Side-stepping with Shorty. Ford Sewell
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Side-stepping with Shorty
I
SHORTY AND THE PLUTE
Notice any gold dust on my back? No? Well it's a wonder there ain't, for I've been up against the money bags so close I expect you can find eagle prints all over me.
That's what it is to build up a rep. Looks like all the fat wads in New York was gettin' to know about Shorty McCabe, and how I'm a sure cure for everything that ails 'em. You see, I no sooner take hold of one down and outer, sweat the high livin' out of him, and fix him up like new with a private course of rough house exercises, than he passes the word along to another; and so it goes.
This last was the limit, though. One day I'm called to the 'phone by some mealy mouth that wants to know if this is the Physical Culture Studio.
"Sure as ever," says I.
"Well," says he, "I'm secretary to Mr. Fletcher Dawes."
"That's nice," says I. "How's Fletch?"
"Mr. Dawes," says he, "will see the professah at fawh o'clock this awfternoon."
"Is that a guess," says I, "or has he been havin' his fortune told?"
"Who is this?" says the gent at the other end of the wire, real sharp and sassy.
"Only me," says I.
"Well, who are you?" says he.
"I'm the witness for the defence," says I. "I'm Professor McCabe, P. C. D., and a lot more that I don't use on week days."
"Oh!" says he, simmerin' down a bit. "This is Professor McCabe himself, is it? Well, Mr. Fletcher Dawes requiahs youah services. You are to repawt at his apartments at fawh o'clock this awfternoon – fawh o'clock, understand?"
"Oh, yes," says I. "That's as plain as a dropped egg on a plate of hash. But say, Buddy; you tell Mr. Dawes that next time he wants me just to pull the string. If that don't work, he can whistle; and when he gets tired of whistlin', and I ain't there, he'll know I ain't comin'. Got them directions? Well, think hard, and maybe you'll figure it out later. Ta, ta, Mister Secretary." With that I hangs up the receiver and winks at Swifty Joe.
"Swifty," says I, "they'll be usin' us for rubber stamps if we don't look out."
"Who was the guy?" says he.
"Some pinhead up to Fletcher Dawes's," says I.
"Hully chee!" says Swifty.
Funny, ain't it, how most everyone'll prick up their ears at that name? And it don't mean so much money as John D.'s or Morgan's does, either. But what them two and Harriman don't own is divided up among Fletcher Dawes and a few others. Maybe it's because Dawes is such a free spender that he's better advertised. Anyway, when you say Fletcher Dawes you think of a red-faced gent with a fistful of thousand-dollar bills offerin' to buy the White House for a stable.
But say, he might have twice as much, and I wouldn't hop any quicker. I'm only livin' once, and it may be long or short, but while it lasts I don't intend to do the lackey act for anyone.
Course, I thinks the jolt I gave that secretary chap closes the incident. But around three o'clock that same day, though, I looks down from the front window and sees a heavy party in a fur lined overcoat bein' helped out of a shiny benzine wagon by a pie faced valet, and before I'd done guessin' where they was headed for they shows up in the office door.
"My name is Dawes. Fletcher Dawes," says the gent in the overcoat.
"I could have guessed that," says I. "You look somethin' like the pictures they print of you in the Sunday papers."
"I'm sorry to hear it," says he.
But say, he's less of a prize hog than you'd think, come to get near – forty-eight around the waist, I should say, and about a number sixteen collar. You wouldn't pick him out by his face as the kind of a man that you'd like to have holdin' a mortgage on the old homestead, though, nor one you'd like to sit opposite to in a poker game – eyes about a quarter of an inch apart, lima bean ears buttoned down close, and a mouth like a crack in the pavement.
He goes right at tellin' what he wants and when he wants it, sayin' he's a little out of condition and thinks a few weeks of my trainin' was just what he needed. Also he throws out that I might come up to the Brasstonia and begin next day.
"Yes?" says I. "I heard somethin' like that over the 'phone."
"From Corson, eh?" says he. "He's an ass! Never mind him. You'll be up to-morrow?"
"Say," says I, "where'd you get the idea I went out by the day?"
"Why," says he, "it seems to me I heard something about – "
"Maybe they was personal friends of mine," says I. "That's different. Anybody else comes here to see me."
"Ah!" says he, suckin' in his breath through his teeth and levelin' them blued steel eyes of his at me. "I suppose you have your price?"
"No," says I; "but I'll make one, just special for you. It'll be ten dollars a minute."
Say, what's the use? We saves up till we gets a little wad of twenties about as thick as a roll of absorbent cotton, and with what we got in the bank and some that's lent out, we feel as rich as platter gravy. Then we bumps up against a really truly plute, and gets a squint at his dinner check, and we feels like panhandlers workin' a side street. Honest, with my little ten dollars a minute gallery play, I thought I was goin' to have him stunned.
"That's satisfactory," says he. "To-morrow, at four."
That's all. I'm still standin' there with my mouth open when he's bein' tucked in among the tiger skins. And I'm bought up by the hour, like a bloomin' he massage artist! Feel? I felt like I'd fit loose in a gas pipe.
But Swifty, who's had his ear stretched out and his eyes bugged all the time, begins to do the walk around and look me over as if I was a new wax figger in a museum.
"Ten plunks a minute!" says he. "Hully chee!"
"Ah, forget it!" says I. "D'ye suppose I want to be reminded that I've broke into the bath rubber class? G'wan! Next time you see me prob'ly I'll be wearin' a leather collar and a tag. Get the mitts on, you South Brooklyn bridge rusher, and let me show you how I can hit before I lose my nerve altogether!"
Swifty says he ain't been used so rough since the time he took the count from Cans; but it was a relief to my feelin's; and when he come to reckon up that I'd handed him two hundred dollars' worth of punches without chargin' him a red, he says he'd be proud to have me do it every day.
If it hadn't been that I'd chucked the bluff myself, I'd scratched the Dawes proposition. But I ain't no hand to welch; so up I goes next afternoon, with my gym. suit in a bag, and gets my first inside view of the Brasstonia, where the plute hangs out. And say, if you think these down town twenty-five-a-day joints is swell, you ought to get some Pittsburg friend to smuggle you into one of these up town apartment hotels that's run exclusively for trust presidents. Why, they don't have any front doors at all. You're expected to come and go in your bubble, but the rules lets you use a cab between certain hours.
I tries to walk in, and was held up by a three hundred pound special cop in grey and gold, and made to prove that I didn't belong in the baggage elevator or the ash hoist. Then I'm shown in over the Turkish rugs to a solid gold passenger lift, set in a velvet arm chair, and shot up to the umpteenth floor.
I was lookin' to find Mr. Dawes located in three or four rooms and bath, but from what I could judge of the size of his ranch he must pay by acreage instead of the square foot, for he has a whole wing to himself. And as for hired help, they was standin' around in clusters, all got up in baby blue and silver, with mugs as intelligent as so many frozen codfish. Say, it would give me chillblains on the soul to have to live with that gang lookin' on!
I'm shunted from one to the other, until I gets to Dawes, and he leads the way into a big room with rubber mats, punchin' bags, and all the fixin's you could think of.
"Will this do?" says he.
"It'll pass," says I. "And if you'll chase out that bunch of employment bureau left-overs, we'll get down to business."
"But,"