Odd Numbers. Ford Sewell
but French, that bein’ the brand of governess he’d always had, and so he naturally couldn’t be very thick with a grandmother that didn’t understand a word of his lingo.
“Besides,” says Vincent, “mother and my wife, I regret to say, have never found each other very congenial.”
I might have guessed it if I’d stopped to think of how an old lady from the country would hitch with one of them high flyin’ Chetwood girls.
“Then she hangs out with your sister, eh, and does her grandmother act there?” says I.
“Well, hardly,” says Vincent, colorin’ up a little. “You see, Rodney has never been very intimate with the rest of our family. He’s a Kipp, and – Well, you can’t blame him; for mother is rather old-fashioned. Of course, she’s good and kind-hearted and all that; but – but there isn’t much style about her.”
“Still sticks to the polonaise of ’81, and wears a straw lid she bought durin’ the Centennial, eh?” says I.
Vincent says that about tells the story.
“And where is it she’s been livin’ all this time that you’ve been gettin’ on so well in New York?” says I.
“In our old home, Tonawanda,” says he, shudderin’ some as he lets go of the name. “It’s where she should have stayed, too!”
“So-o-o-o?” says I. I’d been listenin’ just out of politeness up to that point; but from then on I got int’rested, and I don’t let up until I’ve pumped out of him all the details about just how much of a nuisance an old, back number mother could be to a couple of ambitious young folks that had grown up and married into the swell mob.
It was a case that ought to be held up as a warnin’ to lots of superfluous old mothers that ain’t got any better taste than to keep on livin’ long after there’s any use for ’em. Mother Vincent hadn’t made much trouble at first, for she’d had an old maid sister to take care of; but when a bad case of the grip got Aunt Sophrony durin’ the previous winter, mother was left sort of floatin’ around.
She tried visitin’ back and forth between Vincent and Nellie just one consecutive trip, and the experiment was such a frost that it caused ructions in both families. In her Tonawanda regalia mother wa’n’t an exhibit that any English butler could be expected to pass the soup to and still keep a straight face.
So Vincent thinks it’s time to anchor her permanent somewhere. Accordin’ to his notion, he did the handsome thing too. He buys her a nice little farm about a mile outside of Tonawanda, a place with a fine view of the railroad tracks on the west and a row of brick yards to the east, and he lands mother there with a toothless old German housekeeper for company. He tells her he’s settled a good comfortable income on her for life, and leaves her to enjoy herself.
But look at the ingratitude a parent can work up! She ain’t been there more’n a couple of months before she begins complainin’ about bein’ lonesome. She don’t see much of the Tonawanda folks now, the housekeeper ain’t very sociable, the smoke from the brick yards yellows her Monday wash, and the people she sees goin’ by in the cars is all strangers. Couldn’t Vincent swap the farm for one near New York? She liked the looks of the place when she was there, and wouldn’t mind being closer.
“Of course,” says he, “that was out of the question!”
“Oh, sure!” says I. “How absurd! But what’s the contents of this late bulletin about her being a stray?”
It was nothing more or less than that the old girl had sold up the farm a couple of months back, fired the housekeeper, and quietly skipped for New York. Vincent had looked for her to show up at his house, and when she didn’t he figured she must have gone to Nellie’s. It was only when Rodney Kipp fires the grammy question at him that he sees he’s made a wrong calculation and begins havin’ cold feet.
“If she’s here, alone in New York, there’s no knowing what may be happening to her,” says he. “Why, she knows nothing about the city, nothing at all! She might get run over, or fall in with disreputable people, or – ” The other pictures was so horrible he passes ’em up.
“Mothers must be a great care,” says I. “I ain’t had one for so long I can’t say on my own hook; but I judge that you and sister has had a hard time of it with yours. Excuse me, though, if I don’t shed any tears of sympathy, Vincent.”
He looks at me kind of sharp at that; but he’s too busy with disturbin’ thoughts to ask what I mean. Maybe he’d found out if he had. It’s just as well he didn’t; for I was some curious to see what would be his next move. From his talk it’s plain Vincent is most worried about the chances of the old lady’s doin’ something that would get her name into the papers, and he says right off that he won’t rest easy until he’s found her and shooed her back to the fields.
“But where am I to look first?” says he. “How am I to begin?”
“It’s a big town to haul a dragnet through, that’s a fact,” says I. “Why don’t you call in Brother-in-Law Rodney, for a starter?”
“No, no,” says Vincent, glancin’ uneasy at the gym. door. “I don’t care to have him know anything about it.”
“Maybe sister might have some information,” says I. “There’s the ’phone.”
“Thanks,” says he. “If you don’t mind, I will call her up at the Kipp country place.”
He does; but Nellie ain’t heard a word from mother; thought she must be with Vincent all this time; and has been too busy givin’ house parties to find out.
“Have her cross examine the maids,” says I. “The old lady may have left some orders about forwardin’ her mail.”
That was the clew. Inside of ten minutes Nellie ’phones back and gives a number on West 21st-st.
“Gee!” says I. “A hamfatters’ boardin’-house, I’ll bet a bag of beans! Grandmother has sure picked out a lively lodgin’-place.”
“Horrible!” says Vincent. “I must get her away from there at once. But I wish there was someone who – Shorty, could I get you to go along with me and – ”
“Rescuin’ grandmothers ain’t my long suit,” says I; “but I’ll admit I’m some int’rested in this case. Come on.”
By the time our clockwork cab fetches up in front of the prunery it’s after six o’clock. There’s no mistakin’ the sort of histrionic asylum it was, either. A hungry lookin’ bunch of actorets was lined up on the front steps, everyone of ’em with an ear stretched out for the dinner bell. In the window of the first floor front was a beauty doctor’s sign, a bull fiddle-artist was sawin’ out his soul distress in the hall bedroom above, and up under the cornice the Chicini sisters was leanin’ on the ledge and wishin’ the folks back in Saginaw would send on that grubstake letter before the landlady got any worse. But maybe you’ve seen samples of real dogday tragedy among the profesh, when the summer snaps have busted and the fall rehearsals have just begun. What, Mabel?
“It’s a sure enough double-in-brass roost,” says I. “Don’t say anything that sounds like contract, or you’ll be mobbed.”
But they sizes Vincent up for a real estate broker, and gives him the chilly stare, until he mentions the old lady’s name. Then they thaws out sudden.
“Oh, the Duchess!” squeals a couple in chorus. “Why, she always dines out, you know. You’ll find her around at Doughretti’s, on 27th-st.”
“Duchess!” says Vincent. “I – I’m afraid there’s some mistake.”
“Not at all,” says one of the crowd. “We all call her that. She’s got Little Spring Water with her to-night. Doughretti’s, just in from the avenue, is the place.”
And Vincent is the worst puzzled gent you ever saw as he climbs back into the cab.
“It can’t be mother they mean,” says he. “No one would ever think of calling