ZENOBIA DIGS UP A LATE ONE
And first off I had him listed in the joke column. Think of that! But
when I caught my first glimpse of him, there in the Corrugated gen'ral
offices that mornin', there was more or less comedy idea to his get-up;
the high-sided, flat-topped derby, for instance. Once in a while you run
across an old sport who still sticks to that type of hard-boiled lid.
Gen'rally they're short-stemmed old ginks who seem to think the high
crown makes 'em loom up taller. Maybe so; but where they find
back-number hats like that is beyond me.
Then there was the buff-cochin spats and the wide ribbon to his
eyeglasses. Beyond that I don't know as there was anything real freaky
about him. A rich-colored old gent he is, the pink in his cheeks shadin'
off into a deep mahogany tint back of his ears, makin' his frosted hair
and mustache stand out some prominent.
He'd been shown into the private office on a call for Mr. Robert; but as
I was well heeled with work of my own I didn't even glance up from the
desk until I hears this scrappy openin' of his.
"Bob Ellins, you young scoundrel, what the blighted beatitudes does this
mean!" he demands.
Naturally that gets me stretchin' my neck, and I turns just in time to
watch the gaspy expression on Mr. Robert's face fade out and turn into a
chuckle.
"Why, Mr. Ballard!" says he, extendin' the cordial palm. "I had no idea
you were on this side. Really! I understood, you know, that you were
settled over there for good, and that----"
"So you take advantage of the fact, do you, to make me president of one
of your fool companies?" says Ballard. "My imbecile attorney just let it
leak out. What do you mean, eh?"
Mr. Robert pushes him into a chair and shrugs his shoulders. "It was
rather a liberty, I admit," says he; "one of the exigencies of business,
however. When a meddlesome administration insists on dissolving into its
component parts such an extensive organization as ours--well, we had to
have a lot of presidents in a hurry. Really, we didn't think you'd mind,
Mr. Ballard, and we had no intention of bothering you with the details."
"Huh!" snorts Mr. Ballard. "And what is this precious corporation of
which I'm supposed to be the head?"
"Why, Mutual Funding," says Mr. Robert.
"Funding, eh?" comes back Ballard snappy. "What tommyrot! Bob Ellins,
you ought to know that I haven't the vaguest notion as to what funding
is,--never did,--and at my time of life, Sir, I don't propose to learn!"
"Of course, of course," says Mr. Robert, soothin'. "Quite unnecessary
too. You are adequately and efficiently represented, Mr. Ballard, by a
private secretary who has mastered the art of funding, mutual and
otherwise, until he can do it backward with one hand tied behind him.
Torchy, will you step here a moment?"
I was comin' too; but Mr. Ballard waves me off.
"Stop!" says he. "I'll not listen to a word of it. I'd have you know,
Bob Ellins, that I have worried along for sixty-two years without having
been criminally implicated in business affairs. The worst I've done has
been to pose as a dummy director on your rascally board and to see that
my letter of credit was renewed every three months. Use my name if you
must; but allow me to keep a clear conscience. I'm going in now for a
chat with your father, Bob, and if he mentions funding I shall stuff my
fingers in my ears and run. He won't, though. Old Hickory knows me
better. This his door? All right. Thanks. Hah, you old freebooter! In
your den, are you? Well, well!"
At which he stalks into the other office and leaves Mr. Robert and me
grinnin' at each other.
"Listened like you was in Dutch for a minute or so there," says I. "Case
of the cat comin' back, eh?"
"From Kyrle Ballard," says he, "one expects the unexpected. Only we need
not worry about his wanting to become the acting head of your
department. To-morrow or next week he is quite likely to be off again,
bound for some remote corner of the earth, to hobnob with the native
rulers thereof, participate in their games of chance, and invent a new
punch especially suitable for that particular climate."
"Gee!" says I. "That's my idea of a perfectly good boss,--one that gives
his job absent treatment."
I thought too that Mr. Robert had doped out his motions correct; for a
week goes by and no Mr. Ballard shows up to take the rubber stamp away
from me, or even ask fool questions. I was hopin' too that Ballard had
gone a long ways from here, accordin' to custom. Then one night--well,
it was at the theater, one of them highbrow Shaw plays that I was
chucklin' through with Aunt Zenobia.
Eh? Remember her, don't you? Why, she's one of the pair of aunts that I
got half adopted by, 'way back when I first started in with the
Corrugated. Yep, I've been stayin' on with 'em. Why not? Course our
little side street is 'way down in an old-fashioned part of the town;
the upper edge of old Greenwich village, in fact, if you know where that
is.
The house is one of a row that sports about the only survivin' specimens
of the cast-iron grapevine school of architecture. Honest, we got a
double-decked veranda built of foundry work that was meant to look like
leaves and vines, I expect. Cute idea, eh? Bein' all painted brick red,
though, it ain't so convincing but stragglin' over ours is a wistaria
that has a few sickly-lookin' blossoms on it every spring and manages to
carry a sprinklin' of dusty leaves through the summer. Also there's a
nine-by-twelve lawn, that costs a dollar a square foot to keep in shape,
I'll bet.
From that description maybe you'd judge that the place where I hang out
is a little antique. It is. But inside it's mighty comf'table, and it's
the best imitation of a home I've ever carried a latch-key to. As for
the near-aunts, Zenobia and Martha, take it from me they're the real
things in that line, even if they did let me in off the street without
askin' who or what! The best of it is they never have asked, which
makes it convenient. I couldn't tell 'em much, if they did.
There's Martha--well, she's the pious one. It ain't any case of sudden
spasms with her. It's a settled habit. She's just as pious Monday
mornin' as she is Sunday afternoon, and it lasts her all through the
week. You know how she started in by readin' them Delilah and Jona yarns
to me. She's kept it up. About twice a week she corners me and pumps in
a slice of Scripture readin', until I guess we must be more 'n half
through the Book. Course there's a lot of it I don't see any percentage
in at all; but I've got so I don't mind it, and it seems to give Aunt
Martha a lot of satisfaction. She's a lumpy, heavy-set old girl, Martha,
and a little slow; but the only thing that ain't genuine about her is
the yellowish white frontispiece she pins on over her own hair when she
dolls up for dinner.
But Zenobia--say, she's a diff'rent party! A few years younger than
Martha, Zenobia is,--in the early sixties, I should say,--and she's just
as active and up to date and foxy as Martha is logy and antique and
dull. While Martha is sayin' grace Zenobia is gen'rally pourin' herself
out a glass of port.
About once a week Martha loads herself into an old horse cab and goes
off to a meetin' of the foreign mission society, or something like
that; but almost every afternoon Zenobia goes whizzin' off in a taxi,
maybe to hear some long-haired violinist, maybe to sit on the platform
with Emma Goldman and Bouck White and applaud enthusiastic when the
established order gets another jolt. Just as likely as not too, she'll
bring some of 'em home to dinner with her.
Zenobia never shoves any advice on me, good or otherwise, and never asks
nosey questions; but she's the one who sees that my socks are kept
mended and has my suits sent to the presser. She don't read things to
me, or expound any of her fads. She just talks to me like she does to
anyone else--minor poets or social reformers--about anything she happens
to be int'rested in at the time,--music, plays, Mother Jones, the war,
or how suffrage is comin' on,--and never seems to notice when I make
breaks or get over my head.
A good sport Zenobia is, and so busy sizin' up to-day that she ain't got
time for reminiscin' about the days before Brooklyn Bridge was built.
And the most chronic kidder you ever saw. Say, what we don't do to Aunt
Martha when both of us gets her on a string is a caution! That's what
makes so many of our meals such cheerful events.
You might think, from a casual glance at Zenobia, with her gray hair and
the lines around her eyes, that she'd be kind of slow comp'ny for me,
especially to chase around to plays with and so on. But, believe me,
there's nothin' dull about her, and when she suggests that she's got an
extra ticket to anything I don't stop to ask what it is, but just gets
into the proper evenin' uniform and trots along willin'!
So that's how I happens to be with her at this Shaw play, and discussin'
between the acts what Barney was really tryin' to put over on us. The
first intermission was most over too before I discovers this ruddy-faced
old party in the back of Box A with his opera glasses trained steady in
our direction. I glances along the row to see if anyone's gazin' back;
but I can't spot a soul lookin' his way. After he's kept it up a minute
or two I nudges Aunt Zenobia.
"Looks like we was bein' inspected from the box seats," says I.
"How flatterin'!" says she. "Where?"
I points him out. "Must be you," says I, grinnin'.
"I hope so," says Zenobia. "If I'm really being flirted with, I shall
boast of it to Sister Martha."
But just then the lights go out and the second act begins. We got so
busy followin' the nutty scheme of this conversation expert who plots to
pass off a flower-girl for a Duchess that the next wait is well under
way before I remembers the gent in the box.
"Say, he's at it again," says I. "You must be makin' a hit for fair."
"Precisely what I've always hoped might happen,--to be stared at in
public," says Zenobia. "I'm greatly obliged to him, I'm sure. You are
quite certain, though, that it isn't someone just behind me?"
I whispers that there's no one behind her but a fat woman munchin'
chocolates and rubberin' back to see if Hubby ain't through gettin' his
drink.
"There! He's takin' his glasses down," says I. "Know the party, do you?"
"Not at this distance," says Zenobia. "No, I shall insist that he is an
unknown admirer."
By that time, though, I'd got a better view myself. And--say, hadn't I
seen them ruddy cheeks and that gray hair and them droopy eyes before?
Why, sure! It's what's-his-name, the old guy who blew into the
Corrugated awhile ago, my absentee boss--Ballard!
Maybe I'd have told Zenobia all about him if there'd been time; but
there wa'n't. Another flash of the lights, and we was watchin' the last
act, where this gutter-bred Pygmalion sprouts a soul. And when it's all
over of course we're swept out with the ebb tide, make a scramble for
our taxi, and are off for home. Then as we gets to the door I has the
sudden hunch about eats.
"There's a joint around on Sixth-ave.," says I, lettin' Aunt Zenobia in,
"where they sell hot dog sandwiches with sauerkraut trimmin's. I believe
I could just do with one about now."
"What an atrocious suggestion at this hour of the night!" says she.
"Torchy, don't you dare bring one of those abominations into the
house--unless you have enough to divide with me. About four, I should
say."
"With mustard?" says I.
"Heaps!" says she.
Three minutes later I'm hurryin' back with both hands full, when I
notices another taxi standin' out front. Then who should step out but
this Ballard party, in a silk hat and a swell fur-lined overcoat.
"Young man," says he, "haven't I seen you somewhere before?"
"Uh-huh," says I. "I'm your private sec."
"Wha-a-at?" says he. "My--oh, yes! I remember. I saw you at the
Corrugated."
"And then again at the show to-night," says I.
"To be sure," says he. "With a lady, eh?"
I nods.
"Lives here, doesn't she?" asks Ballard.
"Right again," says I. "Goin' to call?"
"Why," says he, "the fact is, young man, I--er--see here, it's Zenobia
Hadley, isn't it?"
"Preble," says I. "Mrs. Zenobia Preble."
"Hang the Preble part!" says he. "He's dead years ago. What I want to
know is, who else lives here?"
"Only her and Sister Martha and me," says I.
"Martha, eh?" says he. "Still alive, is she? Well, well! And Zenobia
now, is she--er--a good deal like her sister?"
"About as much as Z is like M," says I. "She's a live one, Aunt Zenobia
is, if that's what you're gettin' at."
"Thank you," says he. "That is it exactly. And I am glad to hear it. She
used to be, as you put it, rather a live one; but I didn't quite know
how----"
"Kyrle Ballard, is that you?" comes floatin' out from the front door.
"If it is, and you wish to know anything more about Zenobia Hadley, I
should advise you to come to headquarters. Torchy, bring in those
sandwiches--and Mr. Ballard, if he cares to follow."
"There!" says I to Ballard. "You've got a sample. That's Zenobia. Are
you comin' or goin'?"
Foolish question! He's leadin' the way up the steps.
"Zenobia," says he, holdin' out both hands, "I humbly apologize for
following you in this impulsive fashion. I saw you at the theater,
and----"
"If you hadn't done something of the kind," says she, "I shouldn't have
been at all sure it was really you. You've changed so much!"
"I admit it," says he. "One does, you know, in forty years."
"There, there, Kyrle Ballard!" warns Zenobia. "Throw the calendar at me
again, and out you go! I simply won't have it! Besides, I'm hungry.
Torchy is to blame. He suggested hot dog sandwiches. Take a sniff. Do
they appeal to you, or have you cultivated epicurean tastes to such an
extent that----"
"Ah-h-h-h!" says Ballard, bendin' over the paper bag I'm holdin'. "My
favorite delicacy. And if I might be permitted to add a bottle or two of
cold St. Louis----"
"Do you think I keep house without an icebox?" demands Zenobia. "Stop
your silly speeches, and let's get into the dining-room."
Some hustler, Zenobia is, too. Inside of two minutes she's shed her
wraps, passed out plates and glasses, and we're tacklin' a Coney Island
collation.
"I had been wondering if it could be you," says Ballard. "I'd been
watching you through the glasses."
"Yes, I know," says Zenobia. "And we had quite settled it that you were
a strange admirer. I'm frightfully disappointed!"
"Then you didn't know me?" says he. "But just now----"
"Voices don't turn gray or change color," says Zenobia. "Yours sounds
just as it did--well, the last time I heard it."
"That August night, eh?" suggests Mr. Ballard, suspendin' operations on
the sandwich and leanin' eager across the table.
He's a chirky, chipper old scout, with a lot of twinkles left in his
blue eyes. Must have been some gay boy in his day too; for even now he
shows up more or less ornamental in his evenin' clothes. And Zenobia
ain't such a bad looker either, you know; especially just now, with her
ears pinked up and her eyes sparklin' mischievous. I don't know whether
it's from takin' massage treatments reg'lar, or if it just comes
natural, but she don't need to cover up her collar bone or wear things
around her neck.
"Yes, that night," says she, liftin' her glass. "Shall we drink just
once to the memory of it?"
Which they did.
"And now," goes on Zenobia, "we will forget it, if you please."
"Not I," says Ballard. "Another thing: I've never forgiven your sister
Martha for what she did then. I never will."
Zenobia indulges in a trilly little laugh. "No more has she forgiven
you," says she. "How absurd of you both, just as though--but we'll not
talk about it. I've no time for yesterdays. To-day is too full. Tell me,
why are you back here?"
"Because seven armies have chased me out of Europe," says he, "and my
charming Vienna is too full of typhus to be quite healthy. If I'd
dreamed of finding you like this, I should have come long ago."
"Very pretty," says Zenobia. "I'd love to believe it, just for the sake
of repeating it to Martha in the morning. She is still with me, you
know."
"As saintly as ever?" asks Ballard.
"At thirty Martha was quite as good as she could be," says Zenobia.
"There she seems to have stopped. So naturally her opinion of you hasn't
altered in the least."
"And yours?" says he.
"Did I have opinions at twenty-two?" says she. "How ridiculous! I had
emotions, moods, mad impulses; anyway, something that led me to give you
seven dances in a row and stay until after one A.M. when I had promised
someone to leave at eleven. You don't think I've kept up that sort of
thing, do you?"
"I don't know," says Ballard. "I wouldn't be sure. One never could be
sure of Zenobia Hadley. I suppose that was why I took my chance when I
did, why I----"
"Kyrle Ballard, you've finished your sandwich, haven't you?" breaks in
Zenobia. "There! It's striking twelve, and I make it a rule never to be
sentimental after midnight. You and Martha wouldn't enjoy meeting each
other; so you'll not be coming again. Besides, I've a busy week ahead of
me. When you get settled abroad again, though, you might let me know.
Good-night. Happy dreams."
And before Ballard can protest he's bein' shooed out.
"You'll take luncheon with me to-morrow," he calls back from his cab.
"Probably not," says Zenobia.
"Oh yes, you will, Zenobia," says he. "I'm a desperate character still.
Remember that!"
She laughs and shuts the door. "There, Torchy!" says she. "See what
complications come from combining hot dogs with Bernard Shaw. And if
Martha should happen to get down before those bottles are removed--well,
I should have to tell her all."
Trust Martha. She did. And when I finished breakfast she was still
waitin' for Zenobia to come down and be quizzed. I don't know how far
back into fam'ly hist'ry that little chat took 'em, or what Martha had
to say. All I know is that when I shows up for dinner and comes
downstairs about six-thirty there sits Martha in the lib'ry, rocking
back and forth with that patient, resigned look on her face, as if she
was next in line at the dentist's.
"Zenobia isn't in yet," says she. "We will wait dinner awhile for her."
Then chunks of silence from Martha, which ain't usual. At seven o'clock
we gives it up and sits down alone. We hadn't finished our soup when
this telegram comes. First off I thought Martha was goin' to choke or
blow a cylinder head, I didn't know which. Then she takes to sobbin'
into the consommé, and fin'lly she shoves the message over to me.
"Wh-a-at?" I gasps. "Eloped, have they?"
"I--I knew they would," says Martha, "just as soon as I heard he'd been
here. He--he always wanted her to do it."
"Always?" says I. "Why, I thought he hadn't seen her for forty years or
so. How could that be?"
"We-we-well," sobs Martha, "I--I stopped them once. And she engaged to
the Rev. Mr. Preble at the time! It was scandalous! Such a wild,
reckless fellow Kyrle Ballard was too."
"Wh-e-ew!" I whistles. "That was goin' some for Zenobia, wasn't it? How
near did they come to doin' the slope?"
"She--she was actually stealing out to meet him, her things all on,"
says Martha, "when--when I woke up and found her. I made her come back
by threatening to call Mother. Engaged for two years, she and Mr. Preble
had been, and the wedding day all set. He'd just got a nice church too,
his first. I saved her that time; but now----" Martha relapses into the
sob act.
"The giddy young things!" says I. "Gone off on a honeymoon trip too!
Say, that ain't such slow work, is it? Gettin' there a little late,
maybe; but if there ever was a pair of silver sixties meant to be mated
up, I guess it's them. Well, well! I stand to lose a near-aunt by the
deal; but they get my blessin', anyway."
As for Aunt Martha, she keeps right on thinnin' out the soup.