Side-stepping with Shorty Part 6

"A little," says Bentley; "but then, I'm not used to mixed drinks. We take root beer generally, when we're out on a tear."

"You cow boys must be a fierce lot when you're loose," says I.

Bentley grinned, kind of reminiscent. "We do raise the Old Harry once in awhile," says he. "The last time we went up to Dallas I drank three different kinds of soda water, and we guyed a tamale peddler so that a policeman had to speak to us."

Say! what do you think of that? Wouldn't that freeze your blood?

Once I got him started, Bentley told me a lot about life on the ranch; how they had to milk and curry down four thousand steers every night; and about their playin' checkers at the Y. M. C. A. branch evenin's, and throwin' spit b.a.l.l.s at each other durin' mornin' prayers. I'd always thought these stage cow boys was all a pipe dream, but I never got next to the real thing before.

It was mighty interestin', the way he told it, too. They get prizes for bein' polite to each other durin' work hours, and medals for speakin' gentle to the cows. Bentley said he had four of them medals, but he hadn't worn 'em East for fear folks would think he was proud.

That gave me a line on where he got his quiet ways from. It was the trainin' he got on the ranch. He said it was grand, too, when a crowd of the boys came ridin' home from town, sometimes as late as eleven o'clock at night, to hear 'em singin' "Onward, Christian Soldier" and tunes like that.

"I expect you do have a few real tough citizens out that way, though,"

says I.

"Yes," said he, speakin' sad and regretful, "once in awhile. There was one came up from Las Vegas last Spring, a low fellow that they called Santa Fe Bill. He tried to start a penny ante game, but we discouraged him."

"Run him off the reservation, eh?" says I.

"No," says Bentley, "we made him give up his ticket to our annual Sunday school picnic. He was never the same after that."

Well, say, I had it on the card to blow Bentley to a Welsh rabbit after the show, at some place where he could get a squint at a bunch of our night bloomin' summer girls, but I changed the program. I took him away durin' intermission, in time to dodge the new dancer that Broadway was tryin' hard to be shocked by, and after we'd had a plate of ice cream in one of them celluloid papered all-nights, I led Bentley back to the hotel and tipped a bell hop a quarter to tuck him in bed.

Somehow, I didn't feel just right about the way I'd been stringin'

Bentley. I hadn't started out to do it, either; but he took things in so easy, and was so willin' to stand for anything, that I couldn't keep from it. And it did seem a shame that he must go back without any tall yarns to spring. Honest, I was so twisted up in my mind, thinkin'

about Bentley, that I couldn't go to sleep, so I sat out on the front steps of the boardin' house for a couple of hours, chewin' it all over.

I was just thinkin' of telephonin' to the hotel chaplain to call on Bentley in the mornin', when me friend Barney, the rounds, comes along.

"Say, Shorty," says he, "didn't I see you driftin' around town earlier in the evenin' with a young sport in mornin' glory clothes?"

"He was no sport," says I. "That was Bentley. He's a Y. M. C. A. lad in disguise."

"It's a grand disguise," says Barney. "Your quiet friend is sure livin' up to them clothes."

"You're kiddin'," says I. "It would take a live one to do credit to that harness. When I left Bentley at half-past ten he was in the elevator on his way up to bed."

"I don't want to meet any that's more alive than your Bentley," says he. "There must have been a hole in the roof. Anyway, he shows up on my beat about eleven, picks out a swell cafe, b.u.t.ts into a party of soubrettes, flashes a thousand dollar bill, and begins to buy wine for everyone in sight. Inside of half an hour he has one of his new made lady friends doin' a high kickin' act on the table, and when the manager interferes Bentley licks two waiters to a standstill and does up the house detective with a chair. Why, I has to get two of my men to help me gather him in. You can find him restin' around to the station house now."

"Barney," says I, "you must be gettin' colour blind. That can't be Bentley."

"You go around and take a look at him," says he.

Well, just to satisfy Barney, I did. And say, it was Bentley, all right! He was some mussed, but calm and contented.

"Bentley," says I, reprovin' like, "you're a bird, you are! How did it happen? Did some one drug you?"

"Guess that ice cream must have gone to my head," says he, grinnin'.

"Come off!" says I. "I've had a report on you, and from what you've got aboard you ought to be as full as a goat."

He wa'n't, though. He was as sober as me, and that after absorbin' a quart or so of French foam.

"If I can fix it so's to get you out on bail," says I, "will you quit this red paint business and be good?"

"G'wan!" says he. "I'd rather stay here than go around with you any more. You put me asleep, you do, and I can get all the sleep I want without a guide. Chase yourself!"

I was some sore on Bentley by that time; but I went to court the next mornin', when he paid his fine and was turned adrift. I starts in with some good advice, but Bentley shuts me off quick.

"Cut it out!" says he. "New York may seem like a hot place to Rubes like you; but you can take it from me that, for a pure joy producer, Palopinto has got it burned to a blister. Why, there's more doing on some of our back streets than you can show up on the whole length of Broadway. No more for me! I'm goin' back where I can spend my money and have my fun without bein' stopped and asked to settle before I've hardly got started."

He was dead in earnest, too. He'd got on a train headed West before I comes out of my dream. Then I begins to see a light. It was a good deal of a shock to me when it did come, but I has to own up that Bentley was a ringer. All that talk about mornin' prayers and Sunday school picnics was just dope, and while I was so busy dealin' out josh, to him, he was handin' me the lemon.

My mouth was still puckered and my teeth on edge, when Mr. Gordon gets me on the 'phone and wants to know how about Bentley.

"He's come and gone," says I.

"So soon?" says he. "I hope New York wasn't too much for him."

"Not at all," says I; "he was too much for New York. But while you was givin' him instructions, why didn't you tell him to make a noise like a hornet? It might have saved me from bein' stung."

Texas, eh? Well, say, next time I sees a map of that State I'm goin'

to hunt up Palopinto and draw a ring around it with purple ink.

IV

THE TORTONIS' STAR ACT

What I was after was a souse in the Sound; but say, I never know just what's goin' to happen to me when I gets to roamin' around Westchester County!

I'd started out from Primrose Park to hoof it over to a little beach a ways down sh.o.r.e, when along comes Dominick with his blue dump cart.

Now, Dominick's a friend of mine, and for a foreigner he's the most entertainin' cuss I ever met. I like talkin' with him. He can make the English language sound more like a lullaby than most of your high priced opera singers; and as for bein' cheerful, why, he's got a pair of eyes like sunny days.

Course, he wears rings in his ears, and likely a seven inch knife down the back of his neck. He ain't perfumed with violets either, when you get right close to; but the ash collectin' business don't call for _peau d'Espagne_, does it?

"Hallo!" says Dominick. "You lika ride?"

Well, I can't say I'm stuck on bein' bounced around in an ash chariot; but I knew Dominick meant well, so in I gets. We'd been joltin' along for about four blocks, swappin' pigeon toed conversation, when there shows up on the road behind us the fanciest rig I've seen outside of a circus. In front, hitched up tandem, was a couple of black and white patchwork ponies that looked like they'd broke out of a sportin' print.

Say, with their s.h.i.+ny hoofs and yeller harness, it almost made your eyes ache to look at 'em. But the buggy was part of the picture, too.

It was the dizziest ever--just a couple of upholstered settees, balanced back to back on a pair of rubber tired wheels, with the whole shootin' match, cus.h.i.+ons and all, a blazin' turkey red.

On the nigh side was a coachman, with his bandy legs cased in white pants and yeller topped boots; and on the other--well, say! you talk about your polka dot symphonies! Them spots was as big as quarters, and those in the parasol matched the ones in her dress.

I'd been gawpin' at the outfit a couple of minutes before I could see anything but the dots, and then all of a sudden I tumbles that it's Sadie. She finds me about the same time, and jabs her sun shade into the small of the driver's back, to make him pull up. I tells Dominick to haul in, too, but his old skate is on his hind legs, with his ears pointed front, wakin' up for the first time in five years, so I has to drop out over the tail board.

"Well, what do you think of the rig?" says Sadie.