[Ill.u.s.tration: In the top of the tea wagon, was Babbitt.]

"Oh, stop him, stop him!" screams one of the women, that I figures out must be the daughter.

"Stop "im! Stop "im!" yells the other. She looked like one of the maids.

"I"m no backstop," thinks I to myself. "Besides, this is a family affair."

I"d have hated to have blocked that run, too; for it was doin" me a lot of good, just watchin" it and thinkin" of the b.u.mps Babbitt was gettin", with his head down among the bottles.

I follows along on the outside though, and in a minute or so I sees what the Commodore was aimin" at. Out to one side was a cute little fish-pond, about a hundred feet across, and he was makin" a bee line for that. It was down in a sort of hollow, with nice smooth turf slopin"

clear to the edge.

When the Commodore gets half-way down he gives the cart one last push, and five seconds later Mr. Babbitt, with his head still stuck in the wagon, souses into the water like he"d been dropped from a balloon. The old boy stays just long enough to see the splash, and then he keeps right on goin" towards New York.

At that I jumps the stone wall and prepares to do some quick divin", but before I could fetch the pond Babbitt comes to the top, blowin" muddy water out of his mouth and threshin" his arms around windmill fashion.

Then his feet touches bottom and he finds he ain"t in any danger of bein" drowned. The wagon comes up, too, and the first thing he does is to grab that. By the time I gets there he was wadin" across with the cart, and the women had made up their minds there wa"n"t any use fainting.

"Babbitt," says the Commodore"s daughter, "explain your conduct instantly. What were you doing standing on your head in that tea-wagon?"

"Please, ma"am, I--I forget," splutters Babbitt, wipin" the mud out of his eyes.

"You forget!" says the lady. And say, anyone that knew the old Commodore wouldn"t have to do any guessin" as to who her father was. "You forget, do you? Well, I want you to remember. Out with it, now!"

"Yes, ma"am," says Babbitt, tryin" to prop up his wilted collar. "I"d just give him his first dose for the day, and I"d dodged the gla.s.s, when somethin" catches me from behind, throws me into the tea-wagon, and off I goes. But that dose counts, don"t it, ma"am? He got it down."

I sees how it was then; Babbitt had been gettin" a commission for every gla.s.s of the medicated stuff he pumped into the Commodore.

"Will you please run after my father and tell him to come back," says the lady to me.

"Sorry," says I, "but I"m no antelope. You"d better telegraph him."

I didn"t stay to see any more, I was that sore on the whole crowd. But I hoped the old one would have sense enough to clear out for good.

I didn"t hear any more from my neighbors all day, but after supper that night, just about dusk, somebody sneaks in through the back way and wabbles up to the veranda where I was sittin". It was the old Commodore.

He was about all in, too.

"Did--did I drown him?" says he.

"You made an elegant try," says I; "but there wasn"t water enough."

"Thank goodness!" says he. "Now I can die calmly."

"What"s the use dyin"?" says I. "Ain"t there no thin" else left to do but that?"

"I"ve got to," says he. "I can"t live on that cursed stuff they"ve been giving me, and if I eat anything else I"m done for. The specialist said so."

"Oh, well," says I, "maybe he"s made a wrong guess. It"s your turn now.

Suppose you come in and let me have Mother Whaley broil you a nice juicy hunk of steak?"

Say, he was near starved. I could tell that by the way he looked when I mentioned broiled steak. He shook his head, though. "If I did, I"d die before morning," says he.

"I"ll bet you a dollar you wouldn"t," says I.

That almost gets a grin out of him. "Shorty," says he, "I"m going to risk it."

"It"s better"n starving to death," says I.

And he sure did eat like a hungry man. When he"d put away a good square meal, includin" a dish of sliced raw onions and two cups of hot tea, I plants him in an arm chair and shoves out the cigar box. He looks at the Fumadoras regretful.

"They"ve kept those locked away from me for two weeks," says he, "and that was worse than going without food."

"Smoke up, then," says I. "There"s one due you."

"As it will probably be my last, I guess I will," says he.

Honest, the old gent was so sure he"d croak before mornin" that he wanted to write some farewell letters, but he was too done up for that.

I tucked him into a spare bed, opened all the windows, and before I could turn out the light he was sawin" wood like a hired man.

He was still workin" the fog horn when I went in to rout him out at five o"clock. It was a tough job gettin" him up, but I got him out of his trance at last.

"Come on," says I, "we"ve got to do our three miles and have a rub-down before breakfast."

First off he swore he couldn"t move, and I guess he was some stiff from his sprint the day before, but by the time he"d got out where the birds was singin", and the trees and gra.s.s looked like they"d been done over new durin" the night, I was able to coax him into a dog-trot. It was a gentle little stunt we did, but it limbered the old boy up, and after we"d had a cold shower and a quick rub he forgot all about his joints.

"Well, are you set on keepin" that date in the obituary column, or will we have breakfast?" says I.

"I could eat cold lobscouse," says he.

"Mother Whaley"s got somethin" better"n that in the kitchen," says I.

"I suppose this will finish me," says he, tacklin" the eggs and corn m.u.f.fins.

Now, wouldn"t that give you the pip? Why, with their specialists and medicated dope, they"d got the old chap so leery of good straight grub that he was bein" starved to death. And even after I"d got him braced up into something like condition, he didn"t think it was hardly right to go on eatin".

"I expect I ought to go back and start in on that slop diet again," says he.

I couldn"t stand by and see him do that, though. He was too fine an old sport to be polished off in any such style. "See here, Commodore," says I, "if you"re dead stuck on makin" a livin" skeleton of yourself, why, I throws up me hands. But if you"ll stay here for a couple of weeks and do just as I say, I"ll put you in trim to hit up the kind of life I reckon you think is worth livin".

"By glory!" says he, "if you can do that I"ll--"

"No you won"t," say I. "This is my blow."

Course, it was a cinch. He wa"n"t any invalid. There was stuff enough in him to last for twenty years, if it was handled right. He begun to pick up right away. I only worked him hard enough to make the meals seem a long ways apart and the mattress feel good. Inside of a week I had the red back in his cheeks, and he was chuckin" the medicine ball around good and hard, and tellin" me what a sc.r.a.pper he used to be when he first went to the cadet mill, down to Annapolis. You can always tell when these old boys feel kinky--they begin to remember things like that.

Before the fortnight was up he wasn"t shyin" at anything on the bill of fare, and he was hintin" around that his thirst was comin" back strong.

"Can"t I ever have another drink?" says he, as sad as a kid leavin"

home.

"I"d take as little as I could get along with," says I.