CHAPTER XV

Flag it, now, and I"ll say it for you. Yes, you read about it in the papers, and says you: "Is it all so?" Well, some of it was, and some of it wasn"t. But what do you expect? No two of the crowd would tell it the same way, if they was put on the stand the next minute. Here"s the way it looked from where I stood, though; and I was some close, wa"n"t I?

You see, after I woke up from that last trance, I gets to thinkin" about Sadie, and Miriam, and all them false alarms I"ve been ringin" in; and, says I to myself: "Shorty, if I couldn"t make a better showin" than that, I"d quit the game." So I quits. I chases myself back to town for good, says h.e.l.lo to all the boys, and tells Swifty Joe, if he sees me makin" another move towards the country, to heave a sand bag at me.

Not that there was any loud call for me to tend out so strict on the physical culture game. I"d been kind of easin" up on that lately, and dippin" into outside things; and it was them I needed to keep closer track of. You know I"ve got a couple of flat houses up on the West side, and if you let them agents run things their own way you"ll be makin"

almost enough to buy new hall carpets once a year.

Then there was ripe chances I was afraid of missin". You see, knockin"

around so much with the fat wads, I often sees spots where a few dollars could be planted right. Sometimes it"s a hunch on the market, and then again it"s a straight steer on a slice of foot front that"s goin" cheap.

I do a lot of d.i.c.kerin" that way.

Well, I"d just pushed through a deal that leaves me considerable on velvet, and I was feelin" kind of flush and sa.s.sy, when Mr. Ogden calls me up, and wants to know if I can make use of a gilt edged bargain.

"Oh, I don"t know," says I. "What"s it look like?"

"It"s The Toreador," says he.

"Sounds good," says I. "How much?"

"Cost me forty thousand two years ago," says he, "but I"m turning it over for twenty-five to the first bidder."

Well, say, when old man Ogden slings cold figures at you like that, you can gamble that he"s talkin" straight.

"I"m it, then," says I. "Fifteen down, ten on mortgage."

"That suits me," says he. "I"ll have the papers made out to-day."

"And say," says I, "what is this Toreador, anyway; a race horse, or an elevator apartment?"

Would you guess it? He"d hung up the receiver. That"s what I got for bein" sporty. But I wa"n"t goin" to renig at that stage. I fills out me little blue check and sends her in, and that night I goes to bed without knowin" what it is that I"ve pa.s.sed up my coin for.

It must have been near noon the next day, for I"d written a letter and got my check book stubs added up so they come within two or three hundred of what the bank folks made it, when a footman in white panties and a plum colored coat drifts through the Studio door.

"Is this Professor McCabe, sir?" says he.

"Yep," says I.

"There"s a lady below, sir," says he. "Can she come up?"

"It ain"t reg"lar," says I, "but I s"pose there"s no dodgin" her. Tell her to come ahead."

Say, I wa"n"t just fixed up for receivin" carriage comp"ny. When I writes and figures I gets more mussed up than as if I"d been in a free-for-all. I"d shed my coat on one chair, my vest on another, slipped off my suspenders, rumpled my hair, and got ink on me in seventeen places. But I didn"t have sense enough to say I was out.

In a minute or so there was a click-click on the stairs, I gets a whiff of l"Issoir Danube, and in comes a veiled lady. She was a brandied peach; from the outside lines, anyway. Them clothes of hers couldn"t have left Paris more"n a month before, and they clung to her like a wet undershirt to a fat man. And if you had any doubts as to whether or no she had the goods, all you had to do was to squint at the big amethyst in the handle of the gold lorgnette she wore around her neck. For a Felix-Tiffany combination, she was it. You"ve seen women of that kind--reg"lar walkin" expense accounts.

"So you are Shorty McCabe, are you?" says she, givin" me a customs inspector look-over, and kind of sniffin".

"Sorry I don"t suit," says I.

"How odd!" says she. "I must make a note of that."

"Help yourself," says I. "Is there anything else?"

"Is it true," says she, "that you have bought The Toreador?"

"Who"s been givin" you that?" says I, p.r.i.c.kin" up my ears.

"Mr. Ogden," says she.

"He"s an authority," says I, "and what he says along that line I don"t dispute."

"Then you _have_ bought it?" says she. "How exasperating! I was going to get Mr. Ogden to let me have The Toreador this week."

"The whole of it?" says I.

"Why, of course," says she.

"Gee!" thinks I. "It can"t be an apartment house, then. Maybe it"s an oil paintin", or a parlor car."

"But there!" she goes on. "I suppose you only bought it as a speculation. Now what is your price for next week?"

Say, for the love of Pete, I couldn"t tell what it was gave me a grouch.

Maybe it was only the off-hand way she threw it out, or the snippy chin-toss that goes with it. But I felt like I"d been stroked with a piece of sand paper.

"It"s too bad," says I, "but you"ve made a wrong guess. I"m usin" The Toreador next week myself."

"_You!_" says she, and through the gauze curtain I could see her hump her eyebrows.

That finished the job. Even if The Toreador turned out to be a new opera house or a tourin" balloon, I was goin" to keep it busy for the next seven days.

"Why not me?" I says.

"All alone?" says she.

Well, I didn"t know where it would land me, but I wa"n"t goin" to have her tag me for a solitaire spender.

"Not much," says I. "I was just makin" up my list. How do you spell Mrs.

Twombley-Crane"s last name--with a k?"

"Really!" says she. "Do you mean to say that _she_ is to be one of your guests? Then you must be going just where I"d planned to go--to the Newport evolutions?"

"Sure thing," says I. I"d heard of their havin" all kinds of fool doin"s at Newport, but evolutions wa"n"t one of "em. The bluff had to be made good, though.