What's-His-Name Part 13

Harvey moved over, dragging Phoebe after him.

"That little scheme of ours to dine together in town some night. You remember we talked about it----"

"No, I don't," snapped Butler.

"We might lunch together early next week. I know a nice little place on Seventh Avenue where you get fine spaghetti. We----"

"I'm booked for a whole month of luncheons," said Butler, sitting back on his heels to stare at this impossible person. "Can't join you."

"Some other time, then," said Harvey, waving his hand genially. "Your wife home yet?"

Butler got upon his feet.

"Say," said he, aggressively, "do you know she's heard about that idiotic trip of mine to town that night? Fairfax told everybody, and somebody's wife told Mrs. Butler. It got me in a devil of a mess."

"You don't say so!"

"Yes, I do say so. Next time you catch me--But, what's the use?" He turned to his work with an expressive shrug of his shoulders.

"I'll have my wife explain everything to Mrs. Butler the first time she comes out," said Harvey, more bravely than he felt. He could not help wondering when Nellie would come out.

"It isn't necessary," Butler made haste to a.s.sure him.

Harvey was silent for a moment.

"Fixing your automobile?" he asked, unwilling to give it up without another effort.

"What do you suppose I'm doing?"

"It's wonderful how fast one of these little one-seated cars can go,"

mused Harvey. "Cheap, too; ain't they?"

Butler faced him again, malice in his glance.

"It's not in it with that big green car your wife uses," he said, distinctly.

"Big green----" began Harvey, blankly. Then he understood. He swallowed hard, straightened Phoebe's hat with infinite care and gentleness, and looking over Butler's head, managed to say, quite calmly:--"It used to be blue. We've had it painted. Come along, Phoebe, Mr. Butler's busy. We mustn't bother him. So long, Butler."

"So long," said Mr. Butler, suddenly intent upon finding something in the tool-box.

The pair moved on. Out of the corner of his eye Butler watched them turn the corner below.

"Poor little guy!" he said to the monkey wrench.

The big green car! All the way home that juggernaut green car ran through, over, and around him. He could see nothing else, think of nothing else. A big green car!

That evening he got from Bridget the address of her brother, Professor Flaherty, the physical trainer and body builder.

In the morning he examined himself in the mirror, a fever of restlessness and impatience afflicting him with the desire to be once more presentable to the world. He had been encouraged by the fact that Butler had offered no comment on the black rims around his eyes. They must be disappearing.

With his chin in his hands he sat across the room staring at his reflection in the gla.s.s, a gloomy, desolate figure.

"It wouldn't be wise to apply for a job until these eyes are all right again," he was saying to himself, bitterly. "n.o.body would hire a man with a pair of black eyes and a busted lip--especially a druggist.

I'll simply have to wait a few days longer. Heigh-ho! To-morrow's Sunday again. I--I wonder if Nellie will be out to see us."

But Nellie did not come out. She journeyed far and fast in a big green car, but it was in another direction.

Thursday of the next week witnessed the sallying forth of Harvey What's-His-Name, moved to energy by a long dormant and mournfully acquired ambition. The delay had been irksome.

Nellie's check for the month's expenses had arrived in the mail that morning. He folded it carefully and put it away in his pocketbook, firmly resolved not to present it at the bank. He intended to return it to her with the announcement that he had secured a position and hereafter would do the providing.

Spick and span in his best checked suit, his hat tilted airily over one ear, he stepped briskly down the street. You wouldn't have known him, I am sure, with his walking-stick in one hand, his light spring overcoat over the other arm. A freshly cleaned pair of grey gloves, smelling of gasoline, covered his hands. On the lapel of his coat loomed a splendid yellow chrysanthemum. Regular football weather, he had said.

The first drug store he came to he entered with an air of confidence.

No, the proprietor said, he didn't need an a.s.sistant. He went on to the next. The same polite answer, with the additional information, in response to a suggestion by the applicant, that the soda-water season was over. Undaunted, he stopped in at the restaurant in the block below. The proprietor of the place looked so sullen and forbidding that Harvey lost his courage and instead of asking outright for a position as manager he asked for a cup of coffee and a couple of fried eggs. As the result of this extra and quite superfluous breakfast he applied for the job.

The man looked him over scornfully.

"I'm the manager and the whole works combined," he said. "I need a dish-washer, come to think of it. Four a week and board. You can go to work to-day if----"

But Harvey stalked out, swinging his cane manfully.

"Well, G.o.d knows I've tried hard enough," he said to himself, resignedly, as he headed for the railway station. It was still six minutes of train time. "I'll write to Mr. Davis out in Blakeville this evening. He told me that my place would always be open to me."

It was nearly one o'clock when he appeared at Nellie's apartment.

Rachel admitted him. He hung his hat and coat on the rack, deposited his cane in the corner, and sauntered coolly into the little sitting-room, the maid looking on in no little wonder and uneasiness.

"Where's my wife?" he asked, taking up the morning paper from the centre table and preparing to make himself at home in the big armchair.

"She's out to lunch, sir."

He laid the paper down.

"Where?"

Rachel mentioned a prominent downtown cafe affected by the profession.

"Will you have lunch here, sir?" she inquired.

"No," said he, determinedly. "Thank you just the same. I'm lunching downtown. I--I thought perhaps she'd like to join me."

Rachel rang for the elevator and he departed, amiably doffing his hat to her as he dropped to the floor below.

At one of the popular corner tables in the big cafe a party of men and women were seated, seven or eight in all. Nellie Duluth had her back toward the other tables in the room. It was a bit of modesty that she always affected. She did not like being stared at. Besides, she could hold her audience to the very end, so to speak, for all in the place knew she was there and were willing to wait until she condescended to face them in the process of departure.

It was a very gay party, comprising a grand-opera soprano and a tenor of world-wide reputation, as well as three or four very well-known New Yorkers. Manifestly, it was Fairfax's luncheon. The crowd at this table was observed by all the neck-craners in the place. Every one was telling every one else what every one knew:--"That's Nellie Duluth over there."

As the place began to clear out and tables were being abandoned here and there, a small man in a checked suit appeared in the doorway. An attendant took his hat and coat away from him while he was gazing with kaleidoscopic instability of vision upon the gay scene before him. He had left his walking-stick in a street car, a circ.u.mstance which delayed him a long time, for, on missing it, he waited at a corner in the hope of recognising the motorman on his return trip up Madison Avenue.