"You didn"t think you could lose me so easy, did you?" says I.
"What a persistent fellow you are!" says she. "But, after you behaved so heroically last night, I suppose I must forgive you. Wasn"t it silly of me to be so frightened?"
"Oh, well," says I, "the best of us is apt to go off our nut sometimes."
"How sweet of you to put it that way!" says she, and then she uncorks a giggle. "You did carry me so nicely, too."
That was a sample. I wouldn"t go on and give you the whole book of the opera for money. It"s somethin" I"m tryin" to forget. But we swapped that kind of slush for near half an hour, and when the show broke up and the crowd began to swarm towards the buffet lunch, we was sittin" out on the porch in the moonlight, still at it. Pinckney says we was holdin"
hands and gazin" at each other like a couple of spoons in the park.
Maybe we was; I wouldn"t swear different.
All I know is that after a while I looks up and sees Sadie standin"
there pipin" us off, with her nose in the air and the heat lightnin"
kind of glimmerin" in them blue eyes of hers. The spell was broke quicker"n when the curtain goes down and the ushers open the lobby doors. "Course, Sadie"s nothin" more"n an old friend of mine, and I"m no more to her, but you see it hadn"t been so long ago that I"d been tellin" her what a sweat I was in to get away. She never said a word, only just sticks her chin up and laughs, and then goes on.
Next minute there shows up in front of us a fat old lady, with three chins and a waist like a clothes hamper.
"Miriam!" says she, and there was wire nails and broken gla.s.s in the way she said it, "Miriam, I think it was high time you retired."
"Bully for you, old girl!" I sings out. "And say, I"ll give you a dollar if you"ll lock her in until I can get away."
Perhaps that was a low-down thing to say, but I couldn"t help lettin" it come. I didn"t wait for any more remarks from either of "em, but I grabs my hat and makes a dash across lots. I never stopped runnin" until I fetched the station, and it wasn"t until after the train pulled out that I breathed real easy.
Bein" safe here in the Studio, with Swifty on guard, I might grin at the whole thing, if it wasn"t for that laugh of Sadie"s. That cut in deep.
Two or three days later I hears from Pinckney.
"Shorty," says he, "you"re a wonder. I fancy you don"t know what you did in getting so chummy with Miriam under the very nose of that old watch-dog aunt of hers. Why, I know of fellows who"ve waited years for that chance."
"Back up!" says I. "She"s a freak."
"But Miriam"s worth three or four millions," says he.
"I don"t care if she owns a bond factory," says I. "I"m no bone connoisseur, nor I don"t make a specialty of collectin" autumn leaves.
Do you know what I"d do if I was her aunt?"
"What?" says he.
"Well," says I, "I"d hang a red lantern on her."
CHAPTER XIV
You never can tell, though. The next thing I hears from Sadie is that she"s so tickled over that Miriam mix-up that she wakes up in the night to snicker at it.
That makes me feel a lot easier in my mind, and just by way of bein"
reckless, I starts out to buy a bull pup. I"d have got him, too, if it hadn"t been for Doc Pinphoodle. Seein" the way things turned out, though, I don"t bear no grudge.
It was the Doc I met first. I"d noticed him driftin" up and down the stairs once or twice, but didn"t pipe him off special. There"s too many freaks around 42nd-st. "to keep cases on all of "em.
But one day about a month ago I was sittin" in the front office here, gettin" the ear-ache from hearing Swifty Joe tell about what he meant to do to Gans that last time, when the door swings open so hard it most takes the hinges off, and we sees a streak of arms and legs and tall hat makin" a dive under the bed couch in the corner.
"They"ve most got the range, Swifty," says I. "Two feet to the left and you"d been a bull"s-eye. What you got your mouth open so wide for? Goin"
to try to catch the next one in your teeth?"
Swifty didn"t have time to uncork any repartee before someone struck the landing outside like they"d come down a flight of foldin" steps feet first, and a little, sharp-nosed woman, with purple flowers in her hat, bobs in and squints once at each of us. Say, I don"t want to be looked at often like that! It felt like bein" sampled with a cheese tester.
"Did Montgomery Smith just come in here?" says she. "Did he? Don"t lie, now! Where is he?" and the way she jerked them little black eyes around was enough to tear holes in the matting.
"Lady--" says I.
"Don"t lady me, Mr. Fresh," says she, throwin" the gimlets my way. "And tell that broken-nosed child stealer over there to take that monkey grin off"m his face or I"ll scratch his eyes out."
"Hully chee!" yells Swifty, throwin" a back somersault through the gym.
door and snappin" the lock on his side.
"Anything more, miss?" says I. "We"re here to please."
"Humph!" says she. "It"d take somethin" better than you to please me."
"Glad I was born lucky," thinks I, but I thought it under my breath.
"Is my Monty hiding in that room?" says she, jabbin" a finger at the gym.
"Cross my heart, he ain"t," says I.
"I don"t believe you could think quick enough to lie," says she, and with that she flips out about as fast as she came in.
I didn"t stir until I hears her hit the lower hall. Then I bolts the door, goes and calls Swifty down off the top of the swingin" rope, and we comes to a parade rest alongside the couch.
"Monty, dear Monty," says I, "the cyclone"s pa.s.sed out to sea. Come out and give up your rain check."
He backs out feet first, climbs up on the couch, and drops his chin into his hands for a minute, while he gets over the worst of the shock. Say, at first sight he wa"n"t a man you"d think any woman would lose her breath tryin" to catch, less"n she was his landlady, and that was what I figures out that this female peace disturber was.
Monty might have been a winner once, but it was a long spell back. Just then he was some out of repair. He had a head big enough for a college professor, and a crop of hair like an herb doctor, but his eyes were puffy underneath, and you could see by the _cafe au lait_ tint to his face that his liver"d been on a long strike. He was fairly thick through the middle, but his legs didn"t match the rest of him. They were too thin and too short.
"If I"d known you was comin", I"d had the scrub lady dust under there,"
says I; "but it won"t need it now for a couple of weeks."
He makes a stab at sayin" something, but his breath hadn"t come back yet. He revives enough though, to take a look at his clothes. Then he works his silk dicer up off"m his ears, and has a peek at that. It was a punky lid, all right, but it had saved a lot of wear on his koko when he made that slide for home plate and struck the wall.
"Was this a long-distance run, or just a hundred-yard sprint?" says I.
"Never mind, if it comes hard. I don"t blame you a bit for side-steppin"
a heart to heart talk with any such a rough-and-ready converser as your friend. I"d do the same myself."
He looks up kind of grateful at that, and sticks out a soft, lady-like paw for me to shake. Say, that wasn"t such a slow play, either! He was too groggy to say a word, but he comes pretty near winnin" me right there. I sets Swifty to work on him with the whisk-broom, hands out a gla.s.s of ice-water, and in a minute or so his voice comes back.