Shorty McCabe Part 16

He looks at me for a tip, and that gives him a hunch. "But the professor--" says he.

"Oh, Professor McCabe doesn't mind us a bit; do you now, professor?"

says sister, b.u.t.tin' in, real coy and giddy.

"I can stand it if you can," says I, and she tips me a goo-goo smile that was all to the candied violets.

"There!" says the mother. "Now go right on as though we were not here at all. But remember not to be too rough, Jarvis, dear."

I grins at that, and Jarvis dear looks foolisher than ever. But the ladies had settled themselves in front seats, and there didn't seem to be anything to do but to play marbles or quit an' go home. And say, I don't know which looked more like a stage-hand caught in front of the drop, Jarvis or me. We went through some kind of motions, though, until I begins to get over bein' rattled. Then I tries to brace him up.

"Little faster with that right counter there," says I. "And block more with your elbow. Ah, you're wide open--see?" and I taps him once or twice. "Now look out for this left lead to the face. Come, use that right a little. 'Tain't in a sling, is it? Foot-work, now. You side-step like a truck-horse. There, that's the article. Now let 'em come--block, counter, guard!"

You see, I was doin' my best to work up a little excitement and get Jarvis to forget the audience; but it wasn't much use. About all we did was to walk around and pat each other like a pair of kittens. There'd been as much exercise in pa.s.sin' the plate at church.

Mother thought it was lovely, though, and sister had that gushy look in her eyes that her kind wears after they've been to see Maude Adams.

Lady Evelyn, though, didn't seem to be struck silly by our performance.

She acted as though someone had been tryin' to sell her a gold brick.

Her nose was up in the air, and she'd turned a shoulder to us, like she was wonderin' how long it would be before the next act was put on.

Couldn't blame her, either. That was the weakest imitation of a sparrin'

bout I ever stood up in.

But there was no stirrin' Jarvis. He'd got stage-fright, or cold feet, or something of the kind. It wa'n't that he didn't know how, for he had all the tags of a good amateur about his moves; but somehow he'd been queered. So, as soon as we can, we quits. Then sister gets her chance to gush. She rushes to the front and turns the baby stare on me like I was all the goods.

"Oh, it was just too sweet for anything!" says she. "Do you know, professor, I've always wanted to see a real boxing-match; but Jarvis would never let me before. He's told me horrid stories about how brutal they were. Now I know they're nothing of the sort. I shall come every time you and Jarvis have one, and so will Lady Evelyn. You didn't think it was brutal, did you, Evelyn?"

Lady Evelyn humped her eyebrows and gave me one look. "No," says she, "I shouldn't call it brutal, exactly," and then she swallows a polite, society snicker in a way that made me mad from the ground up. Jarvis didn't lose any of that, either. I got a glimpse of him turnin'

automobile red, and tryin' to choke himself with his tongue.

"It's something like the wand drill we used to do at college," says sister. "Don't you like the wand drill, professor?"

"When it ain't done too rough, I'm dead stuck on it," says I.

"I just knew you didn't like rough games," says she. "You don't look as though you would, you know."

"That's right," say I.

"Jarvis says that once you knocked out three men in one evening; but I'm sure you weren't rude about it," she gurgles.

"And that's no pipe, either," says I. "I wouldn't be rude for money."

"What is a knockout, anyway?" says she.

"Why," says I, "it's just pushin' a feller around the platform until he's too dizzy to stand up."

"What fun!" says sister.

We makes a break for the dressin'-room about then, and the delegation clears out. On the way back to the station Jarvis apologizes seven different ways, and ends up by givin' me the cue to the whole game.

Seems that mother's steady job in life was to get him married off to some one that suited her for a daughter-in-law. She'd been at it for five or six years; but Jarvis had always blocked her moves, until Lady Evelyn shows up. I guessed that he'd picked her out himself, and was gettin' along fine, when mother begins to mix in and arrange things.

Evelyn shies at that, and commences to hand Jarvis the frapped smile.

This little visit to the sparrin' exhibition the old lady had planned for Evelyn's special benefit.

"But hang it all!" says Jarvis, "I couldn't stand up there and show off, like a Sunday-school boy spouting a piece. Made me feel like a silly a.s.s, you know."

"You looked the part," says I. "About one more of those stunts, and Lady Evelyn'll want to adopt the two of us."

"No more," says he. "She must think I'm a milksop. Why, she's got brothers that are officers in the British army, fellows who get themselves shot, and win medals, and all that sort of thing."

Well, I was sorry for Jarvis; for the girl was a good looker, all right, and they'd have mated up fine. But I'm no _schatchen_. Physical culture's my game, an' I ain't takin' on no marriage bureau as a side line. So we shook hands and called it a canceled contract. Then Jarvis jerks those circus horses out of a bow-knot and rounds the corner on one wheel, while I climbs aboard the choo-choo cars and gets back near Broadway.

I wasn't lookin' to run across Jarvis again, seein' as how me and him has our own particular sets; but 'twasn't more'n three days before he shows up at the Studio. He was lookin' down an' out, too.

"Dropped in for a real rough game of p.u.s.s.y-wants-a-corner," says I, "or shall we make it ring-around-the-rosy?"

"I say, now, Shorty," says he, "if you'd had it rubbed in as hard as I have, you'd let up."

"Heard from Lady Evelyn?" says I.

He kind of groaned and fell into a chair. "I tried to tell her about it," says he; "but she wouldn't listen to a word. She only asked if you were a professor of dancing."

"Hully chee!" says I. "Say, you tell her from me that I'm a cloak-model, an' proud of it. Dancin'-master, eh? Do you stand for a josh like that?"

"Hang me if I do!" says he, jumpin' up and measurin' off three-foot steps across the floor. "The Lady Evelyn's going back to England in a few days, but before she leaves I want her to have a chance to--well, to see that I'm not the sort she thinks I am. And I want you to help me out, professor."

"Ah, say, you got the wrong transfer," says I. "I'm nothin' but a dub at anything like that. What you want is to get Clyde Fitch to build you a nice little one-act scene where you can play leadin' gent to her leadin'

lady."

"You're mistaken, Shorty," says he. "I'm not putting up a game. No heroics for me. I'm just a plain, ordinary chump, and willing to let it go at that. But I'm no softy, and she's got to know it. There's another thing: mother and sister have carried this athletic nonsense about far enough. They'd like to exhibit me to all the fool women they know, as a kind of modern Hercules, and I'm sick of it. Now, I've got a plan that ought to cure 'em of that."

For Jarvis, it wa'n't so slow. Say, he ain't half so much asleep as he looks. His proposition is to spring the real thing on 'em, a five-round go for keeps, with ring-weight gloves, and all the trimmin's.

"They've been bothering me for more," says he. "I haven't heard anything else since you were there. And Lady Evelyn's been putting them up to it, I'll bet a hat. What do you say, professor? Wouldn't you give it to them?"

"I sure would," says I. "It's comin' to 'em. And I know of two likely Red Hook boys that's just achin' to get at each other in the ring for a fifty-dollar purse."

"No, no," says Jarvis. "I mean to be in this myself. It's--it's necessary, you know."

"Oh!" says I, looking him over kind of curious. "But see here, do you think you'd be good for five rounds?"

"I'm not quite in condition now," says he; "but there was a time--"

You know. You've seen these college-trained boxers, that think they're hittin' real hard when their punch wouldn't dent a cheese-pie.

"We'd have to fake it some," says I.

"Oh, no, that wouldn't do at all," says Jarvis. "This must be a genuine match. I'll put up ten to one, five hundred to fifty; and if I stay the five rounds I get the fifty."

"Whe-e-ew!" says I. "It'd be like takin' candy from a kid. I couldn't do it."