"I ain't much used to traveling in one of these rubber-tired show windows," says I; "but for the sake of old times I'll chance it once," and with that I climbs in; the tiger puts on the time-lock, and we joins the procession. "Your car's all to the giddy," I remarks. "Didn't it leave you some short of breath after blowin' yourself to this, Sadie?"

"I buy it by the month," says she, "including Jeems and Henri in front. It comes higher that way; but who cares?"

"Oh," says I, "he left a barrel, then?"

"A cellarful," says Sadie.

And on the way up towards the park I gets the scenario of the acts I'd missed. His name was Dipworthy—you've seen it on the labels, "Dipworthy's Drowsy Drops, Younsgters Yearn for 'Em"—only he was Dipworthy, jr., and knew as little about the "Drop" business as only sons usually do about such things. Drops wa'n't his long suit; quarts came nearer being his size.

It was while he was having a sober spell that he married Sadie; but that was about the last one he ever had. She stuck to him, though; let him chase her with guns and hammer her with the furniture, until the purple monkeys got him for good and all. Then she cashed in the "Drop" business, settled a life-insurance president's salary on her mother, bought a string of runnin' ponies for her kid brother, and then hit New York, with the notion that here was where you could get anything you had the price to pay for.

"But I made a wrong guess, Shorty," says she. "It isn't all in having the money; it's in knowing how to make it get you the things you want."

"There's plenty would like to give you lessons in that," says I.

"You?" says she.

"Say, do I look like a con. man?" says I.

"There, there, Shorty!" says she. "I knew better, only I've been gold-bricked so much lately that I'd almost suspect my own grandmother. I've got two maids who steal my dresses and rings; a lady companion who nags me about the way I talk, and who hates me alive because I can afford to hire her; and even the hotel manager makes me pay double rates because I look too young for a real widow. Do you know, there are times when I almost miss the late Dippy. Were you ever real lonesome, Shorty?"

"Once or twice," says I, "when I was far from Broadway."

"That's nothing," says she, "to being lonesome on Broadway. And I've been so lonesome in a theatre box, with two thousand people in plain sight, that I've dropped tears down on the trombone player in the orchestra. And I was lonesome just now, when I picked you up back there. I had been into that big jewelry store, buying things I didn't want, just for the sake of having some one to talk to."

"Ah, say," says I, "cut it in smaller chunks, Sadie. I'm no pelican."

"You don't believe me?" says she.

"I know this little old burg too well," says I. "Why, with a hundred-dollar bill I can buy more society than you could put in a hall."

"But don't you see, Shorty," says she, "that the kind you can buy isn't worth having? You don't buy yours, do you? And I don't want to buy mine. I want to swap even. I'm not a freak, nor a foreigner, nor a quarantine suspect. Look at all these women going past—what's the difference between us? But they're not lonesome, I'll bet. They have friends and dear enemies by the hundreds, while I haven't either. There isn't a single home on this whole island where I can step up and ring the front door-bell. I feel like a tramp hanging to the back of a parlor-car. What good does my money do me? Suppose I want to take dinner at a swell restaurant—I wouldn't know the things to order, and I'd be afraid of the waiters. Think of that, Shorty."

I tried to; but it was a strain. If anyone else had put it up to me that Sadie Sullivan, with a roll of real money as big as a bale of cotton, could lose her nerve just because she didn't have a visitin'-list, I'd have told 'em to drop the pipe. She was giving me straight goods, though. Why, her lip was tremblin' like a lost kid's.

"Chuck it!" says I. "For a girl that had a whole bunch of Johnnies on the waitin' list, and her with only one best dress to her name at the time, you give me an ache. I don't set up for no great judge of form and figure; but my eyesight's still good, I guess, and if I was choosin' a likely looker, I'd back you against the field."

That makes her grin a little, and she pats my hand kind of sisterly like. "It isn't men I want, you goose; it's women—my own kind," says she, and the next minute she gives me the nudge and whispers: "Now, watch—the one in the chiffon Panama."

"Shiff which?" says I. But I sees the one she means—a heavy-weight person, rigged out like a dry-goods exhibit and topped off with millinery from the spring openin', coming toward us behind a pair of nervous steppers. She had her lamps turned our way, and I hears Sadie give her the time of day as sweet as you please. She wasn't more'n six feet off, either; but it missed fire. She stared right through Sadie, just as if there'd been windows in her, and then turned to cuddle a brindle pup on the seat beside her.

"Acts like she owed you money," says I.

"We swapped tales of domestic woe for two weeks at Colorado Springs season before last," said Sadie; "but it seems that she's forgotten. That's Mrs. Morris Pettigrew, whose husband—"

"That one?" says I. "Why, she ain't such a much, either. I know folks that think she's a joke."

"She feels that she can't afford to recognize me on Fifth-ave., just the same. That's where I stand," says Sadie.

"It's a crooked deal, then," says I.

And right there I began to get a glimmer of the kind of game she was up against. Talk about freeze-outs!

"I'll show her, though, and the rest of 'em!" says Sadie, stickin' out her cute little chin. "I'm not going to quit yet."

"Good for you!" says I. "It's a pastime I ain't up in at all; but if you can ever find use for me behind the scenes anywhere, just call on."

"I will, Shorty," says she, "and right now. Come on down to Sherry's with me for luncheon."

"Quit your kiddin'," says I. "You don't want to queer the whole program at the start. I'd be lost in a place like that—me in a sack suit and round-top dicer! Why, the head waiter'd say 'Scat!' and I'd make a dive under the table."

She said she didn't care a red apple for that. She wanted to sail in there and throw a bluff, only she couldn't go alone, and she guessed I'd do just as I was.

Course, I couldn't stand for no fool play of that kind; but seein' as she was so dead set on the place, I said we'd make it a 'leven-o'clock supper, after the theatre; but it must be my blow.

"I've got the clothes that'll fit into a night racket," says I, "and besides, I've got to get a few points first."

"It's a go," says she.

So we made a date, and Sadie drops me at the Studio. I goes right to the 'phone and calls up Pinckney at the club. Didn't I tell you about him? Sure, that's the one. You wouldn't think though, to see him and me tappin' each other with the mitts, that he was a front ranker in the smart push. But he's all of that. He's a pacemaker for the swiftest bunch in the world. Say, if he should take to walkin' on his hands, there wouldn't be no men's shoes sold on Fifth-ave. for a year.

Well, he shows up here about an hour later, lookin' as fresh as though he'd just come off the farm. "Did you say something about wanting advice, Shorty?" says he.

"I did," says I.

"Religious, or otherwise?" says he. "But it makes no difference; I'm yours to command."

"I don't ask you to go beyond your depth," says I. "It's just a case of orderin' fancy grub. I'm due to blow a lady friend of mine to the swellest kind of a supper that grows in the borough; no two-dollar tabble-doty, understand; but a special, real-lace, eighteen-carat feed, with nothing on the bill of fare that ain't spelled in French."

"Ah!" says he, "something like Barquettes Bordellaise, poulet en casserole, fraises au champagne, and so on, eh?"

"I was about to mention them very things," says I. "But my memory's on the blink. Couldn't you write 'em down, with a diagram of how they look, and whether you spear 'em with a fork, or take 'em in through a straw?"

"Why, to be sure," says he. So he did, and it looked something like this:

"Consomme au fumet d'estaragon (chicken soup—big spoon).

"Barquettes Bordellaise (marrow on toast, with mushrooms—fork only).

"Fonds d'artichauts Monegosque (hearts of artichokes in cream sauce—fork and breadsticks)."

There was a lot more to it, and it wound up with some kind of cheese with a name that sounded like breakin' a pane of glass.

I threw up my hands at that. "It's no go," says I. "I couldn't learn to say all that in a month. How would it do for me to slip the waiter that program and tell him to follow copy?"

"We'll do better than that?" says Pinckney. "Where's your 'phone?"

Pretty soon he gets some one on the wire that he calls Felix, and they has a heart-to-heart talk in French for about ten minutes.

"It's all arranged," says he. "You are to hand my card to the man at the door as you go in, and Felix will do the rest. Eleven-fifteen is the hour. But I'm surprised at you, Shorty. A lady, eh? Ah, well! In the spring the young man's fancy gently turns—"

"Ah, say!" says I. "There ain't no call for any funny cracks about this. You know me, and you can guess I'm no Willie-boy. When I get a soft spot in my head, and try to win a queen, it'll be done on the dead quiet, and you won't hear no call for help. But this is a different proposition. This is a real lady, who's been locked out by the society trust, and who takes an invite from me just because we happened to know each other when we was kids."

"Oh-ho!" says Pinckney, snappin' them black eyes the way he does when he gets real waked up. "That sounds quite romantic."

"It ain't," says I. "It's just as reg'lar as takin' your aunt to a sacred concert."

He seemed to want to know the details, though; so I told him all about Sadie, and how she'd been ruled out of her class by a lot of stiffs who wa'n't one-two-sixteen with her, either for looks or lucre.

"And it's a crooked decision," says I. "Maybe Sadie wasn't brought up by a Swedish maid and a French governess from Chelsea, Mass.; but she's on velvet now, and she's a real hand-picked pippin, too. What's more, she's a nice little lady, with nothin' behind her that you couldn't print in a Sunday-school weekly. All she aims to do is to travel with the money-burners and be sociable. And say, that's natural, ain't it?"

"It's quite human," says Pinckney, "and what you've told me about her is very interesting. I hope the little supper goes off all right. Ta-ta, Shorty."

Well, it began frosty enough; for when it came to pilotin' a lady into that swell mob, I had the worst case of stage-fright you ever saw. Say, them waiters is a haughty-lookin' lot, ain't they? But after we'd found Felix, and I'd passed him a ten-spot, and he'd bowed and scraped and towed us across the room like he thought we held a mortgage on the place, I didn't feel quite so much as if I'd got into the wrong flat.

I did have something of a chill when I caught sight of a sheepish-looking cuss in the glass. He looked sort of familiar, and I was wondering what he'd done to be ashamed of, when I sees it was me. Then I squints around at the other guys and say, more'n half of 'em wore the same kind of a look. It was only the women that seemed right to home. There wasn't one in sight that didn't have her chin up and her shoulders back, and carrying all the dog the law allows. They treated them stiff-necked food-slingers like they was a lot of wooden Indians. You'd see 'em pilin' their wraps on one of them lordly gents just as if he was a chair. Then they'd plant themselves, spread out their dry-goods, peel off their elbow gloves, and proceed to rescue the cherry from the bottom of the glass.

And Sadie? Well, say, you'd thought she'd never had a meal anywhere else in her life. The way she bossed Felix around, and sized up the other folks, calm as a Chinaman, was a caution. And talk! I never had so much rapid-fire conversation passed out to me all in a bunch before. Course, she was just keepin' her end up, and makin' believe I was doing my share, too. But it was a mighty good imitation. Every now and then she'd tear off a little laugh so natural that I could almost swear I'd said something funny, only I knew I hadn't opened my head.

As for me, I was busy tryin' to guess what was under the silver covers that Felix kept bringin' in, and rememberin' what Pinckney had said about forks and spoons. Say, I suppose you've been up against one of those little after-the-play-is-over suppers that they serve behind the lace curtains on Fifth-ave.; but this was my first offense. Little suppers! Honest, now, there was more'n I'd want if I hadn't been fed for a week. Generally I can worry along with three squares a day, and when I do feel like havin' a bite before I hit the blankets, a sweitzerkase sandwich does me. But this affair had seven acts to it, and everyone was a mystery.

"Why, I didn't know you were such an epicure," says Sadie.

"Me either," says I; "but I'd never let myself loose before. Have some more pulley from the carrousell and help yourself to the—the other thing."

"Shorty, tell me how you managed it," says she.

"I've been taking lessons by mail," says I.

"You're a dear to do it, anyway," says she. "Just think of the figure I'd cut coming here by my lonesome. It's bad enough at the hotel, with only Mrs. Prusset. And I've been wanting to come for weeks. What luck it was, finding you to-day!"

"Say, don't run away with the idea that I'm makin' a day's work of this," says I. "I'm havin' a little fun out of this myself. There's worse company than you, y'know."

"And I've met a heap of men stupider than Shorty McCabe," says she, givin' me the jolly with that sassy grin of hers, and lettin' go one of those gurgly laughs that sounds as if it had been made on a clarinet.

It was just about then that I looks up and finds Pinckney standing on one foot, waitin' for a chance to butt in.

"Why, professor! This is a pleasure," says he.

"Hello!" says I. "Where'd you blow in from?"

Then I makes him acquainted with Sadie, and asks him what it'll be. Oh, he did it well; seemed as surprised as if he hadn't seen me for a year, and begins to get acquainted with Sadie right away. I tried to give her the wink, meanin' to put her next to the fact that here was where she ought to come out strong on the broad A's, and throw in the dontcher-knows frequent; but it was no go. She didn't care a rap. She talked just as she would to me, asked Pinckney all sorts of fool questions, and inside of two minutes them two was carryin' on like a couple of kids.

"I'm a rank outsider here, you know," says she, "and if it hadn't been for Shorty I'd never got in at all. Oh, sure, Shorty and I are old chums. We used to slide down the same cellar door."

S'elp me, I was plumb ashamed of Sadie then, givin' herself away like that. But Pinckney seemed to think it was great sport. Pretty soon he says he's got some friends over at another table, and did she mind if he brought 'em over.

"Think you'd better?" says she. "I'm the Mrs. Dipworthy of the 'Drowsy Drops,' you know, and that's a tag that won't come off."

"If you'll allow me," says he, "I'll attend to the tag business. They'll be delighted to meet you."

"Say," says I, soon as he'd left, "don't be a sieve, Sadie. Just forget auld lang syne, and remember that you're travelin' high."

"They've got to take me for what I am, or not at all," says she.

"Yes, but you ain't got no cue to tell the story of your life," says I.

"That's my whole stock in trade, Shorty," says she.

I was lookin' for her to revise that notion when I sees the kind of company Pinckney was luggin' up to spring on us. I'd seen their pictures in the papers, and knew 'em on sight. And the pair wasn't anything but the top of the bunch. You know the Twombley-Cranes, that cut more ice in July than the Knickerbocker Trust does all winter. Why say, to see the house rubber at 'em as they came sailin' our way, you'd thought they was paid performers stepping up to do their act. It was a case of bein' in the lime-light for us, from that on.

"Hully chee!" says I. "Here's where I ought to fade."

But there wasn't any show to duck; for Felix was chasin' over some more chairs, and Pinckney was doin' the honors all round, and the first thing I knew we was a nice little fam'ly party, chuckin' repartee across the pink candle shades, and behavin' like star boarders that had paid in advance.

It was Sadie, though, that had the centre of the stage, and I'll be staggered if she didn't jump in to make her bluff good. She let out everything that she shouldn't have told, from how she used to wait on table at her mother's boarding-house, to the way she'd got the frozen face ever since she came to town.

"But what am I expected to do?" says she. "I've got no Hetty Green grip on my bankbook. There's a whole binful of the 'Drowsy Drop' dollars, and I'm willing to throw 'em on the bonfire just as liberal as the next one, only I want a place around the ring. There's no fun in playing a lone hand, is there? I've been trying to find out what's wrong with me, anyway?"

"My dear girl," says Mrs. Twombley-Crane, "there's nothing wrong with you at all. You're simply delicious. Isn't she, now, Freddie?"

And Freddie just grinned. Say, some men is born wise. "Professor McCabe and I are exchanging views on the coming light-weight contest," says he. "Don't mind us, my dear."

Perhaps that's what we were gassin' about, or why is a hen. You can search me. I was that rattled with Sadie's nerve display that I didn't follow anything else real close.

But when it was all over, and I'd been brought to by a peep at the bill the waiter handed me, I couldn't figure out whether she'd made a bull's-eye or rung in a false alarm.

One thing I did notice, as we sails out, and that was the stout Pettigrew person who'd passed Sadie the pickled pig's foot on the avenue that afternoon. She was sitting opposite a skimpy little runt with a bald head, at a table up near the door where the waiters juggled soup over her feathers every time they passed. Her eyes were glued on Sadie as we came up, and by the spread of the furrows around her mouth I see she was tryin' to crack a smile.

"Now," thinks I, "here's where she collects chilblains and feels the mercury drop."

But say! would you look for it in a dream book? What does Sadie do but pass her out the glad hand and coo away, like a pouter pigeon on a cornice, about being tickled to see her again. Oh, they get me dizzy, women do!

That wa'n't a marker though, to the reverse English carom Sadie takes after we'd got into a cab and started for her hotel. Was there a jolly for me, or a "Thank you, Shorty, I've had the time of my life?" Nothin' like it. She just slumped into her corner and switched on the boo-hoos like a girl that's been kept after school.

"Enjoy yourself, Sadie," says I. "Only remember that this is a hansom, not a street sprinkler."

That didn't fetch her; so after a while I tries her again. "What went wrong?" says I. "Was she stringin' you, or was it the way I wore my face that queered the show?"

"It's all right, Shorty," says she between weeps. "And nothing's wrong, nothing at all. Mrs. What's-Her-Name's asked me to stay a week with her at their Newport place, and old Mrs. Pettigrew will turn green before morning thinking of me, and I've shaken the hoodoo at last. But it all came so much in a lump that I just had to turn on the sprayer. You know how I feel, don't you, Shorty?"

"Sure," says I, "just as well as if you'd sent me a picture postal of the place you boarded last."

But say, I turned the trick, didn't I? I didn't know what was comin' out of the box, of course; and maybe I was some jolted at throwin' three sixes to a pair, but there they lay.

No, I ain't goin' into the boostin' line as a reg'lar thing; but I guess if any amateur in the business gets a rose nailed on him, I ought to be the gent. Not?



CHAPTER VIII

Did you shut the hall door? That's right. There's no tellin' what's liable to float in here any time. Say, if they don't quit it, I'll get to be one of these nervous prostraters, that think themselves sick abed without half tryin'. Sure, I'm just convalescin' from the last shock.

How? Now make a guess. Well, it was this way: I was sittin' right here in the front office, readin' the sportin' dope and takin' me reg'lar mornin' sunbath, when the door-buzzer goes off, and in drifts about a hundred and ninety pounds of surprise package.

There was a foreign label on it, all right; but I didn't know until later that it read "Made in Austria." He was a beefy sort of gent, with not much neck to speak of, and enough curly black hair to shingle a French poodle. He was well colored, too. Beats the cars, don't it, the good health that's wasted on some of these foreigners?

But what takes my eye most was his trousseau. Say! he was dressed to the minute, from the pink in his buttonhole, to the mother-of-pearl gloves; and the back of his frock coat had an in-curve such as your forty-fat sisters dream about. Why, as far as lines went, he had Jimmy Hackett and Robert Mantell on the back shelf. Oh, he was a crusher, sure!

"I have the purpose of finding Prof-fes-seur McCabby," says he, reading it off'n a card.

"If you mean McCabe," says I, "I'm discovered."

"Is it you that are also by the name of Shortee?" says he.

"Shorty for short," says I, "and P. C. D. on the end to lengthen it out—Physical Culture Director, that stands for. Now do you want my thumb-print, and a snap-shot of my family-tree?"

That seemed to stun him a little; but he revived after a minute, threw out his chest, lifted his silk lid, and says, solemn as a new notary public takin' the oath of office: "I am Baron Patchouli."

"You look it," says I. "Have a chair."

"I am," says he, gettin' a fresh start, "Baron Patchouli, of Hamstadt and Duesseldorf."

"All right," says I, "take the settee. How are all the folks at home?"

But say, there wa'n't any use tryin' to jolly him into makin' a short cut of it. He'd got his route of parade all planned out and he meant to stick by it.

"Professeur McCabby—" says he.

"Don't," says I. "You make me feel like I'd been transplanted into French and was runnin' a hack-line. Call it McCabe—a-b-e, abe."

"One thousand pardons," says he, and tries again. This time he gets it—almost, and I lets him spiel away. Oh, mama! but I wish I could say it the way he did! It would let me on the Proctor circuit, if I could. But boiled down and skimmed, it was all about how I was a kind of safety-deposit vault for everything he had to live for.

"My hopes, my fortune, my happiness, the very breath of my living, it is all with you," says he as a windup, hittin' a Caruso pose, arms out, toes in, and his breath comin' hard.

How was that for news from home? I did some swift surmisin', and then I says, soothin' like: "Yes, I know; but don't take on about it so. They're all right, just as you handed 'em over; only I asked me friend the Sarge to lock 'em up till you called. We'll walk around and see the Sarge right away."

"Ah!" says he, battin' his noble brow, "you do not comprehend. You make to laugh. And me, I come to you from the adorable Sadie."

"Sadie?" says I. "Sadie Sullivan that was?"

He bows and grins.

"If you've got credentials from Sadie," says I, "it's all right. Now, what's doing? Does she want me to match samples, or show you the sights along the White Lane?"

"Ah, the adorable Sadie!" says he, rollin' his eyes, and puffin' out his cheeks like he was tryin' the lung-tester. "I drive with her, I walk with her, I sit by her side—one day, two day, a week. Well, what happens? I am charm, I am fascinate, I am become her slave. I make to resist. I say to myself: 'You! You are of the noble Austrian blood; the second-cousin of your mother is a grand duke; you must not forget.' Then again I see Sadie. Pouff! I have no longer pride; but only I luff. It is enough. I ask of her: 'Madam Deepworth, where is the father of you?' She say he is not. 'Then the uncle of you?' I demand. She say: 'I'm shy on uncles.' 'But to who, then,' I ask, 'must I declare my honorable passion?' 'Oh,' she say, 'tell it to Shorty McCabe.' Ha! I leap, I bound! I go to M. Pinckney. 'Tell me,' I say, 'where is to be found one Shorty McCabe?' And he sends me to you. I am come."

On the level, now, it went like that. Maybe I've left out some of the frills, but that was the groundwork of his remarks.

"Yes," says I, "you're a regular come-on. I guess the adorable Sadie has handed you a josh. She's equal to it."

But that got by him. He just stood there, teeterin' up and down on his patent leathers, and grinnin' like a monkey.

"I say," says I, "she's run you on a sidin', dropped you down a coal-hole. Do you get wise?"

Did he? Not so you would notice it. He goes on grinnin' and teeterin', like he was on exhibition in a museum and I was the audience. Then he gets a view of himself in the glass over the safe there, and begins to pat down his astrakhan thatch, and punch up his puff tie, and dust off his collar. Ever see one of these peroxide cloak models doin' a march past the show windows on her day off? Well, the Baron had all those motions and a few of his own. He was ornamental, all right, and it wa'n't any news to him either.

About then, though, I begins to wonder if I hadn't been a little too sure about Sadie. There's no tellin', when it comes to women, you know; and when it hit me that perhaps, after all, she'd made up her mind to tag this one from Austria, you could have fried an egg on me anywhere.

"Look here, Patchouli," says I. "Is this straight about you and Sadie? Are you the winner?"

"Ah, the adorable Sadie!" says he, comin' back to earth and slappin' his solar plexus with one hand.

"We've covered that ground," says I. "What I want to know is, does she cotton to you?"

"Cot-ton? Cot-ton?" says he, humpin' his eyebrows like a French ballad singer.

"Are you the fromage?" says I. "Is she as stuck on you as you are on yourself? Have you made good?"

He must have got a glimmer from that; for he rolls his eyes some more, breathes once like an air-brake bein' cut out, and says: "Our luff is like twin stars in the sky—each for the other shines."

"It's as bad as all that, is it?" says I. "Well, all I've got to say is that I'd never thought it of Sadie; and if she sent you down here on approval, you can tell her I'm satisfied if she is."

I figured that would jar him some, but it didn't. He looked as pleased as though I'd told him he was the ripest berry in the box, and before I knew what was comin' he had the long-lost-brother tackle on me, and was almost weepin' on my neck, splutterin' joy in seven different kinds of language. Just then Swifty Joe bobs his head in through the gym. door, springs that gorilla grin of his, and ducks back.

"Break away!" says I. "I don't want to spoil the looks of anythin' that Sadie's picked out to frame, but this thing has gone about far enough. If you're glad, and she's glad, then I ain't got any kick comin'. Only don't rub it in."



Say, it was like talkin' to a deaf man, sayin' things to the Baron.

"She's mine, yes?" says he. "I have your permission, Professeur McCabe?"

"Sure," says I. "If she'll have you, take her and welcome."

Now you'd thought that would have satisfied him, wouldn't you? But he acted like he'd got a half-arm jolt on the wind. He backed off and cooled down as if I'd chucked a pail of water over him.

"Well," says I, "you don't want it in writin', do you? I'm just out of permit blanks, and me secretary's laid up with a bad case of McGrawitis. If I was you, I'd skip back and keep my eye on Sadie. She might change her mind."

The Baron thought he'd seen a red flag, though. He put in a worry period that lasted while you could count fifty. Then he forks out his trouble.

"It is not possible that I have mistake, is it?" says he. "I am learn that Madam Deepworth is—what you call—one heiress? No?"

See? I'd been sort of lookin' for that; and there it was, as plain as a real-estate map of Gates of Paradise, Long Island. Me bein' so free and easy with tellin' him to help himself had thrown up a horrible suspicion to him. Was it true that Sadie's roll was real money, the kind you could spend at the store? And say, long's it was up to me to write her prospectus, I thought I might as well make it a good one.

"Do you see that movin'-van out there?" says I.

The Baron saw it.

"And have you been introduced to these?" I says, flashin' a big, wrist-size wad of tens and fives.

Oh, he was acquainted all right.

"Well," says I, "Sadie's got enough of these put away to fill two carts like that."

Fetch him? Why, his fingers almost burnt a hole through his gloves.

"Ah-h-h!" says he, and takes a little time out to picture himself dippin' into the family pocket-book.

Course, it wa'n't any of my funeral, but when I thinks of a sure-enough live one, like Sadie, that I'd always supposed had a head like a billiard table, gettin' daffy about any such overstuffed frankfurter as this specimen, I felt like someone had shoved a blue quarter on me. Worst of it was, I'd held the step-ladder for her to climb up where such things grow.

I was gettin' rawer to the touch every minute, and was tryin' to make up my mind whether to give the Baron a quick run down the stairs, or go off an' leave him to dislocate his neck tryin' to see the small of his back in the mirror; when in comes Pinckney, with that little sparkle in his eyes that I've come to know means any kind of sport you're a mind to name.

"Hello!" says he, givin' the Baron a hand. "You found him, eh? Hello, Shorty. Got it all fixed, have you?"

"Say," says I, pullin' Pinckney over by the window, "did you put this up on me?"

He said he didn't, honest.

"Then take your fat friend by the hand," says I, "and lead him off where things ain't liable to happen to him."

"Why, what's up, Shorty?" says he. "Haven't you given him your blessing, and told him to go in and win?"

"Switch off!" says I. "I've heard enough of that from the Baron to last me a year. What's it all about, anyway? Suppose he has laid his plans to Miznerize Sadie; what's he want to come hollerin' about it to me for? I'm no matrimonial referee, am I?"

I knew somethin' was ticklin' Pinckney inside; but he put up a front like a Special Sessions judge. "Baron," says he, callin' over to Patchouli, "I forgot to mention that our friend, the professor, doesn't understand the European system of conducting such affairs as this. If you'll pardon me, I'll make it clear to him."

Well, he did and a lot more. It seems that the Baron was a ringer in the set where Sadie and Pinckney had been doing the weekend house-party act. He'd been travelin' on that handle of his, makin' some broad jumps and quick shifts, until he'd worked himself up, from a visitor's card at a second-rate down-town club, to the kind of folks that quit New York at Easter and don't come back until the snow flies again. They don't squint too close at a title in that crowd, you know.

First thing the Baron hears, of course, is about the Drowsy Drop dollars and the girl that's got 'em. He don't lose any time after that in makin' up to Sadie. He freezes to her like a Park Row wuxtree boy does to a turkey drumstick at a newsies' Christmas dinner, and for Pinckney and the rest of 'em it was as good as a play.

"Huh!" says I. "You're easy pleased, ain't you? But I want to tell you that it grouches me a lot to think that Sadie'd fall for any such wad-huntin' party as that."

"What ho!" says Pinckney. "Here's a complication that we hadn't suspected."

"Meanin' which?" says I.

"Perhaps it would be better to postpone that explanation," says he; "but I sympathize with your state of mind, Shorty. However, what's done is done, and meanwhile the Baron is waiting."

"It wouldn't surprise me none," says I, "to hear that that's his trade. But say, what kind of a steer is it that brings him to me? I ain't got that straight yet."

Pinckney goes on to say as how the foreign style of negotiatin' for a girl is more or less of a business proposition; and that Sadie, not havin' any old folks handy to make the deal, and maybe not havin' the game clear in her own mind, shoves him my way, just off-hand.

"To be sure," says Pinckney, "whatever arrangements you may happen to make will not be binding, but they will satisfy the Baron. So just act as if you had full authority, and we'll see if there are any little details that he wants to mention."

Sure enough, there was. He handed 'em to me easy; oh, nice and easy! He didn't want much for a starter—just a trifle put within easy reach before the knot was tied, a mere matter of ten million francs.

"No Jims nor Joes?" says I.

"The Baron is accustomed to reckoning in francs," says Pinckney. "He means two million dollars."

"Two million cases?" says I, catchin' my breath. Well, say! I had to take another look at him. If I could think as well of myself as that I wouldn't ask no better.

"Patchouli," says I, "you're too modest. You shouldn't put yourself on the bargain counter like that."

The Baron looks like I'd said somethin' to him in Chinese.

"The professor thinks that demand is quite reasonable, considering all things," says Pinckney.

And that went with the Baron. Then he has to shake hands all round, same's if we'd signed terms for a championship go, and him and Pinckney gets under way for some private high-ball factory over on the avenue. I wa'n't sorry to lose 'em. Somehow I wanted to get my mind on something else.

Well, I put in a busy mornin', tryin' to teach blocks and jabs to a couple of youngsters that thinks boxin' is a kind of wrist exercise, like piano-playin', and I'd got a pound or so off a nice plump old Bishop, who comes here for hand-ball and stunts like that. I was still feelin' a bit ugly and wishin' there was somethin' sizable around to take it out on, when in comes Curly Locks and Pinckney again.

"Has he made up his mind that he wants my wad, too?" says I to Pinckney.

"No," says he. "The Baron has discovered that up where Sadie is staying the law requires a prospective bridegroom to equip himself with a marriage license. He thinks he will get one in town and take it back with him. Now, as you know all about such things, Shorty, and as I have an appointment at twelve-thirty, I'll leave the Baron with you. So long!" and he gives me the wink as he slides out.

Say, I had my cue this trip, all right. I couldn't see just why it was, but the Baron had been passed up to me. He was mine for keeps. I could hang him out for a sign, or wire a pan to him. And he was as innocent, the Baron was, as a new boy sent to the harness shop after strap oil. He'd got his eyes fixed on the Drowsy Drops bank-account, and he couldn't see anything else. He must have sized me up as a sort of Santa Claus that didn't have anything to do between seasons but to be good to his kind.

"So you want to take out a license, do you?" says I, comin' a Mr. Smooth play.

"If the professeur would be so oblige," says he.

"Oh, sure," says I. "That's my steady job. A marriage license, eh?"

I had a nineteenth-story view of the scheme he'd built up. He means to go back heeled with the permit from me, with the little matter of the two million ready all cinched, and the weddin'-papers in his inside pocket. Then he does the whirlwind rush at Sadie, and as he dopes it out to himself, figurin' on what a crusher he is, he don't see how he can lose. And I suppose he thinks he can buy a marriage license most anywhere, same's you can a money-order.

With that I had a stroke of thought. They don't hit me very often, but when they do, they come hard. I had to go over to the water cooler and grin into the tumbler. Then I walks up to the Baron and taps him on the chest.

"Patchouli," says I, "you come with me. I'll get you a Romeo outfit that'll astonish the natives."

It took me about two hours, chasin' him down to the Bureau of Licenses, and huntin' up me old side partner, Jimmy Fitzpatrick, that's the main guy there. But I didn't grudge the time. Jimmy helped me out a lot. He's a keen one, Jimmy is, and when he'd got next, he threw in a lot of flourishes just where they was needed most. He never cracked a smile, either, when the Baron tipped him a dime.

I didn't let loose of Patchouli until I'd seen him stow away that sealed envelope, and had put him aboard the right train at the Grand Central. Then I went back to the Studio lookin' so contented that Swifty struck me for a raise.

That was on a Monday. Long about Thursday I thought I might get word from Pinckney, or some of 'em; but there was nothin' doin'.

"Somebody's put Curly Locks wise," thinks I, "or else he's sneaked away to jump off the dock."

I didn't have anyone on that afternoon; so I was just workin' off a little steam on a punchin'-bag, doing the long roll and a few other stunts. I was getting nicely warmed up, and hittin' the balloon at the rate of about a hundred and fifty raps a minute, when I hears somebody break past Swifty and roar out:

"Where he iss? Let me to him!"

It was the Baron, his mustache bristlin' out like a bottle-cleaner, and blood in his eye. "Ha-r-r-r!" says he in real heavy-villain style. "You make me a joke, you?"

"G'wan!" says I over me shoulder. "You was born a joke. Sit down and cool off; for it's your next," and with that I goes at the bag again.

Say, it ain't much of a trick to fight the bag, y'know. Most any Y. M. C. A. kid can get the knack of catchin' it on his elbows and collarbone, makin' it drum out a tune like the finish of a Dutch opera. And that's about all I was doin', only chuckin' a few extra pounds into it maybe. But if you don't know how easy it is, it looks like a curtain-raiser for manslaughter. And I reckon the Baron hadn't any idea I'd strip as bunchy as I do.

Course, there's no tellin' just what went on in his mind while he stood there. Swifty says his mouth come open gradual, like a bridge draw that's being swung for a tug; and his eyes began to bug out, and the noble Austrian assault-and-battery blood faded out of his face same's the red does in one of Belasco's sunsets. And pretty soon, when I thought my little grandstand play'd had a chance to sink in, I throws a good stiff one into the bag, ducks from under, and turns around to sing out "Next!" to the Baron.

But he wa'n't in sight. Pinckney was there though, and Sadie behind him, both lookin' wild.

"Hello!" says I. "Where's Patchouli? He was anxious to see me a minute ago."

"He seemed anxious not to, when he passed us on the stairs just now," says Pinckney.

"Did he leave any word?" says I.

"He just said 'Bah!' and jumped into a cab," says Pinckney.

"He didn't hurt you, did he?" says Sadie.

"What, him?" says I. "Not that I know about. But I've got this to tell you, Mrs. Dipworthy: if you put any high value on your new steady, you'd better chase him off this reservation."

"Why, Shorty McCabe!" says she, takin' me by the shoulders and turnin' them blue eyes of hers straight at me. "My new steady? That—that woolly-haired freak?"

Say, you could have slipped me into the penny slot of a gum machine. Oh, fudge! Piffle! Splash! It's a wonder when I walk I don't make a noise like a sponge—I take some things in so easy. Is it curious my head never aches?

Pinckney sees how bad I was feelin', and he cuts in to tell me how things had worked out. And say, do you know what that Patchouli had done?

After I left him he goes back tickled to death, and waits for an openin'. Then, one night when they was havin' a big hunt ball, or some kind of swell jinks, he tolls Sadie into the palm-room, drops to the mat on his knees, and fires off that twin-star-luff speech, beggin' her to fly with him and be his'n. As a capper he digs up that envelop, to show her there needn't be any hitch in the program.

"What's this?" says Sadie, making a sudden grab and gettin' the goods. With that she lets go a string of giggles and streaks it out into the ball-room.

"It is the document of our marriage," says the Baron, makin' a bold bluff.

"Oh, is it?" says she, openin' the thing up, and reading it off. "Why, Baron, this doesn't give you leave to marry anyone," says Sadie; "this is a peddler's license, and here's the badge, too. If you wear this you can stand on the corner and sell shoe-laces and collar-buttons. I'd advise you to go do it."

It was while the crowd was howlin' and pinnin' the fakir's tag on him that he began to froth at the mouth and tell how he was comin' down to make mincemeat of me.

"That's why we followed him," says Pinckney—"to avert bloodshed."

"If he had so much as touched you, Shorty," says Sadie, "I would have spent my pile to have had him sent up for life."

"Oh, it wouldn't have cost that much," says I. "With me thinkin' the way I did then, maybe there wouldn't have been a whole lot left to send."

Ah, look away! I ain't tellin' what Sadie did next. But say, she's a hummin'-bird, Sadie is.



CHAPTER IX

How about him, eh?—the two-spot of clubs in billiard cloth and buttons at the door. There's no tellin' what the Studio'll have next—maybe a sidewalk canopy and a carriage caller. Swifty Joe's gettin' ambitious. Me gettin' mixed up with that Newport push has gone to Swifty's head like a four-line notice does to the pompadour of a second row chorus girl. First off he says it's a shame I don't have a valet.

"Say," says I, "don't it keep me busy enough remindin' you that I'm still able to wear my own clothes, without puttin' on an extra hand?"

But after this last stunt he broke out again; so we compromised on Congo. I thought Swifty'd had him made to order, uniform and all; but he says he found him, just as he stands, doin' the stray act over on Sixth-ave. He'd come up from New Orleans with a fortune-tellin' gent that had got himself pinched for doing a little voudoo turn on the side, and as Congo didn't have much left but his appetite, I put him on the pay-roll at two per and found. And say, I'm stung, at that. To look at him you'd think a ham sandwich would run him over; but he's got a capacity like a shop-lifter's pocket. For three days I tried to feed him up on the retail plan, and then I let out the contract to a free-lunch supply concern.

Sure, it gives the joint kind of a swell look, havin' him on the door, and if it didn't act the same on Swifty's head I wouldn't kick.

On the dead now, I don't care so much about loomin' up in the picture. There's them that it suits down to the ground, and that shows up well in front; and then again, there's a lot of people gets the spot light on 'em continual who'd be better off in the shade. I'm a top-gallery boy, by rights, and that's where you'll find me most of the time; but now and then I get dragged down into the wings with a note. Yes, yes, I'm just back after one of them excursions.

You see, after we'd shunted Sadie's Baron back on to the goulash circuit, where he belonged, and Sadie and Pinckney had got over their merry fit and skipped off to wake up another crowd of time assassinators, at Rockywold, or some such place as that, I says to myself, "Shorty," says I, "you stick to the physical-culture game and whittle out the by-plays."

That's just what I was doin', too, when an A. D. T. shows up with a prepaid josh from Pinckney, givin' me a special invite to run out and help 'em celebrate.

"Any come-back?" says the boy.

"No, sonny," says I; "you can cut the wire."

Say, Pinckney means all right, and he's done me some good turns; but that don't put me in his class, does it? Nay, nay, says I. Here's one dinner party that I ducks. And with that I gets busy on one of my reg'lars who's bein' trained to go against two months of foreign cookin'. I hadn't more'n finished with him, though, when there comes another yellow envelop. This one was from Sadie, and it was a hurry call. She didn't say much; but I could see heel-prints of trouble all over it.

"Me for Rockywold," says I, chuckin' a collar in a suit-case and grabbin' a time-table off the rack.

Yes, that was different. Maybe I'm a jay to cast myself for any such part; but since Sadie an' me had that little reunion, I've kind of felt that sooner or later she might be let in for a mix-up where I'd come in handy, and when it was pulled off I wanted to be within hail.

Course, I wasn't layin' out no hero act; like showin' up with a can of gasolene just as the tank ran dry, or battin' the block off'm a villyun in a dress suit. I was just willin' to hang around on the edges and make myself useful generally. Not that I'm followin' the she-male protectin' business regular. But with Sadie it's another thing. We used to play in the same alley, you know; and she don't forget it, even if she has come into a bunch of green money as big as a haystack.

She was on hand when I dropped off the smoker, sittin' in the Rockywold station rig and lookin' for me with both eyes. And say, what a difference it makes to clothes who wears 'em!

"It's bully of you to come, Shorty," says she.

"Oh, I don't know," says I. "I guess good judges wouldn't call it a medal play. What's loose?"

"Buddy," says she.

For a minute I was lost, until she asks if I don't remember the youngster. "Oh, sure!" says I. "That kid brother of yours, with the eighteen-karat ringlets and a girly kind of face? The Sisters used to dress him up in a Fauntleroy suit for the parochial school fair, and make him look like a picture on an Easter card. Nice, cute little chap, eh?"

"He was cute once—ten or twelve years ago," says Sadie. "He isn't as cute as he was. He doesn't wear ringlets now—he likes rings better. And that's why I had to send for you, Shorty. I couldn't tell anyone else. Oh, the little wretch! If it wasn't for mother I'd cure him of a lot of things."

Well, we had some family history on the way out, beginnin' with the way Buddy'd been spoiled at home, takin' in a few of the scrapes Sadie had helped him out of, and endin' with his blowin' in at Rockywold without waitin' for a bid from anyone. Seems he'd separated himself from the last stake Sadie had handed out—nothin' new, same old fool games—and now he wanted a refill, just as a loan, until he could play a tip he'd got from a gent he'd met in a beanery.

"And I just wouldn't stand for that," says Sadie. "Those bookmakers are nothing but swindlers, anyway. I know, because I bet ten dollars on a race once, and didn't win."

Say, I had a lithograph of Buddy and his beanery tip goin' up against an argument like that. Of course it wa'n't more'n two minutes before Sadie'd got her Sullivan up. She offered Buddy his choice between a railroad ticket home to mother, or nothing at all. Buddy wouldn't arbitrate on those lines. He said he was a desperate man, and that she'd be sorry before night. Sadie'd heard that before; so she just laughed and said the steam-car ticket offer would be held open until night.

She didn't see anything more of Buddy for a couple of hours, and then she caught him as he came up from the billiard-room. Bein' an expert on such symptoms, she knew why he talked like his mouth was full of cotton, but she couldn't account for the wad of bills he shook at her. Buddy could. He'd run across a young Englishman down there who thought he could handle a cue. Buddy had bet hot air against real money, and trimmed his man.

"That wasn't the worst of it, though," said Sadie. "After I had got him up to my rooms he pulled out the money again, to count it over, and out came a three-inch marquise ring—an opal set with diamonds—that I knew the minute I put my eyes on it. There were her initials on the inside, too. Oh, no one but Mrs. Purdy Pell."

"Tut, tut!" says I. "You can easy square it with her."

"But that's just what I can't do," says Sadie. "She loves me about as much as a tramp likes work. She tells folks that I make fools of her boys. Her boys, mind you! She claims every stray man under twenty-five, and when I came here she had three of them on the string. Goodness knows, I didn't want them! They're only imitation men, anyway. And it was her ring that Buddy had in his pocket."

"Maybe he hadn't lifted it," says I.

Sadie swallowed a bit hard at that; but she raps out the straight goods. "Yes, he did," says she. "He must have sneaked it out of her room as he went down stairs. Think of it! Stealing! He's done a lot of foolish things before; but I didn't think he would turn out a crook. The Lord knows where he gets that kind of blood from—not from the Sullivans, or the Scannells, either. But I can't have him put away. There's mother. And he won't mind a thing I say. Now what shall I do, Shorty?"

"Where's Buddy now?" says I.

"Locked in my clothes-closet, with his hands tied and a gag in his mouth," says she. "Oh, I can handle him that way, big as he is; and I wasn't going to take any more chances. But it's likely that Mrs. Pell has missed her ring by this time and is raising a howl about it. What's to be done?"

Say, there was a proposition for you! And me just a plain, every-day mitt juggler that don't take thinkin' exercises reg'lar. "Guess you've pushed the wrong button this time, Sadie," says I. "But I'll stay in your corner till the lights go out. Is anyone else on?"

"Not a soul," says Sadie.

"That's some help," says I. "First we'll have a little talk with Buddy."

I couldn't see what good that would do, but it was up to me to make some kind of a move.

When they'd landed us under the porte cochere—yes, you'd call it stoppin' at the horse-block—I sails in like I'd come alone, and hunts up Pinckney.

"What's all this about me bein' needed up here?" says I. "Goin' to make me Queen of the May?"

"By Jove, Shorty!" says he, "that's a clever idea. We'll do it."

"Yes, you will—not," says I. "You'll cut it out. I ain't no wine agent, and I left me rag doll to home; so if there's any funny stunts expected, you tell 'em I've put on a sub. Oh, sure, I'll stay to dinner, but as for leadin' any cotillions, change the card."

He gave his word they wouldn't spring anything like that on me, and then he called up a waiter in knee pants, and had him show me up to my quarters so I could get me gas-light clothes on before they unlocked the dinin'-room doors. After I'd made a quick shift I slid over into the next wing, followin' directions, and found Sadie.

"Mrs. Pell's on the war-path already," says she. "She's having it out with her maid now. Come in."

She'd dug Buddy out of the wardrobe and had him propped up in a corner.

"Better unstopper him and take off the bandages," says I.

And say, he had a lot of language corked up inside of him. It wasn't very sisterly, either, and most of it would have sounded better at a race-track; but I shut the transom and motioned to Sadie to let him spiel away, never chippin' in a word, only standing one side and lookin' him over.

So far as the outside went he was a credit to the family—one of these slim clean-cut youngsters, with a lot of curly red hair, pinky-white cheeks, and a pair of blue eyes that had nine kinds of deviltry in 'em. I could figure out how mother might be able not to see anything but good in Buddy. Hanged if I could get very sore on him myself, and knowin' how he'd been cuttin' up, at that.

"Well," says I, when he'd got out of breath some, "feel any better, do you?"

"Huh!" says he, givin' me a squint sideways. "Some cheap skate of a private detective, eh! You can't throw a scare into me that way, sis. Chase him out."

"Buddy," says I, "give up the rings."

"How'd you know there was more than one?" says he.

"Give up," says I, holdin' out me hand.

He did it, like a little man. There was two besides the marquise; one an emerald as big as a lima bean, and the other a solitaire spark that could have been shoved up for three or four hundred. You see, a woman like Mrs. Purdy Pell generally has a collection of those things lyin' around on her dressin'-table, and; knew if Buddy'd got any, he'd made a haul.

"I'm ashamed of you, Buddy," says I.

"You needn't be," says he. "I guess you'd do the same if you had a sister that wanted to see you starve in the streets. Oh, you needn't screw up your eyebrows, Sadie. It's so. And if you don't cough up a thousand and let me go, I'll swipe anything in sight. I can stand being pinched if you can afford to have me."

Sadie threw up her hands at that, and began walkin' up and down the room. "Do you hear that?" says she. "That's the kind of a brother I've got."

"It's something awful," says I. "Just hearin' him talk makes me feel shivery. It beats the band how wicked some of these cigarette desperados do get. Don't, Buddy, or I'll faint. I wouldn't dare stay in the room if your sister wa'n't handy to tie you up again in case you started to cut loose."

"I've got a good notion to push in your face," says he.

"Don't pay any attention to him, Shorty," says Sadie.

"I won't," says I; "but I'm scared stiff."

Just about then, though, Buddy seemed to have got a bulletin over a special wire. He was gazin' at me with his mouth open and a pucker between his eyes. "What Shorty?" says he. "Say, you ain't Shorty McCabe, are you?"

"Not to you," says I. "I got to draw the line somewhere, and with bad men I stands on my dignity. I'm Professor McCabe, sonny."

"Holy cats!" says he. "Honest, professor, I didn't mean a word of it. I take it all back. Why say, I saw you put out the Kangaroo in two rounds."

"Then you've had a liberal education," says I.

"Gee!" says he, lettin' off some more surprise, and bracin' himself back in the chair like he was afraid of falling off.

Well say, I've been rode to my dressin'-room on shoulders, and welcomed home from fights by mobs with brass bands; but for a gen-u-ine ovation I guess Buddy's little stunt came as near bein' the real thing as any. Dewey comin' back from the Philippines, or Mr. Get-There Hadley landin' in St. Louis with the Standard Oil scalps, wa'n't in it with me bein' discovered by Buddy Sullivan. I couldn't get the key to it then, but I've mapped it out now. Most of his enthusiasm was owin' to the fact that ever since he was fifteen Buddy'd based his claim to bein' a real sport on my havin' come from the same block as he did.

Anyway, it was a lightnin' change. From being a holy terror, Buddy calmed down to as peaceful a young gent as you'd want to meet. If I'd just shake hands with him once and call it square, he'd follow any program I'd a mind to plan out.

"Only don't let her send me home to maw," says he. "Say, they get up at six in the morning there, and if I don't crawl down by seven maw lugs up toast and eggs, and talks to me like I was a kid."

"Well, where'd you like to be shipped?" says I.

"Aw, come now, professor," says he. "You don't have to be told that. There ain't but one place where a fellow like me can really live. You get sis to put me back on Broadway with a few hundred in my clothes, and I'll kiss the Book that she won't hear from me for a year."

"But how about this jewelry-collectin' fad of yours?" says I.

"Ah, I wasn't going to carry it off," says he. "I let her see I had it, on purpose. I'll be good."

Well, Sadie was willin' to let it go at that, and we was just gettin' this part of the mix-up straightened out lovely, when there came a rap at the door.

"Quick," says Sadie. "They mustn't see Buddy or you either, Shorty!"

So Buddy was pushed into the closet again, and I dodges behind a tall dressin'-mirror in the corner. It was a red-eyed girl with lumps in her throat. She said she was Mrs. Purdy Pell's maid.

"Mrs. Pell's missed some rings," says she, "and we've been havin' words over it. I told her there was a suspicious-looking young man in the house that I'd seen comin' out of your rooms awhile ago, and I didn't know but what you'd missed some things, too, ma'am."

"Ask Mrs. Pell to step over here for a minute," says Sadie.

"What's doing?" says I, after the maid had left.

"I don't know," says Sadie. "I've got to give that jewelry back to the silly thing first; then we'll see."

So I handed the trinkets over, and it wasn't long before Mrs. Pell shows up. And say, the minute them two came together the mercury dropped about thirty degrees. Bein' behind the glass, I couldn't see; but I could hear, and that was enough.

"Here are your lost rings," says Sadie.

That's her, every tick of the watch. If she was tackled by a gyasticutus, she'd grab it by the horns.

"Oh!" says Mrs. Pell, gatherin' 'em in; "And how does it happen that you have them?"

"I'll tell you to-morrow," says Sadie.

"I'd rather not wait that long," says Mrs. Pell. "I prefer to know now."

"You ought to be satisfied to get them back," says Sadie.

"Perhaps," says Mrs. Pell; "but I'm just a little curious to know how they got away. My maid thinks the person who took them is still in the house."

"If I listened to all the things my maid says—" begins Sadie.

"There are maids and maids," says Mrs. Pell. "I can trust mine. She saw the man. More than that, Mrs. Dipworthy, she thinks he is hidden in your rooms."

"She must have seen my brother," says Sadie, "or Professor McCabe."

"It's quite possible," says Mrs. Pell; "but I shall insist on having the officers sent for."

"Why," says Sadie, "I might have taken them myself, just as a joke."

"Indeed!" says Mrs. Pell in a polite assault-and-battery tone. "Then perhaps you will confess as much to the other guests? Will you?"

And that was a facer for Sadie. She'd been keeping a stiff lip up to this, but she came to the scratch wabbly in her voice. "You wouldn't want me to do that, would you?" says she.

"In justice to my maid, I must," says Mrs. Pell.

"Well," says Sadie, "if you're mean enough for that, I suppose I—"

But, say, I couldn't stay under cover any longer, with her bein' pushed down the chute in that style. I was wise to her game all right. She meant to stand up and take all that was coming, even if it put her down and out, just to keep the hooks off that kid brother of hers. And me loafin' back of the ropes with me hands in me pockets! I'd been a welcher, wouldn't I?

"Did I hear my cue?" says I, steppin' out into the lime-light.

It was a tableau, for fair. Me and Mrs. Purdy Pell didn't do anything but swap looks for a minute or so. I can't say just how pleased she was, but I've had better views. She wasn't any dainty, lily-of-the-valley sort. She was a good deal of a cabbage rose, I should say, and carried more or less weight for age. She had an arm on her like a fore-quarter of beef. I don't wonder that Purdy Pell skipped to Europe and didn't put in any answer when the proceedin's came up.

"Are you the one?" says she.

"No, he isn't," says Sadie, speakin' up brisk.

"That's right," says I; "but it was me brought your finger sparks back to light, ma'am."

"And where did you find them?" says Mrs. Pell, turnin' the third-degree stare on me.

"That's a professional secret," says I, "which I can't give up just yet."

"Oh, you can't!" says she. "This is interesting."

And with that she begins to size us up, one after the other. Oh, she had us tied to the post, with nothin' to do but chuck the knives at us. For a gallery play, it was the punkiest I ever put up. Here I'd come splashin' in with both feet, like an amateur life-saver goin' to the rescue, and I hadn't done anything but raise the tide.

Sadie didn't have a word to say. She was just bitin' her lip, and gettin' white about the mouth from the mad in her. And say, maybe Her Stoutness didn't enjoy watchin' us squirm. She was gettin' even for every look one of her Willie boys had ever wasted on Sadie.

"We'll see if you two can be induced to confide your precious secret to the police," says she. "I mean to find out who stole my rings."

She hadn't more than sent in that shot before the closet door opens, and Buddy comes out, blinkin' like a bat.

"It's all over, ain't it?" says he.

"It is now," says I, and looks to see Mrs. Purdy Pell begin to holler: "Stop thief!"

But it was a case of being off the alley again. Say, I'm glad I wasn't backin' my guesses with good money that night, or I'd come home with my pockets wrong side out. Ever see a hundred-and-eighty-pound fairy with a double chin turn kittenish? That was her.

"Why, Mr. Sullivan!" she gurgles, throwin' him a Julia Marlowe goo-goo glance.

"Hello, Dimples!" says Buddy. "Oh, they were your rings, were they? Then it's all right. I just borrowed 'em to scare sister into a cat fit and make her open up—just for a josh, you know."

"Why, why!" says Mrs. Pell, lookin' twisted, "is Mrs. Dipworthy your sister?"

"Sure," says Buddy. "But say, Dimples, you're the very girl I was wanting to see most. I've got another sure thing, good as a title guarantee, for the Croton stakes, and if you'll back it for me we'll make a killing. How about it, eh?"

"Oh, you reckless boy," says Mrs. Pell, tapping him on the cheek. "But you did give me such a lovely tip at the Aqueduct, and—and we'll see. Come, I want to talk to you," and she put out a wing for him to take.

As they drifted down towards the terrace Buddy turns and gives us the sassy wink over his shoulder.

"Looks like we'd lost our job, Sadie," says I.

"The silly old moss-agate!" says Sadie.

Then I goes down and reports to Pinckney, and puts in the rest of the evenin' bein' introduced as the gent that set the Baron Patchouli up in the shoe-string business. I felt like I'd opened up a jack-pot on a four-flush, but Pinckney and the rest seemed to be having a good time, so I stuck it out. In the morning Buddy goes along back to town with me.

"Say, professor," says he, pattin' a roll of twenties in his trousers pocket, "I wouldn't pass this along to anyone else, but if you want to connect with a hatful of easy coin, just plunge on Candy Boy."

"That's your beanery tip, is it?" says I. "Much obliged, Buddy, but I guess after the bookies get all you and Mrs. Pell are goin' to throw at 'em they won't need mine."

* * * * *

See? It was up to me to push home a great moral lesson, and I done my best. But what's the use? Next mornin' I takes up the paper and reads how Candy Boy wins, heads apart.



CHAPTER X

But say, I guess Buddy'll work out all right. There's good stuff in him. Anyways, I ain't losin' my eyesight, tryin' to follow his curves. And my date book's been full lately. That's the way I like it. If you know how to take things there's a whole lot of fun in just bein' alive; ain't there? Now look at the buffo combination I've been up against.

First off I meets Jarvis—you know, Mr. Jarvis of Blenmont, who's billed to marry that English girl, Lady Evelyn, next month. Well, Jarvis he was all worked up. Oh, you couldn't guess it in a week. It was an awful thing that happened to him. Just as he's got his trunk packed for England, where the knot-tyin' is to take place, he gets word that some old lady that was second cousin to his mother, or something like that, has gone and died and left him all her property.

"Real thoughtless of her, wa'n't it?" says I.

"Well," says Jarvis, lookin' kind of foolish, "I expect she meant well enough. I don't mind the bonds, and that sort of thing, but there's this Nightingale Cottage. Now, what am I to do with that?"

"Raise nightingales for the trade," says I.

Jarvis ain't one of the joshin' kind, though, same as Pinckney. He had this weddin' business on his mind, and there wa'n't much room for anything else. Seems the old lady who'd quit livin' was a relative he didn't know much about.

"I remember seeing her only once," says Jarvis, "and then I was a little chap. Perhaps that's why I was such a favorite of hers. She always sent me a prayer-book every Christmas."

"Must have thought you was hard on prayer-books," says I. "She wa'n't batty, was she?"

Jarvis wouldn't say that; but he didn't deny that there might have been a few cobwebs in the belfry. Aunt Amelia—that's what he called her—had lived by herself for so long, and had coaxed up such a case of nerves, that there was no tellin'. The family didn't even know she was abroad until they heard she'd died there.

"You see," says Jarvis, "the deuce of it is the cottage is just as she stepped out of it, full of a lot of old truck that I've either got to sell or burn, I suppose. And it's a beastly nuisance."

"It's a shame," says I. "But where is this Nightingale Cottage?"

"Why, it's in Primrose Park, up in Westchester County," says he.

With that I pricks up my ears. You know I've been puttin' my extra-long green in pickle for the last few years, layin' for a chance to place 'em where I could turn 'em over some day and count both sides. And Westchester sounded right.

"Say," says I, leadin' him over to the telephone booth, "you sit down there and ring up some real-estate guy out in Primrose Park and get a bid for that place. It'll be about half or two-thirds what it's worth. I'll give you that, and ten per cent. more on account of the fixin's. Is it a go?"

Was it? Mr. Jarvis had central and was callin' up Primrose Park before I gets through, and inside of an hour I'm a taxpayer. I've made big lumps of money quicker'n that, but I never spent such a chunk of it so swift before. But Jarvis went off with his mind easy, and I was satisfied. In the evenin' I dropped around to see the Whaleys.

"Dennis, you low-county bog-trotter," says I, "about all I've heard out of you since I was knee high was how you was achin' to quit the elevator and get back to diggin' and cuttin' grass, same's you used to do on the old sod. Now here's a chance to make good."

Well, say, that was the only time I ever talked ten minutes with Dennis Whaley without bein' blackguarded. He'd been fired off the elevator the week before and had been job-huntin' ever since. As for Mother Whaley, when she saw a chance to shake three rooms back and a fire-escape for a place where the trees has leaves on 'em, she up and cried into the corned beef and cabbage, just for joy.

"I'll send the keys in the mornin'," says I. "Then you two pack up and go out there to Nightingale Cottage and open her up. If it's fit to live in, and you don't die of lonesomeness, maybe I'll run up once in a while of a Sunday to look you over."

You see, I thought it would be a bright scheme to hang onto the place for a year or so, before I tries to unload. That gives the Whaleys what they've been wishin' for, and me a chance to do the weekend act now and then. Course, I wa'n't lookin' for no complications. But they come along, all right.

It was on a Saturday afternoon that I took the plunge. You know how quick this little old town can warm up when she starts. We'd had the Studio fans goin' all the mornin', and the first shirtwaist lads was paradin' across Forty-second street with their coats off, and Swifty'd made tracks for Coney Island, when I remembers Primrose Park.

I'd passed through in expresses often enough, so I didn't have to look it up on the map; but that was about all. When I'd spoiled the best part of an hour on a local full of commuters and low-cut high-brows, who killed time playin' whist and cussin' the road, I was dumped down at a cute little station about big enough for a lemonade stand. As the cars went off I drew in a long breath. Say, I'd got off just in time to escape bein' carried into Connecticut.

I jumps into a canopy-top surrey that looks like it had been stored in an open lot all winter, and asks the driver if he knows where Nightingale Cottage is.

"Sure thing!" says he. "That's the place Shorty McCabe's bought."

"Do tell!" says I. "Well, cart me out to the front gate and put me off."

It was a nice ride. If it had been a mile longer I'd had facts enough for a town history. Drivin' a depot carriage was just a side issue with that Primrose blossom. Conversin' was his long suit. He tore off information by the yard, and slung it over the seat-back at me like one of these megaphone lecturers on the rubber-neck wagons. Accordin' to him, Aunt 'Melie had been a good deal of a she-hermit.

"Why," says he, "Major Curtis Binger told me himself that in the five years he lived neighbors to her he hadn't seen her more'n once or twice. They say she hadn't been out of her yard for ten years up to the time she went abroad for her health and died of it."

"Anyone that could live in this town that long and not die, couldn't have tried very hard," says I. "Who's this Major Binger?"

"Oh, he's a retired army officer, the major is; widower, with two daughters," says he.

"Singletons?" says I.

"Yep, and likely to stay so," says he.

About then he turns in between a couple of fancy stone gate-posts, twists around a cracked bluestone drive, and lands me at the front steps of Nightingale Cottage. For the kind, it wa'n't so bad—one of those squatty bay-windowed affairs, with a roof like a toboggan chute, a porch that did almost a whole lap around outside, and a cobblestone chimney that had vines growin' clear to the top. And sure enough, there was Dennis Whaley with his rake, comin' as near a grin as he knew how.

Well, he has me in tow in about a minute, and I makes a personally conducted tour of me estate. Say, all I thought I was gettin' was a couple of buildin' lots; but I'll be staggered if there wa'n't a slice of ground most as big as Madison Square Park, with trees, and shrubbery, and posy beds, and dinky little paths loopin' the loop all around. Out back was a stable and goosb'ry bushes and a truck garden.

"How's thim for cabbages?" says Dennis.

"They look more like boutonnieres," says I. But he goes on to tell as how they'd just been set out and wouldn't be life-size till fall. Then he shows the rows that he says was goin' to be praties and beans and so on, and he's as proud of the whole shootin'-match as if he'd done a miracle.

When we got around to the front again, where Dennis has laid out a pansy harp, I sees a little gatherin' over in front of the cottage next door. There was three or four gents, and six or eight women-folks. They was lookin' my way, and talkin' all to once.

"Hello!" says I. "The neighbors seem to be holdin' a convention. Wonder if they're plannin' to count me in?"

I ain't more'n got that out before one of the bunch cuts loose and heads for me. He was a nice-lookin' old duck, with a pair of white Chaunceys and a frosted chin-splitter. He stepped out brisk and swung his cane like he was on parade. He was got up in white flannels and a square-topped Panama, and he had the complexion of a good liver.

"I expect that this is Mr. McCabe," says he.

"You're a good guesser," says I. "Come up on the front stoop and sit by."

"My name," says he, "is Binger, Curtis Binger."

"What, Major Binger, late U. S. A.?" says I. "The man that did the stunt at the battle of What-d'ye-call-it?"

"Mission Ridge, sir," says he, throwin' out his chest.

"Sure! That was the place," says I. "Well, well! Who'd think it? I'm proud to know you. Put 'er there."

With that I had him goin'. He was up in the air, and before he'd got over it I'd landed him in a porch rocker and chased Dennis in to dig a box of Fumadoras out of my suit-case.

"Ahem," says the Major, clearin' his speech tubes, "I came over, Mr. McCabe, on rather a delicate errand."

"If you're out of butter, or want to touch me for a drawin' of tea, speak right up, Major," says I. "The pantry's yours."

"Thank you," says he; "but it's nothing like that; nothing at all, sir. I came over as the representative of several citizens of Primrose Park, to inquire if it is your intention to reside here."

"Oh!" says I. "You want to know if I'll join the gang? Well, seein' as you've put it up to me so urgent, I don't care if I do. Course I can't sign as a reg'lar, this bein' my first jab at the simple life; but if you can stand for the punk performance I'll make at progressive euchre and croquet, you can put me on the Saturday night sub list, for a while, anyway."

Now, say, I was layin' out to do the neighborly for the best that was in me; but it seemed to hit the Major wrong. He turned about two shades pinker, coughed once or twice, and then got a fresh hold. "I'm afraid you fail to grasp the situation, Mr. McCabe," says he. "You see, we lead a very quiet life here in Primrose Park, a very domestic life. As for myself, I have two daughters—"

"Chic, chic, Major!" says I, pokin' him gentle in the ribs with me thumb. "Don't you try to sick any girls on me, or I'll take to the tall timber. I'm no lady's man, not a little bit."

Then the explosion came. For a minute I thought one of them 'Frisco ague spells had come east. The Major turns plum color, blows up his cheeks, and bugs his eyes out. When the language flows it was like turnin' on a fire-pressure hydrant. An assistant district attorney summin' up for the State in a murder trial didn't have a look-in with the Major. What did I mean—me, a rough-house scrapper from the red-light section—by buttin' into a peaceful community and insultin' the oldest inhabitants? Didn't I have no sense of decency? Did I suppose respectable people were goin' to stand for such?

Honest, that was the worst jolt I ever had. All I could do was to sit there with my mouth ajar and watch him prancin' up and down, handin' me the layout.

"Say," says I, after a bit, "you ain't got me mixed up with Mock Duck, or Paddy the Gouge, or Kangaroo Mike, or any of that crowd, have you?"

"You're known as Shorty McCabe, aren't you?" says he.

"Guilty," says I.

"Then there's no mistake," says he. "What will you take, cash down, for this property, and clear out now?"

"Say, Major," says I, "do you think it would blight the buds or poison the air much if I hung on till Monday morning? That is, unless you've got the tar all hot and the rail ready?"

That fetched a grunt out of him. "All we desire to do, sir," says he, "is to maintain the respectability of the neighborhood."

"Do the other folks over there feel the same way about me?" says I.

"Naturally," says he.

"Well," says I, "I don't mind telling you, Major, that you've thrown the hooks into me good an' plenty, and it looks like I'd have to make a new book. I didn't come out here' to break up any peaceful community; but before I changes my program I'll have to sleep on it. Suppose you slide over again some time to-morrow, when your collar don't fit so tight, and then we'll see if there's anything to arbitrate."

"Very well," says he, does a salute to the colors, and marches back stiff-kneed to tell his crowd how he'd read the riot act to me.

Now, say, I ain't one of the kind to lose sleep because the conductor speaks rough when I asks for a transfer. I generally takes what's comin' and grins. But this time I wa'n't half so joyful as I might have been. Even the sight of Mother Whaley's hot biscuits and hearin' her singin' "Cushla Mavourneen" in the kitchen couldn't chirk me up. I'd been keen for lookin' the house over and seein' what I'd got in the grab; but it was all off. Course I knew I had the rights of the thing. I'd put down me good money, and there wa'n't any rules that could make me pull it out. But I've lived quite some years without shovin' in where I knew I'd get the frigid countenance, and I didn't like the idea of beginnin' now.

I couldn't go back on my record, either. In my time I've stood up in the ring and put out my man for two thirds of the gate receipts. I ain't so proud of that now as I was once; but I ain't never had any call to be ashamed of the way I done it. What's more, no soubrette ever had a chance to call herself Mrs. Shorty McCabe, and I never let 'em put my name over the door of any Broadway jag parlor.

You got to let every man frame up his own argument, though. If these Primrose Parkers had listed me for a tough citizen, that had come out to smash crockery and keep the town constable busy, it wa'n't my cue to hold any debate. All the campaign I could figure out was to back into the wings and sell to some well-behaved stock-broker or life-insurance grafter.

It was goin' to be tough on the Whaleys, though. I didn't let on to Dennis, and after supper we sat on the back steps while he smoked his cutty and gassed away about the things he was goin' to raise, and how the flower-beds would look in a month or so. About nine o'clock he shows me a place where I can turn in, and I listens to the roosters crowin' most of the night.

Next mornin' I had Dennis get me a Sunday paper, and after I'd read the sportin' notes, I turns to the suburban real estate ads. "Why not own a home?" most of 'em asks. "I know the answer to that," says I. And say, a Luna Park Zulu that had strayed into young Rockefeller's Bible class would have felt about as much at home as I did there on my own porch. The old Major was over on his porch, walkin' up and down like he was doin' guard duty, and once in a while I could see some of the women-folks takin' a careful squint at me from behind a window blind. If I'm ever quarantined, it won't be any new sensation.

It wasn't exactly a weddin' breakfast kind of a time I was havin'; but I didn't dodge it. I was just lettin' it soak in, "for the good of me soul," as Father Connolly used to say, when I sees a pair of everfed blacks, hitched to a closed carriage, switch in from the pike and make for the Major's. "Company for dinner," says I. "That's nice."

I didn't get anything but a back view as he climbed out on the off side and was led in by the Major; but you couldn't fool me on them short-legged, baggy-kneed pants, or that black griddle-cake bonnet. It was my little old Bishop, that I keeps the fat off from with the medicine-ball work.

"Lucky he didn't see me," says I, "or he'd hollered out and queered himself with the whole of Primrose Park."

I was figurin' on fadin' away to the other side of the house before he showed up again; but I didn't hurry about it, and when I looks up again there was the Bishop, with them fat little fingers of his stuck out, and a three-inch grin on his face, pikin' across the road right for me. He'd come out to wig-wag his driver, and, gettin' his eyes on me, he waddles right over. I tried to give him the wink and shoo him off, but it was no go.

"Why, my dear professor!" says he, walkin' up and givin' me the inside-brother grip with one hand and the old-college-chum shoulder-pat with the other.

I squints across the way, and there was the Major and the girls, catchin' their breath and takin' it all in, so I sees it's no use throwin' a bluff.

"How's the Bishop?" says I. "You've made a bad break; but I guess it's a bit too late to hedge."

He only chuckles, like he always does. "Your figures of speech, professor, are too subtle for me, as usual. However, I suppose you are as glad to see me as I am to find you."

"Just what I was meanin' to spring next," says I, pullin' up a rocker for him.

We chins awhile there, and the Bishop tells me how's he been out to lay a cornerstone, and thought he'd drop in on his old friend, Major Binger.

"Well, well, what a charming place you have here!" says he. "You must take me all over it, professor. I want to see if you've shown as good taste on the inside as you apparently have on the out." And before I has time to say a word about Jarvis's Aunt 'Melie, he has me by the arm and we're headed for the parlor. I hadn't even opened the door before, but we blazes right in, runs up the shades, throws open the shutters, and stands by for a look.

Say, it was worth it! That was the most ladyfied room I ever put me foot in. First place, I never see so many crazy lookin' little chairs, or bow-legged tables, or fancy tea-cups before in my life. There wa'n't a thing you could sit on without havin' to call the upholstery man in afterward. Even the gilt sofa looked like it ought to have been in a picture.

But what had me button-eyed was the wall decorations. If I hadn't been ridin' on the sprinker for so long I'd thought it was time for me to hunt a D. T. institute right then. First off I couldn't make 'em out at all; but after the shock wore away I see they were dolls, dozens of 'em, hangin' all over the walls in rows and clusters, like hams in a pork shop. And say, that was the wooziest collection ever bunched together! They wa'n't ordinary Christmas-tree dolls, the store kind. Every last one of 'em was home-made, white cotton heads, with hand-painted faces. Course, I tumbled. This was some of that half-batty Aunt 'Melie's work. This was what she'd put in her time on. And she sure had produced.

For face paintin' it was well done, I guess, only she must have been shut up so long away from folks that she'd sort of forgot just how they looked. Some of the heads had sunbonnets on, and some nightcaps; but they were all the same shape, like a hardshell clam, flat side to. The eyes were painted about twice life-size—some rolled up, some canted down, some squintin' sideways, and a lot was just cross-eye. There was green eyes, yellow eyes, pink eyes, and the regular kinds. They gave me the creeps.

When I turns around, the Bishop stands there with his mouth open. "Why," says he—"why, professor!" That was as far as he could get. He gasps once or twice and gets out something that sounds like "Remarkable, truly remarkable!"

"That's the word," says I. "I'll bet there ain't another lot like this in the country."

"I—I hope not," says he. "No offence meant, though. Do you—er—do this sort of thing yourself?"

Well, I had to loosen up then. I told him about Aunt 'Melie, and how I'd bought the place unsight and unseen. And when he finds this was my first view of the parlor it gets him in the short ribs. He has a funny fit. Every time he takes a look at them dolls he has another spasm. I gets him out on the porch again, and he sits there slappin' his knees and waggin' his head and wipin' his eyes.

By-'m'-by the Bishop calms down and says I've done him more good than a trip to Europe. "You must let me bring Major Binger over," says he. "I want him to see those dolls. You two are bound to be great cronies."

"I've got my doubts about that," says I. "But don't you go to mixin' up in this affair, Bishop. I don't want to lug you in for any trouble with any of your old friends."

You couldn't stave the Bishop off, though. He had to hear the whole yarn, and the minute he gets it straight he jumps up.

"Binger's a hot-headed old—well," says he, catchin' himself just in time, "the Major has a way of acting first, and then thinking it over. I must have a talk with him."

I guess he did, too; for they were at it some time before the Bishop waves by-by to me and drives off.

I'd just got up from one of Mrs. Whaley's best chicken dinners, when I hears a hurrah outside, and horses stampin' and a horn tootin'. I rushes out front, and there was Pinckney, sittin' up on a coach box, just pullin' his leaders out of Dennis's pansy bed. There was about a dozen of his crowd on top of the coach, includin' Mrs. Dipworthy—Sadie Sullivan that was—and Mrs. Twombley Crane, and a lot more.

"Hello, Shorty!" says Pinckney. "Is the doll exhibition still open? If it is, we want to come in."

They'd met the Bishop; see? And he'd steered 'em along.

Well say, I might have begun the day kind of lonesome, but it had a lively finish, all right. Inside of ten minutes Sadie has on one of Mother Whaley's white aprons and is takin' charge. She has some of them fancy tables and chairs lugged out on the porch, and the first thing I knows I'm holdin' forth at a pink tea that's the swellest thing of the kind Primrose Park ever got its eyes on.



CHAPTER XI

No, Nightingale Cottage ain't in the market, and it looks like I'd got a steady job introducin' Aunt 'Melie's doll collection to society; for Pinckney carts down a new gang every Sunday. As Sadie's generally on hand to help out, I'm ready to stand for it. Anyways, I've bought a fam'ly ticket and laid in a stock of fancy groceries.

The Maje? Oh, him and me made it up handsome. He comes over and tells me about that Mission Ridge stunt of his every chance he gets. But say, I'm beginnin' to find out there's others. It's a great place, Primrose Park is, and when I sized it up as a sort of annex to a cemetery I'd mistook the signs.

It don't make much difference where you are, all you've got to do to keep your blood from thinnin' out, is to mix in with folks. Beats all how much excitement you can dig up that way.

Now, I wa'n't huntin' for anything of the kind, but I was just usin' my eyes and keepin' my ears open, so I notices that out on the main road, in front of the Park, is one of those swell big ranches that hog the shore front all the way from Motthaven up to the jumpin'-off place. From the outside all you can see is iron gates and stone wall and stretches of green-plush lawn. Way over behind the trees you can get a squint at the chimney tops, and you know that underneath is a little cottage about the size of the Grand Central station. That's the style you live in when you've hit the stock-market right, or in case you've got to be a top-notch grafter that the muck-rakers ain't jungled yet.

I'd been wonderin' what kind of folks hung out in there, but I'd never seen any of 'em out front, only gardeners killin' time, and coachmen exercisin' the horses. But one mornin' I gets a private view that was worth watchin' for.

The first thing on the program was an old duffer dodgin' in and out around the bushes and trees like he was tryin' to lose somebody. That got me curious right away, and I begins to pipe him off. He was togged out in white ducks, somethin' like a window cook in a three-off joint, only he didn't sport any apron, and his cap had gold braid on it. His hair was white, too, and his under lip was decorated with one of them old-fashioned teasers—just a little bunch of cotton that the barber had shied. He was a well-built old boy, but his face had sort of a sole leather tint to it that didn't look healthy.

From his motions I couldn't make out whether he was havin' a game of hide-and-go-seek or was bein' chased by a dog. The last thought seemed more likely, so I strolls over to the stone wall and gets ready to hand out a swift kick to the kioodle, in case it was needed.

When he sees me the old gent begins to dodge livelier than ever and make signals with his hands. Well, I didn't know his code. I couldn't guess whether he wanted me to run for a club, or was tryin' to keep me from buttin' in, so I just stands there with my mouth open and looks foolish.

Next thing I sees is a wedge-faced, long-legged guy comin' across the lawn on the jump. First off I thought he was pushin' one of these sick-abed chairs, like they use on the board walk at Atlantic City. But as he gets nearer I see it was a green wicker tea-wagon—you know. I ain't got to the tea-wagon stage myself, but I've seen 'em out at Rockywold and them places. Handy as a pocket in a shirt, they are. When you've got company in the afternoon the butler wheels the thing out on the veranda and digs up a whole tea-makin' outfit from the inside. When it's shut it looks a good deal like one of them laundry push-carts they have in Harlem.