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VII
RINKEY AND THE PHONY LAMP

Say, for gettin' all the joy that's comin' to you, there's nothin' like bein' a mixer. The man who travels in one class all the time misses a lot. And I sure was mixin' it when I closes with Snick Butters and Sir Hunter Twiggle all in the same day.

Snick had first place on the card. He drifts into the Studio early in the forenoon, and when I sees the green patch over the left eye I knows what's comin'. He's shy of a lamp on that side, you know – uses the kind you buy at the store, when he's got it; and when he ain't got it, he wants money.

I s'pose if I was wise I'd scratched Snick off my list long ago; but knowin' him is one of the luxuries I've kept up. You know how it is with them old time friends you've kind of outgrown but hate to chuck in the discard, even when they work their touch as reg'lar as rent bills.

But Snick and me played on the same block when we was kids, and there was a time when I looked for Snick to be boostin' me, 'stead of me boostin' him. He's one of the near-smarts that you're always expectin' to make a record, but that never does. Bright lookin' boy, neat dresser, and all that, but never stickin' to one thing long enough to make good. You've seen 'em.

"Hello, Snick!" says I, as he levels the single barrel on me. "I see you've pulled down the shade again. What's happened to that memorial window of yours this time?"

"Same old thing," says he. "It's in at Simpson's for five, and a bookie's got the five."

"And now you want to negotiate a second mortgage, eh?" says I.

That was the case. He tells me his newest job is handlin' the josh horn on the front end of one of these Rube waggons, and just because the folks from Keokuk and Painted Post said that lookin' at the patch took their minds off seein' the skyscrapers, the boss told him he'd have to chuck it or get the run.

"He wouldn't come across with a five in advance, either," says Snick. "How's that for the granite heart?"

"It's like other tales of woe I've heard you tell," says I, "and generally they could be traced to your backin' three kings, or gettin' an inside tip on some beanery skate."

"That's right," says he, "but never again. I've quit the sportin' life for good. Just the same, if I don't show up on the waggon for the 'leven o'clock trip I'll be turned loose. If you don't believe it Shorty, I'll – "

"Ah, don't go callin' any notary publics," says I. "Here's the V to take up that ticket. But say, Snick; how many times do I have to buy out that eye before I get an equity in it?"

"It's yours now; honest, it is," says he. "If you say so, I'll write out a bill of sale."

"No," says I, "your word goes. Do you pass it?"

He said he did.

"Thanks," says I. "I always have thought that was a fine eye, and I'm proud to own it. So long, Snick."

There's one good thing about Snick Butters; after he's made his touch he knows enough to fade; don't hang around and rub it in, or give you a chance to wish you hadn't been so easy. It's touch and go with him, and before I'd got out the last of my remarks he was on his way.

It wa'n't more'n half josh, though, that I was givin' him about that phony pane of his. It was a work of art, one of the bright blue kind. As a general thing you can always spot a bought eye as far as you can see it, they're so set and stary. But Snick got his when he was young and, bein' a cute kid, he had learned how to use it so well that most folks never knew the difference. He could do about everything but see with it.

First off he'd trained it to keep pace with the other, movin' 'em together, like they was natural; but whenever he wanted to he could make the glass one stand still and let the other roam around. He always did that on Friday afternoons when he got up to speak pieces in the grammar school. And it was no trick at all for him to look wall eyed one minute, cross eyed the next, and then straighten 'em out with a jerk of his head. Maybe if it hadn't been for that eye of Snick's I'd have got further'n the eighth grade.

His star performance, though, was when he did a jugglin' act keepin' three potatoes in the air. He'd follow the murphies with his good eye and turn the other one on the audience, and if you didn't know how it was done, it would give you the creeps up and down the back, just watchin' him.

Say, you'd thought a feller with talent like that would have made a name for himself, wouldn't you? Tryin' to be a sport was where Snick fell down, though. He had the blood, all right, but no head. Why when we used to play marbles for keeps, Snick would never know when to quit. He'd shoot away until he'd lost his last alley, and then he'd pry out that glass eye of his and chuck it in the ring for another go. Many a time Snick's gone home wearin' a striped chiny or a pink stony in place of the store eye, and then his old lady would chase around lookin' for the kid that had won it off'm him. There's such a thing as bein' too good a loser; but you could never make Snick see it.

Well, I'd marked up five to the bad on my books, and then Swifty Joe and me had worked an hour with a couple of rockin' chair commodores from the New York Yacht Club, gettin' 'em in shape to answer Lipton's batch of spring challenges, when Pinckney blows in, towin' a tubby, red faced party in a frock coat and a silk lid.

"Shorty," says he, "I want you to know Sir Hunter Twiggle. Sir Hunter, this is the Professor McCabe you've heard about."

"If you heard it from Pinckney," says I, "don't believe more'n half of it." With that we swaps the grip, and he says he's glad to meet up with me.

But say, he hadn't been in the shop two minutes 'fore I was next to the fact that he was another who'd had to mate up his lamps with a specimen from the glass counter.

"They must be runnin' in pairs," thinks I. "This'd be a good time to draw to three of a kind."

Course, I didn't mention it, but I couldn't keep from watchin' how awkward he handled his'n, compared to the smooth way Snick could do it. I guess Pinckney must have spotted me comin' the steady gaze, for pretty soon he gets me one side and whispers, "Don't appear to notice it."

"All right," says I; "I'll look at his feet."

"No, no," says Pinckney, "just pretend you haven't discovered it. He's very sensitive on the subject – thinks no one knows, and so on."

"But it's as plain as a gold tooth," says I.

"I know," says Pinckney; "but humour him. He's the right sort."

Pinckney wa'n't far off, either. For a gent that acted as though he'd been born wearin' a high collar and a shiny hat, Sir Twiggle wasn't so worse. Barrin' the stiffenin', which didn't wear off at all, he was a decent kind of a haitch eater. Bein' dignified was something he couldn't help. You'd never guessed, to look at him, that he'd ever been mixed up in anything livelier'n layin' a church cornerstone, but it leaks out that he had been through all kinds of scraps in India, comes from the same stock as the old Marquis of Queensberry, and has followed the ring more or less himself.

"I had the doubtful honour," says he, bringin' both eyes into range on me, "of backing a certain Mr. Palmer, whom we sent over here several years ago after a belt."

"He got more'n one belt," says I.

"Quite so," says he, almost crackin' a smile; "one belt too many, I fancy."

Say, that was a real puncherino, eh? I ain't sure but what he got off more along the same line, for some of them British kind is hard to know unless you see 'em printed in the joke column. Anyway, we has quite a chin, and before he left we got real chummy.

He had a right to be feelin' gay, though; for he'd come over to marry a girl with more real estate deeds than you could pack in a trunk. Some kin of Pinckney's, this Miss Cornerlot was; a sort of faded flower that had hung too long on the stem. She'd run across Sir Hunter in London, him bein' a widower that was willin' to forget, and they'd made a go of it, nobody knew why. I judged that Pinckney was some relieved at the prospects of placin' a misfit. He'd laid out for a little dinner at the club, just to introduce Sir Hunter to his set and brace him up for bein' inspected by the girl's aunt and other relations at some swell doin's after.

I didn't pay much attention to their program at the time. It wa'n't any of my funeral who Pinckney married off his leftover second cousins to; and by evenin' I'd clean forgot all about Twiggle; when Pinckney 'phones he'd be obliged if I could step around to a Broadway hotel right off, as he's in trouble.

Pinckney meets me just inside the plate glass merry go round. "Something is the matter with Sir Hunter," says he, "and I can't find out from his fool man what it is."

"Before we gets any deeper let's clear the ground," says I. "When you left him, was he soused, or only damp around the edges?"

"Oh, it's not that at all," says Pinckney. "Sir Hunter is a gentleman – er, with a wonderful capacity."

"The Hippodrome tank's got that too," I says; "but there's enough fancy drinks mixed on Broadway every afternoon to run it over."

Sir Hunter has a set of rooms on the 'leventh floor. He wa'n't in sight, but we digs up Rinkey. By the looks, he'd just escaped from the chorus of a musical comedy, or else an Italian bakery. Near as I could make out he didn't have any proper clothes on at all, but was just done up in white buntin' that was wrapped and draped around him, like a parlour lamp on movin' day. The spots of him that you could see, around the back of his neck and the soles of his feet, was the colour of a twenty-cent maduro cigar. He was spread out on the rug with his heels toward us and his head on the sill of the door leadin' into the next room.

"Back up, Pinckney!" says I. "This must be a coloured prayer meetin' we're buttin' into."

"No, it's all right," says Pinckney. "That is Sir Hunter's man, Ringhi Singh."

"Sounds like a coon song," says I. "But he's no valet. He's a cook; can't you see by the cap?"

"That's a turban," says Pinckney. "Sir Hunter brought Ringhi from India, and he wears his native costume."

"Gee!" says I. "If that's his reg'lar get up, he's got Mark Twain's Phoebe Snow outfit beat a mile. But does Rinkey always rest on his face when he sits down?"

"It's that position which puzzles me," says Pinckney. "All I could get out of him was that Sahib Twiggle was in bed, and wouldn't see anyone."

"Oh, then the heathen is wise to United States talk, is he?" says I.

"He understands English, of course," says Pinckney, "but he declines to talk."

"That's easy fixed," says I, reachin' out and grabbin' Rinkey by the slack of his bloomers. "Maybe his conversation works is out of kink," and I up ends Rinkey into a chair.

"Be careful!" Pinckney sings out. "They're treachous chaps."

I had my eye peeled for cutlery, but he was the mildest choc'late cream you ever saw. He slumped there on the chair, shiverin' as if he had a chill comin' on, and rollin' his eyes like a cat in a fit. He was so scared he didn't know the day of the month from the time of night.

"Cheer up, Rinkey," says I, "and act sociable. Now tell the gentleman what's ailin' your boss."

It was like talkin' into a 'phone when the line's out of business. Rinkey goes on sendin' Morse wireless with his teeth, and never unloosens a word.

"Look here, Br'er Singh," says I, "you ain't gettin' any third degree – yet! Cut out the ague act and give Mr. Pinckney the straight talk. He's got a date here and wants to know why the gate is up."

More silence from Rinkey.

"Oh, well," says I, "I expect it ain't etiquette to jump the outside guard; but if we're goin' to get next to Sir Hunter, it looks like we had to announce ourselves. Here goes!"

I starts for the inside door; but I hadn't got my knuckles on the panel before Rinkey was givin' me the knee tackle and splutterin' all kinds of language.

"Hey!" says I. "Got the cork out, have you?"

With that Rinkey gets up and beckons us over into the far corner.

"The lord sahib," says he, rollin' his eyes at the bed room door – "the lord sahib desire that none should come near. He is in great anger."

"What's he grouchy about?" says I.

"The lord sahib," says he, "will destroy to death poor Ringhi Singh if he reveals."

"Destroy to death is good," says I; "but it don't sound convincin'. I think we're bein' strung."

Pinckney has the same idea, so I gets a good grip on Rinkey's neck.

"Come off!" says I. "As a liar you're too ambitious. You tell us what's the matter with your boss, or I'll do things to you that'll make bein' destroyed to death seem like fallin' on a feather bed!"

And it come, quick. "Yes, sahib," says he. "It is that there has been lost beyond finding the lord sahib's glorious eye."

"Sizzlin' sisters! Another pane gone!" says I. "This must be my eye retrievin' day, for sure."

But Pinckney takes it mighty serious. He says that the dinner at the club don't count for so much, but that the other affair can't be sidetracked so easy. It seems that the girl has lived through one throw down, when the feller skipped off to Europe just as the tie-up was to be posted, and it wouldn't do to give her a second scare of the same kind.

Rinkey was mighty reluctant about goin' into details, but we gets it out of him by degrees that the lord sahib has a habit, when he's locked up alone, of unscrewin' the fake lamp and puttin' it away in a box full of cotton battin'.

"Always in great secret," says Rinkey; "for the lord sahib would not disclose. But I have seen, which was an evil thing – oh, very evil! To-night it was done as before; but when it was time for the return, alas! the box was down side up on the floor and the glorious eye was not anywhere. Search! We look into everything, under all things. Then comes a great rage on the lord sahib, and I be sore from it in many places."

"That accounts for your restin' on your face, eh?" says I. "Well, Pinckney, what now?"

"Why," says he, "we've simply got to get a substitute eye. I'll wait here while you go out and buy another."

"Say, Pinckney," I says, "if you was goin' down Broadway at eight-thirty P. M., shoppin' for glass eyes, where'd you hit first? Would you try a china store, Or a gent's furnishin's place?"

"Don't they have them at drug stores?" says Pinckney.

"I never seen any glass eye counters in the ones I go to," says I. And then, right in the midst of our battin' our heads, I comes to.

"Oh, splash!" says I. "Pinckney, if anyone asks you, don't let on what a hickory head I am. Why, I've got a glass eye that Sir Hunter can have the loan of over night, just as well as not."'

"You!" says Pinckney, lookin' wild.

"Sure thing," says I. "It's a beaut, too. Can't a feller own a glass eye without wearin' it?"

"But where is it?" says Pinckney.

"It's with Snick Butters," says I. "He's usin' it, I expect. Fact is, it was built for Snick, but I hold a gilt edged first mortgage, and all I need to do to foreclose is say the word. Come on. Just as soon as we find Snick you can run back and fix up Sir Hunter as good as new."

"Do you think you can find him?" says Pinckney.

"We've got to find him," says I. "I'm gettin' interested in this game."

Snick was holdin' down a chair in the smokin' room at the Gilsey. He grins when he sees me, but when I puts it up to him about callin' in the loose lens for over night his jaw drops.

"Just my luck," says he. "Here I've got bill board seats for the Casino and was goin' to take the newsstand girl to the show as soon as she can get off."

"Sorry, Snick," says I, "but this is a desperate case. Won't she stand for the green curtain?"

"S-s-sh!" says he. "She don't know a thing about that. I'll have to call it off. Give me two minutes, will you?"

That was Snick, all over – losin' out just as easy as some folks wins. When he comes back, though, and I tells him what's doin', he says he'd like to know just where the lamp was goin', so he could be around after it in the mornin'.

"Sure," says I. "Bring it along up with you, then, there won't be any chance of our losin' it."

So all three of us goes back to the hotel. Pinckney wa'n't sayin' a word, actin' like he was kind of dazed, but watchin' Snick all the time. As we gets into the elevator, he pulls me by the sleeve and whispers:

"I say, Shorty, which one is it?"

"The south one," says I.

It wasn't till we got clear into Sir Hunter's reception room, under the light, that Pinckney heaves up something else.

"Oh, I say!" says he, starin' at Snick. "Beg pardon for mentioning it, but yours is a – er – you have blue eyes, haven't you, Mr. Butters?"

"That's right," says Snick.

"And Sir Hunter's are brown. It will never do," says he.

"Ah, what's the odds at night?" says I. "Maybe the girl's colour blind, anyway."

"No," says Pinckney, "Sir Hunter would never do it. Now, if you only knew of some one with a – "

"I don't," says I. "Snick's the only glass eyed friend I got on my repertoire. It's either his or none. You send Rinkey in to ask Twiggle if a blue one won't do on a pinch."

Mr. Rinkey didn't like the sound of that program a bit, and he goes to clawin' around my knees, beggin' me not to send him in to the lord sahib.

"G'wan!" says I, pushin' him off. "You make me feel as if I was bein' measured for a pair of leggin's. Skiddo!"

As I gives him a shove my finger catches in the white stuff he has around his head, and it begins to unwind. I'd peeled off about a yard, when out rolls somethin' shiny that Snick spots and made a grab for.

"Hello!" says he. "What's this?"

It was the stray brown, all right. That Kipling coon has had it stowed away all the time. Well say, there was lively doin's in that room for the next few minutes; me tryin' to get a strangle hold on Rinkey, and him doin' his best to jump through a window, chairs bein' knocked over, Snick hoppin' around tryin' to help, and Pinckney explainin' to Sir Hunter through the keyhole what it was all about.

When it was through we held a court of inquiry. And what do you guess? That smoked Chinaman had swiped it on purpose, thinkin' if he wore it on the back of his head he could see behind him. Wouldn't that grind you?

But it all comes out happy. Sir Hunter was a little late for dinner, but he shows up two eyed before the girl, makes a hit with her folks, and has engaged Snick to give him private lessons on how to make a fake optic behave like the real goods.

VIII
PINCKNEY AND THE TWINS

Say, when it comes to gettin' himself tangled up in ways that nobody ever thought of before, you can play Pinckney clear across the board. But I never knew him to send out such a hard breathin' hurry call as the one I got the other day. It come first thing in the mornin' too, just about the time Pinckney used to be tearin' off the second coupon from the slumber card. I hadn't more'n got inside the Studio door before Swifty Joe says:

"Pinckney's been tryin' to get you on the wire."

"Gee!" says I, "he's stayin' up late last night! Did he leave the number?"

He had, and it was a sixty-cent long distance call; so the first play I makes when I rings up is to reverse the charge.

"That you, Shorty?" says he. "Then for goodness' sake come up here on the next train! Will you?"

"House afire, bone in your throat, or what?" says I.

"It's those twins," says he.

"Bad as that?" says I. "Then I'll come."

Wa'n't I tellin' you about the pair of mated orphans that was shipped over to him unexpected; and how Miss Gertie, the Western blush rose that was on the steamer with 'em, helps him out? Well, the last I hears, Pinckney is gone on Miss Gertie and gettin' farther from sight every minute. He's planned it out to have the knot tied right away, hire a furnished cottage for the summer, and put in the honeymoon gettin' acquainted with the ready made family that they starts in with. Great scheme! Suits Pinckney right down to the ground, because it's different. He begins by accumulatin' a pair of twins, next he finds a girl and then he thinks about gettin' married. By the way he talked, I thought it was all settled; but hearin' this whoop for help I suspicioned there must be some hitch.

There wa'n't any carnation in his buttonhole when he meets me at the station; he hasn't shaved since the day before; and there's trouble tracks on his brow.

"Can't you stand married life better'n this?" says I.

"Married!" says he. "No such luck. I never expect to be married, Shorty; I'm not fit."

"Is this a decision that was handed you, or was it somethin' you found out for yourself?" says I.

"It's my own discovery," says he.

"Then there's hope," says I. "So the twins have been gettin' you worried, eh? Where's Miss Gertie?"

That gives Pinckney the hard luck cue, and while we jogs along towards his new place in the tub cart he tells me all about what's been happenin'. First off he owns up that he's queered his good start with Miss Gertie by bein' in such a rush to flash the solitaire spark on her. She ain't used to Pinckney's jumpy ways. They hadn't been acquainted much more'n a week, and he hadn't gone through any of the prelim's, when he ups and asks her what day it will be and whether she chooses church or parsonage. Course she shies at that, and the next thing Pinckney knows she's taken a train West, leavin' him with the twins on his hands, and a nice little note sayin' that while she appreciates the honour she's afraid he won't do.

"And you're left at the post?" says I.

"Yes," says he. "I couldn't take the twins and follow her, but I could telegraph. My first message read like this, 'What's the matter with me?' Here is her answer to that," and he digs up a yellow envelope from his inside pocket.

"Not domestic enough. G." It was short and crisp.

He couldn't give me his come back to that, for he said it covered three blanks; but it was meant to be an ironclad affidavit that he could be just as domestic as the next man, if he only had a chance.

"And then?" says I.

"Read it," says he, handin' over Exhibit Two.

"You have the chance now," it says. "Manage the twins for a month, and I will believe you."

And that was as far as he could get. Now, first and last, I guess there's been dozens of girls, not countin' all kinds of widows, that's had their lassoes out for Pinckney. He's been more or less interested in some; but when he really runs across one that's worth taggin' she does the sudden duck and runs him up against a game like this.

"And you're tryin' to make good, eh?" says I. "What's your program?"

For Pinckney, he hadn't done so worse. First he hunts up the only aunt he's got on his list. She's a wide, heavy weight old girl, that's lost or mislaid a couple of husbands, but hasn't ever had any kids of her own, and puts in her time goin' to Europe and comin' back. She was just havin' the trunks checked for Switzerland when Pinckney locates her and tells how glad he is to see her again. Didn't she want to change her plans and stay a month or so with him and the twins at some nice place up in Westchester? One glimpse of Jack and Jill with their comp'ny manners on wins her. Sure, she will!

So it's tip to Pinckney to hire a happy home for the summer, all found. Got any idea of how he tackles a job like that? Most folks would take a week off and do a lot of travelling sizin' up different joints. They'd want to know how many bath rooms, if there was malaria, and all about the plumbin', and what the neighbours was like. But livin' at the club don't put you wise to them tricks. Pinckney, he just rings up a real estate agent, gets him to read off a list, says, "I'll take No. 3," and it's all over. Next day they move out.

Was he stung? Well, not so bad as you'd think. Course, he's stuck about two prices for rent, and he signs a lease without readin' farther than the "Whereas"; but, barrin' a few things like haircloth furniture and rooms that have been shut up so long they smell like the subcellars in a brewery, he says the ranch wa'n't so bad. The outdoors was good, anyway. There was lots of it, acres and acres, with trees, and flower gardens, and walks, and fish ponds, and everything you could want for a pair of youngsters that needed room. I could see that myself.

"Say, Pinckney," says I, as we drives in through the grounds, "if you can't get along with Jack and Jill in a place of this kind you'd better give up. Why, all you got to do is to turn 'em loose."

"Wait!" says he. "You haven't heard it all."

"Let it come, then," says I.

"We will look at the house first," says he.

The kids wa'n't anywhere in sight; so we starts right in on the tour of inspection. It was a big, old, slate roofed baracks, with jigsaw work on the eaves, and a lot of dinky towers frescoed with lightnin' rods. There was furniture to match, mostly the marble topped, black walnut kind, that was real stylish back in the '70's.

In the hall we runs across Snivens. He was the butler; but you wouldn't guess it unless you was told. Kind of a cross between a horse doctor and a missionary, I should call him – one of these short legged, barrel podded gents, with a pair of white wind harps framin' up a putty coloured face that was ornamented with a set of the solemnest lookin' lamps you ever saw off a stuffed owl.

"Gee, Pinckney!" says I, "who unloaded that on you!"

"Snivens came with the place," says he.

"He looks it," says I. "I should think that face would sour milk. Don't he scare the twins?"

"Frighten Jack and Jill?" says Pinckney. "Not if he had horns and a tail! They seem to take him as a joke. But he does make all the rest of us feel creepy."

"Why don't you write him his release?" says I.

"Can't," says Pinckney. "He is one of the conditions in the contract – he and the urns."

"The urns?" says I.

"Yes," says Pinckney, sighin' deep. "We are coming to them now. There they are."

With that we steps into one of the front rooms, and he lines me up before a white marble mantel that is just as cheerful and tasty as some of them pieces in Greenwood Cemetery. On either end was what looks to be a bronze flower pot.

"To your right," says Pinckney, "is Grandfather; to your left, Aunt Sabina."

"What's the josh?" says I.

"Shorty," says he, heavin' up another sigh, "you are now in the presence of sacred dust. These urns contain the sad fragments of two great Van Rusters."

"Fragments is good," says I. "Couldn't find many to keep, could they? Did they go up with a powder mill, or fall into a stone crusher?"

"Cremated," says Pinckney.

Then I gets the whole story of the two old maids that Pinckney rented the place from. They were the last of the clan. In their day the Van Rusters had headed the Westchester battin' list, ownin' about half the county and gettin' their names in the paper reg'lar. But they'd been peterin' out for the last hundred years or so, and when it got down to the Misses Van Rusters, a pair of thin edged, old battle axes that had never wore anything but crape and jet bonnets, there wa'n't much left of the estate except the mortgages and the urns.

Rentin' the place furnished was the last card in the box, and Pinckney turns up as the willin' victim. When he comes to size up what he's drawn, and has read over the lease, he finds he's put his name to a lot he didn't dream about. Keepin' Snivens on the pay roll, promisin' not to disturb the urns, usin' the furniture careful, and havin' the grass cut in the private buryin' lot was only a few that he could think of off hand.

"You ain't a tenant, Pinckney," says I; "you're a philanthropist."

"I feel that way," says he. "At first, I didn't know which was worse, Snivens or the urns. But I know now – it is the urns. They are driving me to distraction."

"Ah, do a lap!" says I. "Course, I give in that there might be better parlour ornaments than potted ancestors, specially when they belong to someone else; but they don't come extra, do they? I thought it was the twins that was worryin' you?"

"That is where the urns come in," says he. "Here the youngsters are now. Step back in here and watch."

He pulls me into the next room, where we could see through the draperies. There's a whoop and a hurrah outside, the door bangs, and in tumbles the kids, with a nurse taggin' on behind. The youngsters makes a bee line for the mantelpiece and sings out:

"Hello, Grandfather! Hello, Aunt Sabina! Look what we brought this time!"

"Stop it! Stop it!" says the nurse, her eyes buggin' out.

"Boo! Fraid cat!" yells the twins, and nursy skips. Then they begins to unload the stuff they've lugged in, pilin' it up alongside the urns, singin' out like auctioneers, "There's some daisies for Aunt Sabina! And wild strawberries for Grandfather! And a mud turtle for aunty! And a bird's nest for Grandfather!" windin' up the performance by joinin' hands and goin' through a reg'lar war dance.

Pinckney explains how this was only a sample of what had been goin' on ever since they heard Snivens tellin' what was in the urns. They'd stood by, listenin' with their mouths and ears wide open, and then they'd asked questions until everyone was wore out tryin' to answer 'em. But the real woe came when the yarn got around among the servants and they begun leavin' faster'n Pinckney's Aunt Mary could send out new ones from town.

"Maybe the kids'll get tired of it in a few days," says I.

"Exactly what I thought," says Pinckney; "but they don't. It's the best game they can think of, and if I allow them they will stay in here by the hour, cutting up for the benefit of Grandfather and Aunt Sabina. It's morbid. It gets on one's nerves. My aunt says she can't stand it much longer, and if she goes I shall have to break up. If you're a friend of mine, Shorty, you'll think of some way to get those youngsters interested in something else."

"Why don't you buy 'em a pony cart?" says I.

"I've bought two," says he; "and games and candy, and parrots and mechanical toys enough to stock a store. Still they keep this thing up."

"And if you quit the domestic game, the kids have to go to some home, and you go back to the club?" says I.

"That's it," says he.

"And when Miss Gertie comes on, and finds you've renigged, it's all up between you and her, eh?" says I.

Pinckney groans.

"G'wan!" says I. "Go take a sleep."