready? Then go!"

There was a squeal or two when we sheds our bath-robes and steps to the middle, and I guesses that the ladies was gettin' their first view of ring clothes. But I wasn't lookin' anywhere but at Jarvis. And say, he would have made a hit anywhere. He had just paddin' enough to round him out well, and not so much as to make him look ladyfied. Course, he was a good many pounds over-weight for the job he'd tackled, but he'd have looked mighty well on a poster. Honest, it seemed a shame to have to muss him.

Jarvis wa'n't there to stand in the lime-light, though. He went right to work as though he meant business. I'd kind of figured on lettin' him have his own way for a couple of rounds, takin' it easy, an' jockeyin' him into making a showin'; but the first thing I knows he lands a right swing that near lifts me off my feet, an' Swifty sings out to me to stop my kiddin'.

"Beg pardon," says Jarvis; "but I'm after that fifty."

"If I'd had a putty jaw, you'd got it then," says I. "Here's the twin to that."

But my swipe didn't reach him by an inch, and the best I could do was to swap half-arm jolts until I'd got steadied down again. Well say, I wasn't more'n an hour findin' out that I couldn't monkey much with Jarvis. He knew how to let his weight follow the glove, and he blocked as pretty as if he was punchin' the bag.

"You didn't learn that in no college," says I, fiddlin' for a place to plant my left.

"You're quite right," says he, and bores in like a snow-plough.

We steamed up a little in the second; but it was an even break at that, barrin' the fact that I played more for the wind, and had Jarvis breathin' fast when Slattery called quits. Gorilla Quigley was onto his job, though, an' he gives him good advice while he was wavin' the towel. I could hear him coachin' Jarvis to save his breath and make me do the rushin'.

"Don't waste no time on that cast-iron mug of his," says Gorilla. "All you gotter do is cover up an' stay the limit."

But that wa'n't Jarvis's program. He begins like a bridge car-rusher makin' for a seat, and he had me back into my corner in no time at all. We mixed it then, mixed it good and plenty. Jarvis wa'n't handin' out any love-taps, either; and I didn't have beef enough to stop a hundred-an'-eighty pound swing without feelin' the jar. I was dizzy from 'em all right; but I jumps in close an' pounds away on his ribs until he gives ground. Then I comes the Nelson crouch, and rips a few cross-overs in where they'd do the most good.

That didn't stop him, though. Pretty soon he comes in for more. Say, I never see a guy that could look pleasanter while he was passin' out hot ones. It wasn't a fightin' grin, same as Terry wears; it was just a calm, steady, business-like proposition, one of the kind that goes with a "Sorry to trouble you, but I've got to knock your block off." Now, I can grin, too, until I makes up my mind that it's time to pull the other chap's cork. But I was never up against any of this polite business before. It wins me, though. Right there I says to myself: "Jarvis, if you can keep that up for two rounds more, you're welcome to win out." It was worth the money.

And just as I gets this notion in my nut, he cuts loose with a bunch of rapid-fire jabs that had me wonderin' where I'd be if one landed just right. I ain't got it mapped out yet just how it happened; for about then the ladies let go a lot of squeals; but I remembers stoppin' a facer that showed me pin-wheels, an' then I quits fancy boxin'.

We was roughin' it all over the ring, and Swifty an' the Gorilla was yellin' things, an' Slattery was yellin' back at them, and the muss was as pretty as any ten-dollar-a-head crowd ever paid to see, when all of a sudden Jarvis misses a swing, and I throws all I had into an upper cut. It connected with his chin dimple like a hammer on a nut. The next thing I knows Swifty has the elbow-lock on me from behind, and Mike is standin' over Mr. Jarvis makin' the count.

Well, there wa'n't any cheerin' and shoutin'. I didn't have to shake hands with any crazy bunch, or be toted off to the dressin'-room on their shoulders. When I gets so I can look straight I sees mother keeled over in her chair, and sister fannin' her with the chocolate box. And say, I felt like a lead quarter. Next I takes a squint at Lady Evelyn. She was standin' up as stiff as a tin soldier on parade, with her eyes snappin' and her fingers clinched.

Just one of them looks was enough for me. I gets busy with a pail, and goes to work on Jarvis. He was clean out, of course, but restin' as easy as a baby. We was bringin' him round all right, when I feels a push that shoves me to one side, and in rushes Lady Evelyn. She gets one arm under his neck just as he opens his eyes with that kind of a "What's the matter now?" way they has of comin' back.

Course, it don't last long, that wizzy feelin' and there ain't any hurt to speak of afterward; but I reckon Lady Evelyn don't know much about knock-outs. The way she hugs him up you'd thought he'd been half killed. We was all lookin' foolish and useless, I guess, when the lady turns to me and snaps out:

"Brute! I hope you're satisfied!"

Say, it wouldn't have been worse if I'd been caught robbin' a poor box. "Thank you, ma'am," says I, and fades into the background.

"Go away, all of you!" says she.

So Swifty and the other two comes taggin' along behind, and we had a little reunion in the dressin'-room.

"On the dead, now," says Slattery, "what was the foul?"

"Who's claimin' foul?" says Swifty, bristlin'.

"Why the lady gives it to Shorty straight," says he.

"Ah, go dream about it!" says Swifty. "She don't know a foul from a body wallop."

"See here," says I, "you can talk all that over while you're hoofin' it back to the station; and you're due to be on your way in just four minutes by the clock; so chuck it!"

"I ain't heard no step-lively call," says Slattery. "Besides, I likes the place."

"Well, it don't like you," says I. "Mr. Jarvis and me have had enough of your rough-house society to last us a time and a half. Now bunky-doodle!"

They was a sore-head trio for fair, after that; but when I'd paid 'em off, with a fiver extra for luck, they drops out of a window onto the lawn and pikes off like a squad of jail-breakers. I was some easier in my mind then; but I wa'n't joyful, at that.

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 glass. 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 cushion. 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-glass 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 butts 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.

"North Dakotaed him?" says I.

"No," says she; "I've got a decree good in any State. His friends called it heart failure. I can't because I used to settle his bar bills. You're not shy of widows, are you?"

Now say, there's widows and widows—grass, baled hay, and other kinds—and most of 'em I passes up on general principles, along with chorus girls and lady demonstrators; but somehow I couldn't seem to place Sadie Sullivan in that line. Why, her mother 'n' mine used to borrow cupfuls of flour of each other over the back fence, and it was to lick a feller who'd yelled "brick-top" after Sadie that started me to takin' my first boxin' lessons in Mike Quigley's barn.