Side-stepping with Shorty Part 11

"Hotel people still friendly?" says I.

"Why," says he, "I believe there have been a few complaints. But we'll soon be out of that. I've leased a country house for the summer, you know."

"A house!" says I. "You with a house! Who'll run it?"

"S-s-s-sh!" says he, pullin' me one side and talkin' into my ear. "I'm going West to-night, to bring on her mother, and----"

"Oh, I see," says I. "You're goin' to offer Gerty the job?"

Pinckney gets a colour on his cheek bones at that. "She's a charming girl, Shorty," says he.

"She's nothin' less," says I; "and them twins are all right too. But say, Pinckney, I'll bet you never meet a steamer again without knowin'

all about why you're there. Eh?"

VI

THE SOARING OF THE SAGAWAS

Well, I've been doin' a little more circulatin' among the fat-wads.

It's gettin' to be a reg'lar fad with me. And say, I used to think they was a simple lot; but I don't know as they're much worse than some others that ain't got so good an excuse.

I was sittin' on my front porch, at Primrose Park, when in rolls that big bubble of Sadie's, with her behind the plate gla.s.s and rubber.

"But I thought you was figurin' in that big house party out to Breeze Acres," says I, "where they've got a d.u.c.h.ess on exhibition?"

"It's the d.u.c.h.ess I'm running away from," says Sadie.

"You ain't gettin' stage fright this late in the game, are you?" says I.

"Hardly," says she. "I'm bored, though. The d.u.c.h.ess is a frost. She talks of nothing but her girls' charity school and her complexion baths. Thirty of us have been shut up with her for three days now, and we know her by heart. Pinckney asked me to drop around and see if I could find you. He says he's played billiards and poker until he's lost all the friends he ever had, and that if he doesn't get some exercise soon he'll die of indigestion. Will you let me take you over for the night?"

Well, I've monkeyed with them swell house parties before, and generally I've dug up trouble at 'em; but for the sake of Pinckney's health I said I'd take another chance; so in I climbs, and we goes zippin' off through the mud. Sadie hadn't told me more'n half the cat-sc.r.a.ps the women had pulled off durin' them rainy days before we was 'most there.

Just as we slowed up to turn into the private road that leads up to Breeze Acres, one of them d.i.n.ky little one-lunger benzine buggies comes along, missin' forty explosions to the minute and coughin' itself to death on a grade you could hardly see. All of a sudden somethin' goes off. Bang! and the feller that was jugglin' the steerin' bar throws up both hands like he'd been shot with a ripe tomato.

"Caramba!" says he. "Likewise gadzooks!" as the antique quits movin'

altogether.

I'd have known that lemon-coloured pair of lip whiskers anywhere.

Leonidas Dodge has the only ones in captivity. I steps out of the show-case in time to see mister man lift off the front lid and shove his head into the works.

"Is the post mortem on?" says I.

"By the beard of the prophet!" says he, swingin' around, "Shorty McCabe!"

"Much obliged to meet you," says I, givin' him the grip. "The Electro-Polis...o...b..siness must be boomin'," says I, "when you carry it around in a gasoline coach. But go on with your autopsy. Is it locomotor ataxia that ails the thing, or cirrhosis of the sparkin'

plug?"

"It's nearer senile dementia," says he. "Gaze on that piece of mechanism, Shorty. There isn't another like it in the country."

"I can believe that," says I.

For an auto it was the punkiest ever. No two of the wheels was mates or the same size; the tires was bandaged like so many sore throats; the front dasher was wabbly; one of the side lamps was a tin stable lantern; and the seat was held on by a couple of cleats knocked off the end of a packing box.

"Looks like it had seen some first-aid repairin'," says I.

"Some!" says Leonidas. "Why, I've nailed this relic together at least twice a week for the last two months. I've used waggon bolts, nuts borrowed from wayside pumps, pieces of telephone wire, and horseshoe nails. Once I ran twenty miles with the sprocket chain tied up with twine. And yet they say that the age of miracles has pa.s.sed! It would need a whole machine shop to get her going again," says he. "I'll await until my waggons come up, and then we'll get out the tow rope."

"Waggons!" says I. "You ain't travellin' with a retinue, are you?"

"That's the exact word for it," says he. And then Leonidas tells me about the Sagawa aggregation. Ever see one of these medicine shows?

Well, that's what Leonidas had. He was sole proprietor and managing boss of the outfit.

"We carry eleven people, including drivers and canvas men," says he, "and we give a performance that the Proctor houses would charge seventy-five a head for. It's all for a dime, too--quarter for reserved--and our gentlemanly ushers offer the Sagawa for sale only between turns."

"You talk like a three-sheet poster," says I. "Where you headed for now?"

"We're making a hundred-mile jump up into the mill towns," says he, "and before we've worked up as far as Providence I expect we'll have to carry the receipts in kegs."

That was Leonidas, all over; seein' rainbows when other folks would be predictin' a Johnstown flood. Just about then, though, the bottom began to drop out of another cloud, so I lugged him over to the big bubble and put him inside.

"Sadie," says I, "I want you to know an old side pardner of mine. His name's Leonidas Dodge, or used to be, and there's nothing yellow about him but his hair."

And say, Sadie hadn't more'n heard about the Sagawa outfit than she begins to smile all over her face; so I guesses right off that she's got tangled up with some fool idea.

"It would be such a change from the d.u.c.h.ess if we could get Mr. Dodge to stop over at Breeze Acres to-night and give his show," says Sadie.

"Madam," says Leonidas, "your wishes are my commands."

Sadie kept on grinnin' and plannin' out the program, while Leonidas pa.s.sed out his high English as smooth as a demonstrator at a food show.

Inside of ten minutes they has it all fixed. Then Sadie skips into the little gate cottage, where the timekeeper lives, and calls up Pinckney on the house 'phone. And say! what them two can't think of in the way of fool stunts no one else can.

By the time she'd got through, the Sagawa aggregation looms up on the road. There was two four-horse waggons. The front one had a tarpaulin top, and under cover was a bunch of the saddest lookin' actorines and specialty people you'd want to see. They didn't have life enough to look out when the driver pulled up. The second waggon carried the round top and poles.

"Your folks look as gay as a gang startin' off to do time on the island," says I.

"They're not as cheerful as they might be, that's a fact," says Leonidas.

It didn't take him long to put life into 'em, though. When he'd give off a few brisk orders they chirked up amazin'. They shed their rain coats for spangled jackets, hung out a lot of banners, and uncased a lot of p.a.w.nshop trombones and ba.s.s horns and such things. "All up for the grand street parade!" sings out Leonidas.

For an off-hand attempt, it wa'n't so slow. First comes Pinckney, ridin' a long-legged huntin' horse and keepin' the rain off his red coat with an umbrella. Then me and Sadie in her bubble, towin' the busted one-lunger behind. Leonidas was standin' up on the seat, wearin' his silk hat and handlin' a megaphone. Next came the band waggon, everybody armed with some kind of musical weapon, and tearin'

the soul out of "The Merry Widow" waltz, in his own particular way.

The pole waggon brings up the rear.

Pinckney must have spread the news well, for the whole crowd was out on the front veranda to see us go past. And say, when Leonidas sizes up the kind of folks that was givin' him the glad hand, he drops the imitation society talk that he likes to spout, and switches to straight Manhattanese.