Just Around the Corner Part 3

"I blew me right fer this outfit; but it's woith the money, sis."

"If I had known I'd have gone home and dressed up, too."

"Well, whatta you know about that?" exclaimed Mr. Barker, observing her up and down. "That there shroud you're wearing is as cla.s.sy as anything I've seen up in the lobby or any place else, and I've been all round the woild some, too. I know the real thing from the seconds every time."

Miss Gertrude worked into her gloves.

"I guess it is more becoming for a girl like me to go plainly."

"Believe me, kiddo"--Mr. Barker placed his hand blinker-fashion against the side of his mouth, and his lips took on an oblique slant--"take it from me, kiddo, when it comes to real feet-on-the-fender comfort, a nineteen-fifty suit with a extry pair of pants thrown in can make this rig feel like a busted tire."

"Well, Mr. Barker, I'm ready if you are."

He swung one arm akimbo with an outward circular movement, clicked his heels together, and straightened his shoulders until his speckled white vest swelled.

"Hitch on, sis, and let's show Broadway we're in town!"

Gertrude took a pinch of sleeve between her gloved fingers; they fell into step. At the door she turned and nodded over one shoulder.

"Good night, Ethyl dear," she said, a trifle too sweetly.

A huge mahogany-colored touring-car caparisoned in nickel and upholstered in darker red panted and chugged at the Broadway curb. Mr.

Barker helped her into the front seat, swung himself behind the steering-wheel, covered them over with a striped rug, and turned his shining monster into the flux of Broadway.

Miss Gertrude leaned her head back against the upholstery and breathed a deep-seated, satisfied sigh.

"This," she said, "is what I call living."

Mr. Barker grinned and let out five miles more to the hour.

"I guess this ain't got the Sixth Avenue 'L' skinned a mile!"

"Two miles," she said.

"Honest, sis, I could be arrested for what I think of the 'L.'"

"I know the furnishing of every third-floor front on the line," she replied, with a dreary attempt at jocoseness.

"Never mind, kiddo, I've got my eye on you," he sang, quoting from a street song of the hour.

They sped on silently, the wind singing in their ears.

"Want the shield up?"

"The what?"

"The gla.s.s front."

"No, thank you, Mr. Barker; this air is good."

"This old wagon can eat up the miles, all right, eh? She toured Egypt fer two months and never turned an ankle."

"To think of having traveled as you have."

"Me, I'm the best little traveler you ever seen. More than once I drove this car up a mountainside. Hold your hat--here goes, kiddo."

"I guess you'll think I'm slow, but this is the first time I've been in an automobile, except once when I was sent for in a taxi-cab for a private manicure."

"You think you could get used to mine, kiddo?" He nudged her elbow with his free arm; she drew herself back against the cushions.

"The way I feel now," she said, closing her eyes, "I could ride this way until the crack of doom."

They drew up before a flaring, electric-lighted cafe with an awning extending from the entrance out to the curb. A footman swung open the door, a doorman relieved Mr. Barker of his hat and light overcoat, a head waiter steered them through an Arcadia of palms, flower-banked tables, and small fountains to a mirrored corner, a lackey drew out their chairs, a pantry boy placed crisp rolls and small pats of sweet b.u.t.ter beside their plates and filled their tumblers with water from a crystal bottle, a waiter bent almost double wrote their order on a silver-mounted pad, and music faint as the symphony of the spheres came to them from a small gold balcony.

Miss Gertrude removed her gloves thoughtfully.

"That is what I call living," she repeated. She leaned forward, her elbows on the table, and the little bunch of violets at her belt worked out and fell to the floor. An attendant sprang to recover them.

"Let 'em go," said Barker. He drew a heavy-headed rose from the embankment between them and wiped its wet stem. "Here's a posy that's got them beat right."

She took it and pinned it at her throat. "Thanks," she said, glancing about her with glowing, interested eyes.

"This place makes Runey's lunch-room look like a two-weeks-old manicure."

"I told you I was goin' to show you the time of your life, didn't I? Any goil that goes out with me ain't with a piker."

"Gee!" said Gertrude; "if Ethyl could only see me now!"

She sipped her water, and the ice tinkled against the frail sides of the tumbler. A waiter swung a silver dome off a platter and served them a steaming and unp.r.o.nounceable delicacy; a woman sang from the small gold balcony--life, wine, and jewels sparkled alike.

A page with converging lines of gilt b.a.l.l.s down the front of his uniform pa.s.sed picture post-cards, showing the cafe, from table to table.

Gertrude asked for a lead-pencil and wrote one to a cousin in Montana, and Mr. Barker signed his name beneath hers.

They dallied with pink ices and French pastries, and he loudly requested the best cigar in the place.

"It's all in knowin' how to live," he explained. "I've been all over the woild, and there ain't much I don't know or ain't seen; but you gotta know the right way to go about things."

"Anybody could tell by looking at you that you are a man of the world,"

said Miss Gertrude.

It was eleven o'clock when they entered the car for the homeward spin.

The cool air blew color and verve into her face; and her hair, responding to the night damp, curled in little grape-vine tendrils round her face.

"You're some swell little goil," remarked Mr. Barker, a cigar hung idle from one corner of his mouth.

"And you are some driver!" she retorted. "You run a car like a real chauffeur."

"I wouldn't own a car if I couldn't run it myself," he said. "I ran this car all through France last fall. There ain't no fun bein' steered like a mollycoddle."