Side-stepping with Shorty

"That's different," says I. "You might send him down a few times and – "

"Oh, but I want you to meet him first," says she, "and arouse his enthusiasm. He would never go if you didn't. I expect he will be in soon, and then – Why, that must be Langdon now!"

It might have been an axe brigade from the district attorney's office, or a hook and ladder company, by the sound. I didn't know whether he was comin' through the doors or bringin' 'em in with him. As I squints around I sees the egg eyed butler get shouldered into the hall rack; so I judges that Langdon must be in something of a hurry.

He gets over it, though, for he stamps into the middle of the room, plants his feet wide apart, throws his leather cap with the goggles on into a chair, and chucks one of them greasy bootleg gloves into the middle of the tea tray.

"Hello, maw!" he growls. "Hello, Fatty! You here again?"

Playful little cuss, Langdon was. He's about five feet nine, short necked, and broad across the chest. But he's got a nice face – for a masked ball – eyes the colour of purple writin' ink, hair of a lovely ripe tomato shade growin' down to a peak in front and standin' up stiff and bristly; a corrugated brow, like a washboard; and an undershot jaw, same's a bull terrier. Oh, yes, he was a dear boy, all right. In his leggin's and leather coat he looks too cute for any use.

"Who's this?" says he, gettin' sight of me sittin' sideways on the stuffed chair.

"Why, Langdon dear," says maw, "this is Professor McCabe. I was speaking to you of him, you know."

He looks me over as friendly as if I was some yegg man that had been hauled out of the coal cellar. "Huh!" says he. I've heard freight engines coughin' up a grade make a noise a good deal like that.

Say, as a rule I ain't anxious to take on new people, and it's gettin' so lately that we turn away two or three a week; but it didn't take me long to make up my mind that I could find time for a session with Langdon, if he wanted it.

"Your maw says you do a little boxin'?" says I, smooth and soothin'.

"What of it?" says he.

"Well," says I, "down to my Studio we juggle the kid pillows once in awhile ourselves, when we ain't doin' the wand drill, or playin' bean bag."

"Huh!" says he once more.

For a parlour conversationalist, Langdon was a frost, and he has manners that would turn a subway guard green. But maw jumps in with enough buttered talk for both, and pretty soon she tells me that Langdon's perfectly delighted and will be down next day.

"Me and Mr. Gallagher'll be on the spot," says I. "Good evenin', ma'am."

At that Pembroke jumps up, makes a quick break away, and trails along too, so we does a promenade together down West End-ave.

"Charming young fellow, eh?" says Pembroke.

"Sure!" says I. "But he hides it well."

"You think Langdon needs exercise?" says he.

"Never saw anyone that needed it much worse," says I.

"Just my notion," says he. "In fact I am so interested in seeing that Langdon gets it that I am quite willing to pay something extra for – "

"You don't have to," says I. "I'm almost willin' to do the payin' myself."

That pleases Pembroke so much he has to stop right in his tracks and shake hands. Funny, ain't it, how you can get to be such good friends with anyone so sudden? We walks thirty blocks, chinnin' like brothers, and when we stops on the corner of 42d I've got the whole story of maw and Langdon, with some of Pembroke's hist'ry thrown in.

It was just a plain case of mother bein' used as a doormat by her dear, darling boy. She was more or less broke in to it, for it seems that the late departed had been a good deal of a rough houser in his day, havin' been about as gentle in his ways as a 'Leventh-ave. bartender entertainin' the Gas House Gang. He hadn't much more'n quit the game, though, before Langdon got big enough to carry out the program, and he'd been at it ever since.

As near as I could figure, Pembroke was a boyhood friend of maw's. He'd missed his chance of bein' anything nearer, years ago, but was still anxious to try again. But it didn't look like there'd be any weddin' bells for him until Langdon either got his neck broke or was put away for life. Pemby wa'n't soured, though. He talked real nice about it. He said he could see how much maw thought of Langdon, and it showed what good stuff she was made of, her stickin' to the boy until he'd settled on something, or something had settled on him. Course, he thought it was about time she had a let up and was treated white for awhile.

Accordin' to the hints he dropped, I suspicions that Pembroke would have ranked her A-1 in the queen class, and I gathers that the size of her bank account don't cut any ice in this deal, him havin' more or less of a surplus himself. I guess he'd been a patient waiter; but he'd set his hopes hard on engagin' the bridal state room for a spring trip to Europe.

It all comes back, though, to what could be done with Langdon, and that was where the form sheet wa'n't any help. There's a million or so left in trust for him; but he don't get it until he's twenty-five. Meantime, it was a question of how you're goin' to handle a youngster that's inherited the instincts of a truck driver and the income of a bank president.

"It's a pity, too," says Pembroke. "He hasn't any vicious habits, he's rather bright, and if he could be started right he would make quite a man, even now. He needs to be caged up somewhere long enough to' have some of the bully knocked out of him. I'm hoping you can do a little along that line."

"Too big a contract," says I. "All I want is to make his ears buzz a little, just as a comeback for a few of them grunts he chucked at me."

And who do you suppose showed up at the Studio next forenoon? Him and maw; she smilin' all over and tickled to death to think she'd got him there; Langdon actin' like a bear with a sore ear.

"Maybe you hadn't better wait," says I to her.

"Oh, yes," says she. "I am going to stay and watch dear Langdon box, you know."

Well, unless I ruled her out flat, there was no way of changin' her mind; so I had to let her stay. And she saw Langdon box. Oh, yes! For an amateur, he puts up a fairly good exhibition, and as I didn't have the heart to throw the hook into him with her sittin' there lookin' so cheerful, about all I does is step around and block his swings and jabs. And say, with him carryin' his guard high, and leavin' the way to his meat safe open half the time, it was all I could do to hold myself back.

The only fun I gets is watchin' Swifty Joe's face out of the corner of my eye. He was pipin' us off from the start. First his mouth comes open a foot or so as he sees me let a chance slide, and when I misses more openin's he takes on a look like some one had fed him a ripe egg.

Langdon is havin' the time of his life. He can hit as hard as he likes, and he don't get hit back. Must have seemed real homelike to him. Anyway, soon's he dopes it out that there ain't any danger at all, he bores in like a snow plough, and between blockin' and duckin' I has my hands full.

Just how Langdon has it sized up I couldn't make out; but like as not I made somethin' of a hit with him. I put it down that way when he shows up one afternoon with his bubble, and offers to take me for a spin. It was so unexpected to find him tryin' to do somethin' agreeable that I don't feel like I ought to throw him down. So I pulls on a sweater and climbs in next to the steerin' wheel.

There wa'n't anything fancy about Langdon's oil waggon. He'd had the tonneau stripped off, and left just the front seat – no varnished wood, only a coat of primin' paint and a layer of mud splashed over that. But we hadn't gone a dozen blocks before I am wise to the fact that nothin' was the matter with the cog wheels underneath.

"Kind of a high powered cart, ain't it?" says I.

"Only ninety horse," says Langdon, jerkin' us around a Broadway car so fast that we grazed both ends at once.

"You needn't hit 'er up on my account," says I, as we scoots across the Plaza, makin' a cab horse stand on his hind legs to give us room.

"I'm only on the second speed," says he. "Wait," and he does some monkeyin' with the lever.

Maybe it was Central Park; but it seemed to me like bein' shot through a Christmas wreath, and the next thing I knows we're tearin' up Amsterdam-ave. Say, I can see 'em yet, them folks and waggons and things we missed – women holdin' kids by the hand, old ladies steppin' out of cars, little girls runnin' across the street with their arms full of bundles, white wings with their dust cans, and boys with delivery carts. Sometimes I'd just shut my eyes and listen for the squashy sound, and when it didn't come I'd open 'em and figure on what would happen if I should reach out and get Langdon's neck in the crook of my arm.

And it wa'n't my first fast ride in town, either. But I'd never been behind the lamps when a two-ton machine was bein' sent at a fifty-mile clip up a street crowded with folks that had almost as much right to be livin' as we did.

It was a game that suited Langdon all right, though. He's squattin' behind the wheel bareheaded, with his ketchup tinted hair plastered back by the wind, them purple eyes shut to a squint, his under jaw stuck out, and a kind of half grin – if you could call it that – flickerin' on and off his thick lips. I don't wonder men shook their fists at us and women turned white and sick as we cleared 'em by the thickness of a sheet of paper. I expect we left a string of cuss words three blocks long.

I don't know how far we went, or where. It was all a nightmare to me, just a string of gasps and visions of what would be in the papers next day, after the coroner's jury got busy. But somehow we got through without any red on the tires, and pulls up in front of the Studio. I didn't jump out in a hurry, like I wanted to. I needed a minute to think, for it seemed to me something was due some one.

"Nice little plaything you've got here," says I. "And that was a great ride. But sittin' still so long has kind of cramped my legs. Don't feel like limberin' up a bit with the mitts, do you?"

"I'd just as soon," says Langdon.

I was tryin' not to look the way I felt; but when we'd sent Swifty down to sit in the machine, and I'd got Langdon peeled off and standin' on the mat, with the spring lock snapped between him and the outside door, it seemed too good to be true. I'd picked out an old set of gloves that had the hair worked away from the knuckles some, for I wa'n't plannin' on any push ball picnic this time.

Just to stir his fightin' blood, and partly so I could be sure I had a good grip on my own temper, I let him get in a few facers on me. Then I opens up with the side remarks I'd been thinkin' over.

"Say, Langy," says I, sidesteppin' one of his swings for my jaw, "s'posin' you'd hit some of them people, eh? S'posin' that car of yours had caught one of them old women – biff! – like that?" and I lets go a jolt that fetches him on the cheek bone.

"Ugh!" says Langdon, real surprised. But he shakes his head and comes back at me.

"Ever stop to think," says I, "how one of them kids would look after you'd got him – so?" and I shoots the left into that bull neck of his.

"S-s-s-say!" sputters Langdon. "What do you think you're doing, anyway?"

"Me?" says I. "I'm tryin' to get a few points on the bubble business. Is it more fun to smash 'em in the ribs – bang! – like that? Or to slug 'em in the head – biff! – so? That's right, son; come in for more. It's waitin'. There! Jarred your nut a bit, that one did, eh? Yes, here's the mate to it. There's plenty more on tap. Oh, never mind the nose claret. It'll wipe off. Keep your guard up. Careful, now! You're swingin' wide. And, as I was sayin' – there, you ran into that one – this bubble scorchin' must be great sport. When you don't – biff! – get 'em – biff! you can scare 'em to death, eh? Wabbly on your feet, are you? That's the stuff! Keep it up. That eye's all right. One's all you need to see with. Gosh! Now you've got a pair of 'em."

If it hadn't been for his comin' in so ugly and strong I never could have done it. I'd have weakened and let up on him long before he'd got half what was owin'. But he was bound to have it all, and there's no sayin' he wa'n't game about it. At the last I tried to tell him he'd had enough; but as long as he could keep on his pins he kept hopin' to get in just one on me; so I finally has to drop him with a stiff one behind the ear.

Course, if we'd had ring gloves on he'd looked like he'd been on the choppin' block; but with the pillows you can't get hurt bad. Inside of ten minutes I has him all washed off and up in a chair, lookin' not much worse than before, except for the eye swellin's. And what do you guess is the first thing he does?

"Say, McCabe," says he, shovin' out his paw, "you're all right, you are."

"So?" says I. "If I thought you was any judge that might carry weight."

"I know," says he. "Nobody likes me."

"Oh, well," says I, "I ain't rubbin' it in. I guess there's white spots in you, after all; even if you do keep 'em covered."

He pricks up his ears at that, and wants to know how and why. Almost before I knows it we've drifted into a heart to heart talk that a half hour before I would have said couldn't have happened. Langdon ain't turned cherub; but he's a whole lot milder, and he takes in what I've got to say as if it was a bulletin from headquarters.

"That's all so," says he. "But I've got to do something. Do you know what I'd like best?"

I couldn't guess.

"I'd like to be in the navy and handle one of those big thirteen-inch guns," says he.

"Why not, then?" says I.

"I don't know how to get in," says he. "I'd go in a minute, if I did."

"You're as good as there now, then," says I. "There's a recruitin' office around on Sixth-ave., not five blocks from here, and the Lieutenant's somethin' of a friend of mine. Is it a go?"

"It is," says Langdon.

Hanged if he didn't mean it too, and before he can change his mind we've had the papers all made out.

In the mornin' I 'phones Pembroke, and he comes around to lug me up while he breaks the news to maw; for he says she'll need a lot of calmin' down. I was lookin' for nothin' less than cat fits, too. But say, she don't even turn on the sprayer.

"The navy!" says she. "Why, how sweet! Oh, I'm so glad! Won't Langdon make a lovely officer?"

I don't know how it's goin' to work out; but there's one sure thing: it'll be some time before Langdon'll be pestered any more by the traffic cops.

And, now that the state room's engaged, you ought to see how well Pembroke is standin' the blow.