Side-stepping with Shorty Part 25

"I'll bring her right out," says he.

When he comes in with the lady, the old man takes one look at her and almost loses his breath for good.

"Eunice May Ogden!" says he. "Why--why on earth didn't you say so before, Rossy?"

"Oh, hus.h.!.+" says the lady. "Do be still! Can't you see that we're right in the middle of an elopement?"

Never saw Eunice May, did you? Well, that's what you miss by not travellin' around with the swells, same as me. I had seen her. And say, she's somethin' of a sight, too! She's a prize pumpkin, Eunice is. Maybe she's some less'n seven feet in her lisle threads, but she looks every inch of it; and when it comes to curves, she has Lillian Russell pared to a lamp post. She'd be a good enough looker if she wa'n't such a whale. As twins, she'd be a pair of beauts, but the way she stands, she's most too much of a good thing.

Pinckney says they call her the Ogden sinking fund among his crowd.

I've heard 'em say that old man Ogden, who's a little, dried up runt of about five feet nothin', has never got over bein' surprised at the size Eunice has growed to. When she was about fourteen and weighed only a hundred and ninety odd, he and Mother Ogden figured a lot on marryin'

Eunice into the House of Lords, like they did her sister, but they gave all that up when she topped the two hundred mark.

Standin' there with Rossiter, they loomed up like a dime museum couple; but they was lookin' happy, and gazin' at each other in that mushy way--you know how.

"Say," says Rossiter's old man, sizin' 'em up careful, "is it all true?

Do you think as much of one another as all that?"

There wa'n't any need of their sayin' so; but Rossy speaks up prompt for the only time in his life. He told how they'd been spoons on each other for more'n a year, but hadn't dared let on because they was afraid of bein' kidded. It was the same way about gettin' married.

Course, their bein' neighbours on the avenue, and all that, he must have known that the folks on either side wouldn't kick, but neither one of 'em had the nerve to stand for a big weddin', so they just made up their minds to slide off easy and have it all through before anyone had a chance to give 'em the jolly.

"But now that you've found it out," says Rossiter, "I suppose you'll want us to wait and----"

"Wait nothing!" says the old man, jammin' on his hat. "Don't you wait a minute on my account. Go ahead with your elopement. I'll clear out.

I'll go up to the club and find Ogden, and when you have had the knot tied good and fast, you come home and receive a double barrelled blessing."

About that time the minister that they'd been waitin' for shows up, and before I knows it I've been rung in. Well, say, it was my first whack playin' back stop at a weddin', and perhaps I put up a punk performance; but inside of half an hour the job was done.

And of all the happy reunions I was ever lugged into, it was when Rossiter's folks and the Ogdens got together afterwards. They were so tickled to get them two freak left overs off their hands that they almost adopted me into both families, just for the little stunt I did in bilkin' them P. D.'s.

XII

TWO ROUNDS WITH SYLVIE

If it hadn't been for givin' Chester a show to make a gallery play, you wouldn't have caught me takin' a bite out of the quince, the way I did the other night. But say, when a young sport has spent the best part of a year learnin' swings and ducks and footwork, and when fancy boxin's about all the stunt he's got on his program, it's no more'n right he should give an exhibition, specially if that's what he aches to do. And Chester did have that kind of a longin'.

"Who are you plannin' to have in the audience, Chetty?" says I.

"Why," says he, "there'll be three or four of the fellows up, and maybe some of the crowd that mother's invited will drop in too."

"Miss Angelica likely to be in the bunch?" says I.

Chester pinks up at that and tries to make out he hadn't thought anything about Angelica's bein' there at all. But I'd heard a lot about this particular young lady, and when I sees the colour on Chester his plan was as clear as if the entries was posted on a board.

"All right, Chetty," says I; "have it any way you say. I'll be up early Sat.u.r.day night."

So that's what I was doin' in the smoker on the five-nine, with my gym.

suit and gaslight clothes in a kit bag up on the rack. Just as they shuts the gates and gives the word to pull out, in strolls the last man aboard and piles in alongside of me. I wouldn't have noticed him special if he hadn't squinted at the ticket I'd stuck in the seat back, and asked if I was goin' to get off at that station.

"I was thinkin' some of it when I paid my fare," says I.

"Ah!" says he, kind of gentle and blinkin' his eyes. "That is my station, too. Might I trouble you to remind me of the fact when we arrive?"

"Sure," says I; "I'll wake you up."

He gives me another blink, pulls a little readin' book out of his pocket, slumps down into the seat, and proceeds to act like he'd gone into a trance.

Say, I didn't need more'n one glimpse to size him up for a freak. The Angora haircut was tag enough--reg'lar Elbert Hubbard thatch he was wearin', all fluffy and wavy, and just clearin' his coat collar. That and the artist's necktie, not to mention the eye gla.s.ses with the tortoise sh.e.l.l rims, put him in the self advertisin' cla.s.s without his sayin' a word.

Outside of the frills, he wa'n't a bad lookin' chap, and sizable enough for a 'longsh.o.r.eman, only you could tell by the lily white hands and the long fingernails that him and toil never got within speakin'

distance.

"Wonder what particular brand of mollycoddle he is?" thinks I.

Now there wa'n't any call for me to put him through the catechism, just because he was headed for the same town I was; but somehow I had an itch to take a rise out of him. So I leans over and gets a peek at the book.

"Readin' po'try, eh?" says I, swallowin' a grin.

"Beg pardon?" says he, kind of shakin' himself together. "Yes, this is poetry--Swinburne, you know," and he slumps down again as if he'd said all there was to say.

But when I starts out to be sociable you can't head me off that way.

"Like it?" says I.

"Why, yes," says he, "very much, indeed. Don't you?"

He thought he had me corked there; but I comes right back at him.

"Nix!" says I. "Swinny's stuff always. .h.i.t me as bein' kind of punk."

"Really!" says he, liftin' his eyebrows. "Perhaps you have been unfortunate in your selections. Now take this, from the Anactoria----"

And say, I got what was comin' to me then. He tears off two or three yards of it, all about moonlight and stars and kissin' and lovin', and a lot of gush like that. Honest, it would give you an ache under your vest!

"There!" says he. "Isn't that beautiful imagery?"

"Maybe," says I. "Guess I never happened to light on that part before."

"But surely you are familiar with his Madonna Mia?" says he.

"That got past me too," says I.

"It's here," says he, speakin' up quick. "Wait. Ah, this is it!" and hanged if he don't give me another dose, with more love in it than you could get in a bushel of valentines, and about as much sense as if he'd been readin' the dictionary backwards. He does it well, though, just as if it all meant something; and me settin' there listenin' until I felt like I'd been doped.

"Say, I take it all back," says I when he lets up. "That Swinny chap maybe ain't quite up to Wallace Irwin; but he's got Ella Wheeler pushed through the ropes. I've got to see a friend in the baggage car, though, and if you'll let me climb out past I'll speak to the brakeman about puttin' you off where you belong."

"You're very kind," says he. "Regret you can't stay longer."