"Just my notion," says he. "In fact I am so interested in seeing that
Langdon gets it that I am quite willing to pay something extra for----"
"You don't have to," says I. "I'm almost willin' to do the payin'
myself."
That pleases Pembroke so much he has to stop right in his tracks and
shake hands. Funny, ain't it, how you can get to be such good friends
with anyone so sudden? We walks thirty blocks, chinnin' like brothers,
and when we stops on the corner of 42d I've got the whole story of maw
and Langdon, with some of Pembroke's hist'ry thrown in.
It was just a plain case of mother bein' used as a doormat by her dear,
darling boy. She was more or less broke in to it, for it seems that
the late departed had been a good deal of a rough houser in his day,
havin' been about as gentle in his ways as a 'Leventh-ave. bartender
entertainin' the Gas House Gang. He hadn't much more'n quit the game,
though, before Langdon got big enough to carry out the program, and
he'd been at it ever since.
As near as I could figure, Pembroke was a boyhood friend of maw's.
He'd missed his chance of bein' anything nearer, years ago, but was
still anxious to try again. But it didn't look like there'd be any
weddin' bells for him until Langdon either got his neck broke or was
put away for life. Pemby wa'n't soured, though. He talked real nice
about it. He said he could see how much maw thought of Langdon, and it
showed what good stuff she was made of, her stickin' to the boy until
he'd settled on something, or something had settled on him. Course, he
thought it was about time she had a let up and was treated white for
awhile.
Accordin' to the hints he dropped, I suspicions that Pembroke would
have ranked her A-1 in the queen class, and I gathers that the size of
her bank account don't cut any ice in this deal, him havin' more or
less of a surplus himself. I guess he'd been a patient waiter; but
he'd set his hopes hard on engagin' the bridal state room for a spring
trip to Europe.
It all comes back, though, to what could be done with Langdon, and that
was where the form sheet wa'n't any help. There's a million or so left
in trust for him; but he don't get it until he's twenty-five.
Meantime, it was a question of how you're goin' to handle a youngster
that's inherited the instincts of a truck driver and the income of a
bank president.
"It's a pity, too," says Pembroke. "He hasn't any vicious habits, he's
rather bright, and if he could be started right he would make quite a
man, even now. He needs to be caged up somewhere long enough to' have
some of the bully knocked out of him. I'm hoping you can do a little
along that line."
"Too big a contract," says I. "All I want is to make his ears buzz a
little, just as a comeback for a few of them grunts he chucked at me."
And who do you suppose showed up at the Studio next forenoon? Him and
maw; she smilin' all over and tickled to death to think she'd got him
there; Langdon actin' like a bear with a sore ear.
"Maybe you hadn't better wait," says I to her.
"Oh, yes," says she. "I am going to stay and watch dear Langdon box,
you know."
Well, unless I ruled her out flat, there was no way of changin' her
mind; so I had to let her stay. And she saw Langdon box. Oh, yes!
For an amateur, he puts up a fairly good exhibition, and as I didn't
have the heart to throw the hook into him with her sittin' there
lookin' so cheerful, about all I does is step around and block his
swings and jabs. And say, with him carryin' his guard high, and
leavin' the way to his meat safe open half the time, it was all I could
do to hold myself back.
The only fun I gets is watchin' Swifty Joe's face out of the corner of
my eye. He was pipin' us off from the start. First his mouth comes
open a foot or so as he sees me let a chance slide, and when I misses
more openin's he takes on a look like some one had fed him a ripe egg.
Langdon is havin' the time of his life. He can hit as hard as he
likes, and he don't get hit back. Must have seemed real homelike to
him. Anyway, soon's he dopes it out that there ain't any danger at
all, he bores in like a snow plough, and between blockin' and duckin' I
has my hands full.
Just how Langdon has it sized up I couldn't make out; but like as not I
made somethin' of a hit with him. I put it down that way when he shows
up one afternoon with his bubble, and offers to take me for a spin. It
was so unexpected to find him tryin' to do somethin' agreeable that I
don't feel like I ought to throw him down. So I pulls on a sweater and
climbs in next to the steerin' wheel.
There wa'n't anything fancy about Langdon's oil waggon. He'd had the
tonneau stripped off, and left just the front seat--no varnished wood,
only a coat of primin' paint and a layer of mud splashed over that.
But we hadn't gone a dozen blocks before I am wise to the fact that
nothin' was the matter with the cog wheels underneath.
"Kind of a high powered cart, ain't it?" says I.
"Only ninety horse," says Langdon, jerkin' us around a Broadway car so
fast that we grazed both ends at once.
"You needn't hit 'er up on my account," says I, as we scoots across the
Plaza, makin' a cab horse stand on his hind legs to give us room.
"I'm only on the second speed," says he. "Wait," and he does some
monkeyin' with the lever.
Maybe it was Central Park; but it seemed to me like bein' shot through
a Christmas wreath, and the next thing I knows we're tearin' up
Amsterdam-ave. Say, I can see 'em yet, them folks and waggons and
things we missed--women holdin' kids by the hand, old ladies steppin'
out of cars, little girls runnin' across the street with their arms
full of bundles, white wings with their dust cans, and boys with
delivery carts. Sometimes I'd just shut my eyes and listen for the
squashy sound, and when it didn't come I'd open 'em and figure on what
would happen if I should reach out and get Langdon's neck in the crook
of my arm.
And it wa'n't my first fast ride in town, either. But I'd never been
behind the lamps when a two-ton machine was bein' sent at a fifty-mile
clip up a street crowded with folks that had almost as much right to be
livin' as we did.
It was a game that suited Langdon all right, though. He's squattin'
behind the wheel bareheaded, with his ketchup tinted hair plastered
back by the wind, them purple eyes shut to a squint, his under jaw
stuck out, and a kind of half grin--if you could call it
that--flickerin' on and off his thick lips. I don't wonder men shook
their fists at us and women turned white and sick as we cleared 'em by
the thickness of a sheet of paper. I expect we left a string of cuss
words three blocks long.
I don't know how far we went, or where. It was all a nightmare to me,
just a string of gasps and visions of what would be in the papers next
day, after the coroner's jury got busy. But somehow we got through
without any red on the tires, and pulls up in front of the Studio. I
didn't jump out in a hurry, like I wanted to. I needed a minute to
think, for it seemed to me something was due some one.
"Nice little plaything you've got here," says I. "And that was a great
ride. But sittin' still so long has kind of cramped my legs. Don't
feel like limberin' up a bit with the mitts, do you?"
"I'd just as soon," says Langdon.
I was tryin' not to look the way I felt; but when we'd sent Swifty down
to sit in the machine, and I'd got Langdon peeled off and standin' on
the mat, with the spring lock snapped between him and the outside door,
it seemed too good to be true. I'd picked out an old set of gloves
that had the hair worked away from the knuckles some, for I wa'n't
plannin' on any push ball picnic this time.
Just to stir his fightin' blood, and partly so I could be sure I had a
good grip on my own temper, I let him get in a few facers on me. Then
I opens up with the side remarks I'd been thinkin' over.
"Say, Langy," says I, sidesteppin' one of his swings for my jaw,
"s'posin' you'd hit some of them people, eh? S'posin' that car of
yours had caught one of them old women--biff!--like that?" and I lets
go a jolt that fetches him on the cheek bone.
"Ugh!" says Langdon, real surprised. But he shakes his head and comes
back at me.
"Ever stop to think," says I, "how one of them kids would look after
you'd got him--so?" and I shoots the left into that bull neck of his.
"S-s-s-say!" sputters Langdon. "What do you think you're doing,
anyway?"
"Me?" says I. "I'm tryin' to get a few points on the bubble business.
Is it more fun to smash 'em in the ribs--bang!--like that? Or to slug
'em in the head--biff!--so? That's right, son; come in for more. It's
waitin'. There! Jarred your nut a bit, that one did, eh? Yes, here's
the mate to it. There's plenty more on tap. Oh, never mind the nose
claret. It'll wipe off. Keep your guard up. Careful, now! You're
swingin' wide. And, as I was sayin'--there, you ran into that
one--this bubble scorchin' must be great sport. When you
don't--biff!--get 'em--biff! you can scare 'em to death, eh? Wabbly on
your feet, are you? That's the stuff! Keep it up. That eye's all
right. One's all you need to see with. Gosh! Now you've got a pair
of 'em."
If it hadn't been for his comin' in so ugly and strong I never could
have done it. I'd have weakened and let up on him long before he'd got
half what was owin'. But he was bound to have it all, and there's no
sayin' he wa'n't game about it. At the last I tried to tell him he'd
had enough; but as long as he could keep on his pins he kept hopin' to
get in just one on me; so I finally has to drop him with a stiff one
behind the ear.
Course, if we'd had ring gloves on he'd looked like he'd been on the
choppin' block; but with the pillows you can't get hurt bad. Inside of
ten minutes I has him all washed off and up in a chair, lookin' not
much worse than before, except for the eye swellin's. And what do you
guess is the first thing he does?
"Say, McCabe," says he, shovin' out his paw, "you're all right, you
are."
"So?" says I. "If I thought you was any judge that might carry weight."
"I know," says he. "Nobody likes me."
"Oh, well," says I, "I ain't rubbin' it in. I guess there's white
spots in you, after all; even if you do keep 'em covered."
He pricks up his ears at that, and wants to know how and why. Almost
before I knows it we've drifted into a heart to heart talk that a half
hour before I would have said couldn't have happened. Langdon ain't
turned cherub; but he's a whole lot milder, and he takes in what I've
got to say as if it was a bulletin from headquarters.
"That's all so," says he. "But I've got to do something. Do you know
what I'd like best?"
I couldn't guess.
"I'd like to be in the navy and handle one of those big thirteen-inch
guns," says he.
"Why not, then?" says I.
"I don't know how to get in," says he. "I'd go in a minute, if I did."
"You're as good as there now, then," says I. "There's a recruitin'
office around on Sixth-ave., not five blocks from here, and the
Lieutenant's somethin' of a friend of mine. Is it a go?"
"It is," says Langdon.
Hanged if he didn't mean it too, and before he can change his mind
we've had the papers all made out.
In the mornin' I 'phones Pembroke, and he comes around to lug me up
while he breaks the news to maw; for he says she'll need a lot of
calmin' down. I was lookin' for nothin' less than cat fits, too. But
say, she don't even turn on the sprayer.
"The navy!" says she. "Why, how sweet! Oh, I'm so glad! Won't
Langdon make a lovely officer?"
I don't know how it's goin' to work out; but there's one sure thing:
it'll be some time before Langdon'll be pestered any more by the
traffic cops.
And, now that the state room's engaged, you ought to see how well
Pembroke is standin' the blow.
XV
SHORTY'S GO WITH ART
When me and art gets into the ring together, you might as well burn the
form sheet and slip the band back on your bettin' roll, for there's no
tellin' who'll take the count.
It was Cornelia Ann that got me closer to art than I'd ever been
before, or am like to get again. Now, I didn't hunt her up, nor she
didn't come gunnin' for me. It was a case of runnin' down signals and
collidin' on the stair landin'; me makin' a grand rush out of the
Studio for a cross town car, and she just gettin' her wind 'fore she
tackled the next flight.
Not that I hit her so hard; but it was enough to spill the paper
bundles she has piled up on one arm, and start 'em bouncin' down the
iron steps. First comes a loaf of bread; next a bottle of pickles,
that goes to the bad the third hop; and exhibit C was one of these
ten-cent dishes of baked beans--the pale kind, that look like they'd
floated in with the tide. Course, that dinky tin pan they was in don't
land flat. It slips out of the bag as slick as if it was greased,
stands up on edge, and rolls all the way down, distributin' the mess
from top to bottom, as even as if it was laid on with a brush.
"My luncheon!" says she, in a reg'lar me-che-e-ild voice.
"Lunch!" says I. "That's what I'd call a spread. This one's on the
house, but the next one will be on me. Will to-morrow do?"
"Ye-es," says she.
"Sorry," says I, "but I'm runnin' behind sched. now. What's the name,
miss?"
"C. A. Belter, top floor," says she; "but don't mind about----"
"That'll be all right, too," says I, skippin' down over the broken
glass and puntin' the five-cent white through the door for a goal.
It's little things like that, though, that keeps a man from forgettin'
how he was brought up. I'm ready enough with some cheap jolly, but
when it comes to throwin' in a "beg pardon" at the right place I'm a
late comer. I thinks of 'em sometime next day.
Course, I tries to get even by orderin' a four-pound steak, with
mushroom trimmin's, sent around from the hotel on the corner; but I
couldn't get over thinkin' how disappointed she looked when she saw
that pan of beans doin' the pinwheel act. I know I've seen the time
when a plate of pork-and in my fist would have been worth all the
turkey futures you could stack in a barn, and maybe it was that way
with her.
Anyway, she didn't die of it, for a couple of days later she knocks
easy on the Studio door and gets her head in far enough to say how nice
it was of me to send her that lovely steak.
"Forget it," says I.
"Never," says she. "I'm going to do a bas relief of you, in memory of
it."
"A barrel which?" says I.
Honest, I wa'n't within a mile of bein' next. It comes out that she
does sculpturing and wants to make a kind of embossed picture of me in
plaster of paris, like what the peddlers sell around on vacant stoops.
"I'd look fine on a panel, wouldn't I?" says I. "Much obliged, miss,
but sittin' for my halftone is where I draws the line. I'll lend you
Swifty Joe, though."
She ain't acquainted with the only registered assistant professor of
physical culture in the country, but she says if he don't mind she'll
try her hand on him first, and then maybe I'll let her do one of me.
Now, you'd thought Swifty, with that before-takin' mug of his, would
have hid in the cellar 'fore he'd let anybody make a cast of it; but
when the proposition is sprung, he's as pleased as if it was for the
front page of Fox's pink.
That was what fetched me up to that seven by nine joint of hers, next
the roof, to have a look at what she'd done to Swifty Joe. He tows me
up there. And say, blamed if she hadn't got him to the life, broken
nose, ingrowin' forehead, whopper jaw, and all!
"How about it?" says Joe, grinnin' at me as proud as if he'd broke into
the Fordham Heights Hall of Fame.
"I never see anything handsomer--of the kind," says I.
Then I got to askin' questions about the sculpturin' business, and how
the market was; so Miss Belter and me gets more or less acquainted.
She was a meek, slimpsy little thing, with big, hungry lookin' eyes,
and a double hank of cinnamon coloured hair that I should have thought
would have made her neck ache to carry around.
Judgin' by the outfit in her ranch, the sculp-game ain't one that
brings in sable lined coats and such knickknacks. There was a bed
couch in one corner, a single burner gas stove on an upended trunk in
another, and chunks of clay all over the place. Light housekeepin' and
art don't seem to mix very well. Maybe they're just as tasty, but I'd
as soon have my eggs cooked in a fryin' pan that hadn't been used for a
mortar bed.
We passed the time of day reg'lar after that, and now and then she'd
drop into the front office to show me some piece she'd made. I finds
out that the C. A. in her name stands for Cornelia Ann; so I drops the
Miss Belter and calls her that.
"Father always calls me that, too," says she.
"Yes?" says I.
That leads up to the story of how the old folks out in Minnekeegan have
been backin' her for a two years' stab at art in a big city. Seems it
has been an awful drain on the fam'ly gold reserve, and none of 'em
took any stock in such foolishness anyway, but she'd jollied 'em into
lettin' her have a show to make good, and now the time was about up.
"Well," says I, "you ain't all in, are you?"
Her under lip starts to pucker up at that, and them hungry eyes gets
foggy; but she takes a new grip on herself, makes a bluff at grinnin',
and says, throaty like, "It's no use pretending any longer, I--I'm a
failure!"
Say, that makes me feel like an ice cream sign in a blizzard. I hadn't
been lookin' to dig up any private heart throbs like that. But there
it was; so I starts in to cheer her up the best I knew how.
"Course," says I, "it's a line I couldn't shake a nickel out of in a
year; but if it suited me, and I thought I was onto my job, I'd make it
yield the coin, or go good and hungry tryin'."
"Perhaps I have gone hungry," says she, quiet like.
"Honest?" says I.
"That steak lasted me for a week," says she.
There was more particulars followed that throws Cornelia Ann on the
screen in a new way for me. Grit! Why, she had enough to sand a
tarred roof. She'd lived on ham knuckles and limed eggs and Swiss
cheese for months. She'd turned her dresses inside out and upside
down, lined her shoes with paper when it was wet, and wore a long
sleeved shirt waist when there wa'n't another bein' used this side of
the prairies. And you can judge what that means by watchin' the women
size each other up in a street car.
"If they'd only given me half a chance to show what I could do!" says
she. "But I didn't get the chance, and perhaps it was my fault. So
what's the use? I'll just pack up and go back to Minnekeegan."
"Minnekeegan!" says I. "That sounds tough. What then?"
"Oh," says she, "my brother is foreman in a broom factory. He will get
me a job at pasting labels."
"Say," says I, gettin' a quick rush of blood to the head, "s'posen I
should contract for a full length of Swifty Joe to hang here in----"
"No you don't!" says she, edgin' off. "It's good of you, but charity
work isn't what I want."
Say, it wa'n't any of my funeral, but that broom fact'ry proposition
stayed with me quite some time. The thoughts of anyone havin' to go
back to a place with a name like Minnekeegan was bilious enough; but
for a girl that had laid out to give Macmonnies a run for the gold
medal, the label pastin' prospect must have loomed up like a bad dream.
There's one good thing about other folks's troubles though--they're
easy put on the shelf. Soon's I gets to work I forgets all about
Cornelia Ann. I has to run out to Rockywold that afternoon, to put Mr.
Purdy Pell through his reg'lar course of stunts that he's been takin'
since some one told him he was gettin' to be a forty-fat. There was a
whole bunch of swells on hand; for it's gettin' so, now they can go and
come in their own tourin' cars, that winter house parties are just as
common as in summer.
"Thank heaven you've come!" says Mr. Pell. "It gives me a chance to
get away from cards for an hour or so."
"Guess you need it," says I. "You look like the trey of spades."
Then Pinckney shows up in the gym., and he no sooner sees us at work
with the basket ball than he begins to peel off. "I say there!" says
he. "Count me in on some of that, or I'll be pulled into another
rubber."
About an hour later, after they'd jollied me into stayin' all night, I
puts on a sweater and starts out for some hoof exercise in the young
blizzard that was makin' things white outside. Sadie holds me up at
the door. Her cheeks was blazin', and I could see she was holdin' the
Sullivan temper down with both hands.
"Hello!" says I. "What's been stirrin' you up?"
"Bridge!" snaps she. "I guess if you'd been glared at for two hours,
and called stupid when you lost, and worse names when you won, you'd
feel like throwing the cards at some one."
"Well, why didn't you?" says I.
"I did," says she, "and there's an awful row on; but I don't care! And
if you don't stop that grinnin', I'll----"
Well, she does it. That's the way with Sadie, words is always too slow
for her. Inside of a minute she's out chasin' me around the front yard
and peltin' me with snow balls.
"See here," says I, diggin' a hunk of snow out of one ear, "that kind
of sport's all to the merry; but if I was you I'd dress for the part.
Snowballin' in slippers and silk stockin's and a lace dress is a
pneumonia bid, even if you are such a warm one on top."
"Who's a red head?" says she. "You just wait a minute, Shorty McCabe,
and I'll make you sorry for that!"
It wa'n't a minute, it was nearer fifteen; but when Sadie shows up
again she's wearin' the slickest Canuck costume you ever see, all
blanket stripes and red tassels, like a girl on a gift calendar.
"Whe-e-e!" says she, and the snow begins to fly in chunks. It was the
damp, packy kind that used to make us go out and soak the tall hats
when we was kids. And Sadie hasn't forgot how to lam 'em in, either.
We was havin' it hot and lively, all over the lawn, when the first
thing I knows out comes Mrs. Purdy Pell and Pinckney and a lot of
others, to join in the muss. They'd dragged out a whole raft of
toboggan outfits from the attic, and the minute they gets 'em on they
begins to act as coltish as two-year-olds.
Well say, you wouldn't have thought high rollers like them, that gets
their fun out of playin' the glass works exhibit at the op'ra, and
eatin' one A. M. suppers at Sherry's, and doublin' no trumps at a
quarter a point, could unbuckle enough to build snow forts, and yell
like Indians, and cut up like kids generally. But they does--washed
each other's faces, and laughed and whooped it up until dark. Didn't
need the dry Martinis to jolly up appetites for that bunch when dinner
time come, and if there was anyone awake in Rockywold after ten o'clock
that night it was the butler and the kitchen help.
I looked for 'em to forget it all by mornin' and start in again on
their punky card games; but they was all up bright and early, plannin'
out new stunts. There'd been a lot of snow dropped durin' the night,
and some one gets struck with the notion that buildin' snow men would
be the finest sport in the world. They couldn't hardly wait to eat
breakfast before they gets on their blanket clothes and goes at it.
They was rollin' up snow all over the place, as busy as
'longshoremen--all but Pinckney. He gives out that him and me has been
appointed an art committee, to rake in an entrance fee of ten bones
each and decide who gets the purse for doin' the best job.
"G'wan!" says I. "I couldn't referee no such fool tournament as this."
"That's right, be modest!" says he. "Don't mind our feelings at all."
Then Sadie and Mrs. Pell butts in and says I've just got to do it; so I
does. We gives 'em so long to pile up their raw material, and half an
hour after that to carve out what they thinks they can do best, nothin'
barred. Some starts in on Teddy bears, one gent plans out a cop; but
the most of 'em don't try anything harder'n plain snow men, with lumps
of coal for eyes, and pipes stuck in to finish off the face.
It was about then that Count Skiphauser moves out of the background and
begins to play up strong. He's one of these big, full blooded pretzels
that's been everywhere, and seen everything, and knows it all, and
thinks there ain't anything but what he can do a little better'n
anybody else.
"Oh, well," says he, "I suppose I must show you what snow carving
really is. I won a prize for this sort of thing in Berlin, you know."
"It's all over now," says I to Pinckney. "You heard Skippy pickin'
himself for a winner, didn't you?"
"He's a bounder," says Pinckney, talkin' corner-wise--"lives on his
bridge and poker winnings. He mustn't get the prize."
But Skiphauser ain't much more'n blocked out a head and shoulders 'fore
it was a cinch he was a ringer, with nothin' but a lot of rank amateurs
against him. Soon's the rest saw what they was up against they all
laid down, for he was makin' 'em look like six car fares. Course,
there wa'n't nothin' to do but join the gallery and watch him win in a
walk.