Kitabı oku: «Odd Numbers», sayfa 5

CHAPTER VI
PLAYING HAROLD BOTH WAYS

Anyway, they came bunched, and that was some comfort. Eh? Well, first off there was the lovers, then there was Harold; and it was only the combination that saved me from developin’ an ingrowin’ grouch.

You can guess who it was accumulated the lovers. Why, when Sadie comes back from Bar Harbor and begins tellin’ me about ’em, you’d thought she’d been left something in a will, she’s so pleased.

Seems there was these two young ladies, friends of some friends of hers, that was bein’ just as miserable as they could be up there. One was visitin’ the other, and, as I made out from Sadie’s description, they must have been havin’ an awful time, livin’ in one of them eighteen-room cottages built on a point juttin’ a mile or so out into the ocean, with nothin’ but yachts and motor boats and saddle horses and tennis courts and so on to amuse themselves with.

I inspected some of them places when I was up that way not long ago, – joints where they get their only information about hot waves by readin’ the papers, – and I can just imagine how I could suffer puttin’ in a summer there. Say, some folks don’t know when they’re well off, do they?

And what do you suppose the trouble with ’em was? Why, Bobbie and Charlie was missin’. Honest, that’s all the place lacked to make it a suburb of Paradise. But that was enough for the young ladies; for each of ’em was sportin’ a diamond ring on the proper finger, and, as they confides to Sadie, what was the use of havin’ summer at all, if one’s fiancé couldn’t be there?

Bobbie and Charlie, it appears, was slavin’ away in the city; one tryin’ to convince Papa that he’d be a real addition to Wall Street, and the other trainin’ with Uncle for a job as vice president of a life insurance company. So what did Helen and Marjorie care about sea breezes and picture postal scenery? Once a day they climbed out to separate perches on the rocks to read letters from Bobbie and Charlie; and the rest of the time they put in comparin’ notes and helpin’ each other be miserable.

“Ah, quit it, Sadie!” says I, interruptin’ the sad tale. “Do you want to make me cry?”

“Well, they were wretched, even if you don’t believe it,” says she; “so I just told them to come right down here for the rest of the season.”

“Wha-a-at!” says I. “Not here?”

“Why not?” says Sadie. “The boys can run up every afternoon and have dinner with us and stay over Sunday, and – and it will be just lovely. You know how much I like to have young people around. So do you, too.”

“Yes, that’s all right,” says I; “but – ”

“Oh, I know,” says she. “This isn’t matchmaking, though. They’re already engaged, and it will be just delightful to have them with us. Now won’t it?”

“Maybe it will,” says I. “We ain’t ever done this wholesale before; so I ain’t sure.”

Someway, I had a hunch that two pair of lovers knockin’ around the premises at once might be most too much of a good thing; but, as long as I couldn’t quote any authorities, I didn’t feel like keepin’ on with the debate.

I couldn’t object any to the style of the young ladies when they showed up; for they was both in the queen class, tall and willowy and sweet faced. One could tease opera airs out of the piano in great shape, and the other had quite some of a voice; so the prospects were for a few weeks of lively and entertainin’ evenin’s at the McCabe mansion. I had the programme all framed up too, – me out on the veranda with my heels on the rail, the windows open, and inside the young folks strikin’ up the melodies and makin’ merry gen’rally.

Bobbie and Charles made more or less of a hit with me too when they first called, – good, husky, clean built young gents that passed out the cordial grip and remarked real hearty how much they appreciated our great kindness askin’ ’em up.

“Don’t mention it,” says I. “It’s a fad of mine.”

Anyway, it looked like a good game to be in on, seein’ there wa’n’t any objections from any of the fam’lies. Made me feel bright and chirky, just to see ’em there, so that night at dinner I cut loose with some real cute joshes for the benefit of the young people. You know how easy it is to be humorous on them occasions. Honest, I must have come across with some of the snappiest I had in stock, and I was watchin’ for the girls to pink up and accuse me of bein’ an awful kidder, when all of a sudden I tumbles to the fact that I ain’t holdin’ my audience.

Say, they’d started up a couple of conversations on their own hook – kind of side issue, soft pedal dialogues – and they wa’n’t takin’ the slightest notice of my brilliant efforts. At the other end of the table Sadie is havin’ more or less the same experience; for every time she tries to cut in with some cheerful observation she finds she’s addressin’ either Marjorie’s left shoulder or Bobbie’s right.

“Eh, Sadie?” says I across the centerpiece. “What was that last of yours?”

“It doesn’t matter,” says she. “Shall we have coffee in the library, girls, or outside! I say, Helen, shall we have – I beg pardon, Helen, but would you prefer – ”

“What we seem to need most, Sadie,” says I as she gives it up, “is a table megaphone.”

Nobody hears this suggestion, though, not even Sadie. I was lookin’ for the fun to begin after dinner, – the duets and the solos and the quartets, – but the first thing Sadie and I know we are occupyin’ the libr’y all by ourselves, with nothing doing in the merry music line.

“Of course,” says she, “they want a little time by themselves.”

“Sure!” says I. “Half-hour out for the reunion.”

It lasts some longer, though. At the end of an hour I thinks I’ll put in the rest of the wait watchin’ the moon come up out of Long Island Sound from my fav’rite corner of the veranda; but when I gets there I finds it’s occupied.

“Excuse me,” says I, and beats it around to the other side, where there’s a double rocker that I can gen’rally be comfortable in. Hanged if I didn’t come near sittin’ slam down on the second pair, that was snuggled up close there in the dark!

“Aha!” says I in my best comic vein. “So here’s where you are, eh? Fine night, ain’t it?”

There’s a snicker from the young lady, a grunt from the young gent; but nothing else happens in the way of a glad response. So I chases back into the house.

“It’s lovely out, isn’t it?” says Sadie.

“Yes,” says I; “but more or less mushy in spots.”

With that we starts in to sit up for ’em. Sadie says we got to because we’re doin’ the chaperon act. And, say, I’ve seen more excitin’ games. I read three evenin’ papers clear through from the weather forecast to the bond quotations, and I finished by goin’ sound asleep in my chair. I don’t know whether Bobbie and Charlie caught the milk train back to town or not; but they got away sometime before breakfast.

“Oh, well,” says Sadie, chokin’ off a yawn as she pours the coffee, “this was their first evening together, you know. I suppose they had a lot to say to each other.”

“Must have had,” says I. “I shouldn’t think they’d have to repeat that performance for a month.”

Next night, though, it’s the same thing, and the next, and the next. “Poor things!” thinks I. “I expect they’re afraid of being guyed.” So, just to show how sociable and friendly I could be, I tries buttin’ in on these lonely teeter-tates. First I’d hunt up one couple and submit some samples of my best chatter – gettin’ about as much reply as if I was ringin’ Central with the wire down. Then I locates the other pair, drags a rocker over near ’em, and tries to make the dialogue three handed. They stands it for a minute or so before decidin’ to move to another spot.

Honest, I never expected to feel lonesome right at home entertainin’ guests! but I was gettin’ acquainted with the sensation. There’s no musical doings, no happy groups and gay laughter about the house; nothing but now and then a whisper from dark corners, or the creak of the porch swings.

“Gee! but they’re takin’ their spoonin’ serious, ain’t they?” says I to Sadie. “And how popular we are with ’em! Makes me feel almost like I ought to put on a gag and sit down cellar in the coalbin.”

“Pooh!” says Sadie, makin’ a bluff she didn’t mind. “Do let them enjoy themselves in their own way.”

“Sure I will,” says I. “Only this chaperon business is gettin’ on my nerves. I don’t feel like a host here; I feel more like a second story man dodgin’ the night watchman.”

There wa’n’t any signs of a change, either. When they had to be around where we was they had hardly a word to say and acted bored to death; and it must have taxed their brains, workin’ up all them cute little schemes for leavin’ us on a siding so they could pair off. Course, I’ve seen engaged couples before; but I never met any that had the disease quite so hard. And this bein’ shunned like I had somethin’ catchin’ was new to me. I begun to feel like I was about ninety years old and in the way.

Sunday forenoon was the limit, though. Sadie had planned to take ’em all for a motor trip; but they declines with thanks. Would they rather go out on the water? No, they didn’t care for that, either. All they seems to want to do is wander round, two by two, where we ain’t. And at that Sadie loses some of her enthusiasm for havin’ bunches of lovers around.

“Humph!” I hears her remark as she watches Bobbie and Marjorie sidestep her and go meanderin’ off down a path to the rocks.

A little while later I happens to stroll down to the summerhouse with the Sunday paper, and as I steps in one door Charlie and Helen slip out by the other. They’d seen me first.

“Well, well!” says I. “I never knew before how unentertainin’ I could be.”

And I was just wonderin’ how I could relieve my feelin’s without eatin’ a fuzzy worm, like the small boy that nobody loved, when I hears footsteps approachin’ through the shrubb’ry. I looks up, to find myself bein’ inspected by a weedy, long legged youth. He’s an odd lookin’ kid, with dull reddish hair, so many freckles that his face looks rusty, and a pair of big purple black eyes that gazes at me serious.

“Well, son,” says I, “where did you drop from?”

“My name is Harold Burbank Fitzmorris,” says he, “and I am visiting with my mother on the adjoining estate.”

“That sounds like a full description, Harold,” says I. “Did you stray off, or was you sent?”

“I trust you don’t mind,” says he; “but I am exploring.”

“Explore away then,” says I, “so long as you don’t tramp through the flowerbeds.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t think of injuring them,” says he. “I am passionately fond of flowers.”

“You don’t say!” says I.

“Yes,” says Harold, droppin’ down easy on the bench alongside of me. “I love Nature in all her moods. I am a poet, you know.”

“Eh!” says I. “Ain’t you beginning sort of young?”

“Nearly all the really great men of literature,” comes back Harold as prompt as if he was speakin’ a piece, “have begun their careers by writing verse. I presume mine might be considered somewhat immature; but I am impelled from within to do it. All that will pass, however, when I enter on my serious work.”

“Oh, then you’ve got a job on the hook, have you!” says I.

“I expect,” says Harold, smilin’ sort of indulgent and runnin’ his fingers careless through his thick coppery hair, “to produce my first novel when I am twenty. It will have a somber theme, something after the manner of Turgenieff. Do you not find Turgenieff very stimulating?”

“Harold,” says I, “all them Hungarian wines are more or less heady, and a kid like you shouldn’t monkey with any of ’em.”

He looks almost pained at that. “You’re chaffing me now, I suppose,” says he. “That sort of thing, though, I never indulge in. Humor, you know, is but froth on the deep seas of thought. It has never seemed to me quite worth one’s while. You will pardon my frankness, I know.”

“Harold,” says I, “you’re a wizard. So it’s nix on the josh, eh?”

“What singular metaphors you employ!” says he. “Do you know, I can hardly follow you. However, colloquial language does not offend my ear. It is only when I see it in print that I shudder.”

“Me too,” says I. “I’m just as sore on these foreign languages as anyone. So you’re visitin’ next door, eh? Enjoyin’ yourself?”

That was a plain cue for Harold Burbank to launch out on the story of his life; but, say, he didn’t need any such encouragement. He was a willin’ and ready converser, Harold was; and – my! – what a lot of classy words he did have on tap! First off I wondered how it was a youngster like him could dig up so many; but when I’d heard a little more about him I could account for it all.

He’d cut his teeth, as you might say, on the encyclopedia. Harold’s father had been a professor of dead languages, and I guess he must have died of it. Anyway, Mother was a widow, and from things Harold dropped I judged she was more or less frisky, spendin’ her time at bridge and chasin’ teas and dinner parties. It was clear she wa’n’t any highbrow, such as Father must have been. All of which was disappointin’ to Harold. He made no bones of sayin’ so.

“Why pretend to approve of one’s parent,” says he, “when approval is undeserved?”

There was a lot of other folks that Harold disapproved of too. In fact, he was a mighty critical youth, only bein’ able to entertain a good opinion of but one certain party. At any other time I expect he’d have given me an earache; but I’d been handed so much silence by our double Romeo-Juliet bunch that most any kind of conversation was welcome just then. So I lets him spiel away.

And, say, he acts like he was hungry for the chance. Why, he gives me his ideas on every subject you could think of, from the way Napoleon got himself started on the toboggan, to the folly of eatin’ fried ham for breakfast. He sure was a wonder, that kid! Two solid hours we chinned there in the summerhouse, and it was almost by main strength I broke away for a one o’clock dinner.

Then, just as I’d got settled comf’table on the veranda in the afternoon, he shows up and begins again. There was nothin’ diffident or backward about Harold. He didn’t have any doubts about whether he was welcome or not, and his confidence about bein’ able to entertain was amazin’.

It didn’t do any good to throw out hints that perhaps he was bein’ missed at home, or to yawn and pretend you was sleepy. He was as persistent as a mosquito singin’ its evenin’ song, and most as irritatin’. Twice I gets up and pikes off, tryin’ to shake him; but Harold trails right along too. Maybe I’d yearned for conversation. Well, I was gettin’ it.

At last I grows desp’rate, and in about two minutes more he would have been led home to Mother with the request that she tether him on her side of the fence, when I sees two of the lovers strollin’ off to find a nook that wa’n’t preempted by the other pair. And all of a sudden I has this rosy thought.

“Harold,” says I, “it’s most too bad, your wastin’ all this flossy talk on me, who can’t appreciate its fine points as I should, when there go some young people who might be tickled to death to have you join ’em. Suppose you try cheerin’ ’em up?”

“Why,” says Harold, “I had not observed them before. Thank you for the suggestion. I will join them at once.”

Does he? Say, for the next couple of hours I had the time of my life watchin’ the maneuvers. First off I expect they must have thought him kind of cute, same as I did; but it wa’n’t long before they begun tryin’ to lose him. If they shifted positions once, they did a dozen times, from the summerhouse to the rocks, then up to the veranda and back again, with Harold Burbank taggin’ right along and spoutin’ his best. He tackles first one pair, and then the other, until fin’lly they all retreats into the house. Harold hesitates a little about walkin’ through the door after ’em, until I waves my hand cordial.

“Make yourself right to home, Harold,” says I. “Keep ’em cheered up.”

Not until he drives the girls off to their rooms and has Bobbie and Charles glarin’ murderous at him, does he quit the sport and retire for supper.

“Come over again this evenin’,” says I. “You’re makin’ a hit.”

Harold thanks me some more and says he will. He’s a great one to keep his word too. Bobbie and Marjorie have hardly snuggled up in one end of a hammock to watch the moon do things to the wavelets before here is Harold, with a fresh line of talk that he’s bent on deliverin’ while the mood is on.

Gettin’ no answer from his audience didn’t bother him a bit; for passin’ out the monologue is his strong suit. Not to seem partial, he trails down Charlie and Helen and converses with them too. Course, all this occurrin’ outside, I couldn’t watch everything that took place; but I sits in the lib’ry with Sadie a lot more contented than I’d been before that week.

And when Marjorie drifts in alone, along about nine o’clock, and goes to drummin’ on the piano, I smiles. Ten minutes later Helen appears too; and it’s only when neither of the boys show up that I begins wonderin’. I asks no questions; but goes out on a scoutin’ trip. There’s nobody on the veranda at all. Down by the waterfront, though, I could hear voices, and I goes sleuthin’ in that direction.

“Yes,” I could hear Harold sayin’ as I got most to the boat landin’, “the phosphorescence that ignorant sailors attribute to electricity in the air is really a minute marine animal which – ”

I expect I’ll never know the rest; for just then there’s a break in the lecture.

“One, two, three – now!” comes from Bobbie, and before Harold can let out a single squeal they’ve grabbed him firm and secure, one by the heels and the other by the collar, and they’ve begun sousin’ him up and down off the edge of the float. It was high tide too.

“Uggle-guggle! Wow!” remarks Harold between splashes.

“That’s right,” observes Charles through, his teeth. “Swallow a lot of it, you windbag! It’ll do you good.”

Course, these young gents was guests of mine, and I hadn’t interfered before with their partic’lar way of enjoyin’ themselves; so I couldn’t begin now. But after they was through, and a draggled, chokin’, splutterin’ youth had gone beatin’ it up the path and over towards the next place, I strolls down to meet ’em as they are comin’ up to the house.

“Hope you didn’t see what happened down there just now, Professor,” says Bobbie.

“Me?” says I. “Well, if I did I can forget it quick.”

“Thanks, old man!” says both of ’em, pattin’ me friendly on the shoulder.

“The little beast!” adds Charles. “He had the nerve to say you had put him up to it. That’s what finally earned him his ducking, you know.”

“Well, well!” says I. “Such a nice spoken youngster too!”

“Huh!” says Bobbie. “I suppose there’ll be no end of a row about this when he gets home with his tale; but we’ll stand for it. Meanwhile let’s go up and get the girls to give us some music.”

Say, I don’t believe Harold ever mentioned it to a soul. It’s a funny thing too, but he hasn’t been over here since. And someway, gettin’ better acquainted with the boys in that fashion, made it pleasanter all round.

But no more entertainin’ lovers for us! Harolds ain’t common enough.

CHAPTER VII
CORNELIA SHOWS SOME CLASS

“Oh, by the way, Shorty,” says Sadie to me the other mornin’, just as I’m makin’ an early get-away for town.

“Another postscript, eh?” says I. “Well, let it come over speedy.”

“It’s something for Mrs. Purdy-Pell,” says she. “I’d almost forgotten.”

“Is it orderin’ some fancy groceries, or sendin’ out a new laundry artist?” says I. “If it is, why I guess I can – ”

“No, no,” says Sadie, givin’ my tie an extra pat and brushin’ some imaginary dust off my coat collar; “it’s about Cousin Cornelia. She’s in town, you know, and neither of the Purdy-Pells can get in to see her before next week on account of their garden party, and Cornelia is staying at a hotel alone, and they’re a little anxious about her. So look her up, won’t you? I told them you would. You don’t mind, do you?”

“Me?” says I. “Why, I’ve been waitin’ for this. Makin’ afternoon calls on weepy old maids is my specialty.”

“There, there!” says Sadie, followin’ me out on the veranda. “Don’t play the martyr! Perhaps Cornelia isn’t the most entertaining person in the world, for she certainly has had her share of trouble; but it isn’t going to hurt you merely to find out how she is situated and ask if you can be of any help to her. You know, if there was anything she could do for us, she would – ”

“Oh, sure!” says I. “If I’m ever brought home on a shutter, I shall look for Cornelia to be waitin’ on the mat with a needle and thread, ready to sew mournin’ bands on the help.”

That seems to be Cousin Cornelia’s steady job in life, tendin’ out on the sick and being in at the obsequies. Anyway, she’s been at it ever since we knew her. She’s a cousin of Mr. Purdy-Pell’s, and his branch of the fam’ly, being composed mainly of antiques and chronic invalids, has been shufflin’ off in one way or another for the last three or four years at the rate of about one every six months.

Course, it was kind of sad to see a fam’ly peter out that way; but, as a matter of fact, most of ’em was better off. At first the Purdy-Pells started in to chop all their social dates for three months after each sorrowful event; but when they saw they was being let in for a continuous performance, they sort of detailed Cousin Cornelia to do their heavy mournin’ and had a black edge put on their stationery.

Maybe Cornelia didn’t exactly yearn for the portfolio; but she didn’t have much choice about taking it. She was kind of a hanger-on, Cornelia was, you see, and she was used to going where she was sent. So when word would come that Aunt Mehitabel’s rheumatism was worse and was threatenin’ her heart, that meant a hurry call for Cousin Cornelia. She’d pack a couple of suit cases full of black skirts and white shirtwaists, and off she’d go, not showin’ up again at the Purdy-Pells’ town house until Aunty had been safely planted and the headstone ordered.

You couldn’t say but what she did it thorough, too; for she’d come back wearin’ a long crape veil and lookin’ pasty faced and wore out. Don’t know as I ever saw her when she wa’n’t either just comin’ from where there’d been a funeral, or just startin’ for where there was likely to be one.

So she didn’t cut much of a figure in all the gay doin’s the Purdy-Pells was always mixed up in. And yet she wasn’t such a kiln dried prune as you might expect, after all. Rather a well built party, Cornelia was, with a face that would pass in a crowd, and a sort of longin’ twist to her mouth corners as if she wanted to crack a smile now and then, providin’ the chance would only come her way.

And it wa’n’t hardly a square deal to list her with the U.B.’s as soon as we did; for all this time she was doing the chief mourner act she was engaged to young Durgin. First off it was understood that she was waitin’ for him to settle on whether he was goin’ to be a minister or a doctor, him fiddlin’ round at college, now takin’ one course and then another; but at last he makes up his mind to chuck both propositions and take a hack at the law.

Durgin got there, too, which was more or less of a surprise to all hands, and actually broke in as partner in a good firm. Then it was a case of Durgin waitin’ for Cornelia; for about that time the relations got to droppin’ off in one-two-three order, and she seemed to think that so long as she’d started in on the job of ridin’ in the first carriage, she ought to see it through.

Whether it was foolish of her or not, ain’t worth while debatin’ now. Anyhow, she stuck to it until the last one had cashed in, puttin’ Durgin off from month to month and year to year. Then it turns out that the last of the bunch, Uncle Theodore, had left her a good-sized wad that Purdy-Pell had always supposed was comin’ to him, but which he didn’t grudge to Cornelia a bit.

So there she was, all the lingerin’ ones off her hands, and her sportin’ a bank account of her own. She’s some tired out, though; so, after sendin’ Durgin word that they might as well wait until fall now, she hikes off to some little place in New Hampshire and spends the summer restin’ up. Next she comes down unexpected and hits New York.

In the meantime, though, Durgin has suddenly decided to scratch his entry for that partic’lar Matrimonial Handicap. Not that he’s seriously int’rested in somebody else, but he’s kind of got weary hangin’ around, and he’s seen a few livelier ones than Cornelia, and he feels that somehow him and her have made a great mistake. You know how they’re apt to talk when they get chilly below the ankles? He don’t hand this straight out to Cornelia, mind you, but goes to Mrs. Purdy-Pell and Sadie with the tale, wantin’ to know what he’d better do.

Now I ain’t got any grouch against Durgin. He’s all right, I expect, in his way, more or less of a stiff necked, mealy mouthed chump, I always thought; but they say he’s nice to his old mother, and he’s makin’ good in the law business, and he ain’t bad to look at. The women folks takes his side right off. They say they don’t blame him a bit, and, without stoppin’ to think how Cousin Cornelia is going to feel left alone there on the siding, they get busy pickin’ out new candidates for Durgin to choose from.

Well, that’s the situation when I’m handed this assignment to go and inspect the head of the Purdy-Pells’ obituary department and see if she’s all comfy. Couldn’t have weighed very heavy on my mind; for I don’t think of it until late afternoon, just as I’m startin’ to pull out for home. Then I says to myself that maybe it’ll do just as well if I ring her up on the ’phone at her hotel. She’s in, all right, and I explains over the wire how anxious I am to know if she’s all right, and hopes nobody has tried to kidnap her yet, and asks if there’s anything I can do.

“Why, how kind of you, Mr. McCabe!” says Cornelia. “Yes, I am perfectly well and quite safe here.”

“Good!” says I. And then, seein’ how easy I was gettin’ out of it, I has to pile on the agony a little by addin’, “Ain’t there some way I can be useful, though? No errands you want done, or any place you’d like to be towed around to, eh?”

“Why – why – ” says she, hesitatin’. “Oh, but I couldn’t think of troubling you, you know.”

“Why not?” says I, gettin’ reckless. “Just remember that I’d be tickled to death, any time you push the button.”

“We-e-ell,” says she, “we were just wishing, Miss Stover and I, that we did have some gentleman friend who would – ”

“Count me in,” says I. “What’s the game? Trip to Woodlawn Cemetery some day, or do you want to be piloted up to Grant’s Tomb?”

No, it wa’n’t either of them festive splurges she had in mind. They wanted a dinner escort for that evenin’, she and Miss Stover. The other lady, she goes on to say, is a school teacher from up Boston way, that she’d made friends with durin’ the summer. Miss Stover was takin’ a year off, for the benefit of her nerves, and before she sailed on her Cook’s trip abroad she thought she’d like to see a little of New York. They’d been tryin’ to knock around some alone, and had got along all right daytimes, but hadn’t dared venture out much at night. So if I wanted to be real generous, and it wouldn’t be too much of a bore, they’d be very thankful if I would —

“In a minute,” says I and, seein’ I was up against it anyhow, I thought I might as well do it cheerful. “I’ll be up about six, eh?”

“Chee!” says Swifty Joe, who always has his ear stretched out on such occasions, “you make a noise like you was fixin’ up a date.”

“What good hearin’ you have, Swifty!” says I. “Some day, though, you’ll strain one of them side flaps of yours. Yes, this is a date, and it’s with two of the sportiest female parties that ever dodged an old ladies’ home.”

Excitin’ proposition, wa’n’t it? I spends the next half-hour battin’ my head to think of some first class food parlor where I could cart a couple like this Boston schoolma’am and Cousin Cornelia without shockin’ ’em. There was the Martha Washington; but I knew I’d be barred there. Also there was some quiet fam’ly hotels I’d heard of up town; but I couldn’t remember exactly what street any of ’em was on.

“Maybe Cornelia will have some plans of her own,” thinks I, as I gets into my silk faced dinner jacket and V-cut vest. “And I hope she ain’t wearin’ more’n two thicknesses of crape veil now.”

Well, soon after six I slides out, hops on one of these shed-as-you-enter surface cars, and rides up to the hotel. I’d been holdin’ down one of the velvet chairs in the ladies’ parlor for near half an hour, and was wonderin’ if Cornelia had run out of black headed pins, or what, when I pipes off a giddy specimen in wistaria costume that drifts in and begins squintin’ around like she was huntin’ for some one. Next thing I knew she’d spotted me and was sailin’ right over.

“Oh, there you are!” she gurgles, holdin’ out her hand.

“Excuse me, lady,” says I, sidesteppin’ behind the chair, “but ain’t you tryin’ to tag the wrong party?”

“Why,” says she, lettin’ out a chuckle, “don’t you know me, Mr. McCabe?”

“Not yet,” says I; “but it looks like I would if – Great snakes!”

And honest, you could hardly have covered my face cavity with a waffle iron when I drops to the fact that it’s Cousin Cornelia. In place of the dismal female I’d been expectin’, here’s a chirky party in vivid regalia that shows class in every line. Oh, it’s a happy days uniform, all right, from the wide brimmed gauze lid with the long heliotrope feather trailin’ over one side, to the lavender kid pumps.

“Gee!” I gasps. “The round is on me, Miss Cornelia. But I wa’n’t lookin’ for you in – in – ”

“I know,” says she. “This is the first time I’ve worn colors for years, and I feel so odd. I hope I don’t look too – ”

“You look all to the skookum,” says I.

It wa’n’t any jolly, either. There never was any real sharp angles to Cornelia, and now I come to reckon up I couldn’t place her as more’n twenty-six or twenty-seven at the outside. So why shouldn’t she show up fairly well in a Gibson model?

“It’s so good of you to come to our rescue,” says she. “Miss Stover will be down presently. Now, where shall we go to dinner?”