"Sending who?" says he.
"Oh!" says I. "I figured this was a snake cure, throwin" a scare into somebody, that you was plannin"."
"Oh, dear, no," says Purdy. "They"re for Valentine. He"s fond of snakes, you know--can"t get along without them. But they must be big ones--spotted, rings around them, and all that."
"Gee!" says I. "Vally"s snake tastes must be educated "way up! Guess you"ll have to give in your order down at Lefty White"s."
"And where is that?" says he.
"William street, near the bridge," says I. "Don"t you know about Lefty"s?"
Well, he didn"t; hadn"t ever been below the bridge on the East Side in his life; and wouldn"t I please come along, if I could spare the time.
So I climbs in alongside Purdy and the cane, and off we goes down town, at the rate of a dollar "n" a half an hour. I hadn"t got out more"n two questions "fore Purdy cuts loose with the story of his life.
"It"s almost the same as asking me to choose my lot in the cemetery,"
says he, "this notion of Aunt Isabella"s for sending me out to buy snakes."
"I thought it was Valentine they was for?" says I. "Where does he come in?"
That fetches us to Chapter One, which begins with Aunt Isabella. It seems that some time back, after she"d planted one hubby in Ohio and another in Greenwood, and had pinned "em both down secure with cut granite slabs, aunty had let herself go for another try. This time she gets an Englishman. He couldn"t have been very tough, to begin with, for he didn"t last long. Neither did a brother of his; although you couldn"t lay that up against Isabella, as brother in law got himself run over by a train. About all he left was a couple of fourteen-year-old youngsters stranded in a boarding school. That was Purdy and Valentine, and they was only half brothers at that, with n.o.body that they could look up to for anything more substantial than sympathy. So it was up to the step-aunt to do the rescue act.
Well, Isabella has acc.u.mulated all kinds of dough; but she figures out that the whole of one half brother was about all she wanted as a souvenir to take home from dear old England. She looks the two of "em over for a day, tryin" to decide which to take, and then Purdy"s "la.s.ses coloured hair wins out against Valentine"s brick dust bangs.
She finds a job for Vally, a place where he can almost earn a livin", gives him a nice new prayer book and her blessin", and cuts him adrift in the fog. Then she grabs Purdy by the hand and catches the next boat for New York.
From then on it"s all to the downy for Purdy, barrin" the fact that the old girl"s more or less tryin" to the nerves. She buys herself a double breasted house just off the avenue, gives Purdy the best there is goin", and encourages him to be as ladylike as he knows how.
And say, what would you expect? I"d hate to think of what I"d be now if I"d been brought up on a course of dancin" school, music lessons, and Fauntleroy suits. What else was there for Purdy to do but learn to drink tea with lemon in it, and lead cotillions? Aunt Isabella"s been takin" on weight and losin" her hearin". When she gets so that she can"t eat chicken salad and ice cream at one A. M. without rememberin"
it for three days, and she has to buy pearls to splice out her necklace, and have an extra wide chair put in her op"ra box, she begins to sour on the merry-merry life, scratches half the entries on her visitin" list, and joins old lady societies that meet once a month in the afternoon.
"Of course," says Purdy, "I had no objection to all that. It was natural. Only after she began to bring Anastasia around, and hint very plainly what she expected me to do, I began to get desperate."
"Stashy wa"n"t exactly your idea of a pippin, eh?" says I.
That was what. Accordin" to Purdy"s shorthand notes, Stashy was one of these square chinned females that ought to be doin" a weight liftin"
act with some tent show. But she wa"n"t. She had too much out at int"rest for that, and as she didn"t go in for the light and frivolous she has to have something to keep her busy. So she starts out as a lady preventer. Gettin" up societies to prevent things was her fad.
She splurges on "em, from the kind that wants to put m.u.f.flers on steamboat whistles, to them that would like to b.u.t.ton leggins on the statues of G. Wash. For all that, though, she thinks it"s her duty to marry some man and train him, and between her and Aunt Isabella they"d picked out Purdy for the victim.
"While you"d gone and tagged some pink and white, mink lined Daisy May?" says I.
"I hadn"t thought about getting married at all," says Purdy.
"Then you might"s well quit squirmin"," says I. "If you"ve got two of that kind plannin" out your future, there ain"t any hope."
Then we gets down to Valentine, the half brother that has been cut loose. Just as Purdy has given it to aunty straight that he"d rather drop out of two clubs and have his allowance cut in half, than tie up to any such tailor made article as Anastasia, and right in the middle of Aunt Isabella"s gettin" purple faced and puffy eyed over it, along comes a lengthy letter from Valentine.
It ain"t any hard luck wheeze, either. He"s no hungry prod., Vally ain"t. He"s been doin" some tall climbin", all these years that Purdy"s been collectin" pearl stick pins and gold cigarette cases, and changin" his clothes four times a day. Vally has jumped from one job to another, played things clear across the board and the ends against the middle, chased the pay envelope almost off the edge of the map, and finished somewhere on the east coast of Africa, where he bosses a couple of hundred coloured gentlemen in the original package, and makes easy money by bein" agent for a big firm of London iv"ry importers.
He"d been makin" a trip to headquarters with a cargo, and was on his way back to the iv"ry fields, when the notion struck him to stop off in New York and say howdy to Aunt Isabella and Brother Purd.
"And she hasn"t talked about anything but Valentine since," says Purdy.
"It"s Vally"s turn to be it; eh?" says I.
"You"d think so if you could hear them," says he. "Anastasia is just as enthusiastic."
"You ain"t gettin" jealous, are you?" says I.
Purdy unreefs the sickliest kind of a grin you ever saw. "I was as pleased as anyone," says he, "until I found out the whole of Aunt Isabella"s plan."
And say, it was a grand right and left that she"d framed up. Matin"
Stashy up with Valentine instead of Purdy was only part. Her idea was to induce Vally to settle down with her, and ship Purdy off to look after the iv"ry job.
"Only fancy!" says Purdy. "It"s a place called Bombazoula! Why, you can"t even find it on the chart. I"d die if I had to live in such a dreadful place."
"Is it too late to get busy and hand out the hot air to Stashy?" says I. "Looks to me like it was either you for her, or Bombazoula for you."
"Don"t!" says Purdy, and he shivers like I"d slipped an icicle down his back. Honest, he was takin" it so hard I didn"t have the heart to rub it in.
"Maybe Valentine"ll renig--who knows?" says I. "He may be so stuck on Africa that she can"t call him off."
"Oh, Aunt Isabella has thought of that," says he. "She is so provoked with me that she will do everything to make him want to stay; and if I remember Valentine, he"ll be willing. Besides, who would want to live in Africa when they could stop in New York? But I do think she might have sent some one else after those snakes."
"Oh, yes!" says I. "I"d clean forgot about them. Where do they figure in this?"
"Decoration," says Purdy. "In my old rooms too!"
Seems that Stashy and aunty had been reading up on Bombazoula, and they"d got it down fine. Then they turns to and lays themselves out to fix things up for Valentine so homelike and comfortable that, even if he was ever so homesick for the jungle, like he wrote he was, he wouldn"t want to go any farther.
First they"d got a lot of big rubber trees and palms, and filled the rooms full of "em, with the floors covered with stage gra.s.s, and half a dozen grey parrots to let loose. They"d even gone so far as to try to hire a couple of fake Zulus from a museum to come up and sing the moonrise song; so"s Vally wouldn"t be bothered about goin" to sleep night. The snakes twinin" around the rubber trees was to add the finishin" touch. Course, they wanted the harmless kind, that"s had their stingers cut out; but snakes of some sort they"d just got to have, or else they knew it wouldn"t seem like home to Valentine.
"Just as though I cared whether he is going to feel at home or not!"
says Purdy, real pettish. "By, Jove, Shorty! I"ve half a mind not to do it. So there!"
"Gee!" says I. "I wouldn"t have your temper for anything. Shall we signal the driver to do a pivot and head her north?"
"N-n-n-o," says Purdy, reluctant.
And right there I gets a seventh son view of Aunt Isabella crackin" the checkbook at Purdy, and givin" him the cold spine now and then by threatenin" to tear up the will. From that on I feels different towards him. He"d got to a point where it was either please Aunt Isabella, or get out and hustle; and how to get hold of real money except by shovin" pink slips at the payin" teller was part of his education that had been left out. He was up against it for fair.
"Say, Purdy," says I, "I don"t want to interfere in any family matters; but since you"ve put it up to me, let me get this chunk of advice off my mind: Long"s you"ve got to be nice to aunty or go on a s...o...b..ll diet, I"d be nice and do it as cheerful as I could."
Purdy thinks that over for a minute or so. Then he raps his cane on the rubber mat, straightens up his shoulders, and says, "By Jove, I"ll do it! I"ll get the snakes!"
That wa"n"t so easy, though, as I"d thought. Lefty White says he"s sorry, but he runs a mighty small stock of snakes in winter. He"s got a fine line of spring goods on the way, though, and if we"ll just leave our order----
"Ah, say, Lefty!" says I. "You give me shootin" pains. Here I goes and cracks up your joint as a first cla.s.s snakery and all you can show is a few angleworms in bottles and a prospectus of what you"ll have next month."
"Stuffed ones wouldn"t do, eh?" says he.