The She Boss Part 8

Hiram wheeled slowly.

Tweet studied him from every angle, and as Hiram turned he noted the twinkles which came and went in his slate-blue eyes. Without another word Tweet left him standing there, went back and sat down, and hid his face behind his paper.

Hiram waited a minute, then slowly sank to the edge of his chair.

After a little he asked pleadingly:

"Ain't they all right?"

Tweet's paper trembled. A bit of this, then Tweet lowered it and presented a countenance which seemed never to have known a smile.

"Hiram," he remarked, "I don't wanta hurt your feelin's, but the part o' true friendship calls for me to use the surgeon's knife. Hiram, I wouldn't wear that outfit to a funeral. D'ye get me?"

Hiram's blue eyes blazed. "Yes, I get you," he began coldly, then curbed a threatening outburst. "I know they're not the best in the land," he concluded sensibly, "but I feel better in 'em."

"There's somethin' in that," Tweet propounded sagely. "There's a whole lot in gettin' that feel. Good clothes kinda brace a fella up and give him the nerve to buck on in the big game. Hiram, if your new outfit gives you the _feel_, it's the goods. When you get next a little it'll cost you more money to get that feel outa clothes. After all, now, when that tin-roof look wears off of 'em you won't appear so whittled-out in that suit. But now, layin' all jokes aside, are they just the thing for drivin' old Jack and Ned on the railroad grade?

And didn't this sudden lavishness kinda set the company back on its haunches?"

Hiram looked out the window. "Did you see the fire?" he asked absently.

"Yes--walked round the block to get outa the crowd. But----"

"I just had to kinda spruce up a bit, Mr. Tweet. I felt so kinda--well, kinda countrified and--and lost, you might say."

"What's the fire got to do with that? And call me Playmate, too."

"Nothin', I suppose."

"Right across from the restaurant wasn't it?"

"Yes."

"M'm-m--I'd 'a' made a good lawyer, wouldn't I, Hiram?"

"I don't know--why?"

"Why, talkin' about sprucin' up, as you call it, you drift to a fire that occurred across the street from the place where there's a frowsy-topped waitress that's got you goin'. Well, le's foget it. Do we go to southern California together, or not? Our pile's dwindlin' on account o' this b.u.t.terfly life you're leadin'."

"I--I'd like to, but---- Well, I left home to get a start in the city, and I think I oughta---- Really, I wanta go, but----" Hiram gave it up, and his lean face flushed.

"Go on--I didn't interrupt you."

"Well, I--that's all. I want to go to work here."

Tweet laughed with a little snort. "Now looky here," he said, "I think I savvy you pretty well. If I was to go to work and tell you outright that you couldn't win Lucy, you'd get bull-headed and try to show me.

But le'me tell you this: You ain't goin' to win her till you get next to yourself. Now, Lucy's a pretty popular dame with the fellas about the restaurant. I've seen her joy-ridin' with fellas I know are there with the coin, and savvy more in a minute than you ever knew. Now, wait a minute!--don't get excited. All this ain't your fault. It's the fault o' your past environment. You're a hick, and you can't help it. You get out and learn somethin' and gather up a few beans. Then come back and, if you still want the kid, go get her.

"Now, you see this Lucy this afternoon and tell her you're bound out into the Great Unknown to make your fortune, but that you're comin'

back to see her. Put emphasis on who you're comin' back to see. Then flee from temptation. Come now--le's swallow this awful pill like a man."

Hiram thought a long time, looking out the window. In the midst of this Tweet resumed his paper.

The sensible thing to do was for Hiram to sacrifice love to the friendship that promised him a start, in order to gain love back more conclusively in the end. Yes, he loved her--he loved her madly!

Boiling the present situation right down to facts, he had little confidence in Tweet's boasted powers. He could not reconcile Tweet's present impecunious condition with his hints of past affluence. But he liked him instinctively, which, after all, is more human and satisfactory than liking a person after a.n.a.lyzing him and weighing his good qualities against his shortcomings. So it was the thought of Tweet's friendship which finally prompted him to say: "I guess I'll go with you."

"Good!" Tweet dropped his paper. "This afternoon?"

"No--to-morrow."

"Not on your life! This afternoon."

"Well, I'll tell you in an hour or so. Now--now it's about noon. You wait here a little, while I go down in the street. Then I'll come back, and we'll go eat."

Tweet looked at him long and steadily. "Got a date with Lucy, eh?" he said at last.

"Ye-yes--I saw her at the fire this morning. She said she wanted to see me when she went off watch at noon--I'll be right back--probably."

Tweet frowned, then laughed. "Go ahead, Hooker," he relented testily; "go ahead. Got a date with her, eh? I thought maybe you'd just go down there and gape at her through the window. Go to it--but don't forget!"

Hiram hurried out.

Again his feet seemed palsied as he neared the restaurant. Was he to suffer such pangs of stage fright always when about to meet her?

He had not long to dwell on the query. Before he knew it he was face to face with her. She had been looking in the jeweler's window while she waited for him, and had turned as he came abreast.

She was smiling. "You're a minute late," she scolded, pointing to the jeweler's bra.s.s clock.

"Yes, ma'am--I was kept."

"Oh, don't look so serious. A minute's nothing."

"No, ma'am--not much."

Silence claimed them for a time.

"Well, what'll we do?" she finally asked a little petulantly, and turned her back on him to look into the window.

"I dunno," he began; then a sudden wild idea struck him. He had seen along the curbs automobiles bearing signs which read "For Hire--Four Dollars an Hour." It was worth it, if only to break this humiliating situation. "We might take a little spin in a machine," he finished with a tottery tone of indifference.

"Oh, I'd like that," she said instantly. "But I gotta dress. We'll get a car and ride 'round to where I room."

They walked to the corner, where was a taxi stand. Hiram engaged a car by the hour, and they entered. She directed the driver to her rooming house, and they were off.

The car presently drew up to the curb, and the driver swung the door open for his pa.s.sengers. Into a dark, musty little parlor the girl led Hiram of the b.u.t.terfly life.

"Sit down," she invited; "and excuse me a minute."

She went back into the hall, and Hiram heard the tattoo of her feet on the stairs.