CHAPTER I_The big town

Transcriber’s Note: Italicized text is surrounded by

underscores: _italics_.

THE BIG TOWN

HOW I AND THE MRS. GO TO NEW YORK

TO SEE LIFE AND GET KATIE A HUSBAND

RING W. LARDNER

[Illustration: (A woman dancing and throwing money)]

NEW YORK

CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS

MCMXXV

CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS

Printed in the United States of America

[Illustration: (Colophon)]

PREFACE

This book deals with the adventures of a man and his wife and his

sister-in-law who move to New York from a small middle western

city. Because the writer and she who jokingly married him moved to

New York from the middle west, and because the writer has almost

as many sister-in-laws as Solomon, several Nordic blondes have

inquired whether the hero and heroines of the book are not actually

us. Fortunately most of the inquirers made the inquiry of me, the

possessor of a notoriously sweet disposition. Two of them, however,

asked the madam herself and were both shot down.

In the first place, the ladies of the book are supposed to have

inherited enough money to make them and the gent more or less

independent. Nothing like that in our family.

In the second place, the sister-in-law of the book has a hard time

getting a man. The sister-in-laws in real life acquired permanent men

while still in their nonage, you might say, and didn’t have to move

out of the middle west to do it. And though none of them, perhaps,

can be said to have done as well as the madam herself, at least from

an æsthetic standpoint, still it is something to boast of that none

of them was obliged to go Democratic.

The contents of “The Big Town” were written mostly in a furnished

house in Greenwich, Connecticut, and the author wishes to thank the

rats for staying out of the room while he worked. It was winter time

and the furnished house was a summer cottage, but we didn’t realize

that when we rented it. Nor, apparently, did the rats.

R. W. L.

March, 1925.

CONTENTS

PAGE

PREFACE v

CHAPTER

I. QUICK RETURNS 1

II. RITCHEY 50

III. LADY PERKINS 87

IV. ONLY ONE 135

V. KATIE WINS A HOME 193

THE BIG TOWN

CHAPTER I

QUICK RETURNS

This is just a clipping from one of the New York papers; a little

kidding piece that they had in about me two years ago. It says:

HOOSIER CLEANS UP IN WALL STREET. Employees of the brokerage firm of

H. L. Krause & Co. are authority for the statement that a wealthy

Indiana speculator made one of the biggest killings of the year in

the Street yesterday afternoon. No very definite information was

obtainable, as the Westerner’s name was known to only one of the

firm’s employees, Francis Griffin, and he was unable to recall it

last night.

You’d think I was a millionaire and that I’d made a sucker out of

Morgan or something, but it’s only a kid, see? If they’d of printed

the true story they wouldn’t of had no room left for that day’s

selections at Pimlico, and God knows that would of been fatal.

But if you want to hear about it, I’ll tell you.

Well, the war wound up in the fall of 1918. The only member of my

family that was killed in it was my wife’s stepfather. He died of

grief when it ended with him two hundred thousand dollars ahead. I

immediately had a black bandage sewed round my left funny bone, but

when they read us the will I felt all right again and tore it off.

Our share was seventy-five thousand dollars. This was after we had

paid for the inheritance tax and the amusement stamps on a horseless

funeral.

My young sister-in-law, Katie, dragged down another seventy-five

thousand dollars and the rest went to the old bird that had been

foreman in papa’s factory. This old geezer had been starving to death

for twenty years on the wages my stepfather-in-law give him, and the

rest of us didn’t make no holler when his name was read off for a

small chunk, especially as he didn’t have no teeth to enjoy it with.

I could of had this old foreman’s share, maybe, if I’d of took

advantage of the offer “father” made me just before his daughter and

I was married. I was over in Niles, Michigan, where they lived, and

he insisted on me seeing his factory, which meant smelling it too. At

that time I was knocking out about eighteen hundred dollars per annum

selling cigars out of South Bend, and the old man said he would start

me in with him at only about a fifty per cent. cut, but we would also

have the privilege of living with him and my wife’s kid sister.

“They’s a lot to be learnt about this business,” he says, “but if you

would put your mind on it you might work up to manager. Who knows?”

“My nose knows,” I said, and that ended it.

The old man had lost some jack and went into debt a good many years

ago, and for a long wile before the war begin about all as he was

able to do was support himself and the two gals and pay off a part of

what he owed. When the war broke loose and leather went up to hell

and gone I and my wife thought he would get prosperous, but before

this country went in his business went on about the same as usual.

“I don’t know how they do it,” he would say. “Other leather men is

getting rich on contracts with the Allies, but I can’t land a one.”

I guess he was trying to sell razor strops to Russia.

Even after we got into it and he begin to clean up, with the factory

running day and night, all as we knew was that he had contracts with

the U. S. Government, but he never confided in us what special stuff

he was turning out. For all as we knew, it may of been medals for the

ground navy.

Anyway, he must of been hitting a fast clip when the armistice come

and ended the war for everybody but Congress! It’s a cinch he wasn’t

amongst those arrested for celebrating too loud on the night of

November 11. On the contrary they tell me that when the big news

hit Niles the old bird had a stroke that he didn’t never recover

from, and though my wife and Katie hung round the bedside day after

day in the hopes he would tell how much he was going to leave he

was keeping his fiscal secrets for Oliver Lodge or somebody, and it

wasn’t till we seen the will that we knew we wouldn’t have to work

no more, which is pretty fair consolation even for the loss of a

stepfather-in-law that ran a perfume mill.

“Just think,” said my wife, “after all his financial troubles, papa

died a rich man!”

“Yes,” I said to myself, “and a patriot. His only regret was that he

just had one year to sell leather to his country.”

If the old codger had of only been half as fast a salesman as his

two daughters this clipping would of been right when it called me

a wealthy Hoosier. It wasn’t two weeks after we seen the will when

the gals had disposed of the odor factory and the old home in Niles,

Michigan. Katie, it seemed, had to come over to South Bend and live

with us. That was agreeable to me, as I figured that if two could

live on eighteen hundred dollars a year three could struggle along

some way on the income off one hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

Only for me, though, Ella and Sister Kate would of shot the whole wad

into a checking account so as the bank could enjoy it wile it lasted.

I argued and fought and finally persuaded them to keep five thousand

apiece for pin money and stick the rest into bonds.

The next thing they done was run over to Chi and buy all the party

dresses that was vacant. Then they come back to South Bend and

wished somebody would give a party. But between you and I the people

we’d always ran round with was birds that was ready for bed as soon

as they got home from the first show, and even though it had been

printed in the News-Times that we had fell heir to a lot of jack we

didn’t have to hire no extra clerical help to tend to invitations

received from the demi-Monday.

Finally Ella said we would start something ourselves. So she got

a lot of invitations printed and sent them to all our friends

that could read and hired a cater and a three-piece orchestra and

everything, and made me buy a dress suit.

Well, the big night arrived and everybody come that had somebody to

leave their baby with. The hosts wore evening clothes and the rest

of the merrymakers prepared for the occasion with a shine or a clean

collar. At first the cat had everybody’s tongue, but when we sat down

to eat some of the men folks begun to get comical. For instance, they

would say to my wife or Katie, “Ain’t you afraid you’ll catch cold?”

And they’d say to me, “I didn’t know you was a waiter at the Oliver.”

Before the fish course everybody was in a fair way to get the giggles.

After supper the musicians come and hid behind a geranium and played

a jazz. The entire party set out the first dance. The second was a

solo between Katie and I, and I had the third with my wife. Then

Kate and the Mrs. had one together, wile I tried holds with a lady

named Mrs. Eckhart, who seemed to think that somebody had ast her to

stand for a time exposure. The men folks had all drifted over behind

the plant to watch the drummer, but after the stalemate between Mrs.

Eckhart and I I grabbed her husband and took him out in the kitchen

and showed him a bottle of bourbon that I’d been saving for myself,

in the hopes it would loosen him up. I told him it was my last

bottle, but he must of thought I said it was the last bottle in the

world. Anyway, when he got through they was international prohibition.

We went back in the ballroom and sure enough he ast Katie to dance.

But he hadn’t no sooner than win one fall when his wife challenged

him to take her home and that started the epidemic that emptied the

house of everybody but the orchestra and us. The orchestra had been

hired to stay till midnight, which was still two hours and a half

distance, so I invited both of the gals to dance with me at once, but

it seems like they was surfeited with that sport and wanted to cry a

little. Well, the musicians had ran out of blues, so I chased them

home.

“Some party!” I said, and the two girls give me a dirty look like it

was my fault or something. So we all went to bed and the ladies beat

me to it on account of being so near ready.

Well, they wasn’t no return engagements even hinted at and the only

other times all winter when the gals had a chance to dress up was

when some secondhand company would come to town with a show and I’d

have to buy a box. We couldn’t ask nobody to go with us on account of

not having no friends that you could depend on to not come in their

stocking feet.

Finally it was summer and the Mrs. said she wanted to get out of town.

“We’ve got to be fair to Kate,” she said.

“We don’t know no young unmarried people in South Bend and it’s no

fun for a girl to run round with her sister and brother-in-law. Maybe

if we’d go to some resort somewheres we might get acquainted with

people that could show her a good time.”

So I hired us rooms in a hotel down to Wawasee Lake and we stayed

there from the last of June till the middle of September. During that

time I caught a couple of bass and Kate caught a couple of carp from

Fort Wayne. She was getting pretty friendly with one of them when

along come a wife that he hadn’t thought was worth mentioning. The

other bird was making a fight against the gambling fever, but one

night it got the best of him and he dropped forty-five cents in the

nickel machine and had to go home and make a new start.

About a week before we was due to leave I made the remark that it

would seem good to be back in South Bend and get some home cooking.

“Listen!” says my wife. “I been wanting for a long wile to have a

serious talk with you and now’s as good a time as any. Here are I

and Sis and you with an income of over eight thousand dollars a year

and having pretty near as good a time as a bird with habitual boils.

What’s more, we can’t never have a good time in South Bend, but have

got to move somewheres where we are unknown.”

“South Bend is certainly all of that,” I said.

“No, it isn’t,” said the Mrs. “We’re acquainted there with the kind

of people that makes it impossible for us to get acquainted with

the other kind. Kate could live there twenty years and never meet a

decent man. She’s a mighty attractive girl, and if she had a chance

they’s nobody she couldn’t marry. But she won’t never have a chance

in South Bend. And they’s no use of you saying ‘Let her move,’

because I’m going to keep her under my eye till she’s married and

settled down. So in other words, I want us to pack up and leave South

Bend for good and all and move somewheres where we’ll get something

for our money.”

“For instance, where?” I ast her.

“They’s only one place,” she said; “New York City.”

“I’ve heard of it,” said I, “but I never heard that people who

couldn’t enjoy themselves on eight thousand a year in South Bend

could go to New York and tear it wide open.”

“I’m not planning to make no big splurge,” she says. “I just want to

be where they’s Life and fun; where we can meet real live people.

And as for not living there on eight thousand, think of the families

that’s already living there on half of that and less!”

“And think of the Life and fun they’re having!” I says.

“But when you talk about eight thousand a year,” said the Mrs., “why

do we have to hold ourselves to that? We can sell some of those bonds

and spend a little of our principal. It will just be taking money out

of one investment and putting it in another.”

“What other?” I ast her.

“Kate,” said the wife. “You let me take her to New York and manage

her and I’ll get her a husband that’ll think our eight thousand a

year fell out of his vest.”

“Do you mean,” I said, “that you’d let a sister of yours marry for

money?”

“Well,” she says, “I know a sister of hers that wouldn’t mind if she

had.”

So I argued and tried to compromise on somewheres in America, but

it was New York or nothing with her. You see, she hadn’t never

been here, and all as she knew about it she’d read in books and

magazines, and for some reason another when authors starts in on that

subject it ain’t very long till they’ve got a weeping jag. Besides,

what chance did I have when she kept reminding me that it was her

stepfather, not mine, that had croaked and made us all rich?

When I had give up she called Kate in and told her, and Kate squealed

and kissed us both, though God knows I didn’t deserve no remuneration

or ask for none.

Ella had things all planned out. We was to sell our furniture and

take a furnished apartment here, but we would stay in some hotel

till we found a furnished apartment that was within reason.

“Our stay in some hotel will be lifelong,” I said.

The furniture, when we come to sell it, wasn’t worth nothing, and

that’s what we got. We didn’t have nothing to ship, as Ella found

room for our books in my collar box. I got two lowers and an upper

in spite of the Government, and with two taxi drivers and the

baggageman thronging the station platform we pulled out of South Bend

and set forth to see Life.

The first four miles of the journey was marked by considerable

sniveling on the part of the heiresses.

“If it’s so painful to leave the Bend let’s go back,” I said.

“It isn’t leaving the Bend,” said the Mrs., “but it makes a person

sad to leave any place.”

“Then we’re going to have a muggy trip,” said I. “This train stops

pretty near everywheres to either discharge passengers or employees.”

They were still sobbing when we left Mishawaka and I had to pull some

of my comical stuff to get their minds off. My wife’s mighty easy to

look at when she hasn’t got those watery blues, but I never did see a

gal that knocked you for a goal when her nose was in full bloom.

Katie had brought a flock of magazines and started in on one of them

at Elkhart, but it’s pretty tough trying to read with the Northern

Indiana mountains to look out at, to say nothing about the birds of

prey that kept prowling up and down the aisle in search of a little

encouragement or a game of rhum.

I noticed a couple of them that would of give a lady an answer if

she’d approached them in a nice way, but I’ve done some traveling

myself and I know what kind of men it is that allows themselves to be

drawed into a flirtation on trains. Most of them has made the mistake

of getting married some time, but they don’t tell you that. They tell

you that you and a gal they use to be stuck on is as much alike as a

pair of corsets, and if you ever come to Toledo to give them a ring,

and they hand you a telephone number that’s even harder to get than

the ones there are; and they ask you your name and address and write

it down, and the next time they’re up at the Elks they show it to a

couple of the brothers and tell what they’d of done if they’d only

been going all the way through.

“Say, I hate to talk about myself! But say!”

Well, I didn’t see no sense in letting Katie waste her time on those

kind of guys, so every time one of them looked our way I give him the

fish eye and the non-stop signal. But this was my first long trip

since the Government started to play train, and I didn’t know the

new rules in regards to getting fed; otherwise I wouldn’t of never

cleaned up in Wall Street.

In the old days we use to wait till the boy come through and

announced that dinner was now being served in the dining car forward;

then we’d saunter into the washroom and wash our hands if necessary,

and ramble into the diner and set right down and enjoy as big a

meal as we could afford. But the Government wants to be economical,

so they’ve cut down the number of trains, to say nothing about the

victuals; and they’s two or three times as many people traveling,

because they can’t throw their money away fast enough at home. So the

result is that the wise guys keeps an eye on their watch and when

it’s about twenty minutes to dinner time they race to the diner and

park against the door and get quick action; and after they’ve eat

the first time they go out and stand in the vestibule and wait till

it’s their turn again, as one Federal meal don’t do nothing to your

appetite only whet it, you might say.

Well, anyway, I was playing the old rules and by the time I and the

two gals started for the diner we run up against the outskirts of a

crowd pretty near as big as the ones that waits outside restaurant

windows to watch a pancake turn turtle. About eight o’clock we

got to where we could see the wealthy dining car conductor in the

distance, but it was only about once every quarter of an hour that

he raised a hand, and then he seemed to of had all but one of his

fingers shot off.

I have often heard it said that the way to a man’s heart is through

his stomach, but every time I ever seen men and women keep waiting

for their eats it was always the frail sex that give the first yelp,

and personally I’ve often wondered what would of happened in the

trenches Over There if ladies had of been occupying them when the

rations failed to show up. I guess the bombs bursting round would of

sounded like Sweet and Low sang by a quextette of deef mutes.

Anyway, my two charges was like wild animals, and when the con

finally held up two fingers I didn’t have no more chance or desire to

stop them than as if they was the Center College Football Club right

after opening prayer.

The pair of them was ushered to a table for four where they already

was a couple of guys making the best of it, and it wasn’t more than

ten minutes later when one of these birds dipped his bill in the

finger bowl and staggered out, but by the time I took his place the

other gent and my two gals was talking like barbers.

The guy was Francis Griffin that’s in the clipping. But when Ella

introduced us all as she said was, “This is my husband,” without

mentioning his name, which she didn’t know at that time, or mine,

which had probably slipped her memory.

Griffin looked at me like I was a side dish that he hadn’t ordered.

Well, I don’t mind snubs except when I get them, so I ast him if he

wasn’t from Sioux City--you could tell he was from New York by his

blue collar.

“From Sioux City!” he says. “I should hope not!”

“I beg your pardon,” I said. “You look just like a photographer I

used to know out there.”

“I’m a New Yorker,” he said, “and I can’t get home too soon.”

“Not on this train, you can’t,” I said.

“I missed the Century,” he says.

“Well,” I says with a polite smile, “the Century’s loss is our gain.”

“Your wife’s been telling me,” he says, “that you’re moving to the

Big Town. Have you ever been there?”

“Only for a few hours,” I says.

“Well,” he said, “when you’ve been there a few weeks you’ll wonder

why you ever lived anywhere else. When I’m away from old Broadway I

always feel like I’m only camping out.”

Both the gals smiled their appreciation, so I says: “That certainly

expresses it. You’d ought to remember that line and give it to

Georgie Cohan.”

“Old Georgie!” he says. “I’d give him anything I got and welcome.

But listen! Your wife mentioned something about a good hotel to

stop at wile you’re looking for a home. Take my advice and pick out

one that’s near the center of things; you’ll more than make up the

difference in taxi bills. I lived up in the Hundreds one winter and

it averaged me ten dollars a day in cab fares.”

“You must of had a pleasant home life,” I says.

“Me!” he said. “I’m an old bachelor.”

“Old!” says Kate, and her and the Mrs. both giggled.

“But seriously,” he says, “if I was you I would go right to the

Baldwin, where you can get a room for twelve dollars a day for the

three of you; and you’re walking distance from the theaters or shops

or cafés or anywheres you want to go.”

“That sounds grand!” said Ella.

“As far as I’m concerned,” I said, “I’d just as lief be overseas from

any of the places you’ve mentioned. What I’m looking for is a home

with a couple of beds and a cookstove in the kitchen, and maybe a

bath.”

“But we want to see New York first,” said Katie, “and we can do that

better without no household cares.”

“That’s the idear!” says Griffin. “Eat, drink and be merry; to-morrow

we may die.”

“I guess we won’t drink ourselves to death,” I said, “not if the Big

Town’s like where we been living.”

“Oh, say!” says our new friend. “Do you think little old New York is

going to stand for Prohibition? Why, listen! I can take you to thirty

places to-morrow night where you can get all you want in any one of

them.”

“Let’s pass up the other twenty-nine,” I says.

“But that isn’t the idear,” he said. “What makes we New Yorkers sore

is to think they should try and wish a law like that on Us. Isn’t

this supposed to be a government of the people, for the people and by

the people?”

“People!” I said. “Who and the hell voted for Prohibition if it

wasn’t the people?”

“The people of where?” he says. “A lot of small-time hicks that

couldn’t buy a drink if they wanted it.”

“Including the hicks,” I says, “that’s in the New York State

legislature.”

“But not the people of New York City,” he said. “And you can’t tell

me it’s fair to spring a thing like this without warning on men

that’s got their fortunes tied up in liquor that they can’t never get

rid of now, only at a sacrifice.”

“You’re right,” I said. “They ought to give them some warning.

Instead of that they was never even a hint of what was coming off

till Maine went dry seventy years ago.”

“Maine?” he said. “What the hell is Maine?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Only they was a ship or a boat or something

named after it once, and the Spaniards sunk it and we sued them for

libel or something.”

“You’re a smart Aleck,” he said. “But speaking about war, where was

you?”

“In the shipyards at South Bend painting a duck boat,” I says. “And

where was you?”

“I’d of been in there in a few more weeks,” he says. “They wasn’t no

slackers in the Big Town.”

“No,” said I, “and America will never forget New York for coming in

on our side.”

By this time the gals was both giving me dirty looks, and we’d eat

all we could get, so we paid our checks and went back in our car and

I felt kind of apologetic, so I dug down in the old grip and got out

a bottle of bourbon that a South Bend pal of mine, George Hull, had

give me the day before; and Griffin and I went in the washroom with

it and before the evening was over we was pretty near ready to forget

national boundaries and kiss.

The old bourb’ helped me save money the next morning, as I didn’t

care for no breakfast. Ella and Kate went in with Griffin and you

could of knocked me over with a coupling pin when the Mrs. come

back and reported that he’d insisted on paying the check. “He told

us all about himself,” she said. “His name is Francis Griffin and

he’s in Wall Street. Last year he cleared twenty thousand dollars in

commissions and everything.”

“He’s a piker,” I says. “Most of them never even think under six

figures.”

“There you go!” said the Mrs. “You never believe nothing. Why

shouldn’t he be telling the truth? Didn’t he buy our breakfast?”

“I been buying your breakfast for five years,” I said, “but that

don’t prove that I’m knocking out twenty thousand per annum in Wall

Street.”

Francis and Katie was setting together four or five seats ahead of us.

“You ought to of seen the way he looked at her in the diner,” said

the Mrs. “He looked like he wanted to eat her up.”

“Everybody gets desperate in a diner these days,” I said. “Did you

and Kate go fifty-fifty with him? Did you tell him how much money we

got?”

“I should say not!” says Ella. “But I guess we did say that you

wasn’t doing nothing just now and that we was going to New York to

see Life, after being cooped up in a small town all these years. And

Sis told him you’d made us put pretty near everything in bonds, so

all we can spend is eight thousand a year. He said that wouldn’t go

very far in the Big Town.”

“I doubt if it ever gets as far as the Big Town,” I said. “It won’t

if he makes up his mind to take it away from us.”

“Oh, shut up!” said the Mrs. “He’s all right and I’m for him, and I

hope Sis is too. They’d make a stunning couple. I wished I knew what

they’re talking about.”

“Well,” I said, “they’re both so reserved that I suppose they’re

telling each other how they’re affected by cucumbers.”

When they come back and joined us Ella said: “We was just remarking

how well you two young things seemed to be getting along. We was

wondering what you found to say to one another all this time.”

“Well,” said Francis, “just now I think we were discussing you. Your

sister said you’d been married five years and I pretty near felt like

calling her a fibber. I told her you looked like you was just out of

high school.”

“I’ve heard about you New Yorkers before,” said the Mrs. “You’re

always trying to flatter somebody.”

“Not me,” said Francis. “I never say nothing without meaning it.”

“But sometimes,” says I, “you’d ought to go on and explain the

meaning.”

Along about Schenectady my appetite begin to come back. I’d made it

a point this time to find out when the diner was going to open, and

then when it did our party fell in with the door.

“The wife tells me you’re on the stock exchange,” I says to Francis

when we’d give our order.

“Just in a small way,” he said. “But they been pretty good to me down

there. I knocked out twenty thousand last year.”

“That’s what he told us this morning,” said Ella.

“Well,” said I, “they’s no reason for a man to forget that kind of

money between Rochester and Albany, even if this is a slow train.”

“Twenty thousand isn’t a whole lot in the Big Town,” said Francis,

“but still and all, I manage to get along and enjoy myself a little

on the side.”

“I suppose it’s enough to keep one person,” I said.

“Well,” says Francis, “they say two can live as cheap as one.”

Then him and Kate and Ella all giggled, and the waiter brought in a

part of what he thought we’d ordered and we eat what we could and

ast for the check. Francis said he wanted it and I was going to give

in to him after a long hard struggle, but the gals reminded him that

he’d paid for breakfast, so he said all right, but we’d all have to

take dinner with him some night.

I and Francis set a wile in the washroom and smoked, and then he went

to entertain the gals, but I figured the wife would go right to sleep

like she always does when they’s any scenery to look out at, so I

stuck where I was and listened to what a couple of toothpick salesmen

from Omsk would of done with the League of Nations if Wilson had of

had sense enough to leave it to them.

Pulling into the Grand Central Station, Francis apologized for not

being able to steer us over to the Baldwin and see us settled, but

said he had to rush right downtown and report on his Chicago trip

before the office closed. To see him when he parted with the gals

you’d of thought he was going clear to Siberia to compete in the

Olympic Games, or whatever it is we’re in over there.

Well, I took the heiresses to the Baldwin and got a regular Big Town

welcome. Ella and Kate set against a pillar wile I tried different

tricks to make an oil-haired clerk look at me. New York hotel clerks

always seem to of just dropped something and can’t take their eyes

off the floor. Finally I started to pick up the register and the guy

give me the fish eye and ast what he could do for me.

“Well,” I said, “when I come to a hotel I don’t usually want to buy a

straw hat.”

He ast me if I had a reservation and I told him no.

“Can’t do nothing for you then,” he says. “Not till to-morrow morning

anyway.”

So I went back to the ladies.

“We’ll have to go somewheres else,” I said. “This joint’s a joint.

They won’t give us nothing till to-morrow.”

“But we can’t go nowheres else,” said the Mrs. “What would Mr.

Griffin think, after recommending us to come here?”

“Well,” I said, “if you think I’m going to park myself in a four-post

chair all night just because we got a tip on a hotel from Wall Street

you’re Queen of the Cuckoos.”

“Are you sure they haven’t anything at all?” she says.

“Go ask them yourself!” I told her.

Well, she did, and in about ten minutes she come back and said

everything was fixed.

“They’ll give us a single room with bath and a double room with bath

for fifteen dollars a day,” she said.

“‘Give us’ is good!” said I.

“I told him we’d wired for reservations and it wasn’t our fault if

the wire didn’t get here,” she said. “He was awfully nice.”

Our rooms was right close to each other on the twenty-first floor. On

the way up we decided by two votes to one that we’d dress for dinner.

I was still monkeying with my tie when Katie come in for Ella to look

her over. She had on the riskiest dress she’d bought in Chi.

“It’s a pretty dress,” she said, “but I’m afraid maybe it’s too

daring for just a hotel dining room.”

Say, we hadn’t no sooner than set down in the hotel dining room when

two other gals come in that made my team look like they was dressed

for a sleigh ride with Doc Cook.

“I guess you don’t feel so daring now,” I said. “Compared to that

baby in black you’re wearing Jess Willard’s ulster.”

“Do you know what that black gown cost?” said Ella. “Not a cent under

seven hundred dollars.”

“That would make the material twenty-one hundred dollars a yard,” I

says.

“I’d like to know where she got it,” said Katie.

“Maybe she cut up an old stocking,” said I.

“I wished now,” said the Mrs., “that we’d waited till we got here

before we bought our clothes.”

“You can bet one thing,” says Katie. “Before we’re ast out anywheres

on a real party we’ll have something to wear that isn’t a year old.”

“First thing to-morrow morning,” says the Mrs., “we’ll go over on

Fifth Avenue and see what we can see.”

“They’ll only be two on that excursion,” I says.

“Oh, we don’t want you along,” said Ella. “But I do wished you’d go

to some first-class men’s store and get some ties and shirts and

things that don’t look like an embalmer.”

Well, after a wile one of the waiters got it in his head that maybe

we hadn’t came in to take a bath, so he fetched over a couple of

programs.

“Never mind them,” I says. “What’s ready? We’re in a hurry.”

“The Long Island Duckling’s very nice,” he said. “And how about some

nice au gratin potatoes and some nice lettuce and tomato salad with

Thousand Island dressing, and maybe some nice French pastry?”

“Everything seems to be nice here,” I said. “But wait a minute. How

about something to drink?”

He give me a mysterious smile.

“Well,” he said, “they’re watching us pretty close here, but we serve

something we call a cup. It comes from the bar and we’re not supposed

to know what the bartender puts in it.”

“We’ll try and find out,” I said. “And rush this order through, as

we’re starved.”

So he frisked out and was back again in less than an hour with

another guy to help carry the stuff, though Lord knows he could of

parked the three ducklings on one eyelid and the whole meal on the

back of his hand. As for the cup, when you tasted it they wasn’t

no big mystery about what the bartender had put in it--a bottle of

seltzer and a prune and a cherry and an orange peel, and maybe his

finger. The check come to eighteen dollars and Ella made me tip him

the rest of a twenty.

Before dinner the gals had been all for staying up a wile and looking

the crowd over, but when we was through they both owned up that they

hadn’t slept much on the train and was ready for bed.

Ella and Kate was up early in the morning. They had their breakfast

without me and went over to stun Fifth Avenue. About ten o’clock

Francis phoned to say he’d call round for us that evening and take

us to dinner. The gals didn’t get back till late in the afternoon,

but from one o’clock on I was too busy signing for packages to get

lonesome. Ella finally staggered in with some more and I told her

about our invitation.

“Yes, I know,” she said.

“How do you know?” I ast her.

“He told us,” she said. “We had to call him up to get a check cashed.”

“You got plenty nerve!” I said. “How does he know your checks is

good?”

“Well, he likes us,” she said. “You’ll like us too when you see us

in some of the gowns we bought.”

“Some!” I said.

“Why, yes,” said the Mrs. “You don’t think a girl can go round in New

York with one evening dress!”

“How much money did you spend to-day?” I ast her.

“Well,” she said, “things are terribly high--that is, nice things.

And then, of course, there’s suits and hats and things besides the

gowns. But remember, it’s our money. And as I told you, it’s an

investment. When young Mister Wall Street sees Kate to-night it’ll be

all off.”

“I didn’t call on you for no speech,” I says. “I ast you how much you

spent.”

“Not quite sixteen hundred dollars.”

I was still out on my feet when the phone rung. Ella answered it and

then told me it was all right about the tickets.

“What tickets?” I said.

“Why, you see,” she says, “after young Griffin fixing us up with

that check and inviting us to dinner and everything we thought it

would be nice to take him to a show to-night. Kate wanted to see Ups

and Downs, but the girl said she couldn’t get us seats for it. So I

ast that nice clerk that took care of us yesterday and he’s fixed it.”

“All right,” I said, “but when young Griffin starts a party, why and

the hell not let him finish it?”

“I suppose he would of took us somewheres after dinner,” says the

Mrs., “but I couldn’t be sure. And between you and I, I’m positive

that if he and Kate is throwed together a whole evening, and her

looking like she’ll look to-night, we’ll get mighty quick returns on

our investment.”

Well, to make a short story out of it, the gals finally got what they

called dressed, and I wished Niles, Michigan, or South Bend could of

seen them. If boxers wore bathing skirts I’d of thought I was in the

ring with a couple of bantams.

“Listen!” I said. “What did them two girdles cost?”

“Mine was three hundred and Kate’s three hundred and fifty,” said the

Mrs.

“Well,” I says, “don’t you know that you could of went to any

cut-rate drug store and wrapped yourself up just as warm in

thirty-two cents’ worth of adhesive tape? Listen!” I said. “What’s

the use of me paying a burglar for tickets to a show like Ups and

Downs when I could set round here and look at you for nothing?”

Then Griffin rung up to say that he was waiting and we went

downstairs. Francis took us in the same dining room we’d been in the

night before, but this time the waiters all fought each other to get

to us first.

I don’t know what we eat, as Francis had something on the hip that

kind of dazed me for a wile, but afterwards I know we got a taxi and

went to the theater. The tickets was there in my name and only cost

me thirteen dollars and twenty cents.

Maybe you seen this show wile it was here. Some show! I didn’t read

the program to see who wrote it, but I guess the words was by Noah

and the music took the highest awards at the St. Louis Fair. They had

a good system on the gags. They didn’t spring none but what you’d

heard all your life and knew what was coming, so instead of just

laughing at the point you laughed all the way through it.

I said to Ella, I said, “I bet the birds that run this don’t want

prohibition. If people paid $3.30 apiece and come in here sober

they’d come back the next night with a machine gun.”

“I think it’s dandy,” she says, “and you’ll notice every seat is

full. But listen! Will you do something for me? When this is over

suggest that we go up to the Castle Roof for a wile.”

“What for?” I said. “I’m sleepy.”

“Just this once,” she says. “You know what I told you about quick

returns!”

Well, I give in and made the suggestion, and I never seen people so

easy coaxed. I managed to get a ringside table for twenty-two bucks.

Then I ast the boy how about getting a drink and he ast me if I knew

any of the head waiters.

“I do,” says Francis. “Tell Hector it’s for Frank Griffin’s party.”

So we ordered four Scotch highballs and some chicken à la King, and

then the dinge orchestra tore loose some jazz and I was expecting a

dance with Ella, but before she could ask me Francis had ast her, and

I had one with Kate.

“Your Wall Street friend’s a fox,” I says, “asking an old married

lady to dance so’s to stand in with the family.”

“Old married lady!” said Kate. “Sis don’t look a day over sixteen

to-night.”

“How are you and Francis coming?” I ast her.

“I don’t know,” she says. “He acts kind of shy. He hasn’t hardly said

a word to me all evening.”

Well, they was another jazz and I danced it with Ella; then her and

Francis had another one and I danced again with Kate. By this time

our food and refreshments was served and the show was getting ready

to start.

I could write a book on what I don’t remember about that show. The

first sip of their idear of a Scotch highball put me down for the

count of eight and I was practic’lly unconscious till the waiter woke

me up with a check for forty bucks.

Francis seen us home and said he would call up again soon, and when

Ella and I was alone I made the remark that I didn’t think he’d ever

strain his larnix talking to Kate.

“He acts gun-shy when he’s round her,” I says. “You seem to be the

one that draws him out.”

“It’s a good sign,” she says. “A man’s always embarrassed when he’s

with a girl he’s stuck on. I’ll bet you anything you want to bet that

within a week something’ll happen.”

Well, she win. She’d of win if she’d of said three days instead of

a week. It was a Wednesday night when we had that party, and on the

Friday Francis called up and said he had tickets for the Palace. I’d

been laid up mean wile with the Scotch influenza, so I told the gals

to cut me out. I was still awake yet when Ella come in a little after

midnight.

“Well,” I said, “are we going to have a brother-in-law?”

“Mighty soon,” she says.

So I ast her what had came off.

“Nothing--to-night,” she says, “except this: He wrote me a note. He

wants me to go with him to-morrow afternoon and look at a little

furnished apartment. And he ast me if I could come without Sis, as he

wants to pull a surprise on her. So I wondered if you couldn’t think

of some way to fix it so’s I can sneak off for a couple of hours.”

“Sure!” I said. “Just tell her you didn’t sleep all night and you’re

wore out and you want to take a nap.”

So she pulled this gag at lunch Saturday and Katie said she was tired

too. She went up to her room and Ella snuck out to keep her date with

Francis. In less than an hour she romped into our room again and

throwed herself on the bed.

“Well,” I says, “it must of been a little apartment if it didn’t only

take you this long to see it.”

“Oh, shut up!” she said. “I didn’t see no apartment. And don’t say a

word to me or I’ll scream.”

Well, I finally got her calmed down and she give me the details. It

seems that she’d met Francis, and he’d got a taxi and they’d got in

the taxi and they hadn’t no sooner than got in the taxi when Francis

give her a kiss.

“Quick returns,” I says.

“I’ll kill you if you say another word!” she says.

So I managed to keep still.

Well, I didn’t know Francis’ home address, and Wall Street don’t run

Sundays, so I spent the Sabbath training on a quart of rye that a

bell hop picked up at a bargain sale somewheres for fifteen dollars.

Mean wile Katie had been let in on the secret and staid in our room

all day, moaning like a prune-fed calf.

“I’m afraid to leave her alone,” says Ella. “I’m afraid she’ll jump

out the window.”

“You’re easily worried,” I said. “What I’m afraid of is that she

won’t.”

Monday morning finally come, as it generally always does, and I told

the gals I was going to some first-class men’s store and buy myself

some ties and shirts that didn’t look like a South Bend embalmer.

So the only store I knew about was H. L. Krause & Co. in Wall Street,

but it turned out to be an office. I ast for Mr. Griffin and they ast

me my name and I made one up, Sam Hall or something, and out he come.

If I told you the rest of it you’d think I was bragging. But I did

bust a few records. Charley Brickley and Walter Eckersall both kicked

five goals from field in one football game, and they was a bird named

Robertson or something out at Purdue that kicked seven. Then they was

one of the old-time ball players, Bobby Lowe or Ed Delehanty, that

hit four or five home runs in one afternoon. And out to Toledo that

time Dempsey made big Jess set down seven times in one round.

Well, listen! In a little less than three minutes I floored this bird

nine times and I kicked him for eight goals from the field and I hit

him over the fence for ten home runs. Don’t talk records to me!

So that’s what they meant in the clipping about a Hoosier cleaning up

in Wall Street. But it’s only a kid, see?