Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
TORCHY AS A PA
BY
SEWELL FORD
AUTHOR OF
THE TORCHY AND THE SHORTY McCABE STORIES
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
Made in the United States of America
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Copyright, 1919, 1920, by
SEWELL FORD
Copyright, 1920, by
EDWARD J. CLODE
All Rights Reserved
Printed In the United States of America
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CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. Vee Ties Something Loose 1
II. When Hallam Was Rung Up 16
III. The Gummidges Get a Break 34
IV. Finding Out About Buddy 50
V. In Deep for Waddy 69
VI. How Torchy Anchored a Cook 89
VII. How the Garveys Broke in 105
VIII. Nicky and the Setting Hen 122
IX. Brink Does a Sideslip 136
X. 'Ikky-Boy Comes Along 150
XI. Louise Reverses the Clock 162
XII. When the Curb Got Gypped 177
XIII. The Mantle of Sandy the Great 191
XIV. Torchy Shunts a Wizard 205
XV. Stanley Takes the Jazz Cure 220
XVI. The Mystery of the Thirty-One 234
XVII. No Luck with Auntie 248
XVIII. Hartley Pulls a New One 263
XIX. Torchy Gets a Hunch 279
XX. Giving 'Chita a Look 293
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TORCHY AS A PA
CHAPTER I
VEE TIES SOMETHING LOOSE
I forget just what it was Vee was rummagin' for in the drawer of her
writin' desk. Might have been last month's milk bill, or a stray hair
net, or the plans and specifications for buildin' a spiced layer cake
with only two eggs. Anyway, right in the middle of the hunt she cuts
loose with the staccato stuff, indicatin' surprise, remorse, sudden
grief and other emotions.
"Eh?" says I. "Is it a woman-eatin' mouse, or did you grab a hatpin by
the business end?"
"Silly!" says she. "Look what I ran across, Torchy." And she flips an
engraved card at me.
I picks it on the fly, reads the neat script on it, and then hunches my
shoulders. "Well, well!" says I. "At home after September 15, 309 West
Hundred and Umpty Umpt street. How interestin'! But who is this Mr. and
Mrs. Hamilton Porter Blake, anyway?"
"Why, don't you remember?" says Vee. "We sent them that darling
urn-shaped candy jar. That is Lucy Lee and her dear Captain."
"Oh, then she got him, did she?" says I. "I knew he was a goner when she
went after him so strong. And now I expect they're livin' happy ever
after?"
Maybe you don't remember my tellin' you about Lucy Lee, the Virginia
butterfly we took in over the week-end once and how I had to scratch
around one Saturday to find some male dinner mate for her, and picked
this hard-boiled egg from the bond room, one of these buddin' John D.'s
who keeps an expense account and shudders every time he passes a
millinery store or thinks what two orchestra seats and a double taxi
fare would set him back. And, the female being the more expensive of the
species, he has trained himself to be girl proof. That's what he lets on
to me beforehand, but inside of forty-eight minutes by the watch, or
between his first spoonful of tomato soup and his last sip of cafe noir,
this Lucy Lee party had him so dizzy in the head he didn't know whether
he was gazin' into her lovely eyes or being run down by a truck. Honest,
some of these babidolls with high voltage lamps like that ought to be
made to use dimmers. For look! Just as she's got him all wound up in the
net, what does Lucy Lee do but flit sudden off to the Berkshires, where
a noble young S. O. S. captain has just come back from the war and the
next we know they're engaged, while in the bond room of the Corrugated
Trust is one more broken heart, or what passes for the same among them
young hicks.
And now here is Lucy Lee, flaggin' as young Mrs. Blake, livin' right in
the same town with him.
"How stupid of me to forget!" says Vee. "We must run in and call on them
right away, Torchy."
"We?" says I. "Ah, come!"
"We'll have dinner first at that cute little Cafe Bretone you've been
telling me about," says Vee, "and go up to see the Blakes afterwards."
Yes, that was the program we followed. And without the aid of a guide we
located this Umpty Umpt street. The number is about half way down the
block that runs from upper Broadway to Riverside Drive. It's one of the
narrow streets, you know, and the scenery is just as cheerful as a
section of the Hudson River tube on a foggy night. Nothing but
seven-story apartment buildings on either side; human hives, where the
only thing that can be raised is the rent, which the landlord attends to
every quarter.
Having lived out in the near-country for a couple of years, I'd most
forgotten what ugly, gloomy barracks these big apartment buildings were.
Say, if they built state prisons like that, with no more sun or air in
the cells, there'd be an awful howl. But the Rosenheimers and the Max
Blums and the Gilottis can run up jerry built blocks with 8x10 bedrooms
openin' on narrow airshafts, and livin' rooms where you need a couple of
lights burnin' on sunny days, and nobody says a word except to beg the
agent to let 'em pay $150 a month or so for four rooms and bath. I can
feel Vee give a shudder as we dives into the tunnel.
"But really," says she, "I suppose it must be very nice, only half a
block from the Drive, and with such an imposing entrance."
"Sure!" says I. "Just as cosy as being tucked away in a safety deposit
vault every night. That's what makes some of these New Yorkers so
patronizin' and haughty when they happen to stray out to way stations
and crossroads joints where the poor Rubes live exposed continual to
sunshine and fresh air and don't seem to know any better."
"Just think!" says Vee. "Lucy Lee's home down in Virginia was one of
those delightful old Colonial houses set on a hill, with more than a
hundred acres of farm land around it. And Captain Blake must have been
used to an outdoor life. He's a civil engineer, I believe. But then,
with the honeymoon barely over, I suppose they don't mind."
"We might ask 'em," I suggests.
"Don't you dare, Torchy!" says she.
By that time, though, we're ready to interview the fuzzy-haired West
Indian brunette in charge of the 'phone desk in one corner of the
marble wainscoted lobby. And when he gets through givin' the hot
comeback to some tenant who has dared to protest that he's had the wrong
number, he takes his time findin' out for us whether or not the Blakes
are in. Finally he grunts something through the gum and waves us toward
the elevator. "Fourth," says he. And a slouchy young female in a dirty
khaki uniform takes us up, jerky, to turn us loose in a hallway with a
dozen doors openin' off.
There's such a dim light we could hardly read the cards in the door
plates, and we was pawin' around, dazed, when a husky bleached blonde
comes sailin' out of an apartment.
"Will you please tell me which is the Blakes' bell?" asks Vee.
"Blakes?" says the blonde. "Don't know 'em."
"Perhaps we're on the wrong floor," I suggests.
But about then a door opens and out peers Lucy Lee herself. "Why, there
you are!" says she. "We were just picking up a little. You know how
things get in an apartment. So good of you to hunt us up. Come right
in."
So we squeezes in between a fancy hall seat and the kitchen door, edges
down a three-foot hallway, and discovers Captain Blake just strugglin'
into his coat, at the same time kickin' some evenin' papers, dexterous,
under a davenport.
"Why, how comfy you are here, aren't you?" says Vee, gazin' around.
"Ye-e-es, aren't we?" says Lucy Lee, a bit draggy.
If you've ever made one of these flathouse first calls you can fill in
the rest for yourself. We are shown how, by leanin' out one of the front
windows, you can almost see the North River; what a cute little dinin'
room there is, with a built-in china closet and all; and how convenient
the bathroom is wedged between the two sleeping rooms.
"But really," says Lucy Lee, "the kitchen is the nicest. Do you know,
the sun actually comes in for nearly an hour every afternoon. And isn't
everything so handy?"
Yes, it was. You could stand in the middle and reach the gas stove with
one hand and the sink with the other, and if you didn't want to use the
washtub you could rest a loaf of bread on it. Then there was the
dumbwaiter door just beside the ice-box, and overhead a shelf where you
could store a whole dollar's worth of groceries, if you happened to have
that much on hand at once. It was all as handy as an upper berth.
"You see," explains Lucy Lee, "we have no room for a maid, and couldn't
possibly get one if we did have room, so I am doing my own work; that
is, we are. Hamilton is really quite a wonderful cook; aren't you,
Hammy, dear? Of course, I knew how to make fudge, and I am learning to
scramble eggs. We go out for dinner a lot, too."
"Isn't that nice?" says Vee, encouragin'.
Gradually we got the whole story. It seems Blake wasn't a captain any
more, but had an engineerin' job on one of the new tubes, so they had to
stick in New York. They had thought at first it would be thrilling, but
I gathered that most of the thrills had worn off. And along towards the
end Lucy Lee admits that she's awfully lonesome. You see, she'd been
used to spendin' about six months of the year with Daddy in Washington,
three more in flittin' around from one house party to the other, and
what was left of the year restin' up down on the big plantation, where
they knew all the neighbors for miles around.
"But here," says she, "we seem to know hardly anyone. Oh, yes, there are
a few people in town we've met, but somehow we never see them. They live
either in grand houses on Fifth Avenue, or in big hotels, or in
Brooklyn."
"Then you haven't gotten acquainted with anyone in the building here?"
asks Vee.
"Why," says Lucy Lee, "the janitor's wife is a Mrs. Biggs, I believe.
I've spoken to her several times--about the milk."
"You poor dear!" says Vee.
"It's so tiresome," goes on Lucy Lee, "wandering out at night to some
strange restaurant and eating dinner among total strangers. We go often
to one perfectly dreadful little place because there's a funny old
waiter that we call by his first name. He tells us about his married
daughter, whose husband is a steamfitter and has been out on strike for
nearly two months. But Hamilton always tips him more than he should, so
it makes our dinners quite expensive. We have to make up, next night, by
having fried eggs and bacon at home."
* * * * *
Well, it's a tale of woe, all right. Lucy Lee don't mean to complain,
but when she gets started on the subject she lets the whole thing out.
Life in the great city, if you have to spend twenty hours out of the
twenty-four in a four-and-bath apartment, ain't so allurin', the way she
sketches it out. Course, she ain't used to it, for one thing. She thinks
if she had some friends nearby it might not be so bad. As for Hamilton,
he listens to her with a puzzled, hopeless expression, like he didn't
understand.
Vee seems to be studyin' over something, but she don't appear to be
gettin' anywhere. So we sits around and talks for an hour or so. There
ain't room to do much else in a flat. And about 9:30 Mr. Blake has a
brilliant thought.
"I say, Lucy," says he, "suppose we make a rinktum-diddy for the folks,
eh?"
"Sounds exciting'," says I. "Do you start by joinin' hands around the
table?"
No, you don't. You get out the electric chafing dish and begin by fryin'
some onions. Then you melt up some cheese, add some canned tomatoes,
and the result is kind of a Spanish Welsh rabbit that's almost as tasty
as it is smelly.
It was while we was messin' around the vest pocket kitchen, everybody
tryin' to help, that we spots this face at the window opposite. It's
sort of a calm, good natured face. You wouldn't call the young lady a
heart-breaker exactly, for her mouth is cut kind of generous and her big
eyes are wide set and serious; but you might guess that she was a decent
sort and more or less sociable. In fact she's starin' across the ten
feet or so of air space watchin' our maneuvers kind of interested and
wistful.
"Who's your neighbor?" asks Vee.
"I'm sure I haven't an idea," says Lucy Lee. "I see her a lot, of
course. She spends as much time in her kitchen as I do, even more.
Usually she seems to be alone."
"Why don't you speak to her some time?" suggests Vee.
"Oh, I wouldn't dare," says Lucy Lee. "It--it isn't done, you know. I
tried that twice when I first came, with women I met in the elevator,
and I was promptly snubbed. New Yorkers don't do that sort of thing, I
understand."
"But she's rather a nice looking girl," insists Vee. "And see, she's
half smiling. I'm going to speak to her." Which she does, right off the
bat. "I hope you don't mind the onion perfume?" says Vee.
The strange young lady doesn't slam down the window and go off tossin'
her head, indignant, so she can't be a real New Yorker. Instead she
smiles and shows a couple of cheek dimples. "It smells mighty good,"
says she. "I was just wondering what it could be."
"Won't you come over and find out?" says Vee, smilin' back.
"Yes, do come and join us," puts in Lucy Lee. "I'll open the hall door
for you."
"Why, I--I'd love to if--if I may," says the young lady.
And that's how, half an hour or so later, when all that was left of this
rinktum-diddy trick was some brown smears on five empty plates, we begun
hearin' the story of the face at the window. She's young Mrs. William
Fairfield, and she's been that exactly three months. Before that she had
been Miss Esther Hartley, of Turkey Run, Md., and Kaio Chow, China. Papa
Hartley had been a medical missionary and Esther, after she got through
at Wellesley, had joined him as a nurse and kindergarten teacher. She'd
been living in Kaio Chow for three years and the mission outfit was
getting along fine when some kind of a Boxer mess broke out and they all
had to leave. Coming back on an Italian steamer from Genoa she met Bill,
who'd been in aviation, and there'd been some lovely moonlight nights
and--well, Bill had persuaded her that teaching young Chinks to learn
c-a-t, cat, wouldn't be half as nice as being Mrs. William Hartley.
Besides, he had a good position waiting for him in a big wholesale
leather house right in New York, and it would be such fun living among
regular people.
"I suppose it is fun, too," says Esther, "but somehow I can't seem to
get used to it. Everyone here gives you such, cold, suspicious looks;
even the folks you meet in the hallways and elevator, as though they
meant to say, 'Don't you dare speak to me. I don't know who or what you
are, so don't come near.' They're like that, you know. Why, the street
gamins of Kaio Chow were not much worse when I first went there. Yes,
they did throw stones at me a few times, but in less than a month they
were calling me the Doctor Lady and letting me tell them how wrong it
was to spend so much time gambling around the food carts. Of course,
they kept right on gambling for fried fish and rice cakes, but they
would grin friendly when they saw me. Up to tonight no one in New York
has even smiled at me.
"It's such a wonderful place, too; and so big, you would almost think
there was enough to share with, strangers. But they seem to resent my
being here at all, so I go out very little now when I am alone. And as
Bill is away all day, and sometimes has to work evenings as well, I am
alone a great deal. About the only place I can see the sky from and
other people is this little kitchen window. So I stay there a lot, and I
am sorry to say that often I'm foolish enough to wish myself back at
the mission among all those familiar yellow faces, where I could stand
on the bamboo shaded galleries and hear the hubbub in the compound, and
watch the coolies wading about in the distant rice fields. Isn't that
silly? There must be something queer about me."
"Not so awfully queer," says Vee. "You're lonesome, that's all."
"No more than I am, I'm sure," says Lucy Lee. "I wonder if there are
many others?"
"Only two or three million more," says I. "That's why the cabarets and
movie shows are so popular."
That starts us talking over what there was for folks to do in New York
evenings, and while we can dope out quite a lot of different ways of
passin' the time between 8 p. m. and midnight, nearly every one is so
expensive that the average young couple can't afford to tackle 'em
more'n once a week or so. The other evenings they sit at home in the
flat.
"And yet," says young Mrs. Fairfield, "hardly any of them but could find
a congenial group of people if--if they only knew where to look and how
to get acquainted with each other. Why, right in this block I've noticed
ever so many who I'm sure are rather nice. But there seems to be no way
of getting together."
"That's it, precisely!" says Vee. "So why should you wish yourself back
in China?"
"I beg pardon?" says Mrs. Bill.
"I mean," says Vee, "that here is a missionary field, right at your
door. If you can go off among foreigners and get them to give up some of
their silly ways and organize them into groups and classes, why can't
you do something of the kind for these silly New York flat dwellers?
Can't they be organized, too?"
"Why," says Mrs. Bill, her eyes openin' wider, "I never thought of that.
But--but there are so many of them."
"What about starting with your own block?" suggests Vee. "Perhaps with
only one side of the street at first. Couldn't you find out how many
were interested in one particular thing--music, or dancing, or
bridge--and get them together?"
"Oh, I see!" says Mrs. Bill, clappin' her hands, enthusiastic. "Make a
social survey. Why, of course. One could get up a sort of questionnaire
card and drop it in the letter boxes for each family to fill out, if
they cared to do so, and then you could call meetings of the various
groups."
"If I could find a few home folks from Virginia, that's all I would
ask," says Lucy Lee.
"Then we would start the card with 'Where born?'" says Mrs. Bill. "That
would show us how many were Southerners, how many from the West, from
New England, and so on. Next we would want to know something about their
ages."
"Not too much," suggests Hamilton Blake. "Better ask 'em if they're
over or under thirty."
"Of course," says Mrs. Bill. "Let's see how such a card would look. Next
we would ask them what amusements they liked best: music, dancing,
theatre going, bowling, bridge, private theatricals, chess and so on.
Please check with a cross. And are you a high-brow; if so, why? Is it
art, books, languages, or the snare drum?"
"Don't forget the poker fiends and the movie fans," I puts in.
Mrs. Bill writes that down. "We will have to begin by electing ourselves
an organizing committee," says she, "and we will need a small printing
fund."
"I'll chip in ten," says Mr. Blake.
"So will we," says Vee.
"And I am sure Bill will, too," says Mrs. Fairfield, "which will be
quite enough to print all the cards we need. And tomorrow evening we
will get together in our apartment and make out the questionnaire
complete. Shall we?"
So when we left to catch a late train for Long Island it looked like
West Hundred and Umpty Umpt street was going to have something new
sprung on it. Course, we didn't know how far these two young couples
would get towards reformin' New York, but they sure was in earnest,
'specially young Mrs. Bill, who seems to have more or less common sense
tucked away between her ears.
That must have been a week or ten days ago, and as we hadn't heard from
any of them, or seen anything in the papers, we was kind of curious. So
here yesterday I has to call up Lucy Lee on the 'phone.
"Say," says I, "how's that block sociable progressin'?"
"Oh, perfectly wonderful!" says Lucy Lee. "Why, at our first meeting, in
a big dance hall, we had nearly 300 persons and were almost swamped. But
Esther is a perfect wizard at organizing. She got them into groups in
less than half an hour, and before we adjourned they had formed all
kinds of clubs and associations, from subscription dance clubs to a Lord
Dunsany private theatrical club. Everyone in the block who didn't turn
out at first has been clamoring to get in since and it has been keeping
us busy sorting them out. You've no idea what a difference it makes up
here. Why, I know almost everybody in the building now, and some of them
are really charming people. They're beginning to seem like real
neighbors and I don't think we shall ever pass another dull evening
while we live here. Even folks across the street have heard about it and
want Esther to come over and organize them."
So I had quite a bulletin to take home to Vee.
"Isn't that splendid!" says she.
"Anyway," says I, "I guess you started something. If it spreads enough,
maybe New York'll be almost fit to live in. But I have my doubts."