She squints foxy at us for a minute. "After all this fuss," says she, "it ought to be two or three hundred--maybe five. No, I mean a thousand."
"Huh!" says I. "A thousand! Got your nerve with you, ain"t you? But suppose it was that much, what would you do with it?"
"Do!" says she, her eyes brightenin". "Why, I would--I---- Ah, what"s the use! I"d make a fool of myself, of course. And inside of ten days I"d be in a D.T. ward somewhere."
"No old home or folks that you could go back to?" I suggests.
She shakes her head. "It"s too late for me to go back," says she. "Too late!" She don"t try to be tragic, don"t even whine it out, but just states it dull and flat.
"But most everyone has a friend or so somewhere," says I.
At first that don"t make any impression at all. Then all of a sudden she sits up and gazes vague over the top of my head.
"There"s the Baron!" says she.
"The which?" says I.
"Von Blatzer," says she. "Oh, he"s a real Baron, all right; an odd-looking, dried up little chap with a wig and painted eyebrows. Yet he"s hardly sixty. I got to know him at Atlantic City, where I had a Board Walk pitch one season. Queer? That"s no word for it! Shy and lonesome he was; but after you got to know him, one of the brightest, jolliest old duffers. Our first talk was out on the end of one of those long piers, by moonlight.
"After that it was a regular thing. We"d walk up and down like two kids, telling each other all about ourselves. I"d never stated my full opinion of Fletcher Shaw to a soul before; but somehow old Von was so friendly and sympathetic that I cut loose. The Baron ground his teeth over it. He said that Fletcher should have been caught young and shot from a cannon.
Good old Von Blatzer! Wanted me to go back to Vienna as the Baroness.
Think of it--me! But I was having a good season. Besides, I didn"t think I could stand for a wig. I didn"t know how much I was going to miss him."
"You wouldn"t shy at the wig now, eh?" says I.
"Would I?" says she. "Honest, I liked Von Blatzer, for all his freaky ways. He was human, he was, and we understood each other. He"ll be at Monte Carlo now. Roulette, you know. That"s all he lives for. Plays a system. Nice little income he has; not big, but comfortable. And during the season he feeds it all into the wheel. Someone ought to cure him of that."
"Think you could, I expect?" says I. "But how about you and the juniper juice?"
"Oh, I could quit that easy if there was anything else to do," says she.
"But there isn"t."
"Then here"s a proposition," says I. "You query him by cable to see if he"s changed his mind; and if he"s still a candidate for matrimony--well, I guess Mr. Steele will see that you get to the Baron."
"You--you mean that?" says she gaspy.
"Uh-huh," says I. "It"s up to you."
"But--but I---- Why, look at me!" says she.
"Two weeks on the water wagon, a few visits to the beauty parlors, and an outfit of tango skirts ought to make some diff"rence, hadn"t it?"
says I. "Those items would be included. What do you say?"
I expect it was a good deal of a proposition to spring on a female party. No wonder she choked up over it.
"If I thought you were just guying me," says she, "I--I"d----"
"Here"s a cable blank," says I. "Frame up your call to the Baron while I state the case to Mr. Steele."
He couldn"t see it at all, J. Bayard couldn"t. "What!" says he. "Waste all that money on such a wretch! Why, the woman is unworthy of even the most----"
"What"s that got to do with it?" says I. "Pyramid didn"t put that in the bill of partic"lars, did he? Maybe he had doubts about himself. And how would we qualify? How would you? Come, what"s your battin" average, Steele, in the worthy league?"
J. Bayard squirms a little at that, and then hunches his shoulders.
"Oh, if you"re going to put it that way," says he, "go ahead. But when she starts to be a Baroness, I"d like to see her."
"You"ll be there to hand her the tickets," says I. "You"ll get her ready. That"s part of your job."
He saw the point. And, say, he did his work thorough. I saw no more of Mrs. Shaw until nearly two weeks later, when Steele towed me down to the steamer.
"Which one?" says I, lookin" at the crowd along the rail. "Ah, come off!
That with the veils and the stunnin" figure--the one wavin" this way?
That ain"t never Mrs. Fletcher Shaw!"
"That"s Josie," says he. "And before the end of the month she"ll be the Baroness Von Blatzer. Changed? Why, I hardly recognized her myself after her first day"s shopping! She must have been quite a beauty once. But what a wreck she was when----"
"When she chased you with the broom, eh?" says I, chucklin". "And now you"re as chesty over her as though you"d been workin" a miracle. Just beamin" for joy, you are!"
"I know," says he. "And really, McCabe, I"ve never had a hand in anything which has given me so much genuine pleasure. It--it"s weird, you know. I can"t think what"s happening to me."
"Maybe," says I, "you"re sproutin" a soul."
CHAPTER VI
HOW MILLIE SHOOK THE JINX
Kind of odd the way the Morans and Elisha Porter Bayne coincided. You"d think so if you could see "em bunched once; for Elisha P. is a mighty fine man; you know, one of our most prominent and highly respected citizens. Everybody says so. The local weekly always prints it that way.
Besides, he"s president of the Trust Company, head of the Buildin" and Loan, chairman of the School Board, and a director of such things as the Old Ladies" Home, the Hospital, and the Nut and Bolt Works. Always wears a black frock coat and a white string tie too,--tall, thin jawed, distinguished lookin" gent.
While the Morans--say, let"s put them off as long as we can. And the more we linger in the society of Mr. Bayne the better we ought to be. Up to last spring, I blush to admit, I"d never been favored much. Course, commutin" in and out the way I do, I didn"t have a good show. But we pa.s.ses the nod when we meets. Elisha P. never strains his neck durin"
the exercise. You could detect his nod with the naked eye, though, and I expect that was a good deal from him to me. You get the idea. That nod includes only the Mr. McCabe that owns a sh.o.r.e-front place and votes in Rockhurst-on-the-Sound. It don"t stretch so far as to take in Shorty McCabe who runs a Physical Culture Studio on 42d-st. And that"s all right too. I"m satisfied.
Then here one day back in April, as I"m drivin" home from the station with Sadie, who should step to the curb and hold me up but Mr. Bayne.
Does it offhand, friendly, mind you. Course I stops sudden. Sadie bows and smiles. I lifts my lid. Mr. Bayne holds his square-topped derby against his white shirt front. We shakes hands cordial. And I"m most gaspin" for breath when it"s over.
"Ah, by the way, Mr. McCabe," says he, "about that--er--Sucker Brook tract? Have you thought it over yet?"
Just like that, you know; as if it was something we"d been talkin" about for months, while as a matter of fact this is the first hint I"d had that Elisha P. was interested at all.
Not that it hadn"t been put up to me. Why, three diff"rent parties had interviewed me confidential on the proposition, offerin" to let me in on the ground floor, and givin" as many diff"rent but more or less convincin" reasons for bein" so generous. One explains how he wanted to see the tract go to some local man instead of New York speculators; another confesses that their little syndicate is swingin" too much undeveloped property and has got to start a bargain counter; while the third man slaps me hearty on the back and whispers that he just wants to put me next to a good thing.
I come near swallowin" the bait too; for I"d turned over some Bronx buildin" lots not long before at a nice little advance, and the kale was only drawin" three per cent. Course this Sucker Brook chunk ain"t much to look at, a strip of marshy ground along the railroad; but half a mile away they"re sellin" villa plots, and acreage is mighty scarce so near the city line as we are. Took me a week of scoutin" among my friends to discover that this gang of real estate philanthropists had bought up the Sucker Brook tract on a private tip that a trolley extension was goin"
to be put through there. So it might have been too, only a couple of the County Board members who was tryin" to pull off another deal got busy and blocked the franchise. Then it was a case of unload, with me runnin"
as favorite in the Easy Mark Handicap. And now here comes Elisha P., straight out of the Trust Company, to spring the trapdoor himself.