Gaslight Sonatas Part 24

"I dunno, Babe. The town's mad with money, but I don't feel myself going crazy with any of it."

"What ud you bring us, honey?"

He slid out of his silk-lined greatcoat, placing his brown derby atop.

"Three guesses, Babe," he said, rubbing his cold hands in a dry wash, and smiling from five feet eleven of sartorial accomplishment down upon her.

"Honey darlin'!" said Mrs. Connors, standing erect and placing her cheek against the third b.u.t.ton of his waistcoat.

"Wow! how I love the woman!" he cried, closing his hands softly about her throat and tilting her head backward again.

"Darlin', you hurt!"

"Br-r-r--can't help it!"

When Mr. Connors moved, he gave off the scent of pomade freely; his slightly thinning brown hair and the pointy tips to a reddish mustache lay sleek with it. There was the merest suggestion of _embonpoint_ to the waistcoat, but not so that, when he dropped his eyes, the blunt toes of his russet shoes were not in evidence. His pin-checked suit was pressed to a knife-edge, and his brocaded cravat folded to a nicety; there was an air of complete well-being about him. Men can acquire that sort of eupeptic well-being in a Turkish bath. Young mothers and life-jobbers have it naturally.

Suddenly, Mrs. Connors began to foray into his pockets, plunging her hand into the right, the left, then stopped suddenly, her little face flas.h.i.+ng up at him.

"It's round and furry--my honeybunch brought me a peach! Beau-ful pink peach in December! Nine million dollars my hubby pays to bring him wifey a beau-ful pink peach." She drew it out--a slightly runty one with a forced blush--and bit small white teeth immediately into it.

"M-m-m!"--sitting on the _chaise-longue_ and sucking inward. He sat down beside her, a shade graver.

"Is my babe disappointed I didn't dig her coat and earrings out of hock?"

She lay against him.

"I should worry!"

"There just ain't no squeal in my girl."

"Wanna bite?"

"Any one of 'em but you would be hollering for their junk out of p.a.w.n.

But, Lord, the way she rigs herself up without it! Where'd you dig up the spangles, Babe? Gad! I gotta take you out to-night and buy you the right kind of a dinner. When I walks my girl into a cafe, they sit up and take notice, all righty. Spangles she rigs herself up in when another girl, with the way my luck's been runnin', would be down to her s.h.i.+mmy-tail."

She stroked his sleeve as if it had the quality of fur.

"Is the rabbit's foot still kicking my boy?"

"Never seen the like, honey. The cards just won't come. This afternoon I even played the wheel over at Chuck's, and she spun me dirt."

"It's gotta turn, Blutch."

"Sure!"

"Remember the run of rotten luck you had that year in Cincinnati, when the ponies was runnin' at Latonia?"

"Yeh."

"Lost your s.h.i.+rt, hon, and the first day back in New York laid a hundred on the wheel and won me my seal coat. You--we--We couldn't be no lower than that time we got back from Latonia, hon?"

He laid his hand over hers.

"Come on, Babe. Joe'll be here directly, and then we're going and blow them spangles to a supper."

"Blutch, answer!"

"Now there's nothin' to worry about, Babe. Have I ever landed anywhere but on my feet? We'll be driving a racer down Broadway again before the winter's over. There's money in motion these wartimes, Babe. They can't keep my hands off it."

"Blutch, how--how much did you drop to-day?

"I could tell clear down on the street you lost, honey, the way you walked so round-shouldered."

"What's the difference, honey? Come; just to show you I'm a sport, I'm going to shoot you and Joe over to Jack's in one of them new white taxi-cabs."

"Blutch, how much?"

"Well, if you gotta know it, they laid me out to-day, Babe. Dropped that nine hundred hock-money like it was a hot potato, and me countin' on bringin' you home your coat and junk again to-night. Gad! Them cards wouldn't come to me with salt on their tails."

"Nine hundred! Blutch, that--that leaves us bleached!"

"I know it, hon. Just never saw the like. Wouldn't care if it wasn't my girl's junk and fur coat. That's what hurts a fellow. If there's one thing he ought to look to, it's to keep his wimmin out of the game."

"It--it ain't that, Blutch; but--but where's it comin' from?"

He struck his thigh a resounding whack.

"With seventy-five bucks in my jeans, girl, the world is mine. Why, before I had my babe for my own, many's the time I was down to shoe-s.h.i.+ne money.

Up to 'leven years ago it wasn't nothing, honey, for me to sleep on a pool-table one night and _de luxe_ the next. If life was a sure thing for me, I'd ask 'em to put me out of my misery. It's only since I got my girl that I ain't the plunger I used to be. Big Blutch has got his name from the old days, honey, when a dime, a dollar, and a tire-rim was all the same size."

She sat hunched up in the pink-satinet frock, the pink sequins dancing, and her small face smaller because of the way her light hair rose up in the fuzzy aura.

"Blutch, we--we just never was down to the last seventy-five before. That time at Latonia, it was a hundred and more."

"Why, girl, once, at Hot Springs, I had to hock my coat and vest, and I got started on a run of new luck playin' in my s.h.i.+rt-sleeves, pretending I was a summer boy."

"That was the time you gave Lenny Gratz back his losings and got him back to his wife."

"Right-o! Seen him only to-night. He's traveling out of Cleveland for an electric house and has forgot how aces up looks. That boy had as much chance in the game as a deacon."

Mrs. Connors laid hold of Mr. Connors's immaculate coat lapel, drawing him toward her.

"Oh, Blutch--honey--if only--if only--"

"If only what, Babe?"

"If you--you--"