ILLUSTRATIONS (continued 4)

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.

"Oh, it's a bust of Bismarck, isn't it?" says one of the women. "How clever of you, Count!"

At that Skippy throws out his chest and begins to chuck in the flourishes. That kind of business suited him down to the ground. He cocks his head on one side, twists up his lip whiskers like Billy the Tooth, and goes through all the motions of a man that knows he's givin' folks a treat.

"Hates himself, don't he?" says I. "He must have graduated from some tombstone foundry."

Pinckney was wild. So was Sadie and Mrs. Purdy Pell, on account of the free-for-all bein' turned into a game of solitaire.

"I just wish," says Sadie, "that there was some way of taking him down a peg. If I only knew of someone who——"

"I do, if you don't," says I.

Say, what do you reckon had been cloggin' my thought works all that time. I takes the three of 'em to one side and springs my proposition, tellin' 'em I'd put it through if they'd stand for it. Would they? They're so tickled they almost squeals.

I gets Swifty Joe at the Studio on the long distance and gives him his instructions. It was a wonder he got it straight, for sometimes you can't get an idea into his head without usin' a brace and bit, but this trip he shows up for a high brow. Pretty quick we gets word that it's all O. K. Pinckney bulletins it to the crowd that, while Sadie's pulled out of the competition, she's asked leave to put on a sub, and that the prize awardin' will be delayed until after the returns are all in.

Meantime I climbs into the sleigh and goes down to meet the express. Sure enough, Cornelia Ann was aboard, a bit hazy about the kind of a stunt that's expected of her, but ready for anything. I don't go into many details, for fear of givin' her stage fright; but I lets her know that if she's got any sculpturin' tricks up her sleeve now's the time to shake 'em out.

"I've been tellin' some friends of mine," says I, "that when it comes to clay art, or plaster of paris art, you was the real lollypop; and I reckoned that if you could do pieces in mud, you could do 'em just as well in snow."

"Snow!" says she. "Why, I never tried."

Maybe I'd banked too much on Cornelia, or perhaps she was right in sayin' this was out of her line. Anyway, it was a mighty disappointed trio that sized her up when I landed her under the porte cochère.

When she's run her eye over the size and swellness of the place I've brought her to, and seen a sample of the folks, she looks half scared to death. And you wouldn't have played her for a fav'rite, either, if you'd seen the cheap figure she cut, with them big eyes rollin' around, as if she was huntin' for the nearest way out. But we give her a cup of hot tea, makes her put on a pair of fleece lined overshoes and somebody's Persian lamb jacket, and leads her out to make a try for the championship.

Some of 'em was sorry of her, and tried to be sociable; but others just stood around and snickered and whispered things behind their hands. Honest, I could have thrown brickbats at myself for bein' such a mush head. That wouldn't have helped any though, so I gets busy and rolls together a couple of chunks of snow about as big as flour barrels and piles one on top of the other.

"It's up to you, Cornie," says I. "Can't you dig something or other out of that?"

She don't say whether she can or can't, but just walks around it two or three times, lookin' at it dreamy, like she was in a trance. Next she braces up a bit, calls for an old carvin' knife and a kitchen spoon, and goes to work, the whole push watchin' her as if she was some freak in a cage.

I pipes off her motions for awhile real hopeful, and then I edges out where I could look the other way. Why say, all she'd done was to hew out something that looks like a lot of soap boxes piled up for a bonfire. It was a case of funk, I could see that; and maybe I wa'n't feelin' like I'd carried a gold brick down to the subtreasury and asked for the acid test.

Then I begins to hear the "Oh's!" and "Ah's!" come from the crowd. First off I thought they was guyin' her, but when I strolls back near enough for a peek at what she was up to, my mouth comes open, too. Say, you wouldn't believe it less'n you'd seen it done, but she was just fetchin' out of that heap of snow, most as quick and easy as if she was unpackin' it from a crate, the stunningest lookin' altogether girl that I ever see outside a museum.

I don't know who it was supposed to be, or why. She's holdin' up with one hand what draperies she's got—which wa'n't any too many—an' with the other she's reachin' above her head after somethin' or other—maybe the soap on the top shelf. But she was a beaut, all right. And all Cornelia was doin' to bring her out was just slashin' away careless with the knife and spoon handle, hardly stoppin' a second between strokes. She simply had 'em goggle eyed. I reckon they'd seen things just as fine and maybe better, but they hadn't had a front seat before, while a little ninety-pound cinnamon top like Cornelia Ann stepped up and yanked a whitewashed angel out of a snow heap.

"It's wonderful!" says Mrs. Purdy Pell.

"Looks to me like we had Skippy fingerin' the citrus, don't it?" says I.

The Count he's been standin' there with his mouth open, like the rest of us, only growin' redder 'n' redder.

But just then Cornelia makes one last swipe, drops her tools, and steps back to take a view. We all quits to see what's comin' next. Well, she looks and looks at that Lady Reacher she's dug out, never sayin' a word; and before we knows it she's slumped right down there in the snow, with both hands over her face, doin' the weep act like a kid.

In two shakes it was Sadie and Mrs. Purdy Pell to the rescue, one on each side, while the rest of us gawps on and looks foolish.

"What is it, you poor darling?" says Sadie.

Finally, after a good weep, Cornie unloosens her trouble. "Oh, oh!" says she. "I just know it's going to rain to-morrow!"

Now wouldn't that give you a foolish fit?

"What of it?" says Sadie.

"That," says she, pointin' to the snow lady. "She'll be gone forever. Oh, it's wicked, wicked!"

"Well," says I, "she's too big to go in the ice box."

"Never mind, dear," says Mrs. Purdy Pell; "you shall stay right here and do another one, in solid marble. I'll give you a thousand for a duplicate of that."

"And then you must do something for me," says Sadie.

"And me, too," says Mrs. Dicky Madison.

I didn't wait to hear any more, for boostin' lady sculpturesses ain't my reg'lar work. But, from all I hear of Cornelia Ann, she won't paste labels in any broom fact'ry.

For your simple liver and slow quitter, art's all right; but it's a long shot, at that. What?

XVI

WHY FERDY DUCKED

Say, there's no tellin', is there? Sometimes the quietest runnin' bubbles blows up with the biggest bang. Now look at Ferdy. He was as retirin' and modest as a new lodge member at his first meetin'. Why, he's so anxious to dodge makin' a show of himself that when he comes here for a private course I has to lock the Studio door and post Swifty Joe on the outside to see that nobody butts in.

All the Dobsons is that way. They're the kind of folks that lives on Fifth-ave., with the front shades always pulled down, and they shy at gettin' their names in the papers like it was bein' served with a summons.

Course, they did have their dose of free advertisin' once, when that Tootsy Peroxide bobbed up and tried to break old Peter Dobson's will; but that case happened so long ago, and there's been so many like it since, that hardly anybody but the Dobsons remembers it. Must have been a good deal of a jolt at the time, though; for as far as I've seen, they're nice folks, and the real thing in the fat wad line, specially Ferdy. He's that genteel and refined he has to have pearl grey boxin' gloves to match his gym. suit.

Well, I wa'n't thinkin' any of him, or his set, havin' just had a session with a brewer's son that I've took on durin' the dull season, when I looks out into the front office and sees my little old Bishop standin' there moppin' his face.

"Hello, Bishop!" I sings out. "Thought you was in Newport, herdin' the flock."

"So I was, Shorty," says he, "until six hours ago. I came down to look for a stray lamb."

"Tried Wall Street?" says I.

"He is not that kind of a lamb," says the Bishop. "It is Ferdinand Dobson. Have you seen him recently?"

"What! Ferdy?" says I. "Not for weeks. They're all up at their Lenox place, ain't they?"

No, they wa'n't. And then the Bishop puts me next to a little news item that hadn't got into the society column yet. Ferdy, after gettin' to be most twenty-five, has been hooked. The girl's name was Alicia, and soon's I heard it I placed her, havin' seen her a few times at different swell ranches where I've been knockin' around in the background. As I remembers her, she has one of these long, high toned faces, and a shape to match—not what you'd call a neck twister, but somethin' real classy and high browed, just the sort you'd look for Ferdy to tag.

Seems they'd been doin' the lovey-dovey for more'n a year; but all on the sly, meetin' each other at afternoon teas, and now and then havin' a ten-minute hand holdin' match under a palm somewhere. They was so cute about it that even their folks didn't suspect it was a case of honey and honey boy; not that anyone would have raised a kick, but because Ferdy don't want any fuss made about it.

When Alicia's mother gets the facts, though, she writes a new program. She don't stand for springin' any quiet weddin's on her set. She plans a big party, where the engagement bulletin is to be flashed on the screen reg'lar and proper, so's folks can be orderin' their dresses and weddin' presents.

Ferdy balks some at the thought of bein' dragged to the centre of the stage; but he grits his teeth and tells 'em that for this once they can go as far as they like. He even agrees to leave home for a week and mix it at a big house party, just to get himself broke in to meetin' strangers.

Up to within two days of the engagement stunt he was behavin' lovely; and the next thing they knows, just when he should be gettin' ready to show up at Newport, he can't be found. It has all the looks of his leavin' his clothes on the bank and jumpin' the night freight. Course, the Dobsons ain't sayin' a word to Alicia's folks yet. They gets their friends together to organise a still hunt for Ferdy; and the Bishop bein' one of the inside circle, he's sent out as head scout.

"And I am at my wits' ends," says he. "No one has seen him in Newport, and I can't find him at any of his clubs here."

"How about the Fifth-ave. mausoleum?" says I.

"His man is there," says the Bishop; "but he seems unable to give me any information."

"Does, eh?" says I. "Well, you take it from me that if anyone's got a line on Ferdy, it's that clam faced Kupps of his. He's been trained so fine in the silence business that he hardly dares open his mouth when he eats. Go up there and put him through the wringer."

"Do what?" says the Bishop.

"Give him the headquarters quiz," says I. "Tell him you come straight from mother and sisters, and that Ferdy's got to be found."

"I hardly feel equal to doing just that," says the Bishop in his mild way. "Now if you could only——"

"Why, sure!" says I. "It'd do me good to take a whirl out of that Englishman. I'll make him give up!"

He's a bird though, that Kupps. I hadn't talked with him two minutes before I would have bet my pile he knew all about where Ferdy was roostin' and what he was up to; but when it come to draggin' out the details, you might just as well have been tryin' to pry up a pavin' stone with a fountain pen. Was Ferdy in town, or out of town, and when would he be back? Kupps couldn't say. He wouldn't even tell how long it was since he had seen Ferdy last. And say, you know how pig headed one of them hen brained Cockneys can be? I feels my collar gettin' tight.

"Look here, Hiccups!" says I. "You——"

"Kupps, sir," says he. "Thomas Kupps is my full nyme, sir."

"Well, Teacups, then, if that suits you better," says I. "You don't seem to have got it into your head that the Bishop ain't just buttin' in here for the fun of the thing. This matter of retrievin' Ferdy is serious. Now you're sure he didn't leave any private messages, or notes or anything of that kind?"

"Nothink of the sort, sir; nothink whatever," says Kupps.

"Well, you just show us up to his rooms," says I, "and we'll have a look around for ourselves. Eh, Bishop?"

"Perhaps it would be the best thing to do," says the Bishop.

Kupps didn't want to do it; but I gives him a look that changes his mind, and up we goes. I was thinkin' that if Ferdy had got chilly feet at the last minute and done the deep dive, maybe he'd left a few lines layin' around his desk. There wa'n't anything in sight, though; nothin' but a big photograph of a wide, full chested lady, propped up against the rail.

"That don't look much like the fair Alicia," says I.

The Bishop puts on his nigh-to glasses and says it ain't. He thinks it must have been took of a lady that he'd seen Ferdy chinnin' at the house party, where he got his last glimpse of him.

"Good deal of a hummin' bird, she is, eh?" says I, pickin' it up. "Tutty tut! Look what's here!" Behind it was a photo of Alicia.

"And here's somethin' else," says I. On the back of the big picture was scribbled, "From Ducky to Ferdy," and the date.

"Yesterday!" gasps the Bishop.

"Well, well!" says I. "That's advancin' the spark some! If he meets her only a week or so ago, and by yesterday she's got so far as bein' his ducky, it looks like Alicia'd have to get out and take the car ahead."

The Bishop acts stunned, gazin' from me to the picture, as if he'd been handed one on the dizzy bone. "You—you don't mean," says he, "that you suspect Ferdy of—of——"

"I hate to think it," says I; "but this looks like a quick shift. Kupps, who's Ferdy's lady friend?"

"Mr. Dobson didn't sye, sir," says Kupps.

"Very thoughtless of him," says I. "Come on, Bishop, we'll take this along as a clue and see what Vandy has to say."

He's a human kodak, Vandy is—makes a livin' takin' pictures for the newspapers. You can't break into the swell push, or have an argument with Teddy, or be tried for murder, without Vandy's showin' up to make a few negatives. So I flashes the photo of Ducky on him.

"Who's the wide one?" says I.

"Why, don't you know who that is, Shorty?" says he.

"Say, do you think I'd be chasin' up any flashlight pirate like you, if I did?" says I. "What's her name?"

"That's Madam Brooklini, of course," says he.

"What, the thousand-dollar-a-minute warbler?" says I. "And me seein' her lithographs all last winter! Gee, Bishop! I thought you followed grand opera closer'n that."

"I should have recalled her," says the Bishop; "but I see so many faces——"

"Only a few like that, though," says I. "Vandy, where do you reckon Mrs. Greater New York could be located just about now?"

Vandy has the whole story down pat. Seems she's been over here out of season bringin' suit against her last manager; but havin' held him up for everything but the gold fillin' in his front teeth, she is booked to sail back to her Irish castle at four in the mornin'. He knows the steamer and the pier number.

"Four A. M., eh?" says I. "That means she's likely to be aboard now, gettin' settled. Bishop, if that Ducky business was a straight steer, it's ten to one that a friend of ours is there sayin' good-bye. Shall we follow it up?"

"I can hardly credit it," says he. "However, if you think——"

"It's no cinch," says I; "but this is a case where it won't do to bank on past performances. From all the signs, Ferdy has struck a new gait."

The Bishop throws up both hands. "How clearly you put it," says he, "and how stupid of me not to understand! Should we visit the steamer, or not?"

"Bishop," says I, "you're a good guesser. We should."

And there wa'n't any trouble about locatin' the high artist. All we has to do is to walk along the promenade deck until we comes to a suite where the cabin stewards was poppin' in and out, luggin' bunches of flowers and baskets of fruit, and gettin' the book signed for telegrams. The Bishop was for askin' questions and sendin' in his card; but I gets him by the sleeve and tows him right in.

I hadn't made any wrong guess, either. There in the corner of the state room, planted in a big wicker arm chair, with a jar of long stemmed American beauts on one side, was Madam Brooklini. On the other side, sittin' edgeways on a canvas stool and holdin' her left hand, was Ferdy.

I could make a guess as to how the thing had come around; Ferdy breakin' from his shell at the house party, runnin' across Brooklini under a soft light, and losin' his head the minute she begins cooin' low notes to him. That's what she was doin' now, him gazin' up at her, and her gazin' down at him. It was about the mushiest performance I ever see.

"Ahem!" says the Bishop, clearin' his throat and blushin' a lovely maroon colour. "I—er—we did not intend to intrude; but——"

Then it was up to Ferdy to show the red. He opens his mouth and gawps at us for a whole minute before he can get out a word. "Why—why, Bishop!" he pants. "What—how——"

Before he has time to choke, or the Bishop can work up a case of apoplexy, I jumps into the ring. "Excuse us doin' the goat act," says I; "but the Bishop has got some word for you from the folks at home, and he wants to get it off his mind."

"Ah, friends of yours, Ferdy?" says Madam Brooklini, throwin' us about four hundred dollars' worth of smile.

There was nothin' for Ferdy to do then but pull himself together and make us all acquainted. And say, I never shook hands with so much jewelry all at once before! She has three or four bunches of sparks on each finger, not to mention a thumb ring. Oh, there wa'n't any mistakin' who skimmed the cream off the box office receipts after you'd took a look at her!

And for a straight front Venus she was the real maraschino. Course, even if the complexion was true, you wouldn't put her down as one of this spring's hatch; but for a broad, heavy weight girl she was the fancy goods. And when she cuts loose with that eighteen-carat voice of hers, and begins to roll them misbehavin' eyes, you forgot how the chair was creakin' under her. The Bishop has all he can do to remember why he was there; but he manages to get out that he'd like a few minutes on the side with Ferdy.

"If your message relates in any way to my return to Newport," says Ferdy, stiffenin' up, "it is useless. I am not going there!"

"But, my dear Ferdy——" begins the Bishop, when the lady cuts in.

"That's right, Bishop," says she. "I do hope you can persuade the silly boy to stop following me around and teasing me to marry him."

"Oh, naughty!" says I under my breath.

The Bishop just looks from one to the other, and then he braces up and says, "Ferdinand, this is not possible, is it?"

It was up to Ferdy again. He gives a squirm or two as he catches the Bishop's eye, and the dew was beginnin' to break out on his noble brow, when Ducky reaches over and gives his hand a playful little squeeze. That was a nerve restorer.

"Bishop," says he, "I must tell you that I am madly, hopelessly, in love with this lady, and that I mean to make her my wife."

"Isn't he the dearest booby you ever saw!" gurgles Madam Brooklini. "He has been saying nothing but that for the last five days. And now he says he is going to follow me across the ocean and keep on saying it. But you must stop, Ferdy; really, you must."

"Never!" says Ferdy, gettin' a good grip on the cut glass exhibit.

"Such persistence!" says Ducky, shiftin' her searchlights from him to us and back again. "And he knows I have said I would not marry again. I mustn't. My managers don't like it. Why, every time I marry they raise a most dreadful row. But what can I do? Ferdy insists, you see; and if he keeps it up, I just know I shall have to take him. Please be good, Ferdy!"

Wouldn't that make you seasick? But the Bishop comes to the front like he'd heard a call to man the lifeboat.

"It may influence you somewhat," says he, "to learn that for nearly a year Ferdinand has been secretly engaged to a very estimable young woman."

"I know," says she, tearin' off a little giggle. "Ferdy has told me all about Alicia. What a wicked, deceitful wretch he is! isn't he? Aren't you ashamed, Ferdy, to act so foolish over me?"

If Ferdy was, he hid it well. All he seemed willin' to do was to sit there, holdin' her hand and lookin' as soft as a custard pie, while the Lady Williamsburg tells what a tough job she has dodgin' matrimony, on account of her yieldin' disposition. I didn't know whether to hide my face in my hat, or go out and lean over the rail. I guess the Bishop wa'n't feelin' any too comfortable either; but he was there to do his duty, so he makes one last stab.

"Ferdinand," says he, "your mother asked me to say that——"

"Tell her I was never so happy in my life," says Ferdy, pattin' a broadside of solitaires and marquise rings.

"Come on, Bishop," says I. "There's only one cure for a complaint of that kind, and it looks like Ferdy was bound to take it."

We was just startin' for the deck, when the door was blocked by a steward luggin' in another sheaf of roses, and followed by a couple of middle aged, jolly lookin' gents, smokin' cigars and marchin' arm in arm. One was a tall, well built chap in a silk hat; the other was a short, pussy, ruby beaked gent in French flannels and a Panama.

"Hello, sweety!" says the tall one.

"Peekaboo, dearie!" sings out the other.

"Dick! Jimmy!" squeals Madam Brooklini, givin' a hand to each of 'em, and leavin' Ferdy holdin' the air. "Oh, how delightfully thoughtful of you!"

"Tried to ring in old Grubby, too," says Dick; "but he couldn't get away. He chipped in for the flowers, though."

"Dear old Grubby!" says she. "Let's see, he was my third, wasn't he?"

"Why, dearie!" says Dicky boy, "I was Number Three. Grubby was your second."

"Really!" says she. "But I do get you so mixed. Oh!" and then she remembers Ferdy. "Ducky, dear," she goes on, "I do want you to know these gentlemen—two of my former husbands."

"Wha-a-at!" gasps Ferdy, his eyes buggin' out.

I hears the Bishop groan and flop on a seat behind me. Honest, it was straight! Dick and Jimmy was a couple of discards, old Grubby was another, and inside of a minute blamed if she hadn't mentioned a fourth, that was planted somewhere on the other side. Course, for a convention there wouldn't have been a straight quorum; but there was enough answerin' roll call to make it pass for a reunion, all right.

And it was a peach while it lasted. The pair of has-beens didn't have long to stay, one havin' to get back to Chicago and the other bein' billed to start on a yachtin' trip. They'd just run over to say by-by; and tell how they was plannin' an annual dinner, with the judges and divorce lawyers for guests. Yes, yes, they was a jolly couple, them two! All the Bishop could do was lay back and fan himself as he listens, once in awhile whisperin' to himself, "My, my!" As for Ferdy, he looked like he'd been hypnotised and was waitin' to be woke up.

The pair was sayin' good-bye for the third and last time, when in rushes a high strung, nervous young feller with a pencil behind his ear and a pad in his hand.

"Well, Larry, what is it now?" snaps out Madam Brooklini, doin' the lightnin' change act with her voice. "I am engaged, you see."

"Can't help it," says Larry. "Got fourteen reporters and eight snapshot men waiting to do the sailing story for the morning editions. Shall I bring 'em up?"

"But I am entertaining two of my ex-husbands," says the lady, "and——"

"Great!" says Larry. "We'll put 'em in the group. Who's the other?"

"Oh, that's only Ferdy," says she. "I haven't married him yet."

"Bully!" says Larry. "We can get half a column of space out of him alone. He goes in the pictures too. We'll label him 'Next,' or 'Number Five Elect,' or something like that. Line 'em up outside, will you?"

"Oh, pshaw!" says Madam Brooklini. "What a nuisance these press agents are! But Larry is so enterprising. Come, we'll make a splendid group, the four of us. Come, Ferdy."

"Reporters!" Ferdy lets it come out of him kind of hoarse and husky, like he'd just seen a ghost.

But I knew the view that he was gettin'; his name in the headlines, his picture on the front page, and all the chappies at the club and the whole Newport crowd chucklin' and nudgin' each other over the story of how he was taggin' around after an op'ra singer that had a syndicate of second hand husbands.

"No, no, no!" says he. It was the only time I ever heard Ferdy come anywhere near a yell, and I wouldn't have believed he could have done it if I hadn't had my eyes on him as he jumps clear of the corner, makes a flyin' break through the bunch, and streaks it down the deck for the forward companionway.

Me and the Bishop didn't wait to see the finish of that group picture. We takes after Ferdy as fast as the Bishop's wind would let us, he bein' afraid that Ferdy was up to somethin' desperate, like jumpin' off the dock. All Ferdy does, though, is jump into a cab and drive for home, us trailin' on behind. We was close enough at the end of the run to see him bolt through the door; but Kupps tells us that Mr. Dobson has left orders not to let a soul into the house.

Early next mornin', though, the Bishop comes around and asks me to go up while he tries again, and after we've stood on the steps for ten minutes, waitin' for Kupps to take in a note, we're shown up to Ferdy's bed room. He's in silk pajamas and bath robe, lookin' white and hollow eyed. Every mornin' paper in town is scattered around the room, and not one of 'em with less than a whole column about how Madam Brooklini sailed for Europe.

"Any of 'em got anything to say about Number Five?" says I.

"Thank heaven, no!" groans Ferdy. "Bishop, what do you suppose poor dear Alicia thinks of me, though?"

"Why, my son," says the Bishop, his little eyes sparklin', "I suppose she is thinking that it is 'most time for you to arrive in Newport, as you promised."

"Then she doesn't know what an ass I've been?" says Ferdy. "No one has told her?"

"Shorty, have you?" says the Bishop.

And when Ferdy sees me grinnin', and it breaks on him that me and the Bishop are the only ones that know about this dippy streak of his, he's the thankfulest cuss you ever saw. Alicia? He could hardly get there quick enough to suit him; and the knot's to be tied inside of the next month.

"Marryin's all right," says I to Ferdy, "so long's you don't let the habit grow on you."

XVII

WHEN SWIFTY WAS GOING SOME

Say, I don't play myself for any human cheese tester, but I did think I had Swifty Joe Gallagher all framed up long ago. Not that I ever made any special study of Swifty; but knowin' him for as long as I have, and havin' him helpin' me in the Studio, I got the notion that I was wise to most of his curves. I've got both hands in the air now, though.

Goin' back over the last few months too, I can see where I might have got a line on him before. But, oh no! Nothin' could jar me out of believin' he wouldn't ever run against the form sheet I'd made out. The first glimmer I gets was when I finds Joe in the front office one day, planted before the big lookin' glass, havin' a catch as catch can with his hair.

"Hully chee!" says he, dippin' one of my military brushes in the wash basin. "That's fierce, ain't it, Shorty?"

"If it's your nerve in helpin' yourself to my bureau knickknacks," says I, "I agree with you."

"Ah, can the croak!" says he. "I ain't eatin' the bristles off, am I!"

"Oh, I'm not fussin'," says I; "but what you need to use on that thatch is a currycomb and a lawn rake."

"Ah, say!" says he, "I don't see as it's so much worse than others I know of. It's all right when I can get it to lay down in the back. How's that, now?"

"Great!" says I. "Couldn't be better if you'd used fish glue."

Maybe you never noticed how Swifty's top piece is finished off? He has a mud coloured growth that's as soft as a shoe brush. It behaves well enough when it's dry; but after he's got it good and wet it breaks up into ridges that overlap, same as shingles on a roof.

But then, you wouldn't be lookin' for any camel's hair finish on a nut like Swifty's—not with that face. Course, he ain't to blame for the undershot jaw, nor the way his ears lop, nor the width of his smile. We don't all have gifts like that, thanks be! And it wa'n't on purpose Swifty had his nose bent in. That come from not duckin' quick enough when Gans swung with his right.

So long as he kept in his class, though, and wa'n't called on to understudy Kyrle Bellew, Swifty met all the specifications. If I was wantin' a parlour ornament, I might shy some at Swifty's style of beauty; but showin' bilious brokers how to handle the medicine ball is a job that don't call for an exchange of photographs. He may have an outline that looks like a map of a stone quarry, and perhaps his ways are a little on the fritz, but Swifty's got good points that I couldn't find bunched again if I was to hunt through a crowd. So, when I find him worryin' over the set of his back hair, I gets interested.

"What's the coiffure for, anyway?" says I. "Goin' to see the girl, eh?"

Course, that was a josh. You can't look at Swifty and try to think of him doin' the Romeo act without grinnin'.

"Ahr, chee!" says he.

Now, I've sprung that same jolly on him a good many times; but I never see him work up a colour over it before. Still, the idea of him gettin' kittenish was too much of a strain on the mind for me to follow up.

It was the same about his breakin' into song. He'd never done that, either, until one mornin' I hears a noise comin' from the back room that sounds like some one blowin' on a bottle. I steps over to the door easy, and hanged if I didn't make out that it was Swifty takin' a crack at something that might be, "Oh, how I love my Lulu!"

"You must," says I, "if it makes you feel as bad as all that. Does Lulu know it?"

"Ahr, chee!" says he.

Ever hear Swifty shoot that over his shoulder without turnin' his head? Talk about your schools of expression! None of 'em could teach anyone to put as much into two words as Swifty does into them. They're a whole vocabulary, the way he uses 'em.

"Was you tryin' to sing," says I, "or just givin' an imitation of a steamboat siren on a foggy night?"

But all I could get out of Swifty was another "Ahr, chee!" He was too happy and satisfied to join in any debate, and inside of ten minutes he's at it again; so I lets him spiel away.

"Well," thinks I, "I'm glad my joy don't have any such effect on me as that. I s'pose I can stand it, if he can."

It wa'n't more'n two nights later that I gets another shock. I was feelin' a little nervous, to begin with, for I'd billed myself to do a stunt I don't often tackle. It was nothin' else than pilotin' a fluff delegation to some art studio doin's. Sounds like a Percy job, don't it? But it was somethin' put up to me in a way I couldn't dodge.

Maybe you remember me tellin' you awhile back about Cornelia Ann Belter? She was the Minnekeegan girl that had a room on the top floor over the Physical Culture Studio, and was makin' a stab at the sculpture game—the one that we got out to Rockywold as a ringer in the snow carvin' contest. Got her placed now?

Well, you know how that little trick of makin' a snow angel brought her in orders from Mrs. Purdy Pell, and Sadie, and the rest? And she didn't do a thing but make good, either. I hadn't seen her since she quit the building; but I'd heard how she was doin' fine, and here the other day I gets a card sayin' she'd be pleased to have my company on a Wednesday night at half after eight, givin' an address on Fifth avenue.

"Corny must be carvin' the cantaloup," thinks I, and then forgets all about it until Sadie holds me up and wants to know if I'm goin'.

"Nix," says I. "Them art studio stunts is over my head."

"Oh, pshaw!" says Sadie. "How long since you have been afraid of Miss Belter? Didn't you and I help her to get her start? She'll feel real badly if you don't come."

"She'll get over that," says I.

"But Mrs. Pell and I will have to go alone if you don't come with us," says she. "Mr. Pell is out of town, and Pinckney is too busy with those twins and that Western girl of his. You've got to come, Shorty."

"That settles it," says I. "Why didn't you say so first off?"

So that was what I was doin' at quarter of eight that night, in my open face vest and dinky little tuxedo, hustlin' along 42d-st., wonderin' if the folks took me for a head waiter late to his job. You see, after I gets all ragged out I finds I've left my patent leathers at the Studio. Swifty has said he was goin' to take the night off too, so I'm some surprised to see the front office all lit up like there was a ball goin' on up there. I takes the steps three at a time, expectin' to find a couple of yeggs movin' out the safe; but when I throws the door open what should I see, planted in front of the mirror, but Swifty Joe.

Not that I was sure it was him till I'd had a second look. It was Swifty's face, and Swifty's hair, but the costume was a philopena. It would have tickled a song and dance artist to death. Anywhere off'n the variety stage, unless it was at a Fourth Ward chowder party, it would have drawn a crowd. Perhaps you can throw up a view of a pin-head check in brown and white, blocked off into four-inch squares with red and green lines; a double breasted coat with scalloped cuffs on the sleeves, and silk faced lapels; a pink and white shirt striped like an awnin'; a spotted butterfly tie; yellow shoes in the latest oleomargarin tint; and a caffy-o-lay bean pot derby with a half-inch brim to finish off the picture. It was a sizzler, all right.

For a minute I stands there with my mouth open and my eyes bugged, takin' in the details. If I could, I would have skipped without sayin' a word, for I see I'd butted in on somethin' that was sacred and secret. But Swifty's heard me come in, and he's turned around waitin' for me to give a verdict. Not wantin' to hurt his feelin's, I has to go careful.

"Swifty," says I, "is that you?"

He only grins kind of foolish, sticks his chin out, and saws his neck against his high collar, like a cow usin' a scratchin' post.

"Blamed if I didn't take you for Henry Dixey, first shot," says I, walkin' around and gettin' a new angle. "Gee! but that's a swell outfit!"

"Think so?" says he. "Will it make 'em sit up?"

"Will it!" says I. "Why, you'll have 'em on their toes."

I didn't know how far I could go on that line without givin' him a grouch; but he seems to like it, so I tears off some more of the same.

"Swifty," says I, "you've got a bunch of tiger lilies lookin' like a faded tea rose. You've got a get-up there that would win out at a Cakewalk, and if you'll take it over to Third-ave. Sunday afternoon you'll be the best bet on the board."

"Honest?" says he, grinnin' way back to his ears. "I was after somethin' a little fancy, I'll own up."

"Well, you got it," says I. "Where'd you have it built?"

"Over the bridge," says he.

Say, it's a wonder some of them South Brooklyn cloth carpenters don't get the blind staggers, turnin' out clothes like that; ain't it?

"Must be some special occasion?" says I.

"D'jer think I'd be blowin' myself like this if it wa'n't?" says he. "You bet, it's extra special."

"With a skirt in the background?" says I.

"Uh-huh," says he, springin' another grin.

"Naughty, naughty!" says I.

"Ahr, say," says he, tryin' to look peevish, "you oughter know better'n that! You never heard of me chasin' the Lizzies yet, did you? This is a real lady,—nice and classy, see?"

"Some one on Fifth-ave.?" says I, unwindin' a little string. But he whirls round like I'd jabbed him with a pin.

"Who tipped you off to that?" says he.

"Guessed it by the clothes," says I.

That simmers him down, and I could see he wanted to be confidential the worst way. He wouldn't let go of her name; but I gathers it's some one he's known for quite a spell, and that she's sent him a special invite for this evenin'.

"Asks me to call around, see?" says he. "Now, I put it up to you, Shorty, don't that look like I got some standin' with her?"

"She must think pretty well of you, that's a fact," says I, "and I judge that you're willin' to be her honey boy. Ain't got the ring in your vest pocket, have you?"

"Maybe that ain't so much of a joke as you think," says he, settin' the bean pod lid a little more on one side.

"Z-z-z-ipp!" says I. "That's goin' some! Well, well, but you are a cute one, Swifty. Why, I never suspicioned such a thing. Luck to you, my lad, luck to you!" and I pats him on the back. "I don't know what chances you had before; but in that rig you can't lose."

"I guess it helps," says he, twistin' his neck to get a back view.

He was puttin' on the last touches when I left. Course, I was some stunned, specially by the Fifth-ave. part of it. But then, it's a long street, and it's gettin' so now that all kinds lives on it.

I was a little behind sched. when I gets to Sherry's, where I was to pick up Sadie and Mrs. Purdy Pell; but at that it was ten or fifteen minutes before they gets the tourin' car called up and we're all tucked away inside. It don't take us long to cover the distance, though, and at twenty to nine we hauls up at Miss Belter's number. I was just goin' to pile out when I gets a glimpse of a pair of bright yellow shoes carryin' a human checker board.

"S-s-s-sh!" says I to the ladies. "Wait up a second till we see where he goes."

"Why, who is it?" says Sadie.

"Swifty Joe," says I. "You might not think it from the rainbow uniform, but it's him. That's the way he dresses the part when he starts out to kneel to his lady love."

"Really!" says Mrs. Pell. "Is he going to do that?"

"Got it straight from him," says I. "There! he's worked his courage up. Now he takes the plunge."

"Why!" says Sadie, "that is Miss Belter's number he's going into."

"She don't live on all five floors, does she?" says I.

"No; but it's odd, just the same," says she.

I thought so myself; so I gives 'em the whole story of how I come to know about what he was up to. By that time he was climbing the stairs, and as soon as we finds the right door I forgets all about Swifty in sizin' up Cornelia Ann.

Say, what a difference a little of the right kind of dry goods will make in a girl, won't it? The last I saw of Cornie she was wearin' a skirt that sagged in the back, a punky lid that might have come off the top of an ash can, and shoes that had run over at the heel.

But prosperity had sure blown her way, and she'd bought a wardrobe to suit the times. Not that she'd gone and loaded herself down like she was a window display. It was just a cucumber green sort of cheese cloth that floated around her, and there wa'n't a frill on it except some silvery braid where the square hole had been chopped out to let her head and part of her shoulders through. But at that it didn't need any Paris tag.

And say, I'd always had an idea that Cornelia Ann was rated about third row back. Seein' the way she showed up there, though, with all that cinnamon coloured hair of hers piled on top of her head, and her big eyes glistenin', I had to revise the frame up. It didn't take me long to find out she'd shook the shrinkin' violet game, too. She steps up and gives us the glad hand and the gurgly jolly just as if she'd been doin' it all her life.

It wa'n't any cheap hang-out that Cornie has tacked her name plate on, either. There was expensive rugs on the floor, and brass lamps hangin' from the ceilin', and pieces of tin armor hung around on the walls, with nary a sign of an oil stove or a foldin' bed.

A lot of folks was already on the ground. They was swells too, and they was floatin' around so thick that it was two or three minutes before I gets a view of what was sittin' under the big yellow sik lamp shade in the corner. Say, who do you guess? Swifty Joe! Honest, for a minute I thought I must be havin' a nerve spasm and seein' things that wa'n't so. But it was him, all right; big as life, and lookin' as prominent as a soap ad. on the back cover of a magazine.

There was plenty of shady places in the room that he might have picked, but he has hunted out the bright spot. He's sittin' on one of these funny cross legged Roman stools, with his toes turned in, and them grid-iron pants pulled up to show about five inches of MacGregor plaid socks. And he has a satisfied look on his face that I couldn't account for no way.

Course, I thinks right off that he's broke into the wrong ranch and is waitin' for some one to come and show him the way out. And then, all of a sudden, I begins to remember things. You know, it was Swifty that Cornelia Ann used to get to pose for her when she had the top floor back in our building. She made an embossed clay picture of him that Joe used to gaze at by the hour. And once he showed me her photo that she'd given him. Then there was the special invite he'd been tellin' me about. Not bein' used to gettin' such things, he'd mistook that card to her studio openin' as a sort of private billy ducks, and he'd built up a dream about him and her havin' a hand-holdin' session all to themselves.

"Great cats!" thinks I. "Can it be Cornelia Ann he's gone on?"

Well, all you had to do to get the answer was to watch Swifty follow her around with his eyes. You'd thought, findin' himself in a bunch of top-notchers like that, and rigged out the way he was, he'd been feelin' like a green strawb'ry in the bottom of the basket. But nothin' of that kind had leaked through his thick skull. Cornie was there, and he was there, dressed accordin' to his own designs, and he was contented and happy as a turtle on a log, believin' the rest of us had only butted in.

I was feelin' all cut up over his break, and tryin' to guess how Cornelia was standin' it, when she floats up to me and says:

"Wasn't it sweet of Mr. Gallagher to come? Have you seen him?"

"Seen him!" says I. "You don't notice any bandage over my eyes, do you? Notice the get up. Why, he looks like a section of a billboard."

"Oh, I don't mind his clothes a bit," says she. "I think he's real picturesque. Besides, I haven't forgotten that he used to pose for me when hiring models meant going without meals. I wish you would see that he doesn't get lonesome before I have a chance to speak to him again."

"He don't look like he needed any chirkin' up," says I; "but I'll go give him the howdy."

So I trots over to the yellow shade and ranges myself up in front of him. "You might's well own up, Swifty," says I. "Is Cornie the one?"

"Uh-huh," says he.

"Told her about it yet?" says I.

"Ahr, chee!" says he. "Give a guy a chance."

"Sure," says I. "But go slow, Joey, go slow."

I don't know how it happened, for all I told about it was Sadie and Mrs. Purdy Pell; but it wa'n't long before everyone in the joint was next to Swifty, and was pipin' him off. They all has to be introduced and make a try at gettin' him to talk. For awhile he has the time of his life. Mostly he just grins; but now and then he throws in an "Ahr, chee!" that knocks 'em silly.

The only one that don't fall for what's up is Cornelia Ann. She gets him to help her pass out the teacups and the cake, and tells everyone about how Swifty helped her out on the model business when she was livin' on pickled pigs' feet and crackers. Fin'lly folks begins to dig out their wraps and come up to tell her how they'd had a bully time. But Joe never makes a move.

Sadie and Mrs. Pell wa'n't in any hurry either, and the first thing I knows there's only the five of us left. I see Sadie lookin' from Joe to Cornie, and then passin' Mrs. Pell the smile. Cornelia Ann sees it too, and she has a synopsis of the precedin' chapters all in a minute. But she don't get flustered a bit. She sails over to the coat room, gets Swifty's lid, and comes luggin' it out.

"I'm awfully glad you came, Mr. Gallagher," says she, handin' out the bean pot, "and I hope to see you again when I have another reception—next year."

"Eh?" says Swifty, like he was wakin' up from a dream. "Next year! Why, I thought that—"

"Yes, but you shouldn't," says she. "Good night."

Then he sees the hat, and a light breaks. He grabs the lid and makes a dash for the door.

"Isn't he odd?" says Cornelia.

Well say, I didn't know whether I'd get word that night that Swifty had jumped off the bridge, or had gone back to the fusel oil. He didn't do either one, though; but when he shows up at the Studio next mornin' he was wearin' his old clothes, and his face looks like he was foreman of a lemon grove.

"Ah, brace up, Swifty," says I. "There's others."

He just shakes his head and sighs, and goes off into a corner as if he wanted to die slow and lingerin'.

Then Saturday afternoon, when it turns off so warm and we begins the noon shut down, I thinks I'll take a little run down to Coney and hear the frankfurters bark. I was watchin' 'em load the boys and girls into a roller coaster, when along comes a car that has something familiar in it. Here's Swifty, wearin' his brass band suit, a cigar stickin' out of one corner of his mouth, and an arm around a fluffy haired Flossie girl that was chewin' gum and wearin' a fruit basket hat. They was lookin' happy.

"Say, Swifty," I sings out, "don't forget about Cornie."

"Ahr, chee!" says he, and off they goes down the chute for another ten-cent ride.

But say, I'm glad all them South Brooklyn art clothes ain't goin' to be wasted.

XVIII

PLAYING WILBUR TO SHOW

It's all right. You can put the Teddy sign on anything you read in the papers about matrimony's bein' a lost art, and collectin' affinities bein' the latest fad; for the plain, straight, old, love-honour-and-cherish business is still in the ring. I have Pinckney's word for it, and Pinckney ought to know. Oh, yes, he's an authority now. Sure, it was Miss Gerty, the twin tamer. And say, what do you suppose they did with that gift pair of terrors, Jack and Jill, while they was makin' the weddin' tour? Took 'em along. Honest, they travels for ten weeks with two kids, five trunks, and a couple of maids.

"You don't look like no honeymoon couple," says I, when I meets 'em in Jersey City. "I'd take you for an explorin' party."

"We are," says Pinckney, grinnin'. "We've been explorin' the western part of the United States. We have discovered Colorado Springs, the Yosemite, and a lot more very interesting places, all over again."

"You'll be makin' a new map, I expect," says I.

"It would be new to most New Yorkers," says he.

And I've been tryin' ever since to figure out whether or no that's a knock. Now and then I has a suspicion that Pinckney's acquired some new bug since he's been out through the alfalfa belt; but maybe his idea of the West's bein' such a great place only comes from the fact that Gerty was produced there. Perhaps it's all he says too; but I notice he seems mighty glad to get back to Main-st., N. Y. You'd thought so if you'd seen the way he trails me around over town the first day after he lands. We was on the go from noon until one A. M., and his cab bill must have split a twenty up fine.

What tickles me, though, is that he's the same old Pinckney, only more so. Bein' married don't seem to weigh no heavier on his mind than joinin' another club. So, instead of me losin' track of him altogether, he shows up here at the Studio oftener than before. And that's how it was he happens to be on hand when this overgrown party from the ham orchard blows in.

Just at the minute, though, Pinckney was back in the dressin' room, climbin' into his frock coat after our little half-hour session on the mat; so Swifty Joe and me was the reception committee.

As the door opens I looks up to see about seven foot of cinnamon brown plaid cloth,—a little the homeliest stuff I ever see used for clothes,—a red and green necktie, a face the colour of a ripe tomato, and one of these buckskin tinted felt hats on top of that. Measurin' from the peak of the Stetson to the heels of his No. 14 Cinderellas, he must have been some under ninety inches, but not much. And he has all the grace of a water tower. Whoever tried to build that suit for him must have got desperate and cut it out with their eyes shut; for it fit him only in spots, and them not very near together. But what can you do with a pair of knock knees and shoulders that slope like a hip roof?

Not expectin' any freaks that day, and bein' too stunned to make any crack on our own hook, me and Swifty does the silent gawp, and waits to see if it can talk. For a minute he looks like he can't. He just stands here with his mouth half open, grinnin' kind of sheepish and good natured, as if we could tell what he wanted just by his looks. Fin'lly I breaks the spell.

"Hello, Sport," says I. "If you see any dust on top of that chandelier, don't mention it."

He don't make any reply to that, just grins a little wider; so I gives him a new deal.

"You'll find Huber's museum down on 14th-st.," says I. "Or have you got a Bowery engagement?"

This seems to twist him up still more; but it pulls the cork. "Excuse me, friends," says he; "but I'm tryin' to round up an eatin' house that used to be hereabouts."

"Eatin' house?" says I. "If you mean the fried egg parlour that was on the ground floor, that went out of business months ago. But there's lots more just as good around on Sixth-ave., and some that carry stock enough to fill you up part way, I guess."

"I wa'n't lookin' to grub up just yet," says he. "I was huntin' for—for some one that worked there."

And say, you wouldn't have thought anyone with a natural sunset colour like that could lay on a blush. But he does, and it's like throwin' the red calcium on a brick wall.

"Oh, tush, tush!" says I. "You don't mean to tell me a man of your size is trailin' some Lizzie Maud?"

He cants his head on one side, pulls out a blue silk handkerchief, and begins to wind it around his fore finger, like a bashful kid that's been caught passin' a note in school.

"Her—her name's Zylphina," says he,—"Zylphina Beck."

"Gee!" says I. "Sounds like a new kind of music box. No relation, I hope?"

"Not yet," says he, swingin' his shoulders; "but we've swapped rings."

"Of all the cut-ups!" says I. "And just what part of the plowed fields do you and Zylphina hail from?"

"Why, I'm from Hoxie," says he, as though that told the whole story.

"Do tell!" says I. "Is that a flag station or just a four corners? Somewhere in Ohio, ain't it?"

"Sheridan County, Kansas," says he.

"Well, well!" says I. "Now I can account for your size. Have to grow tall out there, don't you, so's not to get lost in the wheat patch?"

Say, for a josh consumer, he was the easiest ever. All he does is stand there and grin, like he was the weak end of a variety team. But it seems a shame to crowd a willin' performer; so I was just tellin' him he'd better go out and hunt up a city directory in some drug store, when Pinckney shows up, lookin' interested.

"There!" says I. "Here's a man now that'll lead you straight to Zylphina in no time. Pinckney, let me make you acquainted with Mister—er——"

"Cobb," says the Hoxie gent, "Wilbur Cobb."

"From out West," I puts in, givin' Pinckney the nudge. "He's yours."

It ain't often I has a chance to unload anything like that on Pinckney, so I rubs it in. The thoughts of him towin' around town a human extension like this Wilbur strikes Swifty Joe so hard that he most has a chokin' fit.

But you never know what turn Pinckney's goin' to give to a jolly. He don't even crack a smile, but reaches up and hands Mr. Cobb the cordial shake, just as though he'd been a pattern sized gent dressed accordin' to the new fall styles.

"Ah!" says Pinckney. "I'm very glad to meet anyone from the West. What State, Mr. Cobb?"

And inside of two minutes he's gettin' all the details of this Zylphina hunt, from the ground up, includin' an outline of Wilbur's past life.

Seems that Wilbur'd got his first start in Maine; but 'way back before he could remember much his folks had moved to Kansas on a homestead. Then, when Wilbur tossled out, he takes up a quarter section near Hoxie, and goes to corn farmin' for himself, raisin' a few hogs as a side line. Barrin' bein' caught in a cyclone or two, and gettin' elected junior kazook of the Sheridan County Grange, nothin' much happened to Wilbur, until one day he took a car ride as far west as Colby Junction.

That's where he meets up with Zylphina. She was jugglin' stop over rations at the railroad lunch counter. Men must have been mighty scarce around the junction, or else she wants the most she can get for the money; for, as she passes Wilbur a hunk of petrified pie and draws him one muddy, with two lumps on the saucer, she throws in a smile that makes him feel like he'd stepped on a live third rail.

Accordin' to his tell, he must have hung around that counter all day, eatin' through the pie list from top to bottom and back again, until it's a wonder his system ever got over the shock. But Zylphina keeps tollin' him on with googoo eyes and giggles, sayin' how it does her good to see a man with a nice, hearty appetite, and before it come time for him to take the night train back they'd got real well acquainted. He finds out her first name, and how she's been a whole orphan since she was goin' on ten.

After that Wilbur makes the trip to Colby Junction reg'lar every Sunday, and they'd got to the point of talkin' about settin' the day when she was to become Mrs. Cobb, when Zylphina gets word that an aunt of hers that kept a boardin' house in Fall River, Massachusetts, wants her to come on East right away. Aunty has some kind of heart trouble that may finish her any minute, and, as Zylphina was the nearest relation she had, there was a show of her bein' heiress to the whole joint.

Course, Zylphina thinks she ought to tear herself loose from the pie counter; but before she quits the junction her and Wilbur takes one last buggy ride, with the reins wound around the whip socket most of the way. She weeps on Wilbur's shirt front, and says no matter how far off she is, or how long she has to wait for him to come, she'll always be his'n on demand. And Wilbur says that just as soon as he can make the corn and hog vineyard hump itself a little more, he'll come.

So Zylphina packs a shoe box full of fried chicken, blows two months' wages into a yard of yellow railroad ticket, and starts toward the cotton mills. It's a couple of months before Wilbur gets any letter, and then it turns out to be a hard luck tale, at that. Zylphina has found out what a lime tastes like. She's discovered that the Fall River aunt hasn't anything more the matter with her heart than the average landlady, and that what she's fell heiress to is only a chance to work eighteen hours a day for her board. So she's disinherited herself and is about to make a bold jump for New York, which she liked the looks of as she came through, and she'll write more later on.

It was later—about six months. Zylphina says she's happy, and hopes Wilbur is the same. She's got a real elegant job as cashier in a high-toned, twenty-five cent, reg'lar-meal establishment, and all in the world she has to do is to sit behind a wire screen and make change. It's different from wearin' an apron, and the gents what takes their food there steady treats her like a perfect lady. New York is a big place; but she's getting so she knows her way around quite well now, and it would seem funny to go back to a little one-horse burg like Colby.

And that's all. Nothin' about her bein' Wilbur's on demand, or anything of that kind. Course, it's an antique old yarn; but it was all fresh to Wilbur. Not bein' much of a letter writer, he keeps on feedin' the hogs punctual, and hoein' the corn, and waitin' for more news. But there's nothin' doin'.

"Then," says he, "I got to thinkin' and thinkin', and this fall, being as how I was coming as far east as Chicago on a shipper's pass, I reckons I'd better keep right on here, hunt Zylphina up, and take her back with me."

The way he tells it was real earnest, and at some points them whey coloured eyes of his moistens up good an' dewy; but he finishes strong and smilin'. You wouldn't guess, though, that any corn fed romance like that would stir up such a blood as Pinckney? A few months back he wouldn't have listened farther'n the preamble; but now he couldn't have been more interested if this was a case of Romeo Astor and Juliet Dupeyster.

"Shorty," says he, "can't we do something to help Mr. Cobb find this young lady?"

"Do you mean it," says I, "or are you battin' up a josh?"

He means it, all right. He spiels off a lot of gush about the joy of unitin' two lovin' hearts that has got strayed; so I asks Wilbur if he can furnish any description of Zylphina. Sure, he can. He digs up a leather wallet from his inside pocket and hands out a tintype of Miss Beck, one of these portraits framed in pale pink paper, taken by a wagon artist that had wandered out to the junction.

Judgin' by the picture, Zylphina must have been a sure enough prairie-rose. She's wearin' her hair loose over her shoulders, and a genuine Shy Ann hat, one of those ten-inch brims with the front pinned back. The pug nose and the big mouth wa'n't just after the Venus model; but it's likely she looked good to Wilbur. I takes one squint and hands it back.

"Nix, never!" says I. "I've seen lots of fairies on 42d-st., but none like that. Put it back over your heart, Wilbur, and try an ad. in the lost column."

But Pinckney ain't willin' to give up so easy. He says how Mr. Cobb has come more'n a thousand miles on this tender mission, and it's up to us to do our best towards helping him along. I couldn't see just where we was let into this affair of Wilbur's; but as Pinckney's so set on it, I begins battin' my head for a way of takin' up the trail.

And it's wonderful what sleuth work you can do just by usin' the 'phone liberal. First I calls up the agent of the buildin', and finds that the meal fact'ry has moved over to Eighth-ave. Then I gets that number and brings Zylphina's old boss to the wire. Sure, he remembers Miss Beck. No, she ain't with him now. He thinks she took a course in manicurin', and one of the girls says she heard of her doin' the hand holdin' act in an apartment hotel on West 35th-st. After three tries we has Zylphina herself on the 'phone.

"Guess who's here," says I.

"That you, Roland?" says she.

"Aw, pickles!" says I. "Set the calendar back a year or so, and then come again. Ever hear of Wilbur, from Hoxie, Kan.?"

Whether it was a squeal or a snicker, I couldn't make out; but she was on. As I couldn't drag Wilbur up to the receiver, I has to carry through the talk myself, and I makes a date for him to meet her in front of the hotel at six-thirty that evenin', when the day shift of nail polishers goes off duty.

"Does that suit, Wilbur?" says I.

Does it? You never saw so much pure joy spread over a single countenance as what he flashes up. He gives me a grip I can feel yet, and the grin that opens his face was one of these reg'lar ear connectors. Pinckney was tickled too, and it's all I can do to get him off one side where I can whisper confidential.

"Maybe it ain't struck you yet," says I, "that Zylphina's likely to have changed some in her ideas as to what a honey boy looks like. Now Wilbur's all right in his way; but ain't he a little rugged to spring on a lady manicure that hasn't seen him for some time?"

And when Pinckney comes to take a close view, he agrees that Mr. Cobb is a trifle fuzzy. "But we can spruce him up," says Pinckney. "There are four hours to do it in."

"Four weeks would be better," says I; "it's considerable of a contract."

That don't bother Pinckney any. He's got nothing else on hand for the afternoon, and he can't plan any better sport than improvin' Wilbur's looks so Zylphina's first impression'll be a good one.

He begins by making Wilbur peel the cinnamon brown costume, drapin' him in a couple of bath robes, while Swifty takes the suit out to one of these pants-pressed-while you wait places. When it comes back with creases in the legs, he hustles Wilbur into a cab and starts for a barber shop.

Say, I don't suppose Cobb'll ever know it; but if he'd been huntin' for expert help along that line, he couldn't have tumbled into better hands than he did when Pinckney gets interested in his case. When they floats in again, along about six o'clock, I hardly knows Wilbur for the same party. He's wearin' a long black ulster that covers up most of the plaid nightmare; he's shook the woolly lid for a fall block derby, he's had his face scraped and powdered, and his neck ringlets trimmed up; and he even sports a pair of yellow kids and a silver headed stick.

"Gosh!" says I. "Looks like you'd run him through a finishing machine. Why, he'll have Zylphina after him with a net."

"Yes," says Pinckney. "I fancy he'll do now."

As for Wilbur, he only looks good natured and happy. Course, Pinckney wants to go along with him, to see that it all turns out right; and he counts me in too, so off we starts. I was a little curious to get a glimpse of Zylphina myself, and watch how stunned she'd be. For we has it all framed up how she'll act. Havin' seen the tintype, I can't get it out of my head that she's still wearin' her hair loose and looking like M'liss in the first act.

"Hope she'll be on time," says I, as we turns the corner.

There was more or less folks goin' and comin' from the ladies' entrance; but no girl like the one we was lookin' for. So we fetches up in a bunch opposite the door and prepares to wait. We hadn't stood there a minute, before there comes a squeal from behind, and some one says:

"Why, Wilbur Cobb! Is that you?"

And what do you guess shows up? There at the curb is a big, open tourin' car,—one of the opulent, shiny kind,—with a slick looking shuffer in front, and, standin' up in the tonneau, a tart little lady wearin' Broadway clothes that was right up to the minute, hair done into breakfast rolls behind, and a long pink veil streamin' down her back. Only by the pug nose and the mouth could I guess that it might be Zylphina. And it was.

There wa'n't any gettin' away from the fact that she was a little jarred at seein' Wilbur lookin' so cute; but that was nothin' to the jolt she handed us. Mr. Cobb, he just opens his mouth and gazes at her like she was some sort of an exhibit. And Pinckney, who'd been expectin' something in a dollar-thirty-nine shirtwaist and a sagged skirt, is down and out. It didn't take me more'n a minute to see that if Zylphina has got to the stage where she wears pony jackets and rides in expensive bubbles, our little pie counter romance is headed for the ash can.

"Stung in both eyes!" says I under my breath, and falls back.

"Well, well!" says Zylphina, holdin' out three fingers. "When did you hit Broadway, Wilbur?"