The Lash Part 5

"He didn't pay any attention to that, but kept on lookin' dreamy-eyed.

But I wanted to find out about things, so I kept at him.

"'Say,' I says, 'I notice every once in a while one of those guys yells 'Fore!' That means he's just hit the caddy four times, doesn't it? The caddy gets all that's comin' to him, doesn't he?'

"And with that he came to and gave me a sad look-over. Then he faded away and I floated around lonesome again, lookin' for some one to put me wise. After a while I heard a couple of swell dames talkin'.

"'Theah,' one of 'em says, 'my deah, see those two young men? They ah the Sherrod twins. I declaiah, they ah so much alike that I cawn't tell one from the othah. One of them's an expert golfah, but I declaiah, I cawn't tell which one he is. I cawn't guess why he isn't playing today.

The othah one doesn't play at all.'

"I took a look, and sure enough, they were as near alike as campaign promises. My move was cut out for me all right and I made a stab at it.

I steered up against one of 'em and b.u.t.tonholed him.

"'Say,' says I, 'are you you or your brother?'

"He looked kind of wild for a minute, but steadied. 'Why, I guess I'm me,' he says, as if he wasn't sure of it.

"'Well, you're the man I'm lookin' for,' says I. 'The other one doesn't play.' Sure enough, he was the right one. He was all right, barrin' the mas.h.i.+e microbe, and he started in to put me next. It would have been all hunk, only he was the soul of hospitality and I always hate to say no.

Besides, I wanted to forget it.

"It was highb.a.l.l.s till sunset and then I went away after sticking out both fins for farewell shakes with him both, for he looked like both him and his twin to me. It must have been a mistake, for I have a hazy recollection that the one who didn't play left early. Anyway, my friend might have been a s.e.xtette or a full chorus choir, for they all looked alike to me about that time. I got down town, thinkin' about writin' my story every now and then, and I fell in with a gang.

"The last I remember of that story I was in the backroom of a saloon tryin' to write it. I was writin' about two words to a page about then, though once in a while I would make an extra brace and get in three. It was 'steen down and a bluff to play with me and I was foozled for fair.

My stuff wouldn't make sense. It just gibbered. I don't know just when I called it off, but I think it was just after I had scrawled a screed to the effect that 'Willie Van Hackensack, instead of approaching the tea as he should, had bunked hazardous highb.a.l.l.s till he was batty in his loft.' It was no lie, either, only it didn't belong in the story.

"That story never got to the Signal, Fatty, and I didn't either. It got lost somewhere and so did I. I came out of it about a week later, with Gulf City 'way back beyant the blue and me sitting by the old familiar track, waiting for a freight.

"No golf in mine, d.i.c.k, it holed me for fair. It's an excuse, that's all. When you aren't out huntin' low b.a.l.l.s you're inside huntin'

highb.a.l.l.s. After a while you can't tell a mas.h.i.+e from a ball bat. I don't know what a mas.h.i.+e is, but I do know what a highball bat is. It's generally a job, unless you break it off in the middle. Do you follow me, Fatty? If you do, I'm sorry for you."

It was with a windy sigh and a look of added dejection that Fatty Stearns rose to return to the office and finish his account of the golf tourney. "Just forget what Micky told you," called d.i.c.k after him, "or you'll get all mixed up and get the run in the morning." Then he surveyed Micky with that smile, so exasperating in golfers, the smile of forgiving pity for the man outside.

"Of course, you never played, Micky," he remarked. "If you ever had--"

"Forget it, d.i.c.k," said Micky briskly. "I want to. Say, do you dance?"

"Why, I don't know," answered d.i.c.k doubtfully, taken aback by the swift change of subject. "Ask some of my partners. I'm in doubt myself and aching to know."

"And they know and are aching," grinned Micky. "Well, we'll try you out.

Come on," he added, rising, "let's go over to the Ironworkers' ball.

They'll be going for an hour yet." They left the cafe, and after a little bolted up the wide stairway of a big brick block. Encountering a stalwart young fellow behind a ticket table on a landing, d.i.c.k's hand sought his pocket. Micky restrained him, and nodding to the sentry, who knew him, they pa.s.sed up to the final landing, where a burst of music saluted them. A number of couples were "cooling off" there. d.i.c.k peered curiously inside. "How do they dance in such a crush?" he inquired.

"Why, when these husky guys are dancin' with 'em," explained Micky, "their feet don't touch the floor at all, and the men don't count."

Indeed, the brawny cavaliers were well nigh making Micky's comment good.

The prompter, a big red-faced fellow with a bull's voice, just then roared, "Swing your partners!" It was the relished order, for every ironworker there had from earliest dancing days devoted himself without mercy to the mastery of the art of swinging. At the welcome call, each swain, an arm encircling his partner's waist gently but firmly, placed one calloused paw against the lady's back, just below the shoulder blades, while her palm sought his arm. His other hand sought her free one and extended it out sideways and a little upward. This served a double purpose, sufficing to fend off danger from colliding circlers and to add impetus to the ensuing maelstrom. Then, while the fiddlers bent to their work, there whizzed a general centrifugal whirl, with a soft scuff of pivoting feet and the swish of agitated lingerie. That it was as delightful as dizzying was evidenced by the appreciative comments of the breathless fair, as the spinning knights halted them, preparatory to starting the next figure.

"I'm a thirty-third on that," announced Micky complacently. "Can you do it, d.i.c.k?"

d.i.c.k was dubious. "Well, probably they'll have a waltz or two-step next," proceeded Micky rea.s.suringly. "They sandwich in round ones after every square deal lately. Gettin' what Bill Nye called ray-sher-shay.

Come on, here's one I know. I'll put you next for the next." He dragged d.i.c.k over to a big blonde and left them introduced and waiting for a two-step.

The quadrille ended and Micky watched the dancers scrambling for seats, of which there were an insufficiency. The overflow billowed out upon the landing, laughing and demanding room at the open windows. Micky, from the doorway, beheld with sudden interest a vision seated across the hall. He grasped an acquaintance by the arm.

"Say, Lacy," he demanded impetuously, "if you know that, knock me down to it, will you?"

So Micky was conveyed across the room and formally knocked down to Miss Maisie Muldoon. The end was well worth his enterprise. Small and prettily formed, with eyes of truest Irish blue, the loveliest shade of brown hair extant and a complexion of milk and roses, she was charming.

She was simply gowned in duck skirt and an airy confection of diaphanous white waist, which revealed tantalizing glimpses of sweet white neck and arms. Micky mentally registered her "a dream."

"Will you dance?" he asked, crowding into a seat beside her.

"Oh, I don't know, Mr.--er--O'Byrn," she answered. "My card seems to be full already. I might give you an extra, if they have one," with a mischievous glance.

"You might scratch half a dozen of those names," suggested Micky easily, "and subst.i.tute mine. It looks prettier."

"I believe you're a newspaper man, aren't you?" freezingly. "Seems to me I've heard so."

"How do you like 'em?" he demanded, his impudent eyes twinkling.

"If you're any sample, they seem to have a crust," witheringly.

"So does any good thing," he chuckled. "Don't you like pie?"

She laughed in spite of herself. "Say," she acknowledged, turning her charming face toward his freckled one with decided interest, "you ain't so worse! I almost wish I had a dance for you."

"Maybe one of 'em will die," said Micky hopefully. "If I can be of any help--"

"The music's starting," she interrupted. "It's a two-step and I've got it with Billy Ryan. He's rotten on that. Are you?"

"I'm probably the ripest peach of a two-stepper," averred Micky, "that ever triangled down a floor. I'm a pippin. Where is your gazabe?"

"I don't know," she replied, looking about frowningly. "Maybe he won't come." Micky waxed complacent at the discreet hope lingering in her tone.

The dance was well under way. d.i.c.k shuffled past, the big blonde in his arms. He seemed enjoying himself. Micky grew impatient.

"Went out for another drink, I guess," remarked Miss Maisie disgustedly, in another moment. "Come on, I sha'n't wait for him," and she rose.

"Went a block for a beer with a Manhattan right inside," murmured Micky, as they prepared to start. "Oh, you g'wan!" she laughed, and they swung into the revolving circle.

Micky's boast of terpsich.o.r.ean ability made good, (he had picked up the art long before, as readily as he did everything else,) he was rewarded with two more regulars and an extra before the affair ended. One of the regulars was originally scheduled with the recreant Ryan, who appeared for it in due course and retired congealed, with a black look at the grinning O'Byrn. The other regular had originally been Miss Muldoon's cousin's. She transferred it airily, but the cousin bore it with the equanimity of a mere relative.

"I suppose you've got company home?" inquired Micky, with a certain mournful hesitation, as they were finis.h.i.+ng the last dance.

"Not yet," she answered demurely. "That is," with a flash of blue eyes, "Mr. Ryan brought me but he sha'n't take me back. He's too thirsty. That first dance you got was the second he'd missed with me."

"Forget him!" breathed Micky ecstatically. "I'm in luck." He invariably took things for granted.

"But," she recollected, chilling somewhat, "I haven't accepted your escort yet, Mr.--er--O'Byrn. I never met you till tonight."

"O, happy night!" he retorted, with the impudence that time would never wither nor custom stale. "Aren't you glad you came?"