Side-stepping with Shorty
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"Whe-e-e!" says she, and the snow begins to fly in chunks. It was the damp, packy kind that used to make us go out and soak the tall hats when we was kids. And Sadie hasn't forgot how to lam 'em in, either. We was havin' it hot and lively, all over the lawn, when the first thing I knows out comes Mrs. Purdy Pell and Pinckney and a lot of others, to join in the muss. They'd dragged out a whole raft of toboggan outfits from the attic, and the minute they gets 'em on they begins to act as coltish as two-year-olds.
Well say, you wouldn't have thought high rollers like them, that gets their fun out of playin' the glass works exhibit at the op'ra, and eatin' one A. M. suppers at Sherry's, and doublin' no trumps at a quarter a point, could unbuckle enough to build snow forts, and yell like Indians, and cut up like kids generally. But they does – washed each other's faces, and laughed and whooped it up until dark. Didn't need the dry Martinis to jolly up appetites for that bunch when dinner time come, and if there was anyone awake in Rockywold after ten o'clock that night it was the butler and the kitchen help.
I looked for 'em to forget it all by mornin' and start in again on their punky card games; but they was all up bright and early, plannin' out new stunts. There'd been a lot of snow dropped durin' the night, and some one gets struck with the notion that buildin' snow men would be the finest sport in the world. They couldn't hardly wait to eat breakfast before they gets on their blanket clothes and goes at it. They was rollin' up snow all over the place, as busy as 'longshoremen – all but Pinckney. He gives out that him and me has been appointed an art committee, to rake in an entrance fee of ten bones each and decide who gets the purse for doin' the best job.
"G'wan!" says I. "I couldn't referee no such fool tournament as this."
"That's right, be modest!" says he. "Don't mind our feelings at all."
Then Sadie and Mrs. Pell butts in and says I've just got to do it; so I does. We gives 'em so long to pile up their raw material, and half an hour after that to carve out what they thinks they can do best, nothin' barred. Some starts in on Teddy bears, one gent plans out a cop; but the most of 'em don't try anything harder'n plain snow men, with lumps of coal for eyes, and pipes stuck in to finish off the face.
It was about then that Count Skiphauser moves out of the background and begins to play up strong. He's one of these big, full blooded pretzels that's been everywhere, and seen everything, and knows it all, and thinks there ain't anything but what he can do a little better'n anybody else.
"Oh, well," says he, "I suppose I must show you what snow carving really is. I won a prize for this sort of thing in Berlin, you know."
"It's all over now," says I to Pinckney. "You heard Skippy pickin' himself for a winner, didn't you?"
"He's a bounder," says Pinckney, talkin' corner-wise – "lives on his bridge and poker winnings. He mustn't get the prize."
But Skiphauser ain't much more'n blocked out a head and shoulders 'fore it was a cinch he was a ringer, with nothin' but a lot of rank amateurs against him. Soon's the rest saw what they was up against they all laid down, for he was makin' 'em look like six car fares. Course, there wa'n't nothin' to do but join the gallery and watch him win in a walk.
"Oh, it's a bust of Bismarck, isn't it?" says one of the women. "How clever of you, Count!"
At that Skippy throws out his chest and begins to chuck in the flourishes. That kind of business suited him down to the ground. He cocks his head on one side, twists up his lip whiskers like Billy the Tooth, and goes through all the motions of a man that knows he's givin' folks a treat.
"Hates himself, don't he?" says I. "He must have graduated from some tombstone foundry."
Pinckney was wild. So was Sadie and Mrs. Purdy Pell, on account of the free-for-all bein' turned into a game of solitaire.
"I just wish," says Sadie, "that there was some way of taking him down a peg. If I only knew of someone who – "
"I do, if you don't," says I.
Say, what do you reckon had been cloggin' my thought works all that time. I takes the three of 'em to one side and springs my proposition, tellin' 'em I'd put it through if they'd stand for it. Would they? They're so tickled they almost squeals.
I gets Swifty Joe at the Studio on the long distance and gives him his instructions. It was a wonder he got it straight, for sometimes you can't get an idea into his head without usin' a brace and bit, but this trip he shows up for a high brow. Pretty quick we gets word that it's all O. K. Pinckney bulletins it to the crowd that, while Sadie's pulled out of the competition, she's asked leave to put on a sub, and that the prize awardin' will be delayed until after the returns are all in.
Meantime I climbs into the sleigh and goes down to meet the express. Sure enough, Cornelia Ann was aboard, a bit hazy about the kind of a stunt that's expected of her, but ready for anything. I don't go into many details, for fear of givin' her stage fright; but I lets her know that if she's got any sculpturin' tricks up her sleeve now's the time to shake 'em out.
"I've been tellin' some friends of mine," says I, "that when it comes to clay art, or plaster of paris art, you was the real lollypop; and I reckoned that if you could do pieces in mud, you could do 'em just as well in snow."
"Snow!" says she. "Why, I never tried."
Maybe I'd banked too much on Cornelia, or perhaps she was right in sayin' this was out of her line. Anyway, it was a mighty disappointed trio that sized her up when I landed her under the porte cochère.
When she's run her eye over the size and swellness of the place I've brought her to, and seen a sample of the folks, she looks half scared to death. And you wouldn't have played her for a fav'rite, either, if you'd seen the cheap figure she cut, with them big eyes rollin' around, as if she was huntin' for the nearest way out. But we give her a cup of hot tea, makes her put on a pair of fleece lined overshoes and somebody's Persian lamb jacket, and leads her out to make a try for the championship.
Some of 'em was sorry of her, and tried to be sociable; but others just stood around and snickered and whispered things behind their hands. Honest, I could have thrown brickbats at myself for bein' such a mush head. That wouldn't have helped any though, so I gets busy and rolls together a couple of chunks of snow about as big as flour barrels and piles one on top of the other.
"It's up to you, Cornie," says I. "Can't you dig something or other out of that?"
She don't say whether she can or can't, but just walks around it two or three times, lookin' at it dreamy, like she was in a trance. Next she braces up a bit, calls for an old carvin' knife and a kitchen spoon, and goes to work, the whole push watchin' her as if she was some freak in a cage.
I pipes off her motions for awhile real hopeful, and then I edges out where I could look the other way. Why say, all she'd done was to hew out something that looks like a lot of soap boxes piled up for a bonfire. It was a case of funk, I could see that; and maybe I wa'n't feelin' like I'd carried a gold brick down to the subtreasury and asked for the acid test.
Then I begins to hear the "Oh's!" and "Ah's!" come from the crowd. First off I thought they was guyin' her, but when I strolls back near enough for a peek at what she was up to, my mouth comes open, too. Say, you wouldn't believe it less'n you'd seen it done, but she was just fetchin' out of that heap of snow, most as quick and easy as if she was unpackin' it from a crate, the stunningest lookin' altogether girl that I ever see outside a museum.
I don't know who it was supposed to be, or why. She's holdin' up with one hand what draperies she's got – which wa'n't any too many – an' with the other she's reachin' above her head after somethin' or other – maybe the soap on the top shelf. But she was a beaut, all right. And all Cornelia was doin' to bring her out was just slashin' away careless with the knife and spoon handle, hardly stoppin' a second between strokes. She simply had 'em goggle eyed. I reckon they'd seen things just as fine and maybe better, but they hadn't had a front seat before, while a little ninety-pound cinnamon top like Cornelia Ann stepped up and yanked a whitewashed angel out of a snow heap.
"It's wonderful!" says Mrs. Purdy Pell.
"Looks to me like we had Skippy fingerin' the citrus, don't it?" says I.
The Count he's been standin' there with his mouth open, like the rest of us, only growin' redder 'n' redder.
But just then Cornelia makes one last swipe, drops her tools, and steps back to take a view. We all quits to see what's comin' next. Well, she looks and looks at that Lady Reacher she's dug out, never sayin' a word; and before we knows it she's slumped right down there in the snow, with both hands over her face, doin' the weep act like a kid.
In two shakes it was Sadie and Mrs. Purdy Pell to the rescue, one on each side, while the rest of us gawps on and looks foolish.
"What is it, you poor darling?" says Sadie.
Finally, after a good weep, Cornie unloosens her trouble. "Oh, oh!" says she. "I just know it's going to rain to-morrow!"
Now wouldn't that give you a foolish fit?
"What of it?" says Sadie.
"That," says she, pointin' to the snow lady. "She'll be gone forever. Oh, it's wicked, wicked!"
"Well," says I, "she's too big to go in the ice box."
"Never mind, dear," says Mrs. Purdy Pell; "you shall stay right here and do another one, in solid marble. I'll give you a thousand for a duplicate of that."
"And then you must do something for me," says Sadie.
"And me, too," says Mrs. Dicky Madison.
I didn't wait to hear any more, for boostin' lady sculpturesses ain't my reg'lar work. But, from all I hear of Cornelia Ann, she won't paste labels in any broom fact'ry.
For your simple liver and slow quitter, art's all right; but it's a long shot, at that. What?
XVI
WHY FERDY DUCKED
Say, there's no tellin', is there? Sometimes the quietest runnin' bubbles blows up with the biggest bang. Now look at Ferdy. He was as retirin' and modest as a new lodge member at his first meetin'. Why, he's so anxious to dodge makin' a show of himself that when he comes here for a private course I has to lock the Studio door and post Swifty Joe on the outside to see that nobody butts in.
All the Dobsons is that way. They're the kind of folks that lives on Fifth-ave., with the front shades always pulled down, and they shy at gettin' their names in the papers like it was bein' served with a summons.
Course, they did have their dose of free advertisin' once, when that Tootsy Peroxide bobbed up and tried to break old Peter Dobson's will; but that case happened so long ago, and there's been so many like it since, that hardly anybody but the Dobsons remembers it. Must have been a good deal of a jolt at the time, though; for as far as I've seen, they're nice folks, and the real thing in the fat wad line, specially Ferdy. He's that genteel and refined he has to have pearl grey boxin' gloves to match his gym. suit.
Well, I wa'n't thinkin' any of him, or his set, havin' just had a session with a brewer's son that I've took on durin' the dull season, when I looks out into the front office and sees my little old Bishop standin' there moppin' his face.
"Hello, Bishop!" I sings out. "Thought you was in Newport, herdin' the flock."
"So I was, Shorty," says he, "until six hours ago. I came down to look for a stray lamb."
"Tried Wall Street?" says I.
"He is not that kind of a lamb," says the Bishop. "It is Ferdinand Dobson. Have you seen him recently?"
"What! Ferdy?" says I. "Not for weeks. They're all up at their Lenox place, ain't they?"
No, they wa'n't. And then the Bishop puts me next to a little news item that hadn't got into the society column yet. Ferdy, after gettin' to be most twenty-five, has been hooked. The girl's name was Alicia, and soon's I heard it I placed her, havin' seen her a few times at different swell ranches where I've been knockin' around in the background. As I remembers her, she has one of these long, high toned faces, and a shape to match – not what you'd call a neck twister, but somethin' real classy and high browed, just the sort you'd look for Ferdy to tag.
Seems they'd been doin' the lovey-dovey for more'n a year; but all on the sly, meetin' each other at afternoon teas, and now and then havin' a ten-minute hand holdin' match under a palm somewhere. They was so cute about it that even their folks didn't suspect it was a case of honey and honey boy; not that anyone would have raised a kick, but because Ferdy don't want any fuss made about it.
When Alicia's mother gets the facts, though, she writes a new program. She don't stand for springin' any quiet weddin's on her set. She plans a big party, where the engagement bulletin is to be flashed on the screen reg'lar and proper, so's folks can be orderin' their dresses and weddin' presents.
Ferdy balks some at the thought of bein' dragged to the centre of the stage; but he grits his teeth and tells 'em that for this once they can go as far as they like. He even agrees to leave home for a week and mix it at a big house party, just to get himself broke in to meetin' strangers.
Up to within two days of the engagement stunt he was behavin' lovely; and the next thing they knows, just when he should be gettin' ready to show up at Newport, he can't be found. It has all the looks of his leavin' his clothes on the bank and jumpin' the night freight. Course, the Dobsons ain't sayin' a word to Alicia's folks yet. They gets their friends together to organise a still hunt for Ferdy; and the Bishop bein' one of the inside circle, he's sent out as head scout.
"And I am at my wits' ends," says he. "No one has seen him in Newport, and I can't find him at any of his clubs here."
"How about the Fifth-ave. mausoleum?" says I.
"His man is there," says the Bishop; "but he seems unable to give me any information."
"Does, eh?" says I. "Well, you take it from me that if anyone's got a line on Ferdy, it's that clam faced Kupps of his. He's been trained so fine in the silence business that he hardly dares open his mouth when he eats. Go up there and put him through the wringer."
"Do what?" says the Bishop.
"Give him the headquarters quiz," says I. "Tell him you come straight from mother and sisters, and that Ferdy's got to be found."
"I hardly feel equal to doing just that," says the Bishop in his mild way. "Now if you could only – "
"Why, sure!" says I. "It'd do me good to take a whirl out of that Englishman. I'll make him give up!"
He's a bird though, that Kupps. I hadn't talked with him two minutes before I would have bet my pile he knew all about where Ferdy was roostin' and what he was up to; but when it come to draggin' out the details, you might just as well have been tryin' to pry up a pavin' stone with a fountain pen. Was Ferdy in town, or out of town, and when would he be back? Kupps couldn't say. He wouldn't even tell how long it was since he had seen Ferdy last. And say, you know how pig headed one of them hen brained Cockneys can be? I feels my collar gettin' tight.
"Look here, Hiccups!" says I. "You – "
"Kupps, sir," says he. "Thomas Kupps is my full nyme, sir."
"Well, Teacups, then, if that suits you better," says I. "You don't seem to have got it into your head that the Bishop ain't just buttin' in here for the fun of the thing. This matter of retrievin' Ferdy is serious. Now you're sure he didn't leave any private messages, or notes or anything of that kind?"
"Nothink of the sort, sir; nothink whatever," says Kupps.
"Well, you just show us up to his rooms," says I, "and we'll have a look around for ourselves. Eh, Bishop?"
"Perhaps it would be the best thing to do," says the Bishop.
Kupps didn't want to do it; but I gives him a look that changes his mind, and up we goes. I was thinkin' that if Ferdy had got chilly feet at the last minute and done the deep dive, maybe he'd left a few lines layin' around his desk. There wa'n't anything in sight, though; nothin' but a big photograph of a wide, full chested lady, propped up against the rail.
"That don't look much like the fair Alicia," says I.
The Bishop puts on his nigh-to glasses and says it ain't. He thinks it must have been took of a lady that he'd seen Ferdy chinnin' at the house party, where he got his last glimpse of him.
"Good deal of a hummin' bird, she is, eh?" says I, pickin' it up. "Tutty tut! Look what's here!" Behind it was a photo of Alicia.
"And here's somethin' else," says I. On the back of the big picture was scribbled, "From Ducky to Ferdy," and the date.
"Yesterday!" gasps the Bishop.
"Well, well!" says I. "That's advancin' the spark some! If he meets her only a week or so ago, and by yesterday she's got so far as bein' his ducky, it looks like Alicia'd have to get out and take the car ahead."
The Bishop acts stunned, gazin' from me to the picture, as if he'd been handed one on the dizzy bone. "You – you don't mean," says he, "that you suspect Ferdy of – of – "
"I hate to think it," says I; "but this looks like a quick shift. Kupps, who's Ferdy's lady friend?"
"Mr. Dobson didn't sye, sir," says Kupps.
"Very thoughtless of him," says I. "Come on, Bishop, we'll take this along as a clue and see what Vandy has to say."
He's a human kodak, Vandy is – makes a livin' takin' pictures for the newspapers. You can't break into the swell push, or have an argument with Teddy, or be tried for murder, without Vandy's showin' up to make a few negatives. So I flashes the photo of Ducky on him.
"Who's the wide one?" says I.
"Why, don't you know who that is, Shorty?" says he.
"Say, do you think I'd be chasin' up any flashlight pirate like you, if I did?" says I. "What's her name?"
"That's Madam Brooklini, of course," says he.
"What, the thousand-dollar-a-minute warbler?" says I. "And me seein' her lithographs all last winter! Gee, Bishop! I thought you followed grand opera closer'n that."
"I should have recalled her," says the Bishop; "but I see so many faces – "
"Only a few like that, though," says I. "Vandy, where do you reckon Mrs. Greater New York could be located just about now?"
Vandy has the whole story down pat. Seems she's been over here out of season bringin' suit against her last manager; but havin' held him up for everything but the gold fillin' in his front teeth, she is booked to sail back to her Irish castle at four in the mornin'. He knows the steamer and the pier number.
"Four A. M., eh?" says I. "That means she's likely to be aboard now, gettin' settled. Bishop, if that Ducky business was a straight steer, it's ten to one that a friend of ours is there sayin' good-bye. Shall we follow it up?"
"I can hardly credit it," says he. "However, if you think – "
"It's no cinch," says I; "but this is a case where it won't do to bank on past performances. From all the signs, Ferdy has struck a new gait."
The Bishop throws up both hands. "How clearly you put it," says he, "and how stupid of me not to understand! Should we visit the steamer, or not?"
"Bishop," says I, "you're a good guesser. We should."
And there wa'n't any trouble about locatin' the high artist. All we has to do is to walk along the promenade deck until we comes to a suite where the cabin stewards was poppin' in and out, luggin' bunches of flowers and baskets of fruit, and gettin' the book signed for telegrams. The Bishop was for askin' questions and sendin' in his card; but I gets him by the sleeve and tows him right in.
I hadn't made any wrong guess, either. There in the corner of the state room, planted in a big wicker arm chair, with a jar of long stemmed American beauts on one side, was Madam Brooklini. On the other side, sittin' edgeways on a canvas stool and holdin' her left hand, was Ferdy.
I could make a guess as to how the thing had come around; Ferdy breakin' from his shell at the house party, runnin' across Brooklini under a soft light, and losin' his head the minute she begins cooin' low notes to him. That's what she was doin' now, him gazin' up at her, and her gazin' down at him. It was about the mushiest performance I ever see.
"Ahem!" says the Bishop, clearin' his throat and blushin' a lovely maroon colour. "I – er – we did not intend to intrude; but – "
Then it was up to Ferdy to show the red. He opens his mouth and gawps at us for a whole minute before he can get out a word. "Why – why, Bishop!" he pants. "What – how – "
Before he has time to choke, or the Bishop can work up a case of apoplexy, I jumps into the ring. "Excuse us doin' the goat act," says I; "but the Bishop has got some word for you from the folks at home, and he wants to get it off his mind."
"Ah, friends of yours, Ferdy?" says Madam Brooklini, throwin' us about four hundred dollars' worth of smile.
There was nothin' for Ferdy to do then but pull himself together and make us all acquainted. And say, I never shook hands with so much jewelry all at once before! She has three or four bunches of sparks on each finger, not to mention a thumb ring. Oh, there wa'n't any mistakin' who skimmed the cream off the box office receipts after you'd took a look at her!
And for a straight front Venus she was the real maraschino. Course, even if the complexion was true, you wouldn't put her down as one of this spring's hatch; but for a broad, heavy weight girl she was the fancy goods. And when she cuts loose with that eighteen-carat voice of hers, and begins to roll them misbehavin' eyes, you forgot how the chair was creakin' under her. The Bishop has all he can do to remember why he was there; but he manages to get out that he'd like a few minutes on the side with Ferdy.
"If your message relates in any way to my return to Newport," says Ferdy, stiffenin' up, "it is useless. I am not going there!"
"But, my dear Ferdy – " begins the Bishop, when the lady cuts in.
"That's right, Bishop," says she. "I do hope you can persuade the silly boy to stop following me around and teasing me to marry him."
"Oh, naughty!" says I under my breath.
The Bishop just looks from one to the other, and then he braces up and says, "Ferdinand, this is not possible, is it?"
It was up to Ferdy again. He gives a squirm or two as he catches the Bishop's eye, and the dew was beginnin' to break out on his noble brow, when Ducky reaches over and gives his hand a playful little squeeze. That was a nerve restorer.
"Bishop," says he, "I must tell you that I am madly, hopelessly, in love with this lady, and that I mean to make her my wife."
"Isn't he the dearest booby you ever saw!" gurgles Madam Brooklini. "He has been saying nothing but that for the last five days. And now he says he is going to follow me across the ocean and keep on saying it. But you must stop, Ferdy; really, you must."
"Never!" says Ferdy, gettin' a good grip on the cut glass exhibit.
"Such persistence!" says Ducky, shiftin' her searchlights from him to us and back again. "And he knows I have said I would not marry again. I mustn't. My managers don't like it. Why, every time I marry they raise a most dreadful row. But what can I do? Ferdy insists, you see; and if he keeps it up, I just know I shall have to take him. Please be good, Ferdy!"
Wouldn't that make you seasick? But the Bishop comes to the front like he'd heard a call to man the lifeboat.
"It may influence you somewhat," says he, "to learn that for nearly a year Ferdinand has been secretly engaged to a very estimable young woman."
"I know," says she, tearin' off a little giggle. "Ferdy has told me all about Alicia. What a wicked, deceitful wretch he is! isn't he? Aren't you ashamed, Ferdy, to act so foolish over me?"
If Ferdy was, he hid it well. All he seemed willin' to do was to sit there, holdin' her hand and lookin' as soft as a custard pie, while the Lady Williamsburg tells what a tough job she has dodgin' matrimony, on account of her yieldin' disposition. I didn't know whether to hide my face in my hat, or go out and lean over the rail. I guess the Bishop wa'n't feelin' any too comfortable either; but he was there to do his duty, so he makes one last stab.
"Ferdinand," says he, "your mother asked me to say that – "