Chapter 13

"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----"

"Tell her I was never so happy in my life," says Ferdy, pattin' a broadside of solitaires and marquise rings.

"Come on, Bishop," says I. "There's only one cure for a complaint of that kind, and it looks like Ferdy was bound to take it."

We was just startin' for the deck, when the door was blocked by a steward luggin' in another sheaf of roses, and followed by a couple of middle aged, jolly lookin' gents, smokin' cigars and marchin' arm in arm. One was a tall, well built chap in a silk hat; the other was a short, pussy, ruby beaked gent in French flannels and a Panama.

"Hello, sweety!" says the tall one.

"Peekaboo, dearie!" sings out the other.

"Dick! Jimmy!" squeals Madam Brooklini, givin' a hand to each of 'em, and leavin' Ferdy holdin' the air. "Oh, how delightfully thoughtful of you!"

"Tried to ring in old Grubby, too," says Dick; "but he couldn't get away. He chipped in for the flowers, though."

"Dear old Grubby!" says she. "Let's see, he was my third, wasn't he?"

"Why, dearie!" says Dicky boy, "I was Number Three. Grubby was your second."

"Really!" says she. "But I do get you so mixed. Oh!" and then she remembers Ferdy. "Ducky, dear," she goes on, "I do want you to know these gentlemen--two of my former husbands."

"Wha-a-at!" gasps Ferdy, his eyes buggin' out.

I hears the Bishop groan and flop on a seat behind me. Honest, it was straight! Dick and Jimmy was a couple of discards, old Grubby was another, and inside of a minute blamed if she hadn't mentioned a fourth, that was planted somewhere on the other side. Course, for a convention there wouldn't have been a straight quorum; but there was enough answerin' roll call to make it pass for a reunion, all right.

And it was a peach while it lasted. The pair of has-beens didn't have long to stay, one havin' to get back to Chicago and the other bein' billed to start on a yachtin' trip. They'd just run over to say by-by; and tell how they was plannin' an annual dinner, with the judges and divorce lawyers for guests. Yes, yes, they was a jolly couple, them two! All the Bishop could do was lay back and fan himself as he listens, once in awhile whisperin' to himself, "My, my!" As for Ferdy, he looked like he'd been hypnotised and was waitin' to be woke up.

The pair was sayin' good-bye for the third and last time, when in rushes a high strung, nervous young feller with a pencil behind his ear and a pad in his hand.

"Well, Larry, what is it now?" snaps out Madam Brooklini, doin' the lightnin' change act with her voice. "I am engaged, you see."

"Can't help it," says Larry. "Got fourteen reporters and eight snapshot men waiting to do the sailing story for the morning editions. Shall I bring 'em up?"

"But I am entertaining two of my ex-husbands," says the lady, "and----"

"Great!" says Larry. "We'll put 'em in the group. Who's the other?"

"Oh, that's only Ferdy," says she. "I haven't married him yet."

"Bully!" says Larry. "We can get half a column of space out of him alone. He goes in the pictures too. We'll label him 'Next,' or 'Number Five Elect,' or something like that. Line 'em up outside, will you?"

"Oh, pshaw!" says Madam Brooklini. "What a nuisance these press agents are! But Larry is so enterprising. Come, we'll make a splendid group, the four of us. Come, Ferdy."

"Reporters!" Ferdy lets it come out of him kind of hoarse and husky, like he'd just seen a ghost.

But I knew the view that he was gettin'; his name in the headlines, his picture on the front page, and all the chappies at the club and the whole Newport crowd chucklin' and nudgin' each other over the story of how he was taggin' around after an op'ra singer that had a syndicate of second hand husbands.

"No, no, no!" says he. It was the only time I ever heard Ferdy come anywhere near a yell, and I wouldn't have believed he could have done it if I hadn't had my eyes on him as he jumps clear of the corner, makes a flyin' break through the bunch, and streaks it down the deck for the forward companionway.

Me and the Bishop didn't wait to see the finish of that group picture. We takes after Ferdy as fast as the Bishop's wind would let us, he bein' afraid that Ferdy was up to somethin' desperate, like jumpin' off the dock. All Ferdy does, though, is jump into a cab and drive for home, us trailin' on behind. We was close enough at the end of the run to see him bolt through the door; but Kupps tells us that Mr. Dobson has left orders not to let a soul into the house.

Early next mornin', though, the Bishop comes around and asks me to go up while he tries again, and after we've stood on the steps for ten minutes, waitin' for Kupps to take in a note, we're shown up to Ferdy's bed room. He's in silk pajamas and bath robe, lookin' white and hollow eyed. Every mornin' paper in town is scattered around the room, and not one of 'em with less than a whole column about how Madam Brooklini sailed for Europe.

"Any of 'em got anything to say about Number Five?" says I.

"Thank heaven, no!" groans Ferdy. "Bishop, what do you suppose poor dear Alicia thinks of me, though?"

"Why, my son," says the Bishop, his little eyes sparklin', "I suppose she is thinking that it is 'most time for you to arrive in Newport, as you promised."

"Then she doesn't know what an ass I've been?" says Ferdy. "No one has told her?"

"Shorty, have you?" says the Bishop.

And when Ferdy sees me grinnin', and it breaks on him that me and the Bishop are the only ones that know about this dippy streak of his, he's the thankfulest cuss you ever saw. Alicia? He could hardly get there quick enough to suit him; and the knot's to be tied inside of the next month.

"Marryin's all right," says I to Ferdy, "so long's you don't let the habit grow on you."

XVII

WHEN SWIFTY WAS GOING SOME

Say, I don't play myself for any human cheese tester, but I did think I had Swifty Joe Gallagher all framed up long ago. Not that I ever made any special study of Swifty; but knowin' him for as long as I have, and havin' him helpin' me in the Studio, I got the notion that I was wise to most of his curves. I've got both hands in the air now, though.

Goin' back over the last few months too, I can see where I might have got a line on him before. But, oh no! Nothin' could jar me out of believin' he wouldn't ever run against the form sheet I'd made out. The first glimmer I gets was when I finds Joe in the front office one day, planted before the big lookin' glass, havin' a catch as catch can with his hair.

"Hully chee!" says he, dippin' one of my military brushes in the wash basin. "That's fierce, ain't it, Shorty?"

"If it's your nerve in helpin' yourself to my bureau knickknacks," says I, "I agree with you."

"Ah, can the croak!" says he. "I ain't eatin' the bristles off, am I!"

"Oh, I'm not fussin'," says I; "but what you need to use on that thatch is a currycomb and a lawn rake."

"Ah, say!" says he, "I don't see as it's so much worse than others I know of. It's all right when I can get it to lay down in the back. How's that, now?"

"Great!" says I. "Couldn't be better if you'd used fish glue."

Maybe you never noticed how Swifty's top piece is finished off? He has a mud coloured growth that's as soft as a shoe brush. It behaves well enough when it's dry; but after he's got it good and wet it breaks up into ridges that overlap, same as shingles on a roof.

But then, you wouldn't be lookin' for any camel's hair finish on a nut like Swifty's--not with that face. Course, he ain't to blame for the undershot jaw, nor the way his ears lop, nor the width of his smile. We don't all have gifts like that, thanks be! And it wa'n't on purpose Swifty had his nose bent in. That come from not duckin' quick enough when Gans swung with his right.

So long as he kept in his class, though, and wa'n't called on to understudy Kyrle Bellew, Swifty met all the specifications. If I was wantin' a parlour ornament, I might shy some at Swifty's style of beauty; but showin' bilious brokers how to handle the medicine ball is a job that don't call for an exchange of photographs. He may have an outline that looks like a map of a stone quarry, and perhaps his ways are a little on the fritz, but Swifty's got good points that I couldn't find bunched again if I was to hunt through a crowd. So, when I find him worryin' over the set of his back hair, I gets interested.

"What's the coiffure for, anyway?" says I. "Goin' to see the girl, eh?"

Course, that was a josh. You can't look at Swifty and try to think of him doin' the Romeo act without grinnin'.

"Ahr, chee!" says he.

Now, I've sprung that same jolly on him a good many times; but I never see him work up a colour over it before. Still, the idea of him gettin' kittenish was too much of a strain on the mind for me to follow up.

It was the same about his breakin' into song. He'd never done that, either, until one mornin' I hears a noise comin' from the back room that sounds like some one blowin' on a bottle. I steps over to the door easy, and hanged if I didn't make out that it was Swifty takin' a crack at something that might be, "Oh, how I love my Lulu!"

"You must," says I, "if it makes you feel as bad as all that. Does Lulu know it?"

"Ahr, chee!" says he.

Ever hear Swifty shoot that over his shoulder without turnin' his head? Talk about your schools of expression! None of 'em could teach anyone to put as much into two words as Swifty does into them. They're a whole vocabulary, the way he uses 'em.

"Was you tryin' to sing," says I, "or just givin' an imitation of a steamboat siren on a foggy night?"

But all I could get out of Swifty was another "Ahr, chee!" He was too happy and satisfied to join in any debate, and inside of ten minutes he's at it again; so I lets him spiel away.

"Well," thinks I, "I'm glad my joy don't have any such effect on me as that. I s'pose I can stand it, if he can."

It wa'n't more'n two nights later that I gets another shock. I was feelin' a little nervous, to begin with, for I'd billed myself to do a stunt I don't often tackle. It was nothin' else than pilotin' a fluff delegation to some art studio doin's. Sounds like a Percy job, don't it? But it was somethin' put up to me in a way I couldn't dodge.

Maybe you remember me tellin' you awhile back about Cornelia Ann Belter? She was the Minnekeegan girl that had a room on the top floor over the Physical Culture Studio, and was makin' a stab at the sculpture game--the one that we got out to Rockywold as a ringer in the snow carvin' contest. Got her placed now?

Well, you know how that little trick of makin' a snow angel brought her in orders from Mrs. Purdy Pell, and Sadie, and the rest? And she didn't do a thing but make good, either. I hadn't seen her since she quit the building; but I'd heard how she was doin' fine, and here the other day I gets a card sayin' she'd be pleased to have my company on a Wednesday night at half after eight, givin' an address on Fifth avenue.

"Corny must be carvin' the cantaloup," thinks I, and then forgets all about it until Sadie holds me up and wants to know if I'm goin'.

"Nix," says I. "Them art studio stunts is over my head."

"Oh, pshaw!" says Sadie. "How long since you have been afraid of Miss Belter? Didn't you and I help her to get her start? She'll feel real badly if you don't come."

"She'll get over that," says I.

"But Mrs. Pell and I will have to go alone if you don't come with us," says she. "Mr. Pell is out of town, and Pinckney is too busy with those twins and that Western girl of his. You've got to come, Shorty."

"That settles it," says I. "Why didn't you say so first off?"

So that was what I was doin' at quarter of eight that night, in my open face vest and dinky little tuxedo, hustlin' along 42d-st., wonderin' if the folks took me for a head waiter late to his job. You see, after I gets all ragged out I finds I've left my patent leathers at the Studio. Swifty has said he was goin' to take the night off too, so I'm some surprised to see the front office all lit up like there was a ball goin' on up there. I takes the steps three at a time, expectin' to find a couple of yeggs movin' out the safe; but when I throws the door open what should I see, planted in front of the mirror, but Swifty Joe.

Not that I was sure it was him till I'd had a second look. It was Swifty's face, and Swifty's hair, but the costume was a philopena. It would have tickled a song and dance artist to death. Anywhere off'n the variety stage, unless it was at a Fourth Ward chowder party, it would have drawn a crowd. Perhaps you can throw up a view of a pin-head check in brown and white, blocked off into four-inch squares with red and green lines; a double breasted coat with scalloped cuffs on the sleeves, and silk faced lapels; a pink and white shirt striped like an awnin'; a spotted butterfly tie; yellow shoes in the latest oleomargarin tint; and a caffy-o-lay bean pot derby with a half-inch brim to finish off the picture. It was a sizzler, all right.

For a minute I stands there with my mouth open and my eyes bugged, takin' in the details. If I could, I would have skipped without sayin' a word, for I see I'd butted in on somethin' that was sacred and secret. But Swifty's heard me come in, and he's turned around waitin' for me to give a verdict. Not wantin' to hurt his feelin's, I has to go careful.

"Swifty," says I, "is that you?"

He only grins kind of foolish, sticks his chin out, and saws his neck against his high collar, like a cow usin' a scratchin' post.