Side-stepping with Shorty Part 30

So about five-thirty I'm standin' outside the gla.s.s doors pus.h.i.+n' the bell. A butler with boiled egg eyes looks me over real frosty from behind the lace curtains; but the minute I says I'm Shorty McCabe he takes off the tramp chain and says, "Yes, sir. This way, sir." I'm towed in over the Persian hall runner to the back parlour, where there's a lady and gent sittin' on opposite sides of the coal grate, with a tea tray between 'em.

"I'll be drinkin' that stuff yet, if I ain't careful," thinks I.

But I didn't even have to duck. The lady was so anxious to get to talkin' that she forgot to shove the cups at me, and the gent didn't act like it was his say. It was hard to tell, the way she has the lights fixed, whether she was twenty-five or fifty. Anyway, she hadn't got past the kittenish stage. Some of 'em never does. She don't overdo the thing, but just gushes natural; usin' her eyes, and eyebrows, and the end of her nose, and the tip of her chin when she spoke, as well as throwin' in a few shoulder lifts once in awhile.

"It's so good of you to come up, professor!" says she. "Isn't it, Pembroke?"

Pembroke--he's the gent on the other side of the tray--starts to say that it was, but she don't give him a chance. She blazes right ahead, tellin' how she's heard of me and my Studio through friends, and the minute she hears of it, she knows that nothing would suit Langdon better. "Langdon's my son, you know," says she.

"Honest?" says I.

"Te-he!" says she. "How sweet of you! Hardly anyone believes it at first, though. But he's a dear boy; isn't he, Pembroke?"

This was Pembroke's cue for fair. It's up to him to do the boost act.

But all he produces is a double barrelled blink from behind the gla.s.ses. He's one of these chubby chaps, Pembroke is, especially around the belt. He has pink cheeks, and a nice white forehead that almost meets the back of his collar. But he knows when to let things slide with a blink.

"I guess some one's been givin' you the wrong steer," says I. "I ain't started any kindergarten cla.s.s yet. The Y. M. C. A. does that sort of----"

"Oh, dear! but Langdon isn't a child, you know," says the lady. "He's a great big fellow, almost twenty-two. Yes, really. And I know you'll get to be awfully fond of him. Won't he, Pembroke?"

"We-e-e-ell----" says Pembroke.

"Oh, he's bound to," says she. "Of course, Langdon doesn't always make friends easily. He is so apt to be misunderstood. Why, they treated him perfectly horrid at prep. school, and even worse at college. A lot of the fellows, and, actually, some of the professors, were so rude to him that Langdon said he just wouldn't stay another day! I told him I didn't blame him a bit. So he came home. But it's awfully dull for a young man like Langdon here in New York, you know."

"Crippled, or blind or something, is he?" says I.

"Who, Langdon? Why, he's perfect--absolutely perfect!" says she.

"Oh, that accounts for it," says I, and Pembroke went through some motions with his cheeks like he was tryin' to blow soap bubbles up in the air.

Well, it seems that mother has been worryin' a lot over keepin' Langdon amused. Think of it, in a town like this!

"He detests business," says she, "and he doesn't care for theatres, or going to clubs, or reading, or society. But his poor dear father didn't care for any of those things either, except business. And Langdon hasn't any head for that. All he takes an interest in is his machine."

"Singer or Remington?" says I.

"Why, his auto, of course. He's perfectly devoted to that," says she; "but the police are so dreadfully particular. Oh, they make such lots of trouble for Langdon, and get him into such stupid sc.r.a.pes. Don't they, Pembroke?"

Pembroke didn't blink at that. He nods twice.

"It just keeps me worried all the time," she goes on. "It isn't that I mind paying the absurd fines, of course; but--well, you can understand.

No one knows what those horrid officers will do next, they're so unreasonable. Just think, that is the poor boy's only pleasure! So I thought that if we could only get Langdon interested in something of an athletic nature--he's a splendid boxer, you know--oh, splendid!"

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

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

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

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

"h.e.l.lo, maw!" he growls. "h.e.l.lo, Fatty! You here again?"

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

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

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

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

Say, as a rule I ain't anxious to take on new people, and it's gettin'

so lately that we turn away two or three a week; but it didn't take me long to make up my mind that I could find time for a session with Langdon, if he wanted it.

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

"What of it?" says he.

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

"Huh!" says he once more.

For a parlour conversationalist, Langdon was a frost, and he has manners that would turn a subway guard green. But maw jumps in with enough b.u.t.tered talk for both, and pretty soon she tells me that Langdon's perfectly delighted and will be down next day.

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

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

"Charming young fellow, eh?" says Pembroke.

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

"You think Langdon needs exercise?" says he.

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

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

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

myself."

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

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

As near as I could figure, Pembroke was a boyhood friend of maw's.

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