Shorty McCabe Part 28

I guess he did, too; for they were at it some time before the Bishop waves by-by to me and drives off.

I'd just got up from one of Mrs. Whaley's best chicken dinners, when I hears a hurrah outside, and horses stampin' and a horn tootin'. I rushes out front, and there was Pinckney, sittin' up on a coach box, just pullin' his leaders out of Dennis's pansy bed. There was about a dozen of his crowd on top of the coach, includin' Mrs. Dipworthy--Sadie Sullivan that was--and Mrs. Twombley Crane, and a lot more.

"h.e.l.lo, Shorty!" says Pinckney. "Is the doll exhibition still open? If it is, we want to come in."

They'd met the Bishop; see? And he'd steered 'em along.

Well say, I might have begun the day kind of lonesome, but it had a lively finish, all right. Inside of ten minutes Sadie has on one of Mother Whaley's white ap.r.o.ns and is takin' charge. She has some of them fancy tables and chairs lugged out on the porch, and the first thing I knows I'm holdin' forth at a pink tea that's the swellest thing of the kind Primrose Park ever got its eyes on.

CHAPTER XI

No, Nightingale Cottage ain't in the market, and it looks like I'd got a steady job introducin' Aunt 'Melie's doll collection to society; for Pinckney carts down a new gang every Sunday. As Sadie's generally on hand to help out, I'm ready to stand for it. Anyways, I've bought a fam'ly ticket and laid in a stock of fancy groceries.

The Maje? Oh, him and me made it up handsome. He comes over and tells me about that Mission Ridge stunt of his every chance he gets. But say, I'm beginnin' to find out there's others. It's a great place, Primrose Park is, and when I sized it up as a sort of annex to a cemetery I'd mistook the signs.

It don't make much difference where you are, all you've got to do to keep your blood from thinnin' out, is to mix in with folks. Beats all how much excitement you can dig up that way.

Now, I wa'n't huntin' for anything of the kind, but I was just usin' my eyes and keepin' my ears open, so I notices that out on the main road, in front of the Park, is one of those swell big ranches that hog the sh.o.r.e front all the way from Motthaven up to the jumpin'-off place. From the outside all you can see is iron gates and stone wall and stretches of green-plush lawn. Way over behind the trees you can get a squint at the chimney tops, and you know that underneath is a little cottage about the size of the Grand Central station. That's the style you live in when you've hit the stock-market right, or in case you've got to be a top-notch grafter that the muck-rakers ain't jungled yet.

I'd been wonderin' what kind of folks hung out in there, but I'd never seen any of 'em out front, only gardeners killin' time, and coachmen exercisin' the horses. But one mornin' I gets a private view that was worth watchin' for.

The first thing on the program was an old duffer dodgin' in and out around the bushes and trees like he was tryin' to lose somebody. That got me curious right away, and I begins to pipe him off. He was togged out in white ducks, somethin' like a window cook in a three-off joint, only he didn't sport any ap.r.o.n, and his cap had gold braid on it. His hair was white, too, and his under lip was decorated with one of them old-fas.h.i.+oned teasers--just a little bunch of cotton that the barber had s.h.i.+ed. He was a well-built old boy, but his face had sort of a sole leather tint to it that didn't look healthy.

From his motions I couldn't make out whether he was havin' a game of hide-and-go-seek or was bein' chased by a dog. The last thought seemed more likely, so I strolls over to the stone wall and gets ready to hand out a swift kick to the kioodle, in case it was needed.

When he sees me the old gent begins to dodge livelier than ever and make signals with his hands. Well, I didn't know his code. I couldn't guess whether he wanted me to run for a club, or was tryin' to keep me from b.u.t.tin' in, so I just stands there with my mouth open and looks foolish.

Next thing I sees is a wedge-faced, long-legged guy comin' across the lawn on the jump. First off I thought he was pus.h.i.+n' one of these sick-abed chairs, like they use on the board walk at Atlantic City. But as he gets nearer I see it was a green wicker tea-wagon--you know. I ain't got to the tea-wagon stage myself, but I've seen 'em out at Rockywold and them places. Handy as a pocket in a s.h.i.+rt, they are. When you've got company in the afternoon the butler wheels the thing out on the veranda and digs up a whole tea-makin' outfit from the inside. When it's shut it looks a good deal like one of them laundry push-carts they have in Harlem.

Now, I ain't in love with tea at any time of the day except for supper, and I sure would pa.s.s it up just after breakfast, but I don't know as I'd break my neck to get away from it, same's the old gent was doin'.

The minute he gets a look at the wagon comin' his way he does some lively side-steppin'. Then he jumps behind a bush and hides, givin' me the sign not to let on.

The long-legged guy knew his business, though. He came straight on, like he was followin' a scent, and the first thing old Whitey knows he's been run down. He gives in then, just as if he'd been tagged.

"Babbitt," says he, "I had you hull down at one time, didn't I?"

But either Babbitt was too much out of breath, or else he wasn't the talkative kind, for he never says a word, but just opens up the top of the cart and proceeds to haul out some bottles and a gla.s.s. First he spoons out some white powder into a tumbler. Then he pours in some water and stirs it with a spoon. When the mess is done he sticks it out to the old gent. The old one never lifts a finger, though.

"Salute, first, you frozen-faced sc.u.m of the earth!" he yells. "Salute, sir!"

Babbitt made a stab at salutin' too, and mighty sudden.

"Now, you white-livered imitation of a man," says the old gent, "you may hand over that villainous stuff! Bah!" and he takes a sniff of it.

Babbitt keeps his eyes glued on him until the last drop was down, then he jumped. Lucky he was quick on the duck, for the gla.s.s just whizzed over the top of his head. While he was stowin' the things away the old fellow let loose. Say, you talk about a cussin', I'll bet you never heard a string like that. It wasn't the longsh.o.r.eman's kind. But the way he put together straight dictionary words was enough to give you a chill. It was the rattlin' style he had of rippin' 'em out, too, that made it sound like swearin'. If there was any part of that long-legged guy that he didn't pay his respects to, from his ears to his toe-nails, I didn't notice it.

"It's the last time you get any of that slush into me, Babbitt," says he. "Do you hear that, you peanut-headed, scissor-shanked whelp?"

"Ten-thirty's the next dose, Commodore," says he as he starts off.

"It is, eh, you wall-eyed deck swab?" howls the Commodore. "If you mix any more of that infant food for me I'll skin you alive, and sew you up hind side before. Do you hear that, you?"

I was wearin' a broad grin when the old Commodore turns around to me.

"If that fellow keeps this up," says he, "I shall lose my temper some day. Ever drink medicated milk, eh? Ugh! It tastes the way burnt feathers smell. And I'm dosed with it eight times a day! Think of it, milk! But what makes me mad is to have it ladled out to me by that long-faced, fish-eyed food destroyer, whose only joy in life is to hunt me down and gloat over my misery. Oh, I'll get square with him yet, sir; I swear I will."

"I wish you luck," says I.

"Who are you, anyway?" says he.

"n.o.body much," says I, "so there's two of us. I'm livin' in the cottage across the way."

"The deuce you say!" says he. "Then you're Shorty McCabe, aren't you?"

"You're on," says I. "How'd you guess it?"

Well, it seems one of my reg'lars was a partner of his son-in-law, who owned the big place, and they'd been talkin' about me just the day before. After that it didn't take long for the Commodore and me to get a line on each other, and when I finds out he's Roaring d.i.c.k, the nervy old chap that stood out on the front porch of his s.h.i.+p all through the muss at Santiago Bay and hammered the daylights out of the Spanish fleet, I gives him the hand.

"I've read about you in the papers," says I.

"Not so often as I used to read about you," says he.

And say, inside of ten minutes we was like a couple of G. A. R. vets, at a reunion. Then he told me all about the medicated-milk business.

It didn't take any second sight to see that the Commodore was a gay old sport. He'd been on the European station for three years, knockin'

around with kings and princes, and French and Russian naval officers that was grand dukes and such when they was ash.o.r.e; and he'd carried along with him a truck-driver's thirst and the capacity of a ward boss.

The fizzy stuff he'd stowed away in that time must have been enough to sail a s.h.i.+p on. I guess he didn't mind it much, though, for he'd been in pickle a long time. It was the seventeen-course night dinners and the foreign cooking that gave him the knockout.

All of a sudden his digester had thrown up the job, and before he knew it he was in a state where a hot biscuit or a piece of fried potato would lay him out on his back for a week. He'd come home on sick leave to visit his daughter, and his rich son-in-law had steered him up against a specialist who told him that if he didn't quit and obey orders he wouldn't last three weeks. The orders was to live on nothin' but medicated milk, and for a man that had been livin' the way he had it was an awful jolt. He couldn't be trusted to take the stuff himself, so they hired valets to keep him doped with it.

"I scared the first one half to death," says the Commodore, "and the next one I bribed to smuggle out ham sandwiches. Then they got this fellow Babbitt to follow me around with that cursed gocart, and I haven't had a moment's peace since. He's just about equal to a job like that, Babbitt is. I make him earn his money, though."

You'd have thought so if you could have seen the old Commodore work up games to throw Babbitt off the track. I put in most of the day watchin'

'em at it, and it was as good as a vaudeville act. About a quarter of an hour before it was time for the dose the valet would come out and begin to look around the grounds. Soon as he'd located the Commodore he'd slide off after his tea wagon. That was just where the old boy got in his fine work. The minute Babbitt was out of sight the Commodore makes a break for a new hidin' place, so the valet has to wheel that cart all over the lot, playin' peek-a-boo behind every bush and tree until he nailed his man.

Now you'd think most anyone with a head would have cracked a joke now and then with the old gent, and kind of made it easy all round. But not Babbitt. He'd been hired to get medicated milk into the Commodore, and that was all the idea his nut could accommodate at one time. He was one of these stiff-necked, cold-blooded flunkies, that don't seem much more human than wooden Indians. He had an aggravatin' way, too, of treatin'

the old chap when he got him cornered. He was polite enough, so far as what he had to say, but it was the mean look in his ratty little eyes that grated.

With every dose the Commodore got madder and madder. Some of the names he thought up to call that valet was worth puttin' in a book. It seemed like a shame, though, to stir up the old gent that way, and I don't believe the medicine did him any more good. He took it, though, because he'd promised his daughter he would. Course, I had my own notions of that kind of treatment, but I couldn't see that it was up to me to jump in the coacher's box and give off any advice.

Next mornin' I'd been out for a little leg-work and I was just joggin'

into the park again, when I hears all kinds of a ruction goin' on over behind the stonewall. There was screams and yells and shouts, like a Sat.u.r.day-night riot in Double Alley. I pokes up a giraffe neck and sees a couple of women runnin' across the lawn. Pretty soon what they was chasin' comes into view. It was the Commodore. He was pus.h.i.+n' the tea-wagon in front of him, and in the top of that, with just his legs and arms stickin' out, was Babbitt.

I knew what was up in a minute. He'd lost his temper, just as he was afraid he would, and before he'd got it back again he'd grabbed the valet and jammed him head first into the green cart. But where he was goin' with him was more'n I could guess. Anyway, it was somewhere that he was in a hurry to get to, for the old boy was rus.h.i.+n' the outfit across the front yard for all he was worth.