CHAPTER X

But say, I guess Buddy"ll work out all right. There"s good stuff in him.

Anyways, I ain"t losin" my eyesight, tryin" to follow his curves. And my date book"s been full lately. That"s the way I like it. If you know how to take things there"s a whole lot of fun in just bein" alive; ain"t there? Now look at the buffo combination I"ve been up against.

First off I meets Jarvis--you know, Mr. Jarvis of Blenmont, who"s billed to marry that English girl, Lady Evelyn, next month. Well, Jarvis he was all worked up. Oh, you couldn"t guess it in a week. It was an awful thing that happened to him. Just as he"s got his trunk packed for England, where the knot-tyin" is to take place, he gets word that some old lady that was second cousin to his mother, or something like that, has gone and died and left him all her property.

"Real thoughtless of her, wa"n"t it?" says I.

"Well," says Jarvis, lookin" kind of foolish, "I expect she meant well enough. I don"t mind the bonds, and that sort of thing, but there"s this Nightingale Cottage. Now, what am I to do with that?"

"Raise nightingales for the trade," says I.

Jarvis ain"t one of the joshin" kind, though, same as Pinckney. He had this weddin" business on his mind, and there wa"n"t much room for anything else. Seems the old lady who"d quit livin" was a relative he didn"t know much about.

"I remember seeing her only once," says Jarvis, "and then I was a little chap. Perhaps that"s why I was such a favorite of hers. She always sent me a prayer-book every Christmas."

"Must have thought you was hard on prayer-books," says I. "She wa"n"t batty, was she?"

Jarvis wouldn"t say that; but he didn"t deny that there might have been a few cobwebs in the belfry. Aunt Amelia--that"s what he called her--had lived by herself for so long, and had coaxed up such a case of nerves, that there was no tellin". The family didn"t even know she was abroad until they heard she"d died there.

"You see," says Jarvis, "the deuce of it is the cottage is just as she stepped out of it, full of a lot of old truck that I"ve either got to sell or burn, I suppose. And it"s a beastly nuisance."

"It"s a shame," says I. "But where is this Nightingale Cottage?"

"Why, it"s in Primrose Park, up in Westchester County," says he.

With that I p.r.i.c.ks up my ears. You know I"ve been puttin" my extra-long green in pickle for the last few years, layin" for a chance to place "em where I could turn "em over some day and count both sides. And Westchester sounded right.

"Say," says I, leadin" him over to the telephone booth, "you sit down there and ring up some real-estate guy out in Primrose Park and get a bid for that place. It"ll be about half or two-thirds what it"s worth.

I"ll give you that, and ten per cent. more on account of the fixin"s. Is it a go?"

Was it? Mr. Jarvis had central and was callin" up Primrose Park before I gets through, and inside of an hour I"m a taxpayer. I"ve made big lumps of money quicker"n that, but I never spent such a chunk of it so swift before. But Jarvis went off with his mind easy, and I was satisfied. In the evenin" I dropped around to see the Whaleys.

"Dennis, you low-county bog-trotter," says I, "about all I"ve heard out of you since I was knee high was how you was achin" to quit the elevator and get back to diggin" and cuttin" gra.s.s, same"s you used to do on the old sod. Now here"s a chance to make good."

Well, say, that was the only time I ever talked ten minutes with Dennis Whaley without bein" blackguarded. He"d been fired off the elevator the week before and had been job-huntin" ever since. As for Mother Whaley, when she saw a chance to shake three rooms back and a fire-escape for a place where the trees has leaves on "em, she up and cried into the corned beef and cabbage, just for joy.

"I"ll send the keys in the mornin"," says I. "Then you two pack up and go out there to Nightingale Cottage and open her up. If it"s fit to live in, and you don"t die of lonesomeness, maybe I"ll run up once in a while of a Sunday to look you over."

You see, I thought it would be a bright scheme to hang onto the place for a year or so, before I tries to unload. That gives the Whaleys what they"ve been wishin" for, and me a chance to do the weekend act now and then. Course, I wa"n"t lookin" for no complications. But they come along, all right.

It was on a Sat.u.r.day afternoon that I took the plunge. You know how quick this little old town can warm up when she starts. We"d had the Studio fans goin" all the mornin", and the first shirtwaist lads was paradin" across Forty-second street with their coats off, and Swifty"d made tracks for Coney Island, when I remembers Primrose Park.

I"d pa.s.sed through in expresses often enough, so I didn"t have to look it up on the map; but that was about all. When I"d spoiled the best part of an hour on a local full of commuters and low-cut high-brows, who killed time playin" whist and cussin" the road, I was dumped down at a cute little station about big enough for a lemonade stand. As the cars went off I drew in a long breath. Say, I"d got off just in time to escape bein" carried into Connecticut.

I jumps into a canopy-top surrey that looks like it had been stored in an open lot all winter, and asks the driver if he knows where Nightingale Cottage is.

"Sure thing!" says he. "That"s the place Shorty McCabe"s bought."

"Do tell!" says I. "Well, cart me out to the front gate and put me off."

It was a nice ride. If it had been a mile longer I"d had facts enough for a town history. Drivin" a depot carriage was just a side issue with that Primrose blossom. Conversin" was his long suit. He tore off information by the yard, and slung it over the seat-back at me like one of these megaphone lecturers on the rubber-neck wagons. Accordin" to him, Aunt "Melie had been a good deal of a she-hermit.

"Why," says he, "Major Curtis Binger told me himself that in the five years he lived neighbors to her he hadn"t seen her more"n once or twice.

They say she hadn"t been out of her yard for ten years up to the time she went abroad for her health and died of it."

"Anyone that could live in this town that long and not die, couldn"t have tried very hard," says I. "Who"s this Major Binger?"

"Oh, he"s a retired army officer, the major is; widower, with two daughters," says he.

"Singletons?" says I.

"Yep, and likely to stay so," says he.

About then he turns in between a couple of fancy stone gate-posts, twists around a cracked bluestone drive, and lands me at the front steps of Nightingale Cottage. For the kind, it wa"n"t so bad--one of those squatty bay-windowed affairs, with a roof like a toboggan chute, a porch that did almost a whole lap around outside, and a cobblestone chimney that had vines growin" clear to the top. And sure enough, there was Dennis Whaley with his rake, comin" as near a grin as he knew how.

Well, he has me in tow in about a minute, and I makes a personally conducted tour of me estate. Say, all I thought I was gettin" was a couple of buildin" lots; but I"ll be staggered if there wa"n"t a slice of ground most as big as Madison Square Park, with trees, and shrubbery, and posy beds, and d.i.n.ky little paths loopin" the loop all around. Out back was a stable and goosb"ry bushes and a truck garden.

"How"s thim for cabbages?" says Dennis.

"They look more like boutonnieres," says I. But he goes on to tell as how they"d just been set out and wouldn"t be life-size till fall. Then he shows the rows that he says was goin" to be praties and beans and so on, and he"s as proud of the whole shootin"-match as if he"d done a miracle.

When we got around to the front again, where Dennis has laid out a pansy harp, I sees a little gatherin" over in front of the cottage next door.

There was three or four gents, and six or eight women-folks. They was lookin" my way, and talkin" all to once.

"h.e.l.lo!" says I. "The neighbors seem to be holdin" a convention. Wonder if they"re plannin" to count me in?"

I ain"t more"n got that out before one of the bunch cuts loose and heads for me. He was a nice-lookin" old duck, with a pair of white Chaunceys and a frosted chin-splitter. He stepped out brisk and swung his cane like he was on parade. He was got up in white flannels and a square-topped Panama, and he had the complexion of a good liver.

"I expect that this is Mr. McCabe," says he.

"You"re a good guesser," says I. "Come up on the front stoop and sit by."

"My name," says he, "is Binger, Curtis Binger."

"What, Major Binger, late U. S. A.?" says I. "The man that did the stunt at the battle of What-d"ye-call-it?"

"Mission Ridge, sir," says he, throwin" out his chest.

"Sure! That was the place," says I. "Well, well! Who"d think it? I"m proud to know you. Put "er there."

With that I had him goin". He was up in the air, and before he"d got over it I"d landed him in a porch rocker and chased Dennis in to dig a box of Fumadoras out of my suit-case.

"Ahem," says the Major, clearin" his speech tubes, "I came over, Mr.

McCabe, on rather a delicate errand."