"I"ve been taking lessons by mail," says I.

"You"re a dear to do it, anyway," says she. "Just think of the figure I"d cut coming here by my lonesome. It"s bad enough at the hotel, with only Mrs. Prusset. And I"ve been wanting to come for weeks. What luck it was, finding you to-day!"

"Say, don"t run away with the idea that I"m makin" a day"s work of this," says I. "I"m havin" a little fun out of this myself. There"s worse company than you, y"know."

"And I"ve met a heap of men stupider than Shorty McCabe," says she, givin" me the jolly with that sa.s.sy grin of hers, and lettin" go one of those gurgly laughs that sounds as if it had been made on a clarinet.

It was just about then that I looks up and finds Pinckney standing on one foot, waitin" for a chance to b.u.t.t in.

"Why, professor! This is a pleasure," says he.

"h.e.l.lo!" says I. "Where"d you blow in from?"

Then I makes him acquainted with Sadie, and asks him what it"ll be. Oh, he did it well; seemed as surprised as if he hadn"t seen me for a year, and begins to get acquainted with Sadie right away. I tried to give her the wink, meanin" to put her next to the fact that here was where she ought to come out strong on the broad A"s, and throw in the dontcher-knows frequent; but it was no go. She didn"t care a rap. She talked just as she would to me, asked Pinckney all sorts of fool questions, and inside of two minutes them two was carryin" on like a couple of kids.

"I"m a rank outsider here, you know," says she, "and if it hadn"t been for Shorty I"d never got in at all. Oh, sure, Shorty and I are old chums. We used to slide down the same cellar door."

S"elp me, I was plumb ashamed of Sadie then, givin" herself away like that. But Pinckney seemed to think it was great sport. Pretty soon he says he"s got some friends over at another table, and did she mind if he brought "em over.

"Think you"d better?" says she. "I"m the Mrs. Dipworthy of the "Drowsy Drops," you know, and that"s a tag that won"t come off."

"If you"ll allow me," says he, "I"ll attend to the tag business. They"ll be delighted to meet you."

"Say," says I, soon as he"d left, "don"t be a sieve, Sadie. Just forget auld lang syne, and remember that you"re travelin" high."

"They"ve got to take me for what I am, or not at all," says she.

"Yes, but you ain"t got no cue to tell the story of your life," says I.

"That"s my whole stock in trade, Shorty," says she.

I was lookin" for her to revise that notion when I sees the kind of company Pinckney was luggin" up to spring on us. I"d seen their pictures in the papers, and knew "em on sight. And the pair wasn"t anything but the top of the bunch. You know the Twombley-Cranes, that cut more ice in July than the Knickerbocker Trust does all winter. Why say, to see the house rubber at "em as they came sailin" our way, you"d thought they was paid performers stepping up to do their act. It was a case of bein" in the lime-light for us, from that on.

"Hully chee!" says I. "Here"s where I ought to fade."

But there wasn"t any show to duck; for Felix was chasin" over some more chairs, and Pinckney was doin" the honors all round, and the first thing I knew we was a nice little fam"ly party, chuckin" repartee across the pink candle shades, and behavin" like star boarders that had paid in advance.

It was Sadie, though, that had the centre of the stage, and I"ll be staggered if she didn"t jump in to make her bluff good. She let out everything that she shouldn"t have told, from how she used to wait on table at her mother"s boarding-house, to the way she"d got the frozen face ever since she came to town.

"But what am I expected to do?" says she. "I"ve got no Hetty Green grip on my bankbook. There"s a whole binful of the "Drowsy Drop" dollars, and I"m willing to throw "em on the bonfire just as liberal as the next one, only I want a place around the ring. There"s no fun in playing a lone hand, is there? I"ve been trying to find out what"s wrong with me, anyway?"

"My dear girl," says Mrs. Twombley-Crane, "there"s nothing wrong with you at all. You"re simply delicious. Isn"t she, now, Freddie?"

And Freddie just grinned. Say, some men is born wise. "Professor McCabe and I are exchanging views on the coming light-weight contest," says he.

"Don"t mind us, my dear."

Perhaps that"s what we were ga.s.sin" about, or why is a hen. You can search me. I was that rattled with Sadie"s nerve display that I didn"t follow anything else real close.

But when it was all over, and I"d been brought to by a peep at the bill the waiter handed me, I couldn"t figure out whether she"d made a bull"s-eye or rung in a false alarm.

One thing I did notice, as we sails out, and that was the stout Pettigrew person who"d pa.s.sed Sadie the pickled pig"s foot on the avenue that afternoon. She was sitting opposite a skimpy little runt with a bald head, at a table up near the door where the waiters juggled soup over her feathers every time they pa.s.sed. Her eyes were glued on Sadie as we came up, and by the spread of the furrows around her mouth I see she was tryin" to crack a smile.

"Now," thinks I, "here"s where she collects chilblains and feels the mercury drop."

But say! would you look for it in a dream book? What does Sadie do but pa.s.s her out the glad hand and coo away, like a pouter pigeon on a cornice, about being tickled to see her again. Oh, they get me dizzy, women do!

That wa"n"t a marker though, to the reverse English carom Sadie takes after we"d got into a cab and started for her hotel. Was there a jolly for me, or a "Thank you, Shorty, I"ve had the time of my life?" Nothin"

like it. She just slumped into her corner and switched on the boo-hoos like a girl that"s been kept after school.

"Enjoy yourself, Sadie," says I. "Only remember that this is a hansom, not a street sprinkler."

That didn"t fetch her; so after a while I tries her again. "What went wrong?" says I. "Was she stringin" you, or was it the way I wore my face that queered the show?"

"It"s all right, Shorty," says she between weeps. "And nothing"s wrong, nothing at all. Mrs. What"s-Her-Name"s asked me to stay a week with her at their Newport place, and old Mrs. Pettigrew will turn green before morning thinking of me, and I"ve shaken the hoodoo at last. But it all came so much in a lump that I just had to turn on the sprayer. You know how I feel, don"t you, Shorty?"

"Sure," says I, "just as well as if you"d sent me a picture postal of the place you boarded last."

But say, I turned the trick, didn"t I? I didn"t know what was comin" out of the box, of course; and maybe I was some jolted at throwin" three sixes to a pair, but there they lay.

No, I ain"t goin" into the boostin" line as a reg"lar thing; but I guess if any amateur in the business gets a rose nailed on him, I ought to be the gent. Not?

CHAPTER VIII

Did you shut the hall door? That"s right. There"s no tellin" what"s liable to float in here any time. Say, if they don"t quit it, I"ll get to be one of these nervous prostraters, that think themselves sick abed without half tryin". Sure, I"m just convalescin" from the last shock.

How? Now make a guess. Well, it was this way: I was sittin" right here in the front office, readin" the sportin" dope and takin" me reg"lar mornin" sunbath, when the door-buzzer goes off, and in drifts about a hundred and ninety pounds of surprise package.

There was a foreign label on it, all right; but I didn"t know until later that it read "Made in Austria." He was a beefy sort of gent, with not much neck to speak of, and enough curly black hair to shingle a French poodle. He was well colored, too. Beats the cars, don"t it, the good health that"s wasted on some of these foreigners?

But what takes my eye most was his trousseau. Say! he was dressed to the minute, from the pink in his b.u.t.tonhole, to the mother-of-pearl gloves; and the back of his frock coat had an in-curve such as your forty-fat sisters dream about. Why, as far as lines went, he had Jimmy Hackett and Robert Mantell on the back shelf. Oh, he was a crusher, sure!

"I have the purpose of finding Prof-fes-seur McCabby," says he, reading it off"n a card.

"If you mean McCabe," says I, "I"m discovered."

"Is it you that are also by the name of Shortee?" says he.

"Shorty for short," says I, "and P. C. D. on the end to lengthen it out--Physical Culture Director, that stands for. Now do you want my thumb-print, and a snap-shot of my family-tree?"

That seemed to stun him a little; but he revived after a minute, threw out his chest, lifted his silk lid, and says, solemn as a new notary public takin" the oath of office: "I am Baron Patchouli."

"You look it," says I. "Have a chair."

"I am," says he, gettin" a fresh start, "Baron Patchouli, of Hamstadt and Dusseldorf."