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Shorty McCabe

<h3>CHAPTER XIV</h3></div> You never can tell, though. The next thing I hears from Sadie is that she's so tickled over that Miriam mix-up that she wakes up in the night to snicker at it. That makes me feel a lot easier in my mind, and just by way of bein' reckless, I starts out to buy a bull pup. I'd have got him, too, if it hadn't been for Doc Pinphoodle. Seein' the way things turned out, though, I don't bear no grudge. It was the Doc I met first. I'd noticed him driftin' up and down the stairs once or twice, but didn't pipe him off special. There's too many freaks around 42nd-st. 'to keep cases on all of 'em. But one day about a month ago I was sittin' in the front office here, gettin' the ear-ache from hearing Swifty Joe tell about what he meant to do to Gans that last time, when the door swings open so hard it most takes the hinges off, and we sees a streak of arms and legs and tall hat makin' a dive under the bed couch in the corner. "They've most got the range, Swifty," says I. "Two feet to the left and you'd been a bull's-eye. What you got your mouth open so wide for? Goin' to try to catch the next one in your teeth?" Swifty didn't have time to uncork any repartee before someone struck the landing outside like they'd come down a flight of foldin' steps feet first, and a little, sharp-nosed woman, with purple flowers in her hat, bobs in and squints once at each of us. Say, I don't want to be looked at often like that! It felt like bein' sampled with a cheese tester. "Did Montgomery Smith just come in here?" says she. "Did he? Don't lie, now! Where is he?" and the way she jerked them little black eyes around was enough to tear holes in the matting. "Lady—" says I. "Don't lady me, Mr. Fresh," says she, throwin' the gimlets my way. "And tell that broken-nosed child stealer over there to take that monkey grin off'm his face or I'll scratch his eyes out." "Hully chee!" yells Swifty, throwin' a back somersault through the gym. door and snappin' the lock on his side. "Anything more, miss?" says I. "We're here to please." "Humph!" says she. "It'd take somethin' better than you to please me." "Glad I was born lucky," thinks I, but I thought it under my breath. "Is my Monty hiding in that room?" says she, jabbin' a finger at the gym. "Cross my heart, he ain't," says I. "I don't believe you could think quick enough to lie," says she, and with that she flips out about as fast as she came in. I didn't stir until I hears her hit the lower hall. Then I bolts the door, goes and calls Swifty down off the top of the swingin' rope, and we comes to a parade rest alongside the couch. "Monty, dear Monty," says I, "the cyclone's passed out to sea. Come out and give up your rain check." He backs out feet first, climbs up on the couch, and drops his chin into his hands for a minute, while he gets over the worst of the shock. Say, at first sight he wa'n't a man you'd think any woman would lose her breath tryin' to catch, less'n she was his landlady, and that was what I figures out that this female peace disturber was. Monty might have been a winner once, but it was a long spell back. Just then he was some out of repair. He had a head big enough for a college professor, and a crop of hair like an herb doctor, but his eyes were puffy underneath, and you could see by the café au lait tint to his face that his liver'd been on a long strike. He was fairly thick through the middle, but his legs didn't match the rest of him. They were too thin and too short. "If I'd known you was comin', I'd had the scrub lady dust under there," says I; "but it won't need it now for a couple of weeks." He makes a stab at sayin' something, but his breath hadn't come back yet. He revives enough though, to take a look at his clothes. Then he works his silk dicer up off'm his ears, and has a peek at that. It was a punky lid, all right, but it had saved a lot of wear on his koko when he made that slide for home plate and struck the wall. "Was this a long-distance run, or just a hundred-yard sprint?" says I. "Never mind, if it comes hard. I don't blame you a bit for side-steppin' a heart to heart talk with any such a rough-and-ready converser as your friend. I'd do the same myself." He looks up kind of grateful at that, and sticks out a soft, lady-like paw for me to shake. Say, that wasn't such a slow play, either! He was too groggy to say a word, but he comes pretty near winnin' me right there. I sets Swifty to work on him with the whisk-broom, hands out a glass of ice-water, and in a minute or so his voice comes back. Oh, yes, he had one. It was a little shaky, but, barrin' that, it was as smooth as mayonnaise. And language! Why, just tellin' me how much obliged he was, he near stood the dictionary on its head. There wa'n't no doubt of his warm feelin' for me by the time he was through. It was almost like bein' adopted by a rich uncle. "Oh, that's all right," says I. "You can use that couch any time the disappearin' fit comes on. She was hot on the trail; eh, Monty?" "It was all a painful, absurd error," says he, "a mistaken identity, I presume. Permit me to make myself known to you," and he shoves out his card. Rasmulli Pinphoodle, J. R. D.—that was the way it read. "Long ways from Smith, ain't it?" says I. "The first of it sounds like a Persian rug." "My Hindu birth name," says he. "I'd have bet you wa'n't a domestic filler," says I. "The Pinphoodle is English, ain't it?" He smiles like I'd asked him to split a pint with me, and says that it was. "But the tag on the end—J. R. D.—I passes up," says I. "Don't stand for Judge of Rent Dodgers, does it?" "Those letters," says he, makin' another merry face, "represent the symbols of my Vedic progression." "If I'd stopped to think once more, I'd fetched that," says I. It was a jolly. I've never had the Vedic progression—anyways, not had enough to know it at the time—but I wasn't goin' to let him stun me that way. Later on I got next to the fact that he was some kind of a healer, and that the proper thing to do was to call him Doc. Seems he had a four-by-nine office on the top floor back, over the Studio, and that he was just startin' to introduce the Vedic stunt to New York. Mostly he worked the mailorder racket. He showed me his ad in the Sunday personal column, and it was all to the velvet. Accordin' to his own specifications he was a head-liner in the East Indian philosophy business, whatever that was. He'd just torn himself away from the crowned heads of Europe for an American tour, and he stood ready to ladle out advice to statesmen, tinker up broken hearts, forecast the future, and map out the road to Wellville for millionaires who'd gone off their feed. He sure had a full bag of tricks to draw from; but I've noticed that the more glass balls you try to keep in the air at once, the surer you are to queer the act. And Pinphoodle didn't look like a gent that kept the receivin' teller workin' overtime. There was something about him, though, that was kind of dignified. He was the style of chap that would blow his last dime on havin' his collar 'n' cuffs polished, and would go without eatin' rather than frisk the free lunch at a beer joint. He was willin' to talk about anything but the female with the gimlet eyes and the keen-cutter tongue. "She is a mistaken, misguided person," says he. "And by the way, Professor McCabe, there is a fire-escape, I believe, which leads from my office down to your back windows. Would it be presuming too much if I should ask you to admit me there occasionally, in the event of my being—er—pursued again?" "It ain't a board bill, is it, Doc?" says I. "Nothing of the kind, I assure you," says he. "Glad to hear it," says I. "As a rule, I don't run no rock-of-ages refuge, but I likes to be neighborly, so help yourself." We fixed it up that way, and about every so often I'd see Doc Pinphoodle slidin' in the back window, with a worried look on his face, and iron rust on his trousers. He was a quiet neighbor, though—didn't torture the cornet, or deal in voice culture, or get me to cash checks that came back with remarks in red ink written on 'em. I was wonderin' how the Vedic stunt was catchin' on, when all of a sudden he buds out in an eight-dollar hat, this year's model, and begins to lug around an iv'ry-handled cane. "I'm glad they're comin' your way, Doc," says I. "Thanks," says he. "If I can in any measure repay some of the many kindnesses which you have—" "Sponge it off," says I. "Maybe I'll want to throw a lady off the scent myself, some day." A week or so later I misses him altogether, and the janitor tells me he's paid up and moved. Well, they come and go like that, so it don't do to feel lonesome; but I had the floor swept under the couch reg'lar, on a chance that he might show up again. It was along about then that I hears about the bull pup. I'd been wantin' to have one out to Primrose Park—where I goes to prop up the weekend, you know. Pinckney was tellin' me of a friend of his that owns a likely-lookin' litter about two months old, so one Saturday afternoon I starts to hoof it over and size 'em up. Now that was reg'lar, wa'n't it? You wouldn't think a two-eyed man like me could go astray just tryin' to pick out a bull pup, would you? But look what I runs into! I'd gone about four miles from home, and was hittin' up a Daddy Weston clip on the side path, when I sees one of them big bay-windowed bubbles slidin' past like a train of cars. There was a girl on the back seat that looks kind of natural. She sees me, too, shouts to François to put on the emergency brake, and begins wavin' her parasol at me to hurry on. It was Sadie Sullivan. "Hurry up, Shorty! Run!" she yells. "There isn't a minute to lose." I gets up on my toes at that, and I hadn't no more'n climbed aboard before the machine was tearin' up the macadam again. "Anybody dyin'," says I, "or does the bargain counter close at five o'clock?" "Aunt Tillie's eloping," says she, "and if we don't head her off she'll marry an old villain who ought to be in jail." "Not Mr. Pinckney's Aunt Tillie, the old girl that owns the big place up near Blenmont?" says I. "That's the one," says Sadie. "Why she's qualified for an old ladies' home," says I. "You don't mean to say she's got kittenish at her age." "There's no age limit to that kind of foolishness," says Sadie, "and this looks like a serious attack. We've got to stop it, though, for I promised Pinckney I'd stand guard until he came back from Newport." I hadn't seen the old girl myself, but I knew her record, and now I got it revised to date. She'd hooked two husbands in her time, but neither of 'em had lasted long. Then she gave it up for a spell and it wa'n't until she was sixty-five that she begins to wear rainbow clothes again, and caper around like one of the squab octet. Lately she'd begun to show signs of wantin' to sit in a shady corner with a man. Pinckney had discouraged a bald-headed minister, warned off an old bachelor, and dropped strong hints to a couple of widowers that took to callin' frequent for afternoon tea. Then a new one had showed up. "He's a sticker, too," says Sadie. "I don't know where Aunt Tillie found him, but Pinckney says he's been coming out from the city every other day for a couple of weeks. She's been meeting him at the station and taking him for drives. She says he's some sort of an East Indian priest, and that he's giving her lessons in a new faith cure that she's taking up. To-day, though, after she'd gone off, the housekeeper found that her trunk had been smuggled to the station. Then a note was picked up in her room. It said something about meeting her at the church of St. Paul's-in-the-Wood, at four-thirty, and was signed, 'Your darling Mulli.' Oh, dear, it's almost half-past now! Can't you go any faster, François?" I thought he couldn't, but he did. He jammed the speed lever up another notch, and in a minute more we were hittin' only the high places. We caromed against them red-leather cushions like a couple of pebbles in a bottle, and it was a case of holdin' on and hoping the thing would stay right side up. I hadn't worked up much enthusiasm about gettin' to St. Paul's-in-the-Wood before, but I did then, all right. Never was so glad to see a church loom up as I was that one. "That's her carriage at the chapel door," says Sadie. "Shorty, we must stop this thing." "It's out of my line," says I, "but I'll help all I can." We made a break for the front door and butted right in, just as though they'd sent us cards. It wasn't very light inside, but down at the far end we could see a little bunch of folks standin' around as if they was waitin' for somethin' to happen. Sadie didn't make any false motions. She sailed down the center aisle and took Aunt Tillie by the arm. She was a dumpy, pie-faced old girl, with plenty of ballast to keep her shoes down, and a lot of genuine store hair that was puffed and waved like the specimens you see in the Sixth-ave. show cases. She was actin' kind of nervous, and grinnin' a silly kind of grin, but when she spots Sadie she quit that and puts on a look like the hired girl wears when she's been caught bein' kissed by the grocery boy. "You haven't done it, have you?" says Sadie. "No," says Aunt Tillie; "but it's going to be done just as soon as the rector gets on his other coat." "Now please don't, Mrs. Winfield," says Sadie, gettin' a waist grip on the old girl, and rubbin' her cheek up against her shoulder in that purry, coaxin' way she has. "You know how badly we should all feel if it didn't turn out well, and Pinckney—" "He's a meddlesome, impertinent young scamp!" says Aunt Tillie, growin' red under the layers of rice powder. "Haven't I a right to marry without consulting him, I'd like to know?" "Oh, yes, of course," says Sadie, soothing her down, "but Pinckney says—" "Don't tell me anything that he says, not a word!" she shouts. "I won't listen to it. He had the impudence to suggest that my dear Mulli was a—a corn doctor, or something like that." "Did he?" says Sadie. "I wouldn't have thought it of Pinckney. Well, just to show him that he was wrong, I would put this affair off until you can have a regular church wedding; with invitations, and ushers, and pretty flower girls. And you ought to have a gray-silk wedding-gown—you'd look perfectly stunning in gray silk, you know. Wouldn't all that be much nicer than running off like this, as though you were ashamed of something?" Say, it was a slick game of talk that Sadie handed out then, for she was playin' for time. But Aunt Tillie was no come-on. "Mulli doesn't want to wait another day," says she, "and neither do I, so that settles it. And here comes the rector, now." "Looks like we'd played out our hand, don't it?" I whispered to Sadie. "Wait!" says she. "I want to get a good look at the man." He was trailin' along after the minister, and it wa'n't until he was within six feet of me that I saw who it was. "Hello, Doc!" says I. "So you're the dear Mulli, are you?" He near jumped through his collar, Pinphoodle did, when he gets his lamps on me. It only lasted a minute, though, for he was a quick recoverer. "Why, professor!" says he. "This is an unexpected pleasure." "I guess some of that's right," says I. And say, but he was dressed for the joyful bridegroom part—striped trousers, frock coat, white puff tie, and white gloves! He'd had a close shave and a shampoo, and the massage artist had rubbed out some of the swellin' from under his eyes. Didn't look much like the has-been that done the dive under the couch at the Studio. "Well, well!" says I. "This is where the private cinch comes in, eh? Doc, you've got a head like a horse." "I should think he'd be ashamed of himself," says Sadie, "running off with a silly old woman who might be his mother." The Sullivan temper had got the best of her. After that the deep lard was all over the cook stove. Aunt Tillie throws four cat-fits to the minute, and lets loose on Sadie with all kinds of polite jabs that she can lay her tongue to. Then Doc steps up, puts a manly arm half-way round her belt line, and lets her weep on the silk facing of his Sunday coat. By this time the preacher was all broke up. He was a nice healthy-lookin' young chap, one of the strawb'ry-blond kind, with pink and white cheeks, and hair as soft as a toy spaniel's. It turns out that he was new to the job, and this was his first call to spiel off the splicin' service. "I trust," says he, "that there is nothing—er—that no one has any valid objection to the uniting of this couple?" "I will convince you of that," says Doc Pinphoodle, speakin' up brisk and cocky, "by putting to this young lady a few pertinent questions." Well, he did. As a cross-examiner for the defense he was a regular Joe Choate. Inside of two minutes he'd made torn mosquito netting of Sadie's kick, shown her up for a rank outsider, and put us both through the ropes. "Now," says he, with a kind of calm, satisfied I've-swallowed-the-canary smile, "we will proceed with the ceremony." Sadie was near cryin with the mad in her, she bein' a hard loser at any game. "You're an old fraud, that's what you are!" she spits out. "And you're just marrying Pinckney's silly old aunt to get her money." But that rolls off Doc like a damage suit off'm a corporation. He just smiles back at her, and goes to chirkin' up Aunt Tillie. Doc was it, and knew where he stood. He had us down and out. In five minutes more he'd have a two-hundred-pound wife and a fifty-thousand-dollar income. "It strikes me," says he, over his shoulder, "that if I had got hold of a fortune in the way you got yours, young woman, I wouldn't make any comments about mercenary marriages." Well, say, up to that time I had a half-baked idea that maybe I wasn't called on to block his little game, but when he begins to rub it into Sadie I sours on Doc right away. And it always does take one or two good punches to warm me up to a scrap. I begins to do some swift thinkin'. "Hold on there, Doc," says I. "I'll give in that you've got our case quashed as it stood. But maybe there's someone else that's got an interest in these doin's." "Ah!" says he. "And who might that be?" "Mrs. Montgomery Smith," says I. It was a chance shot, but it rung the bell. Doc goes as limp as a straw hat that's been hooked up after a dip in the bay, and his eyes took on that shifty look they had the first time I ever saw him. "Why," says he, swallowin' hard, and doing his best to get back the stiff front he'd been puttin' up—"why, there's no such person." "No?" says I. "How about the one that calls you Monty and runs you under the couch?" "It's a lie!" says he. "She's nothing to me, nothing at all." "Oh, well," says I, "that's between you and her. She says different. Anyway, she's come clear up here to put in her bid; so it's no more'n fair to give her a show. I'll just bring her in." As I starts towards the front door Doc gives me one look, to see if I mean business. Then, Sadie says, he turns the color of pie-crust, drops Aunt Tillie as if she was a live wire, and jumps through the back door like he'd been kicked by a mule. I got back just in time to see him hurdle a five-foot hedge without stirrin' a leaf, and the last glimpse we got of him he was headin' for a stretch of woods up Connecticut way. "Looks like you'd just missed assistin' at a case of bigamy," says I to the young preacher, as we was bringin' Aunt Tillie out of her faint. "Shocking!" says he. "Shocking!" as he fans himself with a hymn book. He was takin' it hard. Aunt Tillie wouldn't speak to any of us, and as we bundled her into her carriage and sent her home she looked as mad as a settin' hen with her feet tied. "Shorty," says Sadie, on the way back, "that was an elegant bluff you put up." "Lucky my hand wa'n't called," says I. "But it was rough on the preacher chap, wa'n't it? He had his mouth all made up to marry some one. Blamed if I didn't want to offer him a job myself." "And who would you have picked out, Shorty?" says she. "Well," says I, lookin' her over wishful, "there ain't never been but one girl that I'd choose for a side partner, and she's out of my class now." "Was her name Sullivan once?" says she. "It was," says I. She didn't say anything more for a spell after that, and I didn't; but there's times when conversation don't fit in. All I know is that you can sit just as close on the back seat of one of them big benzine carts as you can on a parlor sofa; and with Sadie snuggled up against me I felt like it was always goin' to be summer, with Sousa's band playin' somewhere behind the rubber trees. First thing I knows we fetches up at my shack in Primrose Park, and I was standin' on the horse block, alongside the bubble. Sadie'd dropped both hands on my shoulders and was turnin' them eyes of hers on me at close range. François was lookin' straight ahead, and there wasn't anyone in sight. So I just took a good look into that pair of Irish blues. "What a chump you are, Shorty!" she whispers. "Ah, quit your kiddin'," says I. But I didn't make any move, and she didn't. "Well, good-by," says she, lettin' out a long breath. "By-by, Sadie," says I, and off she goes. Say, I don't know how it was, but I've been feelin' ever since that I'd missed somethin' that was comin' to me. Maybe it was that bull pup I forgot to buy. <hr class="major" /> <div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em"> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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