"The last thing on the programme was lemonade. It was brought around in little flat gla.s.s bowls and set by your plate. I was pretty thirsty, and I picked up mine and took a big swig of it. Right there was where the little lady had made a mistake. She had put in the lemon all right, but she"d forgot the sugar. The best housekeepers slip up sometimes. I thought maybe Miss Sterling was just learning to keep house and cook--that rabbit would surely make you think so--and I says to myself, "Little lady, sugar or no sugar I"ll stand by you," and I raises up my bowl again and drinks the last drop of the lemonade. And then all the balance of "em picks up their bowls and does the same.
And then I gives Miss Sterling the laugh proper, just to carry it off like a joke, so she wouldn"t feel bad about the mistake.
"After we all went into the sitting room she sat down and talked to me quite awhile.
""It was so kind of you, Mr. Kingsbury," says she, "to bring my blunder off so nicely. It was so stupid of me to forget the sugar."
""Never you mind," says I, "some lucky man will throw his rope over a mighty elegant little housekeeper some day, not far from here."
""If you mean me, Mr. Kingsbury," says she, laughing out loud, "I hope he will be as lenient with my poor housekeeping as you have been."
""Don"t mention it," says I. "Anything to oblige the ladies.""
Bud ceased his reminiscences. And then some one asked him what he considered the most striking and prominent trait of New Yorkers.
"The most visible and peculiar trait of New York folks," answered Bud, "is New York. Most of "em has New York on the brain. They have heard of other places, such as Waco, and Paris, and Hot Springs, and London; but they don"t believe in "em. They think that town is all Merino. Now to show you how much they care for their village I"ll tell you about one of "em that strayed out as far as the Triangle B while I was working there.
"This New Yorker come out there looking for a job on the ranch. He said he was a good horseback rider, and there was pieces of tanbark hanging on his clothes yet from his riding school.
"Well, for a while they put him to keeping books in the ranch store, for he was a devil at figures. But he got tired of that, and asked for something more in the line of activity. The boys on the ranch liked him all right, but he made us tired shouting New York all the time.
Every night he"d tell us about East River and J. P. Morgan and the Eden Musee and Hetty Green and Central Park till we used to throw tin plates and branding irons at him.
"One day this chap gets on a pitching pony, and the pony kind of sidled up his back and went to eating gra.s.s while the New Yorker was coming down.
"He come down on his head on a chunk of mesquit wood, and he didn"t show any designs toward getting up again. We laid him out in a tent, and he begun to look pretty dead. So Gideon Pease saddles up and burns the wind for old Doc Sleeper"s residence in Dogtown, thirty miles away.
"The doctor comes over and he investigates the patient.
""Boys," says he, "you might as well go to playing seven-up for his saddle and clothes, for his head"s fractured and if he lives ten minutes it will be a remarkable case of longevity."
"Of course we didn"t gamble for the poor rooster"s saddle--that was one of Doc"s jokes. But we stood around feeling solemn, and all of us forgive him for having talked us to death about New York.
"I never saw anybody about to hand in his checks act more peaceful than this fellow. His eyes were fixed "way up in the air, and he was using rambling words to himself all about sweet music and beautiful streets and white-robed forms, and he was smiling like dying was a pleasure.
""He"s about gone now," said Doc. "Whenever they begin to think they see heaven it"s all off."
"Blamed if that New York man didn"t sit right up when he heard the Doc say that.
""Say," says he, kind of disappointed, "was that heaven? Confound it all, I thought it was Broadway. Some of you fellows get my clothes.
I"m going to get up."
"And I"ll be blamed," concluded Bud, "if he wasn"t on the train with a ticket for New York in his pocket four days afterward!"
XVIII
THE ADVENTURES OF SHAMROCK JOLNES
I am so fortunate as to count Shamrock Jolnes, the great New York detective, among my muster of friends. Jolnes is what is called the "inside man" of the city detective force. He is an expert in the use of the typewriter, and it is his duty, whenever there is a "murder mystery" to be solved, to sit at a desk telephone at headquarters and take down the messages of "cranks" who "phone in their confessions to having committed the crime.
But on certain "off" days when confessions are coming in slowly and three or four newspapers have run to earth as many different guilty persons, Jolnes will knock about the town with me, exhibiting, to my great delight and instruction, his marvellous powers of observation and deduction.
The other day I dropped in at Headquarters and found the great detective gazing thoughtfully at a string that was tied tightly around his little finger.
"Good morning, Whatsup," he said, without turning his head. "I"m glad to notice that you"ve had your house fitted up with electric lights at last."
"Will you please tell me," I said, in surprise, "how you knew that? I am sure that I never mentioned the fact to any one, and the wiring was a rush order not completed until this morning."
"Nothing easier," said Jolnes, genially. "As you came in I caught the odour of the cigar you are smoking. I know an expensive cigar; and I know that not more than three men in New York can afford to smoke cigars and pay gas bills too at the present time. That was an easy one. But I am working just now on a little problem of my own."
"Why have you that string on your finger?" I asked.
"That"s the problem," said Jolnes. "My wife tied that on this morning to remind me of something I was to send up to the house. Sit down, Whatsup, and excuse me for a few moments."
The distinguished detective went to a wall telephone, and stood with the receiver to his ear for probably ten minutes.
"Were you listening to a confession?" I asked, when he had returned to his chair.
"Perhaps," said Jolnes, with a smile, "it might be called something of the sort. To be frank with you, Whatsup, I"ve cut out the dope. I"ve been increasing the quant.i.ty for so long that morphine doesn"t have much effect on me any more. I"ve got to have something more powerful.
That telephone I just went to is connected with a room in the Waldorf where there"s an author"s reading in progress. Now, to get at the solution of this string."
After five minutes of silent pondering, Jolnes looked at me, with a smile, and nodded his head.
"Wonderful man!" I exclaimed; "already?"
"It is quite simple," he said, holding up his finger. "You see that knot? That is to prevent my forgetting. It is, therefore, a forget-me-knot. A forget-me-not is a flower. It was a sack of flour that I was to send home!"
"Beautiful!" I could not help crying out in admiration.
"Suppose we go out for a ramble," suggested Jolnes.
"There is only one case of importance on hand just now. Old man McCarty, one hundred and four years old, died from eating too many bananas. The evidence points so strongly to the Mafia that the police have surrounded the Second Avenue Katzenjammer Gambrinus Club No. 2, and the capture of the a.s.sa.s.sin is only the matter of a few hours. The detective force has not yet been called on for a.s.sistance."
Jolnes and I went out and up the street toward the corner, where we were to catch a surface car.
Half-way up the block we met Rheingelder, an acquaintance of ours, who held a City Hall position.
"Good morning, Rheingelder," said Jolnes, halting.
"Nice breakfast that was you had this morning."
Always on the lookout for the detective"s remarkable feats of deduction, I saw Jolnes"s eye flash for an instant upon a long yellow splash on the shirt bosom and a smaller one upon the chin of Rheingelder--both undoubtedly made by the yolk of an egg.
"Oh, dot is some of your detectiveness," said Rheingelder, shaking all over with a smile. "Vell, I pet you trinks und cigars all round dot you cannot tell vot I haf eaten for breakfast."
"Done," said Jolnes. "Sausage, pumpernickel and coffee."