"Excuse me," says I, breakin" in, "but is this to a finish? If it is, I"ll send out for some throat troches."
Larry grins and settles himself back easy in my desk chair. Great lad, this Mr. T. Lawrence Bolan! All he needs is a cape coat and a sugar-loaf hat with a silver buckle to be a stage Irishman. One of these tall, loose-hinged, awkward-gaited chaps, with wavy red hair the color of a new copper pan, also a chin dimple and a crooked mouth. By rights he should have been homely. Maybe he was too; but somehow, with that twisty smile of his workin", and them gray-blue eyes twinklin" at you, the word couldn"t be said.
"Look at him, Shorty!" says Pinckney. "Six feet of futile clay; a waster of time, money, and opportunity."
"The three gifts that a fool tries to save and a wise man spends with a free hand," says Larry. "Give me a cigarette."
"How much, now, did you lose to that crowd of bridge sharks last night?"
demands Pinckney, pa.s.sin" over a gold case.
"Not my self-respect, anyway," says Larry. "Was I to pa.s.s cowardly with a hundred aces in hand? And I had the fun of making that Boomer-Day person quit bidding on eight hearts. How she did glare as she doubled me!"
"Set you six hundred, I hear," says Pinckney. "At a quarter the point that"s no cheap fun."
"Who asks for cheap fun?" says Larry. "I paid the shot, didn"t I?"
"And now?" asks Pinckney.
Larry shrugs his shoulders. "The usual thing," says he; "only it happens a little earlier in the month. I"m flat broke, of course."
"Then why in the name of all folly will you not borrow a couple of hundred from me?" demands Pinckney.
"Would I pay it back?" says Larry. "No, I would not. So it would be begging, or stealing? You see how awkward that makes it, old chap?"
"But, deuce take it! what are you to do for the next three weeks, you know?" insists Pinckney.
"Disappear," says Larry, wavin" his cigarette jaunty, "and then--
"The haunts that knew him once No more shall know.
The halls where once he trod With stately tread--er-- Tum-ti-iddity-- As the dead--
or words, my dear Pinckney, much to that effect. My next remittance should be here by the third."
"When you"ll reappear and do it all over again," says Pinckney.
"In which you"re quite wrong," says Larry. "Not that I am bitten by remorse; but I weary of your game. It"s a bit stupid, you know,--your mad rushing about here and there, plays, dinners, dances, week-ends.
You"re mostly a good sort; but you"ve no poise, no repose. Kittens chasing your tails! It leaves no chance to dream dreams."
"Listen," says Pinckney, "to that superior being, the lordly Briton, utter his usual piffle! I suppose you"d like to marry, settle down on a hundred-acre estate nine miles from nowhere, and do the country gentleman?"
"It would be the making of me," says Larry, "and I could be reasonably happy at it."
"Then why not do it?" demands Pinckney.
"On a thousand pounds a year?" says Larry. "Go to!"
"The fact remains," says Pinckney, "that you have for an uncle the Earl of Kerrymull."
"And that I"m his best hated nephew, paid to keep out of his sight,"
comes back Larry.
"But you are where an Earl-uncle counts for most," suggests Pinckney.
"By judicious choice of a father-in-law----"
"Rot!" breaks in Larry. "Am I a cheap adventurer in a third-rate melodrama? Waster I may be; but no dowry hunter."
"As though you could not like, for herself alone, any one of the half-dozen pretty girls who are foolish enough to be crazy over you,"
says Pinckney.
"As though I"d be blighter enough to let myself fall in love with any of the sweet dears!" says Larry. "I"m in my thirties, Man."
"There"s widows aplenty," hints Pinckney.
"Bless "em all!" says Larry. "I"d not load one of them with a wild, impecunious Irishman like myself."
"Then what?" says Pinckney. "Also where, and whither?"
"Bulgaroo," says Larry, wavin" vague into s.p.a.ce.
"Is that a form of self-destruction?" asks Pinckney.
"Almost," says Larry. "It"s the nearest town to Sir Horace Vaughn"s No.
6 sheep ranch. Quaint little spot, Bulgaroo; chiefly corrugated iron villas and kangaroo scrub, two hundred-odd miles back from Sidney. I"m due there at the end of next month."
"My regards to the Bulgaroovians," says I.
"Is this just a whim of yours, or a crazy plan?" says Pinckney.
"Both," says Larry. "No. 6 is where I went to do penance when the Earl and I had our grand smashup. Eighteen months I put in before he settled an allowance on me. They"ll give me another foreman"s job. I"ll stay three years this time, saving pay and remittance drafts, and at the end I"ll have h.o.a.rded enough to buy an interest, or a ranch of my own.
That"s the theory. Actually, I shall probably take an amazing thirst into Bulgaroo about once a month, buy vile champagne at the Queen"s Arms, and otherwise disport myself like a true sheepherder. The finis will not sound pretty."
Pinckney stares at him puzzled for a minute, and then turns to me.
"Shorty," says he, "you"re a Celt. What do you make of him?"
"My guess is that there"s a skirt in the background," says I.
"Oh-ho!" says Pinckney.
"Touched!" says Larry.
Pinckney aims the cigarette case at him, remarkin" savage, "The story or your life. Come, now!"
Larry springs that wistful, twisty smile of his and goes on. "It happened here, eight years ago, as I was on my way to No. 6. I"d picked up a beastly fever somewhere, and I knew not a soul in your blessed city. So I wabbled into a hospital and let them tuck me away in a cot.
Now grin, blast you! Yes, she was one of the day nurses, Katie McDevitt.
No raving beauty, you know. Ah, but the starry bright eyes of her, the tender touch of her soft hand, and the quick wits under her white cap!
It wasn"t just the mushy sentiment of a convalescent, either. Three grand weeks afterwards I waited around, going walks with her in the park, taking her on foolish steamer rides, sending her flowers, notes, candy. We were rare spoons, and she was as good as she was witty. There was an idyl for you! Then, when I woke up one day--why, I ran away without a word! What else could I do? I was bound for an Australian sheep ranch. And there I went. Since then not a whisper of her. By now it"s quite likely she"s the wife of some lucky dog of a doctor, and never gives me a thought. So why shouldn"t I go back?"
"Because, you crack-brained Irishman," says Pinckney, "when you"re not maundering over some such idiocy as this, you"re the most entertaining good-for-nothing that ever graced a dinner table or spread the joy of life through a dull drawing room. Come home with me for the week-end, anyway."