JOHN HENRY GETS A SETBACK.
Dinner was nearly over that evening at Uncle Peter's villa in
Ruraldene when suddenly the doorbell rang violently and two minutes
later the servant announced that Mr. and Mrs. Cornelius McGowan
were in the parlor.
First I decided to faint; then I changed my mind and tried to
figure out which would be the most cruelly effective way of killing
Bunch Jefferson.
Uncle Peter resented the unexpected arrival of these strangers,
because he wanted to sit around and have the home folks tell him
how sick he was.
"I'd like to know what Bunch Jefferson means by sending his
relatives over to us on a Sunday evening," my wife's uncle snapped.
"Why doesn't he worry old Bill Grey with them, eh? It's bad enough
for me to have to sneeze my head off before my own people, but I'll
be dod bimmed if I'm going to sit around the parlor and play solos
on my bronchial tubes for the edification of strangers--no, sir!"
Uncle Peter sniffled off to his apartments, and Peaches said she'd
try to entertain the visitors.
I concluded to help her some.
Skinski arose from the sofa and greeted us with his most elaborate
bow.
Ma'moselle Dodo didn't Society very much.
She sat in the middle of the room and sang soft lullabys to a
hold-over.
"Mr. Jefferson, my nephew," Skinski was saying, "insisted that we
should hit the suburban trail and locate your shack. Here's a note
from nephew Bunch for you."
Skinski handed me the note with a face as solemn as a
monkey-wrench, and I read it:
CITY, Sunday P.M.
DEAR JOHN--I send herewith the two rosebuds. As a favor to your
old pal please treat my beloved relatives with every consideration
and make a fuss over them. You know you told them in the
restaurant to come and see you. They want to make good and will
stay a week if you insist.
With kindest regards,
BUNCH.
P. S. Don't drag Aunt Flora into any literary discussions--she
might hand you something. Her favorite author is Pommery Sec., the
chap who writes all those frothy books.
B.
"I wish you could have seen our place in the day-time," Peaches was
saying to Skinski when I finished reading Bunch's get-back. "We
think it's delightful out here. Did you, have much trouble in
finding the place?"
"Nay, lady fair," Skinski replied; "no trouble at all. Nephew
Bunch came as far as the front door with us."
"What!" exclaimed the astonished Peaches.
"Yes," Skinski concluded; "he even saved us the hardship of ringing
the bell. Oh! he's a thoughtful relative, Bunch is."
Clara J. looked at me, I looked at Skinski, he looked at Dodo, and
she looked at the piano and said thoughtfully, "You betcher sweet!"
"The idea of Bunch coming to our front door and then rushing off
again without seeing anybody," gasped Peaches, "what does it mean?"
"Alice lives only half a mile away and possibly Bunch was running
behind his schedule," I suggested.
Just then Aunt Martha and Uncle Peter came in the parlor, and
presently I grabbed a chance to say a few words to Skinski on the
side:
"If my family circle ever gets wise that you and the Queen of
Laughter over there are excess baggage it'll be to the cabbage
patch for mine," I whispered.
"I'm on," Skinski whispered back. "Never a break from yours
mysteriously, believe me. We wouldn't have come out at all if your
partner hadn't insisted. He was so hot to have us butt in here and
hand your heart a flutter that I just couldn't resist his pleading
voice. It's a catchy jest, all right, and it's making me laugh.
The way you two ducks josh each other is pitiful, but your secret
is safe with me, Manager. I won't make no bad breaks, and Dodo
won't ever open her talk-trap. She never talks off the stage. On
the stage, say! she has the most elegant line of language that ever
left the pipes. Leave it all to me, Manager, and I'll see that the
McGowan family makes an awful hit with your fireside companions."
And Skinski kept his word.
He skilfully led Uncle Peter around to a discussion of
sleight-of-hand, and two minutes later the Wonder Worker was
dragging the coal shovel and the vinegar cruet out of the Mayor's
inside pockets, to the intense mystification and delight of the old
gentleman.
Uncle Peter was wearing a small diamond pin in his cravat and quite
by accident the setting became loose and the stone dropped to the
floor.
The old gentleman became very much concerned about it and we all
started to look for it.
"Wait a minute!" said Skinski; "the spark fell in your left-hand
vest pocket."
Uncle Peter looked at him blankly. "Impossible, why, there's
nothing there but this box of quinine pills for my cold."
"Open it," said Skinski, and Uncle Peter did so.
"How many of those do you usually take in a day?" asked Skinski.
"Four," replied the puzzled old gentleman.
"Drop four of them in your left hand," ordered Skinski.
Uncle Peter's right hand trembled a bit, with the result that five
of the quinines fell into his left hand.
"If you counted money the way you count pills you'd quit loser,"
chuckled Skinski. "Put four of those dizzy-wizzys back in the box."
The old gentleman did so.
"Now take your penknife and open the pill you didn't put back,"
commanded Skinski.
Uncle Peter obeyed instructions, and he nearly choked with
astonishment when his diamond came to view.
It was a neat bit of work and Skinski became a solid success with
Uncle Peter.
"Did I understand you to say, Mr. McGowan, that you are a
commission merchant in Springfield, Ohio?" the Mayor asked Skinski
when the applause had subsided.
"I'm a used to was," Skinski corrected. "There was a time when I
commished for fair, but the bogie man caught me and I lose all I
had. Since then I've been trying to sell a gold mine I own out in
the Blue Hills."
I tried to sidetrack Skinski and lead him away from the smoking
room, but Uncle Peter insisted upon hearing more about those
dreamland gold mines.
"I've got the documents and everything to prove that my claim is
all the goods," Skinski rattled on. "All it needs is the capital
to work it and it's a bonanza, sure--isn't it, Dodey--I mean Flo!"
"You betcher sweet!" she answered, whereupon Peaches and Aunt
Martha had a fit of coughing which lasted three minutes.
Then Uncle Peter coaxed Skinski off in a corner and there they
hobnobbed for fifteen minutes while my wife and her aunt and I
tried to get cheerful and chatty with "Aunt Flo," but we only
succeeded in dragging from her four reluctant "You betcher sweets!"
Presently Uncle Peter and Skinski shook hands about something, and
five minutes later Bunch's "relatives" took their departure to the
accompaniment of much internal applause on my part.
"Mr. McGowan is a very accomplished gentleman," Uncle Peter
decided; "but handicapped by a most depressing wife, most
depressing. The Blue Hills, eh! the Blue Hills! Now, I wonder----"
Then he began to whistle softly and went into the dining-room.
Monday morning, bright and early, I met Bunch, and we buried the
hatchet.
"I hope my beloved relatives didn't disgrace me while sojourning in
your midst," he chuckled.
"Not at all," I answered airily. "Why, Uncle Cornelius was the hit
of the season with Uncle Peter, though, of course, Aunt Flora
didn't make good with that 'You betcher sweet!' monologue of hers.
How could she? Even at that, she stands better with me than some
conversational queens I know who get so busy with the gab they make
me dizzy."
About noon Bunch and I ducked for New Rochelle to do a bit of
advance work for our show.
Nobody knew us in the town, so we posed as Cameron & Connolly,
owners of the Great Hall of Illusions, and Managers of the World
Wonder and Magic King, Signor Beppo Petroskinski, and Ma'moselle
Dodo, the Oriental Queen of Mystery.
Pretty hot line of goods, eh?
We handed out the salve thing to all the paper lads and they were
for us good and plenty.
After our publicity department had been in operation for about four
hours we began to see the neighbors sit up and notice us, and we
figured on about a $1,000 opening.
"The show will cost us about $80 a day," Bunch financed, with a
strangle hold on a big green lead pencil. "Let's see! expenses say
$500 a week at the outside. Now, let's strike a low average and
say we play to $800 a night; that's $4,800 a week, and two matinees
at, say $200, that's $5,000 on the week, eh, John! That gives us a
clean profit of $1,500 apiece for the three of us--oh, aces!"
"It looks good to me. Bunch," I agreed, and then we went out and
ordered some more three-sheets and a flock of snipe.
We spent the whole day in New Rochelle, and I reached home tired,
but enthusiastic.
"John," said Clara J. when we were alone after dinner, "Uncle Peter
says if you will let him have that $5,000 by Thursday or Friday he
will invest it where the returns will be enormous!"
"Sure," I answered, and I could feel my ears getting pale; "I'll
hand it over to him Thursday or Friday--if you think it's best not
to invest it in that new house."
"Oh! I really do!" she hurried back. "You know Uncle Peter is so
careful and so clever with his investments. He told me in
strictest confidence only this morning that he would more than
double your money in six months. Isn't that perfectly splendid!"
"Is that the wonderful secret you threatened me with?" I asked
mournfully.
"Oh no!" she replied; "I can't tell you that till Wednesday
evening--I promised not to."
I guess I didn't sleep very well that night, for I had dreams of
Uncle Peter chasing me with a club all over a theatre and making me
hop every seat in the orchestra, while Ma'moiselle Dodo sat perched
on the balcony rail and screamed, "You betcher sweet!"