Side-stepping with Shorty. Ford Sewell

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      It was Maggie all right. She was sittin' in a chariot too – you've seen them fancy ticket booths they has down to Luna. And she has had her hair done up by an upholsterer, and put through a crimpin' machine. That and the Brazilian near-gem necklace she wears does give her a kind of a rich and fancy look, providin' you don't get too close.

      She wasn't exactly bossin' the show. She was sellin' combination tickets, that let you in on so many rackets for a dollar. She'd chucked the laundry job for this, and she was lookin' like she was glad she'd made the shift. But here was four of us who'd come to rescue her and lead her back to the ironin' board.

      Aunt Isabella makes the first break. She tells Maggie who she is and why she's come. "Margaret," says she, "I do hope you will consent to leave this wicked life. Please say you will, Margaret!"

      "Ah, turn it off!" says Maggie. "Me back to the sweat box at eight per when I'm gettin' fourteen for this? Not on your ping pongs! Fade, Aunty, fade!"

      Then the Bishop is pushed up to take his turn. He says he is glad to meet Maggie, and hopes she likes her new job. Maggie says she does. She lets out, too, that she's engaged to the gentleman what does a refined acrobatic specialty in the third attraction on the left, and that when they close in the fall he's goin' to coach her up so's they can do a double turn in the continuous houses next winter at from sixty to seventy-five per, each. So if she ever irons another shirt, it'll be just to show that she ain't proud.

      And that's where the rescue expedition goes out of business with a low, hollow plunk. Among the three of 'em not one has a word left to say.

      "Well, folks," says I, "what are we here for? Shall we finish the evenin' like we begun? We're only alive once, you know, and this is the only Coney there is. How about it?"

      Did we? Inside of two minutes Maggie has sold us four entrance tickets, and we're headed for the biggest and wooziest thriller to be found in the lot.

      "Shorty," says the Bishop, as we settles ourselves for a ride home on the last boat, "I trust I have done nothing unseemly this evening."

      "What! You?" says I. "Why, Bishop, you're a reg'lar ripe old sport; and any time you feel like cuttin' loose again, with Aunt Isabella or without, just send in a call for me."

      III

      UP AGAINST BENTLEY

      Say, where's Palopinto, anyway? Well neither did I. It's somewhere around Dallas, but that don't help me any. Texas, eh? You sure don't mean it! Why, I thought there wa'n't nothin' but one night stands down there. But this Palopinto ain't in that class at all. Not much! It's a real torrid proposition. No, I ain't been there; but I've been up against Bentley, who has.

      He wa'n't mine, to begin with. I got him second hand. You see, he come along just as I was havin' a slack spell. Mr. Gordon – yes, Pyramid Gordon – he calls up on the 'phone and says he's in a hole. Seems he's got a nephew that's comin' on from somewhere out West to take a look at New York, and needs some one to keep him from fallin' off Brooklyn Bridge.

      "How's he travellin'," says I; "tagged, in care of the conductor?"

      "Oh, no," says Mr. Gordon. "He's about twenty-two, and able to take care of himself anywhere except in a city like this." Then he wants to know how I'm fixed for time.

      "I got all there is on the clock," says I.

      "And would you be willing to try keeping Bentley out of mischief until I get back?" says he.

      "Sure as ever," says I. "I don't s'pose he's any holy terror; is he?"

      Pyramid said he wa'n't quite so bad as that. He told me that Bentley'd been brought up on a big cattle ranch out there, and that now he was boss.

      "He's been making a lot of money recently, too," says Mr. Gordon, "and he insists on a visit East. Probably he will want to let New York know that he has arrived, but you hold him down."

      "Oh, I'll keep him from liftin' the lid, all right," says I.

      "That's the idea, Shorty," says he. "I'll write a note telling him all about you, and giving him a few suggestions."

      I had a synopsis of Bentley's time card, so as soon's he'd had a chance to open up his trunk and wash off some of the car dust I was waitin' at the desk in the Waldorf.

      Now of course, bein' warned ahead, and hearin' about this cattle ranch business, I was lookin' for a husky boy in a six inch soft-brim and leather pants. I'd calculated on havin' to persuade him to take off his spurs and leave his guns with the clerk.

      But what steps out of the elevator and answers to the name of Bentley is a Willie boy that might have blown in from Asbury Park or Far Rockaway. He was draped in a black and white checked suit that you could broil a steak on, with the trousers turned up so's to show the openwork silk socks, and the coat creased up the sides like it was made over a cracker box. His shirt was a MacGregor plaid, and the band around his Panama was a hand width Roman stripe.

      "Gee!" thinks I, "if that's the way cow boys dress nowadays, no wonder there's scandals in the beef business!"

      But if you could forget his clothes long enough to size up what was in 'em, you could see that Bentley was a mild enough looker. There's lots of bank messengers and brokers' clerks just like him comin' over from Brooklyn and Jersey every mornin'. He was about five feet eight, and skimpy built, and he had one of these recedin' faces that looked like it was tryin' to get away from his nose.

      But then, it ain't always the handsome boys that behaves the best, and the more I got acquainted with Bentley, the better I thought of him. He said he was mighty glad I showed up instead of Mr. Gordon.

      "Uncle Henry makes me weary," says he. "I've just been reading a letter from him, four pages, and most of it was telling me what not to do. And this the first time I was ever in New York since I've been old enough to remember!"

      "You'd kind of planned to see things, eh?" says I.

      "Why, yes," says Bentley. "There isn't much excitement out on the ranch, you know. Of course, we ride into Palopinto once or twice a month, and sometimes take a run up to Dallas; but that's not like getting to New York."

      "No," says I. "I guess you're able to tell the difference between this burg and them places you mention, without lookin' twice. What is Dallas, a water tank stop?"

      "It's a little bigger'n that," says he, kind of smilin'.

      But he was a nice, quiet actin' youth; didn't talk loud, nor go through any tough motions. I see right off that I'd been handed the wrong set of specifications, and I didn't lose any time framin' him up accordin' to new lines. I knew his kind like a book. You could turn him loose in New York for a week, and the most desperate thing he'd find to do would be smokin' cigarettes on the back seat of a rubberneck waggon. And yet he'd come all the way from the jumpin' off place to have a little innocent fun.

      "Uncle Henry wrote me," says he, "that while I'm here I'd better take in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and visit St. Patrick's Cathedral and Grant's Tomb. But say, I'd like something a little livelier than that, you know."

      He was so mild about it that I works up enough sympathy to last an S. P. C. A. president a year. I could see just what he was achin' for. It wa'n't a sight of oil paintin's or churches. He wanted to be able to go back among the flannel shirts and tell the boys tales that would make their eyes stick out. He was ambitious to go on a regular cut up, but didn't know how, and wouldn't have had the nerve to tackle it alone СКАЧАТЬ