snakes, you know--can't get along without them. But they must be big
ones--spotted, rings around them, and all that."
"Gee!" says I. "Vally's snake tastes must be educated 'way up! Guess
you'll have to give in your order down at Lefty White's."
"And where is that?" says he.
"William street, near the bridge," says I. "Don't you know about
Lefty's?"
Well, he didn't; hadn't ever been below the bridge on the East Side in
his life; and wouldn't I please come along, if I could spare the time.
So I climbs in alongside Purdy and the cane, and off we goes down town,
at the rate of a dollar 'n' a half an hour. I hadn't got out more'n
two questions 'fore Purdy cuts loose with the story of his life.
"It's almost the same as asking me to choose my lot in the cemetery,"
says he, "this notion of Aunt Isabella's for sending me out to buy
snakes."
"I thought it was Valentine they was for?" says I. "Where does he come
in?"
That fetches us to Chapter One, which begins with Aunt Isabella. It
seems that some time back, after she'd planted one hubby in Ohio and
another in Greenwood, and had pinned 'em both down secure with cut
granite slabs, aunty had let herself go for another try. This time she
gets an Englishman. He couldn't have been very tough, to begin with,
for he didn't last long. Neither did a brother of his; although you
couldn't lay that up against Isabella, as brother in law got himself
run over by a train. About all he left was a couple of
fourteen-year-old youngsters stranded in a boarding school. That was
Purdy and Valentine, and they was only half brothers at that, with
nobody that they could look up to for anything more substantial than
sympathy. So it was up to the step-aunt to do the rescue act.
Well, Isabella has accumulated all kinds of dough; but she figures out
that the whole of one half brother was about all she wanted as a
souvenir to take home from dear old England. She looks the two of 'em
over for a day, tryin' to decide which to take, and then Purdy's
'lasses coloured hair wins out against Valentine's brick dust bangs.
She finds a job for Vally, a place where he can almost earn a livin',
gives him a nice new prayer book and her blessin', and cuts him adrift
in the fog. Then she grabs Purdy by the hand and catches the next boat
for New York.
From then on it's all to the downy for Purdy, barrin' the fact that the
old girl's more or less tryin' to the nerves. She buys herself a
double breasted house just off the avenue, gives Purdy the best there
is goin', and encourages him to be as ladylike as he knows how.
And say, what would you expect? I'd hate to think of what I'd be now
if I'd been brought up on a course of dancin' school, music lessons,
and Fauntleroy suits. What else was there for Purdy to do but learn to
drink tea with lemon in it, and lead cotillions? Aunt Isabella's been
takin' on weight and losin' her hearin'. When she gets so that she
can't eat chicken salad and ice cream at one A. M. without rememberin'
it for three days, and she has to buy pearls to splice out her
necklace, and have an extra wide chair put in her op'ra box, she begins
to sour on the merry-merry life, scratches half the entries on her
visitin' list, and joins old lady societies that meet once a month in
the afternoon.
"Of course," says Purdy, "I had no objection to all that. It was
natural. Only after she began to bring Anastasia around, and hint very
plainly what she expected me to do, I began to get desperate."
"Stashy wa'n't exactly your idea of a pippin, eh?" says I.
That was what. Accordin' to Purdy's shorthand notes, Stashy was one of
these square chinned females that ought to be doin' a weight liftin'
act with some tent show. But she wa'n't. She had too much out at
int'rest for that, and as she didn't go in for the light and frivolous
she has to have something to keep her busy. So she starts out as a
lady preventer. Gettin' up societies to prevent things was her fad.
She splurges on 'em, from the kind that wants to put mufflers on
steamboat whistles, to them that would like to button leggins on the
statues of G. Wash. For all that, though, she thinks it's her duty to
marry some man and train him, and between her and Aunt Isabella they'd
picked out Purdy for the victim.
"While you'd gone and tagged some pink and white, mink lined Daisy
May?" says I.
"I hadn't thought about getting married at all," says Purdy.
"Then you might's well quit squirmin'," says I. "If you've got two of
that kind plannin' out your future, there ain't any hope."
Then we gets down to Valentine, the half brother that has been cut
loose. Just as Purdy has given it to aunty straight that he'd rather
drop out of two clubs and have his allowance cut in half, than tie up
to any such tailor made article as Anastasia, and right in the middle
of Aunt Isabella's gettin' purple faced and puffy eyed over it, along
comes a lengthy letter from Valentine.
It ain't any hard luck wheeze, either. He's no hungry prod., Vally
ain't. He's been doin' some tall climbin', all these years that
Purdy's been collectin' pearl stick pins and gold cigarette cases, and
changin' his clothes four times a day. Vally has jumped from one job
to another, played things clear across the board and the ends against
the middle, chased the pay envelope almost off the edge of the map, and
finished somewhere on the east coast of Africa, where he bosses a
couple of hundred coloured gentlemen in the original package, and makes
easy money by bein' agent for a big firm of London iv'ry importers.
He'd been makin' a trip to headquarters with a cargo, and was on his
way back to the iv'ry fields, when the notion struck him to stop off in
New York and say howdy to Aunt Isabella and Brother Purd.
"And she hasn't talked about anything but Valentine since," says Purdy.
"It's Vally's turn to be it; eh?" says I.
"You'd think so if you could hear them," says he. "Anastasia is just
as enthusiastic."
"You ain't gettin' jealous, are you?" says I.
Purdy unreefs the sickliest kind of a grin you ever saw. "I was as
pleased as anyone," says he, "until I found out the whole of Aunt
Isabella's plan."
And say, it was a grand right and left that she'd framed up. Matin'
Stashy up with Valentine instead of Purdy was only part. Her idea was
to induce Vally to settle down with her, and ship Purdy off to look
after the iv'ry job.
"Only fancy!" says Purdy. "It's a place called Bombazoula! Why, you
can't even find it on the chart. I'd die if I had to live in such a
dreadful place."
"Is it too late to get busy and hand out the hot air to Stashy?" says
I. "Looks to me like it was either you for her, or Bombazoula for you."
"Don't!" says Purdy, and he shivers like I'd slipped an icicle down his
back. Honest, he was takin' it so hard I didn't have the heart to rub
it in.
"Maybe Valentine'll renig--who knows?" says I. "He may be so stuck on
Africa that she can't call him off."
"Oh, Aunt Isabella has thought of that," says he. "She is so provoked
with me that she will do everything to make him want to stay; and if I
remember Valentine, he'll be willing. Besides, who would want to live
in Africa when they could stop in New York? But I do think she might
have sent some one else after those snakes."
"Oh, yes!" says I. "I'd clean forgot about them. Where do they figure
in this?"
"Decoration," says Purdy. "In my old rooms too!"
Seems that Stashy and aunty had been reading up on Bombazoula, and
they'd got it down fine. Then they turns to and lays themselves out to
fix things up for Valentine so homelike and comfortable that, even if
he was ever so homesick for the jungle, like he wrote he was, he
wouldn't want to go any farther.
First they'd got a lot of big rubber trees and palms, and filled the
rooms full of 'em, with the floors covered with stage grass, and half a
dozen grey parrots to let loose. They'd even gone so far as to try to
hire a couple of fake Zulus from a museum to come up and sing the
moonrise song; so's Vally wouldn't be bothered about goin' to sleep
night. The snakes twinin' around the rubber trees was to add the
finishin' touch. Course, they wanted the harmless kind, that's had
their stingers cut out; but snakes of some sort they'd just got to
have, or else they knew it wouldn't seem like home to Valentine.
"Just as though I cared whether he is going to feel at home or not!"
says Purdy, real pettish. "By, Jove, Shorty! I've half a mind not to
do it. So there!"
"Gee!" says I. "I wouldn't have your temper for anything. Shall we
signal the driver to do a pivot and head her north?"
"N-n-n-o," says Purdy, reluctant.
And right there I gets a seventh son view of Aunt Isabella crackin' the
checkbook at Purdy, and givin' him the cold spine now and then by
threatenin' to tear up the will. From that on I feels different
towards him. He'd got to a point where it was either please Aunt
Isabella, or get out and hustle; and how to get hold of real money
except by shovin' pink slips at the payin' teller was part of his
education that had been left out. He was up against it for fair.
"Say, Purdy," says I, "I don't want to interfere in any family matters;
but since you've put it up to me, let me get this chunk of advice off
my mind: Long's you've got to be nice to aunty or go on a snowball
diet, I'd be nice and do it as cheerful as I could."
Purdy thinks that over for a minute or so. Then he raps his cane on
the rubber mat, straightens up his shoulders, and says, "By Jove, I'll
do it! I'll get the snakes!"
That wa'n't so easy, though, as I'd thought. Lefty White says he's
sorry, but he runs a mighty small stock of snakes in winter. He's got
a fine line of spring goods on the way, though, and if we'll just leave
our order----
"Ah, say, Lefty!" says I. "You give me shootin' pains. Here I goes
and cracks up your joint as a first class snakery and all you can show
is a few angleworms in bottles and a prospectus of what you'll have
next month."
"Stuffed ones wouldn't do, eh?" says he.
"Why not?" says I.
Purdy wa'n't sure, but he thought he'd take a chance on 'em; so we
picked out three of the biggest and spottedest ones in the shop, and
makes Lefty promise to get 'em up there early next forenoon, for
Valentine was due to show up by dinner time next night.
On the way back we talks it over some more, and I tries to chirk Purdy
up all I could; for every time he thinks of Bombazoula he has a
shiverin' fit that nearly knocks him out.
"I could never stand it to go there," says he--"never!"
"Here, here!" says I. "That's no way to meet a thing like this. What
you want to do is to chuck a bluff. Jump right into this reception
business with both feet and let on you're tickled to death with the
prospect. Aunty won't take half the satisfaction in shunting you off
to the monkey woods if she thinks you want to go."
Beats all what a little encouragement will do for some folks. By the
time Purdy drops me at the Studio he's feelin' a whole lot better, and
is prepared to give Vally the long lost brother grip when he comes.
But I was sorry for Purdy just the same. I could see him, over there
at Bombazoula, in a suit of lavender pajamas, tryin' to organise a
cotillion with a lot of heavy weight brunettes, wearin' brass rings in
their noses and not much else. And all next day I kept wonderin' if
Aunt Isabella's scheme was really goin' to pan. So, when Purdy rushes
in about four o'clock, and wants me to come up and take a look at the
layout, I was just about ripe for goin' to see the show.
"But I hope we can shy aunty," says I. "Sometimes I get along with
these old battle axes first rate, and then again I don't; and what
little reputation you got left at home I don't want to queer."
"Oh, that will be all right," says Purdy. "She has heard of you from
Pinckney, and she knows about how you helped me to get the snakes."
"Did they fit in?" says I.
"Come up and see," says Purdy.
And it was worth the trip, just to get a view of them rooms. Nobody
but a batty old woman would have ever thought up so many jungle stunts
for the second floor of a brownstone front.
"There!" says Purdy. "Isn't that tropical enough?"
I took a long look. "Well," says I, "I've never been farther south
than Old Point, but I've seen such things pictured out before now, and
if I'm any judge, this throws up a section of the cannibal belt to the
life."
It did too. They had the dark shades pulled down, and the light was
kind of dim; but you could see that the place was chock full of ferns
and palms and such. The parrots was hoppin' around, and you could hear
water runnin' somewheres, and they'd trained them spotted snakes around
the rubber trees just as natural as if they'd crawled up there by
themselves.
While we was lookin' Aunt Isabella comes puffin' up the stairs.
"Isn't it just charming, Mr. McCabe?" says she, holdin' a hand up
behind one ear. "I can hardly wait for dear Valentine to come, I'm so
anxious to see how pleased he'll be. He just dotes on jungle life.
The dear boy! You must come up and take tea with him some afternoon.
He's a very shy, diffident little chap; but----"
At that the door bell starts ringin' like the house was afire, and
bang! bang! goes someone's fist on the outside panel. Course, we all
chases down stairs to see what's broke loose; but before we gets to the
front hall the butler has the door open, and in pushes a husky, red
whiskered party, wearin' a cloth cap, a belted ulster with four checks
to the square yard, and carryin' an extension leather bag about the
size of a small trunk, with labels pasted all over it.
"It's a blawsted shyme, that's w'at it is!" says he--"me p'yin' 'alf a
bob for a two shillin' drive. These cabbies of yours is a set of
bloomink 'iw'ymen!"
"What name, sir?" says the butler.
"Nime!" roars the whiskered gent. "I'm Valentine, that's who I am!
Tyke the luggage, you shiverin' pie face!"
"Oh, Valentine!" squeals Aunt Isabella, makin' a rush at him with her
arms out.
"Sheer off, aunty!" says he. "Cut out the bally tommyrot and let me
'ave a wash. And sye, send some beggar for the brandy and soda.
Where's me rooms?"
"I'll show you up, Valentine," chips in Purdy.
"'Ello! 'O's the little man?" says Vally. "Blow me if it ain't Purdy!
Trot along up, Purdy lad, and show me the digs."
Say, he was a bird, Vally was. He talks like a Cockney, acts like a
bounder, and looks 'em both.
Aunt Isabella has dropped on the hall seat, gaspin' for breath, the
butler is leanin' against the wall with his mouth open; so I grabs the
bag and starts up after the half brothers. Just by the peachblow tint
of Vally's nose I got the idea that maybe the most entertainin' part of
this whole program was billed to take place on the second floor.
"Here you are," says Purdy, swingin' open the door and shovin' him in.
"Aunt Isabella has fixed things up homelike for you, you see."
"And here's your trunk," says I. "Make yourself to home," and I shuts
him in to enjoy himself.
It took Valentine just about twenty seconds to size up the interior
decorations; for Purdy'd turned on the incandescents so's to give him a
good view, and that had stirred up the parrots some. What I was
waitin' for was for him to discover the spotted snakes. I didn't think
he could miss 'em, for they was mighty prominent. Nor he didn't. It
wasn't only us heard it, but everyone else on the block.
"Wow!" says he. "'Elp! 'Elp! Lemme out! I'm bein' killed!"
That was Valentine, bellerin' enough to take the roof off, and clawin'
around for the doorknob on the inside. He comes out as if he'd been
shot through a chute, his eyes stickin' out like a couple of peeled
onions, an' a grey parrot hangin' to one ear.
"What's the trouble?" says Purdy.
"Br-r-r!" says Valentine, like a clogged steam whistle. "Where's the
nearest 'orspital? I'm a sick man! Br-r-r-r!"
With that he starts down the stairs, takin' three at a time, bolts
through the front door, and makes a dash down the street, yellin' like
a kid when a fire breaks out.
Purdy and me didn't have any time to watch how far he went, for Aunt
Isabella had keeled over on the rug, the maid was havin' a fit in the
parlour, and the butler was fannin' himself with the card tray. We had
to use up all the alcohol and smellin' salts in the house before we
could bring the bunch around. When aunty's so she can hold her head up
and open her eyes, she looks about cautious, and whispers:
"Has--has he gone, Purdy, dear?"
Purdy says he has.
"Then," she says to me, "bolt that door, and never mention his name to
me again."
Everything's lovely now. Purdy's back to the downy, and Bombazoula's
wiped off the map for good.
And say! If you're lookin' for a set of jungle scenery and stuffed
snakes, I know where you can get a job lot for the askin'.
XIV
A HUNCH FOR LANGDON
Say, the longer I knocks around and the more kinds I meet, the slower I
am about sizin' folks up on a first view. I used to think there was
only two classes, them that was my kind and them that wa'n't; but I've
got over that. I don't try to grade 'em up any more; for they're built
on so many different plans it would take a card index the size of a
flat buildin' to keep 'em all on file. All I can make out is that
there's some good points about the worst of 'em, and some of the best
has their streak of yellow.
Anyway, I'm glad I ain't called on to write a tag for Langdon. First
news I had of him was what I took for inside information, bein' as it
was handed me by his maw. When I gets the note askin' me to call up in
the 70's between five and six I don't know whether it's a bid to a tea
fest or a bait for an auction. The stationery was real swell, though,
and the writin' was this up and down kind that goes with the gilt
crest. What I could puzzle out of the name, though, wa'n't familiar.
But I follows up the invite and takes a chance.
So about five-thirty I'm standin' outside the glass doors pushin' the
bell. A butler with boiled egg eyes looks me over real frosty from
behind the lace curtains; but the minute I says I'm Shorty McCabe he
takes off the tramp chain and says, "Yes, sir. This way, sir." I'm
towed in over the Persian hall runner to the back parlour, where
there's a lady and gent sittin' on opposite sides of the coal grate,
with a tea tray between 'em.
"I'll be drinkin' that stuff yet, if I ain't careful," thinks I.
But I didn't even have to duck. The lady was so anxious to get to
talkin' that she forgot to shove the cups at me, and the gent didn't
act like it was his say. It was hard to tell, the way she has the
lights fixed, whether she was twenty-five or fifty. Anyway, she hadn't
got past the kittenish stage. Some of 'em never does. She don't
overdo the thing, but just gushes natural; usin' her eyes, and
eyebrows, and the end of her nose, and the tip of her chin when she
spoke, as well as throwin' in a few shoulder lifts once in awhile.
"It's so good of you to come up, professor!" says she. "Isn't it,
Pembroke?"
Pembroke--he's the gent on the other side of the tray--starts to say
that it was, but she don't give him a chance. She blazes right ahead,
tellin' how she's heard of me and my Studio through friends, and the
minute she hears of it, she knows that nothing would suit Langdon
better. "Langdon's my son, you know," says she.
"Honest?" says I.
"Te-he!" says she. "How sweet of you! Hardly anyone believes it at
first, though. But he's a dear boy; isn't he, Pembroke?"
This was Pembroke's cue for fair. It's up to him to do the boost act.
But all he produces is a double barrelled blink from behind the
glasses. He's one of these chubby chaps, Pembroke is, especially
around the belt. He has pink cheeks, and a nice white forehead that
almost meets the back of his collar. But he knows when to let things
slide with a blink.
"I guess some one's been givin' you the wrong steer," says I. "I ain't
started any kindergarten class yet. The Y. M. C. A. does that sort
of----"
"Oh, dear! but Langdon isn't a child, you know," says the lady. "He's
a great big fellow, almost twenty-two. Yes, really. And I know you'll
get to be awfully fond of him. Won't he, Pembroke?"
"We-e-e-ell----" says Pembroke.
"Oh, he's bound to," says she. "Of course, Langdon doesn't always make
friends easily. He is so apt to be misunderstood. Why, they treated
him perfectly horrid at prep. school, and even worse at college. A lot
of the fellows, and, actually, some of the professors, were so rude to
him that Langdon said he just wouldn't stay another day! I told him I
didn't blame him a bit. So he came home. But it's awfully dull for a
young man like Langdon here in New York, you know."
"Crippled, or blind or something, is he?" says I.
"Who, Langdon? Why, he's perfect--absolutely perfect!" says she.
"Oh, that accounts for it," says I, and Pembroke went through some
motions with his cheeks like he was tryin' to blow soap bubbles up in
the air.
Well, it seems that mother has been worryin' a lot over keepin' Langdon
amused. Think of it, in a town like this!
"He detests business," says she, "and he doesn't care for theatres, or
going to clubs, or reading, or society. But his poor dear father
didn't care for any of those things either, except business. And
Langdon hasn't any head for that. All he takes an interest in is his
machine."
"Singer or Remington?" says I.
"Why, his auto, of course. He's perfectly devoted to that," says she;
"but the police are so dreadfully particular. Oh, they make such lots
of trouble for Langdon, and get him into such stupid scrapes. Don't
they, Pembroke?"
Pembroke didn't blink at that. He nods twice.
"It just keeps me worried all the time," she goes on. "It isn't that I
mind paying the absurd fines, of course; but--well, you can understand.
No one knows what those horrid officers will do next, they're so
unreasonable. Just think, that is the poor boy's only pleasure! So I
thought that if we could only get Langdon interested in something of an
athletic nature--he's a splendid boxer, you know--oh, splendid!"
"That's different," says I. "You might send him down a few times
and----"
"Oh, but I want you to meet him first," says she, "and arouse his
enthusiasm. He would never go if you didn't. I expect he will be in
soon, and then-- Why, that must be Langdon now!"
It might have been an axe brigade from the district attorney's office,
or a hook and ladder company, by the sound. I didn't know whether he
was comin' through the doors or bringin' 'em in with him. As I squints
around I sees the egg eyed butler get shouldered into the hall rack; so
I judges that Langdon must be in something of a hurry.
He gets over it, though, for he stamps into the middle of the room,
plants his feet wide apart, throws his leather cap with the goggles on
into a chair, and chucks one of them greasy bootleg gloves into the
middle of the tea tray.
"Hello, maw!" he growls. "Hello, Fatty! You here again?"
Playful little cuss, Langdon was. He's about five feet nine, short
necked, and broad across the chest. But he's got a nice face--for a
masked ball--eyes the colour of purple writin' ink, hair of a lovely
ripe tomato shade growin' down to a peak in front and standin' up stiff
and bristly; a corrugated brow, like a washboard; and an undershot jaw,
same's a bull terrier. Oh, yes, he was a dear boy, all right. In his
leggin's and leather coat he looks too cute for any use.
"Who's this?" says he, gettin' sight of me sittin' sideways on the
stuffed chair.
"Why, Langdon dear," says maw, "this is Professor McCabe. I was
speaking to you of him, you know."
He looks me over as friendly as if I was some yegg man that had been
hauled out of the coal cellar. "Huh!" says he. I've heard freight
engines coughin' up a grade make a noise a good deal like that.
Say, as a rule I ain't anxious to take on new people, and it's gettin'
so lately that we turn away two or three a week; but it didn't take me
long to make up my mind that I could find time for a session with
Langdon, if he wanted it.
"Your maw says you do a little boxin'?" says I, smooth and soothin'.
"What of it?" says he.
"Well," says I, "down to my Studio we juggle the kid pillows once in
awhile ourselves, when we ain't doin' the wand drill, or playin' bean
bag."
"Huh!" says he once more.
For a parlour conversationalist, Langdon was a frost, and he has
manners that would turn a subway guard green. But maw jumps in with
enough buttered talk for both, and pretty soon she tells me that
Langdon's perfectly delighted and will be down next day.
"Me and Mr. Gallagher'll be on the spot," says I. "Good evenin',
ma'am."
At that Pembroke jumps up, makes a quick break away, and trails along
too, so we does a promenade together down West End-ave.
"Charming young fellow, eh?" says Pembroke.
"Sure!" says I. "But he hides it well."
"You think Langdon needs exercise?" says he.