Kid Scanlan Part 23

But the thing that was botherin' Miss Vincent--(Some dame, that! She was the world's champion woman, believe me!) The thing that worried her was G. Herbert and Helen Dear, alias Mrs. Roberts-Miller. Likin'

'em both, Miss Vincent wanted to hurl 'em together for good and all before the train pulled out.

It seems the only objection the dame had to G. Herbert was the fact that he couldn't keep from laughin'. She had him figured as a eighteen-carat simp and frequently told him so, addin' that she could never marry a man who was shy on dignity. Then she gets a flash at our old pal Jason Van Ness or Eddie Fink, as he claimed, and she fell so hard for him she liked to broke her neck! Here was the only original Sedate Sam! Here was the guy she was willin' and anxious to lead to the altar and then to the old safe deposit vault! He was so handsome!

So dignified! Such a splendid actor! That's the stuff she was always handin' poor little G. Herbert and askin' him why _he_ wasn't like that? G. Herbert would shake his head, giggle, and say he didn't know why, but he'd ask his parents.

Van Ness couldn't see Helen Dear with opera gla.s.ses. He told me he hated 'em stout, and, if possible, had figured on weddin' somebody within ten years of his age--either way. I then felt it my duty to inform him that her bankroll was stouter than she was. He goes into high speed on the dignity thing and sets sail for Helen Dear like a bloodhound after a n.i.g.g.e.r. He didn't want to look like a vulgar fortune hunter, he claimed, but he figured if he could get his fingers on a piece of Helen's dough, he could bribe G. Herbert to teach him the art of laughin'.

The Kid tells Miss Vincent to forget about the thing, and he would guarantee that G. Herbert and Helen Dear went away threatenin' to marry each other. She said she'd leave the matter in our hands and held hers out. I shook it and Scanlan kissed it--a trick he stole from Van Ness.

The dinner and dance that night was a knockout! Film City is lit up like a plumber used to be on Sat.u.r.day night, and the inhabitants is dressed like the people that poses for the ads of any cigarette over fifteen cents a pack. As usual, Miss Vincent had the rest of the dames lookin' like sellin' platers in stake race and, believe me, some of them society girls would have worried Venus. The Kid was so swelled up because she kept within easy call all night that he forgot his promise to fix up G. Herbert with Helen Dear. The latter, as we remark at the laundry, was closer to Van Ness all night than the ocean is to the beach, and it looked like the Kid was gonna have a tough time breakin'

'em up.

Along around eleven, Miss Vincent calls Scanlan aside and reminds him that he had better start workin' for G. Herbert, because they would all be beatin' it for the train in a hour. She also give out that, if he didn't make good, she was off him for life. Scanlan bows--another trick he copped from Van Ness--and takes me away down at the end of the lawn to dope somethin' out.

I tripped over what I thought at first was a dead body and me and the Kid props it up in the light.

"Ha, ha!" it says. "Tony he'sa laugha at you! Tony he'sa laugha at everybody! _Bomb Germo_! thisa fel' tella me--ha, ha, ha!"

The Kid grunts in disgust, lets go and Tony bounces back on the lawn.

"Stewed to the scalp!" says Scanlan. "Frisk him!"

I run my hands over Tony and bring forth a bottle of gin and another one of bourbon. The Kid looks 'em over, finally stickin' 'em both in his coat pocket.

"Come on!" he tells me. "They's no use hangin' around here. If I don't get back there, some of them Wealthy w.i.l.l.i.e.s that have been wishin' all night will be one-steppin' with Miss Vincent!"

"But how about G. Herbert?" I says.

"He's got my best wishes!" growls the Kid. "He's a nice little feller, but that's the best I can do. What d'ye think I am--Cupid?"

"Well, gimme the alcohol then!" I says. "You ain't gonna fall off the wagon are you, when--"

"Shut up, Stupid!" he b.u.t.ts in. "I wouldn't take a drink of this stuff for what Rockefeller gets for overtime! I want to get it away from that wop, so's he'll have somethin' to moan about when he wakes up."

We went back to the party, and a couple of dames standin' at the punch bowl calls to the Kid. He always was a riot with the women! Helen Dear is there with Van Ness, and he's got to where he's pattin' her hand, while G. Herbert stands in back of 'em lookin' like he wished he had some nails to bite.

I come to a table and there's Miss Vincent sittin' alone and she motions me to sit down with her--so's my back would hide her from the rest of the bunch. She says a little bit of society went a long ways with her, and where was the Kid? Before I can answer her along comes Helen Dear and she plumps down at the table and starts to tell us what a magnificent man Mister Van Ness was. She claims she never seen such a perfect gentleman in her life. I liked to snickered out loud at the disappointed way she pulled that one and then the Kid, G. Herbert and Van Ness suddenly comes around a tree and joins the party.

Scanlan winks at Miss Vincent, and she looks at him inquiringly, but he just shakes his head. I noticed that G. Herbert looked kinda sad, and he must have put his giggler away because he just sat lookin' down at the ground. Van Ness is full of life--I never seen him so cheerful--so I figured that while them and the Kid was alone, Van Ness must have told 'em that Helen Dear had proposed or accepted him.

Finally, Helen Dear looks at her wrist watch and says she'll have to tear herself away, because the train leaves in fifteen minutes. She wastes five of that throwin' soulful looks at Van Ness and he give back as good as he got. G. Herbert offers to get her wraps, comin' to life long enough to make the request, but Helen Dear gives him a sneerin'

look and says there was servants there for that purpose. It was a terrible throwdown, and Van Ness nearly grinned, but G. Herbert gamely tried a giggle that sounded like the squeak of a stepped-on rat.

While Helen Dear is gettin' into a coat that couldn't have cost a nickel under five thousand bucks, the Kid gets up and calls Van Ness and G. Herbert aside. They was gone about five minutes. When they came back, Helen Dear is just puttin' on her hat and suddenly the thing slips out of her hands and slides down over one eye.

Then--excuse me a minute, I'm in convulsions! I'll never forget it if I live to see Bryan vote against prohibition! There's Helen Dear gettin' red in the face and strugglin' with that hat and--

"Ha, ha, ha, ha!" shrieks Van Ness--_the guy that had lost his laugher_!--"Ha, ha, ha, ha!" he yells, holdin' the chair so's he can stand up and pointin' at Helen's hat. "You ought to go in vaudeville!"

he hollers. "You'd be a riot with that act! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!"

Miss Vincent gasps, the Kid grins, and I all but fainted. Here's this guy laughin' his head off for the first time in ten years and--look at the time he picked to do it! Sweet Cookie!

Helen Dear turns eighteen shades of red and fights for her breath like a fish when you drag it over the side of the boat. Then up steps little G. Herbert. His eyes is kinda gla.s.sy, but his face is set and hard. His spine is as straight as a flag pole and he sticks a piece of gla.s.s over one eye, just like Van Ness used to do! Dignity? Why he could have took Van Ness when that guy was right--_and give him lessons_!

"What does this mean, sir!" he says, walkin' up to Van Ness who is holdin' his sides and fallin' off the chair. Laugh? That bird was in hysterics!

"Ha, ha, ha!" bellers Van Ness. "Get a couple of good camera men quick! Ha, ha, ha, ha! It looks like she got hit with a pie!"

"You infernal idiot!" roars G. Herbert. "How dare you laugh at this lady?"

"Oh, boy!" answers Van Ness, finally rollin' off his chair. "Ha, ha, ha, ha!"

"Come, Herbert!" pipes Helen. "We will go back together and my answer is Yes! Thank Heaven that man stands exposed in his true character!"

"Thas' right!" nods Herbert, waggin' his head and glarin' at all of us.

"C'mon--hic--Cmon, M' dear!"

Somethin' comes staggerin' up and grabs the Kid by the arm. It was Tony.

"Aha!" he yells. "Who'sa taka my bottle gin, bottle bourbon?

_Sapristi_! You bigga stiffa, I--"

The Kid gives him a slow straight arm, and Tony goes over the table backwards, landin' right beside his master.

"No spika da Engleesh!" says Scanlan, as Tony disappears.

I grabbed him by the arm.

"Show me them bottles," I says, gettin' wise in a flash.

The Kid takes out two _empty_ non-refillables and tosses 'em in the gra.s.s.

"My!" he says, dreamily. "How that little guy went to it!"

Toot! Toot! Toot! goes the Santa Fe flier pullin' out with G. Herbert and Helen Dear.

"Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha--ho, ho, ho, ho!" screams Van Ness from under the table. "She promised--ha, ha, ha! to cheer me up--hic--ha, ha, ha! and she--hic--certainly--ha, ha, ha!--made good!"

CHAPTER VI

THE UNHAPPY MEDIUM

They may be such a thing as a ghost, but I don't believe it! At the same time, I'm willin' to admit that my feelin's in the matter ain't gonna prove the ruin of the haunted house promoters. They's a whole lot of things which I look on as plain and simple bunk, that the average guy studies at college. But the reason I say they _may_ be, is because when me and Kid Scanlan come back East this year we stopped off somewheres in the hurrah for prohibition part of the country and was showed over what the advertisin' matter admitted to be the greatest bakery in the world.

I think them ad writers was modest fellers. That joint was not only the world's greatest bakery, it was the world's greatest _anything_!