"And just as I"m speaking them words we comes to a lovely glade in the woods and stops with our mouths ajar and our eyes bulged out like push b.u.t.tons. "Do I sleep," I says to myself, "or am I just plain delirious?"
"For right there, out in the middle of the woods, is a table with a white cloth on it, and it"s all covered over with the most lucivicious looking viands you ever see in your life, including a ham and a couple of chickens and a pie and some cool-looking bottles with long necks on "em and gilt-foil crowns upon their regal heads. And a couple of flunkies in long-tailed coats and knee breeches and white wigs are mooning round, fixing things up ship shape. And just then a tall lady comes sauntering out of the bushes, and she strolls up close and the flunkies bow and fall back and she says something about everything being now ready for Lady Gwyndolin"s garden party and departs the same way she came. And the second she"s out of sight, me and Sweet Caps can"t hold in no longer. We busts through the roadside thicket and tear acrost that open place, licketty-split. It seems too good to be true. And it is.
When we gets up close we realizes the horrible truth.
"The ham is wood and the chickens is pasteboard and the pie is a prop pie and the bottles aint got nothing in "em but the corks. As we pauses, stupefied with disappointment, a cheerful voice calls out: "That"s the ticket! Hold the spot and register grief--we can work the scene in and it"ll be a knock-out!"
"And right over yonder at the other side of the clearing stands a guy in a checked suit grinding the handle of a moving-picture machine. We has inadvertently busted right into the drammer. So we kicks over his table and departs on the run, with a whole troupe of them cheap fillum troopers chasing after us, calling hard names and throwing sticks and rocks and things.
"After while, by superior footwork, we loses "em and resumes our journey. Well, unless you"ve got a morbid mind you wont be interested in hearing about our continued sufferings. I will merely state that by the time five o"clock comes we have traveled upwards of nine hundred miles, running sometimes but mostly walking, and my feet is so full of water blisters I"ve got riparian rights. Nearly everything has happened to us except something to eat. So we comes to the edge of a green field alongside the road and I falls in a heap, and Sweet Caps he falls in another heap alongside of me, making two heaps in all.
""Kiddo," I says, "let us recline here and enjoy the beauties of Nature," I says.
""Dern the beauties of Nature!" says Sweet Caps. "I"ve had enough Nature since this morning to last me eleven thousand years. Nature," he says, "has been overdone, anyway."
""Ain"t you got no soul?" I says.
""Oh yes," he says, "I"ve got a soul, but the trouble is," he says, "I"ve got a lot of other vital organs, too. When I ponder," he says, "and remember how many times I"ve got up from the table and gone away leaving bones and potato peels and clam sh.e.l.ls and lobster claws on the plate--when I think," he says, "of them old care-free, prodigal days, I could bust right out crying."
""Sh-h!" I says, "food has gone out of fashion--the best people ain"t eating any more. Put your mind on something else," I says. "Consider the setting sun," I says, "a-sinking in the golden west. Gaze yonder," I says, "upon that great yellow orb with all them fleecy white clouds banked up behind it."
""I"m gazing," he says. "It looks something like a aig fried on one side. That"s the way I always uster take mine," he says, "before I quit eating--fried with the sunny side up."
"I changed the subject.
""Ain"t it a remarkable fact," I says, "how this district is addicted to dogs? Look at that there little stray pup, yonder," I says, "jumping up and down in the wild mustard, making himself all warm and panty. That"s an edifying sight," I says.
""You bet," says the Sweet Caps Kid, kind of dreamy, "it"s a great combination," he says, "--hot dog with fresh mustard. That"s the way we got "em at Coney," he says.
""Sweet Caps," I says, "you are breaking my heart. Desist," I says. "I ask you to desist. If you don"t desist," I says, "I"m going to tear your head off by the roots and after that I"ll probably get right rough with you. Fellow me," I says, "and don"t speak another word of no description whatsoever. I"ve got a plan," I says, "and if it don"t work I"ll know them calamity howlers is right and I wont vote Democratic never again--not," I says, "if I have to vote for Bryan!"
"He trails along behind me, and his head is hanging low and he mutters to hisself. Injun file we retraces our weary footsteps until we comes once more to the village of Plentiful Valley. We goes along Main Street--I know it"s Main Street because it"s the only street there is--until we comes to a small brick building which you could tell by the bars at the windows that it was either the local bank or the calaboose.
On the steps of this here establishment stands a party almost entirely concealed in whiskers. But on his breast I sees a German silver badge gleaming like a full moon seen through thick brush.
""The town constable, I believe?" I says to him.
""The same," he says. "What can I do for for you?"
""Lock us up," I says, "--him and me both. We"re tramps," I says, "vagrants, derilicks wandering to and fro," I says, "like raging lions seeking whatsoever we might devour--and not," I says, "having no luck.
We are dangerous characters," I says, "and it"s a shame to leave us at large. Lock us up," I says, "and feed us."
""Nothing doing," he says. "Try the next town--it"s only nine miles and a good hard road all the way."
""I thought," I says, "that you took a hidebound oath never to shave until you"d locked up a thousand tramps."
""Yep, he says, "that"s so; but you"re a little late. I pinched him about an hour ago."
""Pinched who?" I says.
""The thousandth one," he says. "Early to-morrow morning," he says, "I"m going to get sealed bids and estimates on a clean shave. But first," he says, "in celebration of a historic occasion, I"m giving a little supper to-night to the regular boarders in the jail. I guess you"ll have to excuse me--seems to me like I smell the turkey dressing scorching."
"And with that he goes inside and locks the door behind him, and don"t pay no attention to us beating on the bars, except to open an upstairs window and throw a bucket of water at us.
"That"s the last straw. My legs gives way, both at once, in opposite directions. Sweet Caps he drags me across the street and props me up against a building, and as he fans me with his hat I speaks to him very soft and faint and low.
""Sweep Caps," I says, "I"m through. Leave me," I says, "and make for civilization. And," I says, "if you live to get there, come back sometime and collect my mortal remains and bury "em," I says, "in some quiet, peaceful spot. No," I says, "don"t do that neither! Bury me," I says, "in a Chinee cemetary. The Chinees," I says, "puts vittles on the graves of their dear departeds, instead of flowers. Maybe," I says, "my ghost will walk at night," I says, "and eat chop suey."
""Wait," he says, "don"t go yet. Look yonder," he says, pointing up Main Street on the other side. "Read that sign," he says.
"I looks and reads, and it says on a front window; "_Undertaking and Emba"ming In All Its Branches._"
"I rallies a little. "Son boy," I says, "you certainly are one thoughtful little guy--but can"t you take a joke? I talk about pa.s.sing away, and before I get the words out of my pore exhausted vacant frame you begin to pick out the fun"el director. What"s your rush?" I says.
"Can"t you wait for the remains?"
""Keep ca"m," he says, "and look again. Your first look wasn"t a success. I don"t mean the undertaker"s," he says; "I mean the place next door beyond. It"s a delicatessen dump," he says, "containing cold grub all ready to be et without tools," he says. "And what"s more," he says, "the worthy delicatessener is engaged at this present moment in locking up and going away from here. In about a half an hour," he says, "he"ll be setting in his happy German-American home picking his teeth after supper, and reading comic jokes to his little son August out of the _Fleagetty Bladder_. And shortly thereafter," he says, "what"ll you and me be doing? We"ll be there, in that vittles emporium, in the midst of plenty," he says, "filling our midsts with plenty of plenty. That"s what we"ll be doing," he says.
""Sweet Caps," I says, reviving slightly, remember who we are? Remember the profession which we adorn? Would you," I says, "sink to burglary?"
""Scandalous," he says, with feeling, "I"m so hollow I could sink about three feet without touching nothing whatsoever. Death before dishonor, but not death by quick starvation. Are you with me," he says, "or ain"t you?"
"Well, what could you say to an argument like that? Nothing, not a syllable. So eventually night ensoos. And purty soon the little stars come softly out and at the same juncture me and the Sweet Caps Kid goes in. We goes into an alley behind that row of shops and after feeling about in the darkness for quite a spell and falling over a couple of fences and a lurking wheelbarrow and one thing and another, we finds a back window with a weak latch on it and we pries it open and we crawls in.
"Only, just as we gits inside all nice and snug, Sweet Caps he has to go and turn over a big long box that"s standing up on end, and down it comes _ker-blim_! making a most hideous loud noise.
"Then we hears somebody upstairs run across the floor over our heads and hears "em pile down the steps, which is built on the outside of the building to save building "em on the inside of the building, and in about a half a minute a fire bell or some similar appliance down the street a piece begins to ring its head off.
""The stuff"s off," says Sweet Caps to me in a deep, skeered whisper.
"Let"s beat it."
""Nix," I says. "You fasten that there window! I"m too weak to run now, and if they"ll give me about five minutes among the vittles I"ll be too full to run. Either way," I says, "it"s pinch, and," I says, "we"d better face it on a full stomach, than an empty one."
""But they"ll have the goods on us," he says.
""Son," I says, "if they"ll only hang back a little we"ll have the goods in us. They won"t have no trouble proving the corpus delicatessen," I says, "--not if they bring a stomach pump along. Bar that window," I says, "and let joy be unconfined."
"So he fastens her up from the inside, and while we hears the aroused and infuriated populace surrounding the place and getting ready to begin to think about making up their minds to advance en ma.s.sy, I pulls down the front shades and strikes a match and lights up a coal-oil lamp and reaches round for something suitable to take the first raw edge off my appet.i.te--such as a couple of hams.
"Then right off I sees where we has made a fatal mistake, and my heart dies within me and I jest plum collapses and folds up inside of myself like a concertina. And that explains," he concluded, "why you ain"t seen me for going on the last eighteen months."
"Did they give you eighteen months for breaking into the delicatessen shop?" I asked.
Mr. Doolan fetched a long, deep, mournful sigh.
"No," he said simply, "they gave us eighteen months for breaking into the undertaker"s next door."