Ruggles of Red Gap Part 5

He was an American, as one might have fancied from his behaviour, a tall, dark-skinned person, wearing a drooping moustache after the former style of Cousin Egbert, supplemented by an imperial. He wore a loose-fitting suit of black which had evidently received no proper attention from the day he purchased it. Under a folded collar he wore a narrow cravat tied in a bowknot, and in the bosom of his white s.h.i.+rt there sparkled a diamond such as might have come from a collection of crown-jewels. This much I had time to notice as he neared us. Cousin Egbert had not ceased to shout, nor had he paid the least attention to my tugs at his coat. When the cab's occupant descended to the pavement they fell upon each other and did for some moments a wild dance such as I imagine they might have seen the red Indians of western America perform. Most savagely they punched each other, calling out in the meantime: "Well, old horse!" and "Who'd ever expected to see you here, darn your old skin!" (Their actual phrases, be it remembered.)

The crowd, I was glad to note, fell rapidly away, many of them shrugging their shoulders in a way the French have, and even the waiters about us quickly lost interest in the pair, as if they were hardened to the sight of Americans greeting one another. The two were still saying: "Well! well!" rather breathlessly, but had become a bit more coherent.

"Jeff Tuttle, you--dashed--old long-horn!" exclaimed Cousin Egbert.

"Good old Sour-dough!" exploded the other. "Ain't this just like old home week!"

"I thought mebbe you wouldn't know me with all my beadwork and my new war-bonnet on," continued Cousin Egbert.

"Know you, why, you knock-kneed old Siwash, I could pick out your hide in a tanyard!"

"Well, well, well!" replied Cousin Egbert.

"Well, well, well!" said the other, and again they dealt each other smart blows.

"Where'd you turn up from?" demanded Cousin Egbert.

"Europe," said the other. "We been all over Europe and Italy--just come from some place up over the divide where they talk Dutch, the Madam and the two girls and me, with the Reverend Timmins and his wife riding line on us. Say, he's an out-and-out devil for cathedrals--it's just one church after another with him--Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, takes 'em all in--never overlooks a bet. He's got Addie and the girls out now. My gos.h.!.+ it's solemn work! Me? I ducked out this morning."

"How'd you do it?"

"Told the little woman I had to have a tooth pulled--I was working it up on the train all day yesterday. Say, what you all rigged out like that for, Sour-dough, and what you done to your face?"

Cousin Egbert here turned to me in some embarra.s.sment. "Colonel Ruggles, shake hands with my friend Jeff Tuttle from the State of Was.h.i.+ngton."

"Pleased to meet you, Colonel," said the other before I could explain that I had no military t.i.tle whatever, never having, in fact, served our King, even in the ranks. He shook my hand warmly.

"Any friend of Sour-dough Floud's is all right with me," he a.s.sured me. "What's the matter with having a drink?"

"Say, listen here! I wouldn't have to be blinded and backed into it,"

said Cousin Egbert, enigmatically, I thought, but as they sat down I, too, seated myself. Something within me had sounded a warning. As well as I know it now I knew then in my inmost soul that I should summon Mrs. Effie before matters went farther.

"Beer is all I know how to say," suggested Cousin Egbert.

"Leave that to me," said his new friend masterfully. "Where's the boy?

Here, boy! Veesky-soda! That's French for high-ball," he explained.

"I've had to pick up a lot of their lingo."

Cousin Egbert looked at him admiringly. "Good old Jeff!" he said simply. He glanced aside to me for a second with downright hostility, then turned back to his friend. "Something tells me, Jeff, that this is going to be the first happy day I've had since I crossed the state line. I've been pestered to death, Jeff--what with Mrs. Effie after me to improve myself so's I can be a social credit to her back in Red Gap, and learn to wear clothes and go without my breakfast and attend art galleries. If you'd stand by me I'd throw her down good and hard right now, but you know what she is----"

"I sure do," put in Mr. Tuttle so fervently that I knew he spoke the truth. "That woman can bite through nails. But here's your drink, Sour-dough. Maybe it will cheer you up."

Extraordinary! I mean to say, biting through nails.

"Three rousing cheers!" exclaimed Cousin Egbert with more animation than I had ever known him display.

"Here's looking at you, Colonel," said his friend to me, whereupon I partook of the drink, not wis.h.i.+ng to offend him. Decidedly he was not vogue. His hat was remarkable, being of a black felt with high crown and a wide and flopping brim. Across his waistcoat was a watch-chain of heavy links, with a weighty charm consisting of a sculptured gold horse in full gallop. That sort of thing would never do with us.

"Here, George," he immediately called to the waiter, for they had quickly drained their gla.s.ses, "tell the bartender three more. By gos.h.!.+ but that's good, after the way I've been held down."

"Me, too," said Cousin Egbert. "I didn't know how to say it in French."

"The Reverend held me down," continued the Tuttle person. "'A gla.s.s of native wine,' he says, 'may perhaps be taken now and then without harm.' 'Well,' I says, 'leave us have ales, wines, liquors, and cigars,' I says, but not him. I'd get a thimbleful of elderberry wine or something about every second Friday, except when I'd duck out the side door of a church and find some caffy. Here, George, foomer, foomer--bring us some seegars, and then stay on that spot--I may want you."

"Well, well!" said Cousin Egbert again, as if the meeting were still incredible.

"You old stinging-lizard!" responded the other affectionately. The cigars were brought and I felt constrained to light one.

"The State of Was.h.i.+ngton needn't ever get nervous over the prospect of losing me," said the Tuttle person, biting off the end of his cigar.

I gathered at once that the Americans have actually named one of our colonies "Was.h.i.+ngton" after the rebel George Was.h.i.+ngton, though one would have thought that the indelicacy of this would have been only too apparent. But, then, I recalled, as well, the city where their so-called parliament a.s.sembles, Was.h.i.+ngton, D. C. Doubtless the initials indicate that it was named in "honour" of another member of this notorious family. I could not but reflect how shocked our King would be to learn of this effrontery.

Cousin Egbert, who had been for some moments moving his lips without sound, here spoke:

"I'm going to try it myself," he said. "Here, Charley, veesky-soda! He made me right off," he continued as the waiter disappeared. "Say, Jeff, I bet I could have learned a lot of this language if I'd had some one like you around."

"Well, it took me some time to get the accent," replied the other with a modesty which I could detect was a.s.sumed. More acutely than ever was I conscious of a psychic warning to separate these two, and I resolved to act upon it with the utmost diplomacy. The third whiskey and soda was served us.

"Three rousing cheers!" said Cousin Egbert.

"Here's looking at you!" said the other, and I drank. When my gla.s.s was drained I arose briskly and said:

"I think we should be getting along now, sir, if Mr. Tuttle will be good enough to excuse us." They both stared at me.

"Yes, sir--I fancy not, sir," said Cousin Egbert.

"Stop your kidding, you fat rascal!" said the other.

"Old Bill means all right," said Cousin Egbert, "so don't let him irritate you. Bill's our new hired man. He's all right--just let him talk along."

"Can't he talk setting down?" asked the other. "Does he have to stand up every time he talks? Ain't that a good chair?" he demanded of me.

"Here, take mine," and to my great embarra.s.sment he arose and offered me his chair in such a manner that I felt moved to accept it.

Thereupon he took the chair I had vacated and beamed upon us, "Now that we're all home-folks, together once more, I would suggest a bit of refreshment. Boy, veesky-soda!"

"I fancy so, sir," said Cousin Egbert, dreamily contemplating me as the order was served. I was conscious even then that he seemed to be studying my attire with a critical eye, and indeed he remarked as if to himself: "What a coat!" I was rather shocked by this, for my suit was quite a decent lounge-suit that had become too snug for the Honourable George some two years before. Yet something warned me to ignore the comment.

"Three rousing cheers!" he said as the drink was served.

"Here's looking at you!" said the Tuttle person.

And again I drank with them, against my better judgment, wondering if I might escape long enough to be put through to Mrs. Floud on the telephone. Too plainly the situation was rapidly getting out of hand, and yet I hesitated. The Tuttle person under an exterior geniality was rather abrupt. And, moreover, I now recalled having observed a person much like him in manner and attire in a certain cinema drama of the far Wild West. He had been a constable or sheriff in the piece and had subdued a band of armed border ruffians with only a small pocket pistol. I thought it as well not to cross him.

When they had drunk, each one again said, "Well! well!"

"You old maverick!" said Cousin Egbert.

"You--dashed--old horned toad!" responded his friend.

"What's the matter with a little snack?"