Shorty McCabe.

by Sewell Ford.

CHAPTER I

Excuse me, mister man, but ain"t you--h.e.l.lo, yourself! Blamed if I didn"t think there was somethin" kind of natural about the looks, as you come pikin" by. How"re they runnin", eh?

Well say, I ain"t seen you since we used to hit up the grammar school together. You"ve seen me, eh? Oh, sure! I"d forgot. That was when you showed up at the old Athletic club the night I got the belt away from the Kid. Doin" sportin" news then, wa"n"t you? Chucked all that now, I s"pose?

Oh, I"ve kept track of _you_, all right. Every time I sees one of your pieces in the magazines I reads it. And say, some of "em"s kind of punk.

But then, you"ve got to sling out somethin" or other, I expect, or get off the job. Where do you dig up all of them yarns, anyway? That"s what always sticks me. You must knock around a whole bunch, and have lots happen to you. Me? Ah, nothin" ever happens to me. Course, I"m generally on the move, but it"s just along the grub track, and that ain"t excitin".

Yes, it"s been a couple of years since I quit the ring. Why? Say, don"t ever put that up to a has-been. It"s almost as bad as compoundin" a felony. I could give you a whole raft of reasons that would sound well, but there"s only one that covers the case. There"s a knockout comin" to the best of "em, if they hang to the game long enough. Some ain"t satisfied, even after two or three. I was. I got mine, clean and square, and I ain"t ashamed of it. I didn"t raise any holler about a chance shot, and I didn"t go exhibitin" myself on the stage. I slid into a quiet corner for a month or so, and then I dropped into the only thing I knew how to do, trainin" comers to go against the champs. It ain"t like pullin" down your sixty per cent of the gate receipts, but there"s worse payin" jobs.

Course, there"s times when I finds myself up against it. It was durin"

one of them squeezes, not so long ago, that I gets mixed up with Leonidas Dodge, and all that foolishness. Ah, it wa"n"t anything worth wastin" breath over. You would? Honest? Well, it won"t take long, I guess.

You see, just as my wad looks like it had shrunk so that it would rattle around in a napkin ring, someone pa.s.ses me the word that b.u.t.terfly was down to win the third race, at 15 to 1. Now as a general thing I don"t monkey with the ponies, but when I figured up what a few saw-bucks would do for me at those odds, I makes for the track and takes the high dive. After it was all over and I was comin" back in the train, with only a ticket where my roll had been, me feelin" about as gay as a Zulu on a cake of ice, along comes this Mr. Dodge, that I didn"t know from next Tuesday week.

"Is it as bad as that?" says he, sizin" up the woe on my face. "Because if it is they ought to give you a pension. What was the horse?"

"b.u.t.terfly," says I. "Now laugh!"

"I"ve got a right to," says he. "I had the same dope."

Well, you see, that made us almost second cousins by marriage and we started to get acquainted. I looked him over careful but I couldn"t place him within a mile. He had points enough, too. The silk hat was a veteran, the Prince Albert dated back about four seasons, but the gray gaiters were down to the minute. Being an easy talker, he might have been a book agent or a green goods distributor. But somehow his eyes didn"t seem shifty enough for a crook, and no con. man would have lasted long wearing the kind of hair that he did. It was a sort of lemon yellow, and he had a lip decoration about two shades lighter, taggin"

him as plain as an "inspected" label on a tin trunk.

"I"m a mitt juggler," says I, "and they call me Shorty McCabe. What"s your line?"

"I"ve heard of you," he says. "Permit me," and he hands out a pasteboard that read:

LEONIDAS MACKLIN DODGE Commissioner-at-Large

"For what?" says I.

"It all depends," says Mr. Dodge. "Sometimes I call it a bra.s.s polisher, then again it"s a tooth-paste. It works well either way. Also it cleans silver, removes grease spots, and can be used for a shaving soap. It is a product of my own lab"ratory, none genuine without the signature."

"How does it go as a subst.i.tute for beef and?" says I.

"I"ve never quite come to that," says he, "but I"m as close now as it"s comfortable to be. My gold reserve counts up about a dollar thirty-nine."

"You"ve got me beat by a whole dollar," says I.

"Then," says he, "you"d better let me underwrite your next issue."

"There"s a friend of mine up to Forty-second Street that ought to be good for fifty," says I.

"I"ve had lots of friendships, off and on," says he, "but never one that I could cash in at a pinch. I"ll stay by until you try your touch."

Well, the Forty-second Street man had been gone a month. There was others I might have tried, but I didn"t like to risk gettin" my fingers frost-bitten. So I hooks up with Leonidas and we goes out with a grip full of Electro-Polisho, hittin" the places where they had nickel-plated signs and bra.s.s hand rails. And say! I could starve to death doing that.

Give me a week and two pairs of shoes and I might sell a box or so; but Dodge, he takes an hour to work his side of the block and shakes out a fist full of quarters.

"It"s an art," says he, "which one must be born to. After this you carry the grip."

That"s the part I was playin" when we strikes the Tuscarora. Sounds like a parlor car, don"t it? But it was just one of those swell bachelor joints--fourteen stories, electric elevators, suites of two and three rooms, for gents only. Course, we hadn"t no more call to go there than to the Stock Exchange, but Leonidas Macklin, he"s one of the kind that don"t wait for cards. Seein" the front door open and a crowd of men in the hall, he blazes right in, silk hat on the back of his head, hands in his pockets, and me close behind with the bag.

"What"s up; auction, row or accident?" says he to one of the mob.

Now if it had been me that b.u.t.ted in like that I"d had a row on my hands in about two minutes, but in less time than that Leonidas knows the whole story and is right to home. Taking me behind a hand-made palm, he puts me next. Seems that some one had advertised in a mornin" paper for a refined, high-browed person to help one of the same kind kill time at a big salary.

"And look what he gets," says Leonidas, wavin" his hand at the push.

"There"s more"n a hundred of "em, and not more"n a dozen that you couldn"t trace back to a Mills hotel. They"ve been jawing away for an hour, trying to settle who gets the cinch. The chap who did the advertising is inside there, in the middle of that bunch, and I reckon he wishes he hadn"t. As an act of charity, Shorty, I"m going to straighten things out for him. Come on."

"Better call up the reserves," says I.

But that wa"n"t Mr. Dodge"s style. Side-steppin" around to the off edge of the crowd, just as if he"d come down from the elevator, he calls out good and loud: "Now then, gentlemen; one side, please, one side! Ah, thank you! In a moment, now, gentlemen, we"ll get down to business."

And say, they opened up for us like it was pay day and he had the cash box. We brought up before the saddest-lookin" cuss I ever saw out of bed. I couldn"t make out whether he was sick, or scared, or both. He had flopped in a big leather chair and was tryin" to wave "em away with both hands, while about two dozen, lookin" like ex-bath rubbers or men nurses, were telling him how good they were and shovin" references at him. The rest of the gang was trying to push in for their whack. It was a bad mess, but Leonidas wasn"t feazed a bit.

"Attention, gentlemen!" says he. "If you will all retire to the room on the left we will get to work. The room on the left, gentlemen, on the left!"

He had a good voice, Leonidas did, one of the kind that could go against a merry-go-round or a German band. The crowd stopped pushin" to listen, then some one made a break for the next room, and in less than a minute they were all in there, with the door shut between. Mr. Dodge tips me the wink and sails over to the specimen in the chair.

"You"re Mr. Homer Fales, I take it," says he.

"I am," says the pale one, breathing hard, "and who--who the devil are you?"

"That"s neither here nor there," says Leonidas. "Just now I"m a life-boat. Do you want to hire any of those fellows? If so--"

"No, no, no!" says Homer, shakin" as if he had a chill. "Send them all away, will you? They have nearly killed me."

"Away they go," says Leonidas. "Watch me do it."

First he has me go in with his hat and collect their cards. Then I calls "em out, one by one, while he stands by to give each one the long-lost brother grip, and whisper in his ear, as confidential as if he was telling him how he"d won the piano at a church raffle: "Don"t say a word; to-morrow at ten." They all got the same, even to the Hickey-boy shoulder pat as he pa.s.sed "em out, and every last one of "em faded away trying to keep from lookin" tickled to death. It took twenty minutes by the watch.

"Now, Mr. Fales," says Leonidas, comin" to a parade rest in front of the chair, "next time you want to play Santa Claus to the unemployed I"d advise you to hire Madison Square Garden to receive in."

That seemed to put a little life into Homer. He hitched himself up off"n the middle of his backbone, pulled in a yard or two of long legs and pried his eyes open. You couldn"t call him handsome and prove it. He had one of those long, two-by-four faces, with more nose than chin, and a pair of inset eyes that seemed built to look for grief. The corners of his mouth were sagged, and his complexion made you think of cheese pie.

But he was still alive.

"You"ve overlooked one," says he, and points my way. "He wouldn"t do at all. Send him off, too."

"That"s where you"re wrong, Mr. Fales," says Leonidas. "This gentleman is a wholly disinterested party, and he"s a particular friend of mine.

Professor McCabe, let me introduce Mr. Homer Fales."

So I came to the front and gave Homer"s flipper a little squeeze that must have done him as much good as an electric treatment, by the way he squirmed.