Ain't Angie Awful!. Frank Gelett Burgess
sudden rush of mud to the head.
“But what are rits?” she faltered. “Is it a breakfast food, or something like a Yonker?”
“Oh, take a taxi, and ask the engineer. Hurry!” and he had hung up before she could say Jack Dempsey. She hadn’t time even to think of saying it. It didn’t occur to her till hours afterwards.
She didn’t take a taxi, but a taxi took her to the hotel whose bills towered high over the adjacent roofs. There she paid the chauffeur—’twas all she had—a compliment. The poor girl could ill afford it, seriously ill; she had now but two left, and no more coming in till Saturday!
But she was going to meet a man! This time love’s guerdon would be hers! Angie thought a guerdon was some kind of a locket or lavalliere, perhaps even with diamond chips in it!
******
We now come to the party of the second part—a rather entertaining Friday Night party, from 8 till 10.
He was large and blond; rather blond than large, though he was large, too—too large. Tanned by the fierce tropical rays of the electric light, his honest, leather-beaten features and even portions of his face and visage showed him to be a strap-hanger of more than usual vigor—one who could step on a dozen feet at once, not including his own.
In full view of the audience, he was eating eight peanuts, with nothing up his sleeves and a silk hat. As he ate, he breathed; and as he breathed, he ate. Long practise had enabled him to do both at once. But he couldn’t do both and be surprised at the same time. He had to stop something, so he stopped breathing—for lo, Angela was before him, the love light in her ears.
“Here I be!” she cried. It was a grammatic moment.
He gave her one look. But then, he was always giving her things. He had been generous from the first. Not content with that, he gave her a cuff on the jaw. It was one of his best cuffs, too.
“You are late, girl! Come up to my room on the fourth story, the only story, unfortunately, with a happy ending. It is in the East wing, near the wishbone. Follow me!”
Did it bode murder, or marriage? Angie hardly cared. All she knew was that she was beautiful and desperate and slightly bowlegged; and heaven helping her, she would make this man her slave. If heaven wouldn’t help her, it would be hell.
How they ever got up to the room she never knew—so why should I—or you? Perhaps they crawled up the mail chute. Perhaps they were carried up on a tray, disguised as two near-gin rickeys and a liverwurst sandwich. But they are in the room already and we’ll have to hurry to catch up to them.
At last she was alone with him and two dozen mouse-traps. They were all arranged upon the bed, all different nationalities, though most of them were females. Why had he set a trap for her in this lonely place? As both her hands were in her muff she could not shut her eyes and thus conceal her blushes.
“Now here is my best seller,” he went on as if nothing had happened, which, in fact, it had. He displayed a small silver contraption looking like the skull of a rheostat. “This is devised for the use of ladies who are afraid of mice. Just attach it to the garter, and it catches them on the way up, thus rendering it unnecessary to mount a chair or other quadruped. You, my dear, are to peddle them; you will have all rights north of Fifth Avenue. You have brains and temperament and freckles, and should do well. I have picked you out of the whole of New York, but I shall return you. Now here is another, a trap with a chain to be fastened to the wall, grand piano or anything heavy, like a mortgage, or afternoon caller. You see, little one? The mouse, when caught, can neither pull the trap into his hole, nor the hole into his trap. You will work on a commission, say a captain’s, or, if you do well, a major’s.”
But Angela Bish had a soul above mouse-traps. She would catch larger game; and the wealthy peanut-eater, whose victims strewed the floor, not to speak of shuddering peanuts yet to be eaten, pale with fear, had the makings of a he-husband. Her chance had come.
With a scarlet cry she hurled herself into his arms, and, by the hard-boiled kiss she gave him he perceived, too late, that she was virtuous. Amazed, shocked, he wrenched
himself free and burst out of the room, weeping like a cow.
And alas, Angie, in her excitement—she had hardly known what excitemeant before—had sprung the trap, and behold, she now found herself firmly held by the left ear at the end of a long silver chain. Struggle as she might or might not, she could not escape. She couldn’t even get away. The room was filled with wails and peanuts. No one came.
THE PLUMBER, WHO CUT OFF HER EARS WITH HIS TIN SHEARS, HARDLY KNEW HER
To drown her sorrow she began eating the peanuts feverishly.
******
It was hours before they found her. She had aged terribly. The plumber, who cut off her ear with his tin shears, hardly knew her. But then, he had never seen her before, and we must forgive him; besides, peanuts change one considerably, especially when eaten without a spoon.
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