Odd Numbers. Ford Sewell
worth while for the young lady.”
I don’t know whether it was the smooth “young lady” business, or the sight of the fat roll that turned the trick; but the tragedy is declared off. Inside of three minutes the boss tells Daggett that Miss Rooney accepts his apology and consents to go if he’ll call a cab.
“Why, surely,” says he. “You’ll come along, too, won’t you, McCabe? Honest, now, I wouldn’t dare do this alone.”
“Too bad about that shy, retirin’ disposition of yours!” says I. “Afraid she’ll steal you, eh?”
But he hangs onto my sleeve and coaxes me until I give in. And we sure made a fine trio ridin’ up Fifth-ave. in a taxi! But you should have seen ’em in the millinery shop as we sails in with Miss Rooney, and Daggett says how he’d like a view of that heliotrope lid in the window. We had ’em guessin’, all right.
Then they gets Miss Rooney in a chair before the mirror, and fits the monstrosity on top of her red hair. Well, say, what a diff’rence it does make in them freak bonnets whether they’re in a box or on the right head! For Miss Rooney has got just the right kind of a face that hat was built to go with. It’s a bit giddy, I’ll admit; but she’s a stunner in it. And does she notice it any herself? Well, some!
“A triumph!” gurgles the saleslady, lookin’ from one to the other of us, tryin’ to figure out who she ought to play to.
“It’s a game combination, all right,” says I, lookin’ wise.
“I only wish – ” begins Daggett, and then swallows the rest of it. In a minute he steps up and says it’ll do, and that the young lady is to pick out one for herself now.
“Oh, how perfectly sweet of you!” says Miss Rooney, slippin’ him a smile that should have had him clear through the ropes. “But if I am to have any, why not this?” and she balances the heliotrope lid on her fingers, lookin’ it over yearnin’ and tender. “It just suits me, doesn’t it?”
Then there’s more of the coy business, aimed straight at Daggett. But Miss Rooney don’t quite put it across.
“That’s going out to Iowy with me,” says he, prompt and decided.
“Oh!” says Miss Rooney, and she proceeds to pick out a white straw with a green ostrich feather a yard long. She was still lookin’ puzzled, though, as we put her into the cab and started her back to the barber shop.
“Must have set you back near a hundred, didn’t they?” says I, as Daggett and I parts on the corner.
“Almost,” says he. “But it’s worth it. Marthy would have looked mighty stylish in that purple one. Yes, yes! And when I get back to South Forks, the first thing I do will be to carry it up on the knoll, box and all, and leave it there. I wonder if she’ll know, eh?”
There wa’n’t any use in my tellin’ him what I thought, though. He wa’n’t talkin’ to me, anyway. There was a kind of a far off, batty look in his eyes as he stood there on the corner, and a drop of brine was tricklin’ down one side of his nose. So we never says a word, but just shakes hands, him goin’ his way, and me mine.
“Chee!” says Swifty Joe, when I shows up, along about three o’clock, “you must have been puttin’ away a hearty lunch!”
“It wa’n’t that kept me,” says I. “I was helpin’ hand a late one to Marthy.”
CHAPTER II
HOW MAIZIE CAME THROUGH
Then again, there’s other kinds from other States, and no two of ’em alike. They float in from all quarters, some on ten-day excursions, and some with no return ticket. And, of course, they’re all jokes to us at first, while we never suspicion that all along we may be jokes to them.
And say, between you and me, we’re apt to think, ain’t we, that all the rapid motion in the world gets its start right here in New York? Well, that’s the wrong dope. For instance, once I got next to a super-energized specimen that come in from the north end of nowhere, and before I was through the experience had left me out of breath.
It was while Sadie and me was livin’ at the Perzazzer hotel, before we moved out to Rockhurst-on-the-Sound. Early one evenin’ we was sittin’, as quiet and domestic as you please, in our twelve by fourteen cabinet finished dinin’ room on the seventh floor. We was gazin’ out of the open windows watchin’ a thunder storm meander over towards Long Island, and Tidson was just servin’ the demitasses, when there’s a ring on the ’phone. Tidson, he puts down the tray and answers the call.
“It’s from the office, sir,” says he. “Some one to see you, sir.”
“Me?” says I. “Get a description, Tidson, so I’ll know what to expect.”
At that he asks the room clerk for details, and reports that it’s two young ladies by the name of Blickens.
“What!” says Sadie, prickin’ up her ears. “You don’t know any young women of that name; do you, Shorty?”
“Why not?” says I. “How can I tell until I’ve looked ’em over?”
“Humph!” says she. “Blickens!”
“Sounds nice, don’t it?” says I. “Kind of snappy and interestin’. Maybe I’d better go down and – ”
“Tidson,” says Sadie, “tell them to send those young persons up here!”
“That’s right, Tidson,” says I. “Don’t mind anything I say.”
“Blickens, indeed!” says Sadie, eyin’ me sharp, to see if I’m blushin’ or gettin’ nervous. “I never heard you mention any such name.”
“There’s a few points about my past life,” says I, “that I’ve had sense enough to keep to myself. Maybe this is one. Course, if your curiosity – ”
“I’m not a bit curious, Shorty McCabe,” she snaps out, “and you know it! But when it comes to – ”
“The Misses Blickens,” says Tidson, holdin’ back the draperies with one hand, and smotherin’ a grin with the other.
Say, you couldn’t blame him. What steps in is a couple of drippy females that look like they’d just been fished out of a tank. And bein’ wet wa’n’t the worst of it. Even if they’d been dry, they must have looked bad enough; but in the soggy state they was the limit.
They wa’n’t mates. One is tall and willowy, while the other is short and dumpy. And the fat one has the most peaceful face I ever saw outside of a pasture, with a reg’lar Holstein-Friesian set of eyes, – the round, calm, thoughtless kind. The fact that she’s chewin’ gum helps out the dairy impression, too. It’s plain she’s been caught in the shower and has sopped up her full share of the rainfall; but it don’t seem to trouble her any.
There ain’t anything pastoral about the tall one, though. She’s alive all the way from her runover heels to the wiggly end of the limp feather that flops careless like over one ear. She’s the long-waisted, giraffe-necked kind; but not such a bad looker if you can forget the depressin’ costume. It had been a blue cheviot once, I guess; the sort that takes on seven shades of purple about the second season. And it fits her like a damp tablecloth hung on a chair. Her runnin’ mate is all in black, and you could tell by the puckered seams and the twisted sleeves that it was an outfit the village dressmaker had done her worst on.
Not that they gives us much chance for a close size-up. The lengthy one pikes right into the middle of the room, brushes a stringy lock of hair off her face, and unlimbers her conversation works.
“Gosh!” says she, openin’ her eyes wide and lookin’ round at the rugs and furniture. “Hope we haven’t pulled up at the wrong ranch. Are you Shorty McCabe?”
“Among old friends, I am,” says I, “Now if you come under – ”
“It’s all right, Phemey,” says she, motionin’ to the short one. “Sit down.”
“Sure!”