Side-stepping with Shorty Part 36

"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, p.u.s.s.y, ruby beaked gent in French flannels and a Panama.

"h.e.l.lo, sweety!" says the tall one.

"Peekaboo, dearie!" sings out the other.

"d.i.c.k! 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 d.i.c.k; "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 d.i.c.ky 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! d.i.c.k 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 pa.s.s 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 s.p.a.ce 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 hoa.r.s.e 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 a.s.s 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' gla.s.s, 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?"