Odd Numbers

“What!” says I. “You don’t mean to say you’ve invested a year’s board and lodgin’ and expenses in – in that?” and I gazes once more at this hundred and eighty-pound wrist slapper, who is standin’ there in front of the mirror pattin’ down a stray lock.

“That’s what I’ve done,” says Snick, shovin’ his hands in his pockets and lookin’ at the exhibit like he was proud of it.

“But how the – where in blazes did you get it?” says I.

“Squeezed it out,” says Snick; “out of myself, too. And you know me. I always was as good to myself as other folks would let me. But all that had to be changed. It come hard, I admit, and it cost more’n I figured on. Why, some of his voice culture lessons set me back ten a throw. Think of that! He’s had ’em, though. And me? Well, I’ve lived on one meal a day. I’ve done a double trick: on the wagon day times, night cashier in a drug store from nine till two a.m. I’ve cut out theaters, cigarettes, and drinks. I’ve made my old clothes last over, and I’ve pinched the dimes and nickels so hard my thumbprints would look like treasury dies. But we’ve got the goods, Shorty. Hermy may be the mushiest, sappiest, hen brained specimen of a man you ever saw; but when it comes to being a high class grand opera barytone, he’s the kid! And little Percival here is his manager and has the power of attorney that will fix him for keeps if I know anything!”

“Ye-e-es?” says I. “Reminds me some of the time when you was backin’ Doughnut to win the Suburban. Recollect how hard you scraped to get the two-fifty you put down on Doughnut at thirty to one, and how hard you begged me to jump in and pull out a bale of easy money? Let’s see; did the skate finish tenth, or did he fall through the hole in his name?”

“Ah, say!” says Snick. “Don’t go digging that up now. That was sport. This is straight business, on the level, and I ain’t asking you to put up a cent.”

“Well, what then?” says I.

Would you guess it? He wants me to book Hermy for a private exhibition before some of my swell friends! All I’ve got to do is to persuade some of ’em to give a little musicale, and then spring this nutmeg wonder on the box holdin’ set without warnin’.

“If he was a Russki with long hair,” says I, “or even a fiddlin’ Czech, they might stand for it; but to ask ’em to listen to a domestic unknown from Bridgeport, Conn. – I wouldn’t have the nerve, Snick. Why not take him around to the concert agencies first?”

“Bah!” says Snick. “Haven’t we worn out the settees in the agency offices? What do they know about good barytone voices? All they judge by is press clippings and lists of past engagements. Now, your people would know. He’d have ’em going in two minutes, and they’d spread the news afterwards. Then we’d have the agents coming to us. See?”

Course I couldn’t help gettin’ int’rested in this long shot of Snick’s, even if I don’t take any stock in his judgment; but I tries to explain that while I mix more or less with classy folks, I don’t exactly keep their datebooks for ’em, or provide talent for their after dinner stunts.

That don’t head off Snick, though. He says I’m the only link between him and the set he wants to reach, and he just can’t take no for an answer. He says he’ll depend on me for a date for next Wednesday night.

“Why Wednesday?” says I. “Wouldn’t Thursday or Friday do as well?”

“No,” says he. “That’s Frenchy’s only night off from the café, and it’s his dress suit Hermy’s got to wear. It’ll be some tight across the back; but it’s the biggest one I can get the loan of without paying rent.”

Well, I tells Snick I’ll see what can be done, and when I gets home I puts the problem up to Sadie. Maybe if she’d had a look at Hermy she’d taken more interest; but as it is she says she don’t see how I can afford to run the chances of handin’ out a lemon, even if there was an op’nin’. Then again, so many of our friends were at Palm Beach just now, and those who’d come back were so busy givin’ Lent bridge parties, that the chances of workin’ in a dark horse barytone was mighty slim. She’d think it over, though, and see if maybe something can’t be done.

So that’s the best I can give Snick when he shows up in the mornin’, and it was the same every day that week. I was kind of sorry for Snick, and was almost on the point of luggin’ him and his discovery out to the house and askin’ in a few of the neighbors, when Sadie tells me that the Purdy-Pells are back from Florida and are goin’ to open their town house with some kind of happy jinks Wednesday night, and that we’re invited.

Course, that knocks out my scheme. I’d passed the sad news on to Snick; and it was near noon Wednesday, when I’m called up on the ’phone by Sadie. Seems that Mrs. Purdy-Pell had signed a lady harpist and a refined monologue artist to fill in the gap between coffee and bridge, and the lady harper had scratched her entry on account of a bad case of grip. So couldn’t I find my friend Mr. Butters and get him to produce his singer? The case had been stated to Mrs. Purdy-Pell, and she was willin’ to take the risk.

“All right,” says I. “But it’s all up to her, don’t you forget.”

With that I chases down to Madison Square, catches Snick just startin’ out with a load of neck stretchers, gives him the number, and tells him to show up prompt at nine-thirty. And I wish you could have seen the joy that spread over his homely face. Even the store eye seemed to be sparklin’ brighter’n ever.

Was he there? Why, as we goes in to dinner at eight o’clock, I catches sight of him and Hermy holdin’ down chairs in the reception room. Well, you know how they pull off them affairs. After they’ve stowed away about eleventeen courses, from grapefruit and sherry to demitasse and benedictine, them that can leave the table without wheel chairs wanders out into the front rooms, and the men light up fresh perfectos and hunt for the smokin’ den, and the women get together in bunches and exchange polite knocks. And in the midst of all that some one drifts casually up to the concert grand and cuts loose. That was about the programme in this case.

Hermy was all primed for his cue, and when Mrs. Purdy-Pell gives the nod I sees Snick push him through the door, and in another minute the thing is on. The waiter’s uniform was a tight fit, all right; for it stretches across his shoulders like a drumhead. And the shirt studs wa’n’t mates, and the collar was one of them saw edged laundry veterans. But the general effect was good, and Hermy don’t seem to mind them trifles at all. He stands up there lookin’ big and handsome, simpers and smiles around the room a few times, giggles a few at the young lady who’d volunteered to do the ivory punishing, and then fin’lly he gets under way with the Toreador song.

As I say, when it comes to gems from Carmen, I’m no judge; but this stab of Hermy’s strikes me from the start as a mighty good attempt. He makes a smooth, easy get-away, and he strikes a swingin’, steady gait at the quarter, and when he comes to puttin’ over the deep, rollin’ chest notes I has feelin’s down under the first dinner layer like I’d swallowed a small thunder storm. Honest, when he fairly got down to business and hittin’ it up in earnest, he had me on my toes, and by the look on Sadie’s face I knew that our friend Hermy was going some.

But was all the others standin’ around with their mouths open, drinkin’ it in? Anything but! You see, some late comers had arrived, and they’d brought bulletins of something rich and juicy that had just happened in the alimony crowd, – I expect the event will figure on the court calendars later, – and they’re so busy passin’ on the details to willin’ ears, that Hermy wa’n’t disturbin’ ’em at all. As a matter of fact, not one in ten of the bunch knew whether he was makin’ a noise like a bullfighter or a line-up man.

I can’t help takin’ a squint around at Snick, who’s peekin’ in through the draperies. And say, he’s all but tearin’ his hair. It was tough, when you come to think of it. Here he’d put his whole stack of blues on this performance, and the audience wa’n’t payin’ any more attention to it than to the rattle of cabs on the avenue.

Hermy has most got to the final spasm, and it’s about all over, when, as a last straw, some sort of disturbance breaks out in the front hall. First off I thought it must be Snick Butters throwin’ a fit; but then I hears a voice that ain’t his, and as I glances out I sees the Purdy-Pell butler havin’ a rough house argument with a black whiskered gent in evenin’ clothes and a Paris model silk lid. Course, everyone hears the rumpus, and there’s a grand rush, some to get away, and others to see what’s doin’.

“Let me in! I demand entrance! It must be!” howls the gent, while the butler tries to tell him he’s got to give up his card first.

And next thing I know Snick has lit on the butler’s back to pull him off, and the three are havin’ a fine mix-up, when Mr. Purdy-Pell comes boltin’ out, and I’ve just offered to bounce any of ’em that he’ll point out, when all of a sudden he recognizes the party behind the brunette lambrequins.

“Why – why,” says he, “what does this mean, Mr. – ”

“Pardon,” says the gent, puffin’ and pushin’ to the front. “I intrude, yes? A thousand pardons. But I will explain. Next door I am dining – there is a window open – I hear that wonderful voice. Ah! that marvelous voice! Of what is the name of this artist? Yes? I demand! I implore! Ah, I must know instantly, sir!”

Well, you know who it was. There’s only one grand opera Napoleon with black whiskers who does things in that way, and makes good every trip. It’s him, all right. And if he don’t know a barytone voice, who does?

Inside of four minutes him and Hermy and Snick was bunched around the libr’y table, chewin’ over the terms of the contract, and next season you’ll read the name of a new soloist in letters four foot high.

Say, I was up to see Mr. Butters in his new suite of rooms at the St. Swithin, where it never rains but it pours. He’d held out for a big advance, and he’d got it. Also he’d invested part of it in some of the giddiest raiment them theatrical clothing houses can supply. While a manicure was busy puttin’ a gloss finish on his nails, he has his Mongolian valet display the rest of his wardrobe, as far as he’d laid it in.

“Did I get let in wrong on the Hermy proposition, eh?” says he. “How about stayin’ with your luck till it turns? Any reminder of the Doughnut incident in this? What?”

Do I debate the subject? Not me! I just slaps Snick on the back and wishes him joy. If he wants to credit it all up to a rabbit’s foot, or a clover leaf, I’m willin’ to let him. But say, from where I stand, it looks to me as if nerve and grit played some part in it.

CHAPTER XVIII

JOY RIDING WITH AUNTY

Was I? Then I must have been thinking of Dyke Mallory. And say, I don’t know how you feel about it, but I figure that anybody who can supply me with a hang-over grin good for three days ain’t lived in vain. Whatever it’s worth, I’m on his books for just that much.

I’ll admit, too, that this Dyckman chap ain’t apt to get many credits by the sweat of his brow or the fag of his brain. There’s plenty of folks would class him as so much plain nuisance, and I have it from him that his own fam’ly puts it even stronger. That’s one of his specialties, confidin’ to strangers how unpop’lar he is at home. Why, he hadn’t been to the studio more’n twice, and I’d just got next to the fact that he was a son of Mr. Craig Mallory, and was suggestin’ a quarterly account for him, when he gives me the warnin’ signal.

“Don’t!” says he. “I draw my allowance the fifteenth, and unless you get it away from me before the twentieth you might as well tear up the bill. No use sending it to the pater, either. He’d renig.”

“Handing you a few practical hints along the economy line, eh?” says I.

“Worse than that,” says Dyke. “It’s a part of my penance for being the Great Disappointment. The whole family is down on me. Guess you don’t know about my Aunt Elvira?”

I didn’t, and there was no special reason why I should; but before I can throw the switch Dyke has got the deputy sheriff grip on the Mallorys’ private skeleton and is holdin’ him up and explainin’ his anatomy.

Now, from all I’d ever seen or heard, I’d always supposed Mr. Craig Mallory to be one of the safety vault crowd. Course, they live at Number 4 West; but that’s near enough to the avenue for one of the old fam’lies. And when you find a man who puts in his time as chairman of regatta committees, and judgin’ hackneys, and actin’ as vice president of a swell club, you’re apt to rate him in the seven figure bunch, at least. Accordin’ to Duke, though, the Mallory income needed as much stretchin’ as the pay of a twenty-dollar clothing clerk tryin’ to live in a thirty-five dollar flat. And this is the burg where you can be as hard up on fifty thousand a year as on five hundred!

The one thing the Mallorys had to look forward to was the time when Aunt Elvira would trade her sealskin sack for a robe of glory and loosen up on her real estate. She was near seventy, Aunty was, and when she first went out to live at the old country place, up beyond Fort George, it was a good half-day’s trip down to 23d-st. But she went right on livin’, and New York kept right on growin’, and now she owns a cow pasture two blocks from a subway station, and raises potatoes on land worth a thousand dollars a front foot.

Bein’ of different tastes and habits, her and Brother Craig never got along together very well, and there was years when each of ’em tried to forget that the other existed. When little Dyckman came, though, the frost was melted. She hadn’t paid any attention to the girls; but a boy was diff’rent. Never havin’ had a son of her own to boss around and brag about, she took it out on Dyke. A nice, pious old lady, Aunt Elvira was; and the mere fact that little Dyke seemed to fancy the taste of a morocco covered New Testament she presented to him on his third birthday settled his future in her mind.

“He shall be a Bishop!” says she, and hints that accordin’ as Dyckman shows progress along that line she intends loadin’ him up with worldly goods.

Up to the age of fifteen, Dyke gives a fair imitation of a Bishop in the bud. He’s a light haired, pleasant spoken youth, who stands well with his Sunday school teacher and repeats passages from the Psalms for Aunt Elvira when she comes down to inflict her annual visit.

But from then on the bulletins wa’n’t so favor’ble. At the diff’rent prep. schools where he was tried out he appeared to be too much of a live one to make much headway with the dead languages. About the only subjects he led his class in was hazing and football and buildin’ bonfires of the school furniture. Being expelled got to be so common with him that towards the last he didn’t stop to unpack his trunk.

Not that these harrowin’ details was passed on to Aunt Elvira. The Mallorys begun by doctorin’ the returns, and they developed into reg’lar experts at the game of representin’ to Aunty what a sainted little fellow Dyke was growin’ to be. The more practice they got, the harder their imaginations was worked; for by the time Dyckman was strugglin’ through his last year at college he’d got to be such a full blown hickey boy that he’d have been spotted for a sport in a blind asylum.

So they had to invent one excuse after another to keep Aunt Elvira from seein’ him, all the while givin’ her tales about how he was soon to break into the divinity school; hoping, of course, that Aunty would get tired of waitin’ and begin to unbelt.

“They overdid it, that’s all,” says Dyke. “Healthy looking Bishop I’d make! What?”

“You ain’t got just the style for a right reverend, that’s a fact,” says I.

Which wa’n’t any wild statement of the case, either. He’s a tall, loose jointed, slope shouldered young gent, with a long, narrow face, gen’rally ornamented by a cigarette; and he has his straw colored hair cut plush. His costume is neat but expensive, – double reefed trousers, wide soled shoes, and a green yodler’s hat with the bow on behind. He talks with the kind of English accent they pick up at New Haven, and when he’s in repose he tries to let on he’s so bored with life that he’s in danger of fallin’ asleep any minute.

Judgin’ from Dyke’s past performances, though, there wa’n’t many somnolent hours in it. But in spite of all the trouble he’d got into, I couldn’t figure him out as anything more’n playful. Course, rough housin’ in rathskellers until they called out the reserves, and turnin’ the fire hose on a vaudeville artist from a box, and runnin’ wild with a captured trolley car wa’n’t what you might call innocent boyishness; but, after all, there wa’n’t anything real vicious about Dyke.

Playful states it. Give him a high powered tourin’ car, with a bunch of eight or nine from the football squad aboard, and he liked to tear around the State of Connecticut burnin’ the midnight gasolene and lullin’ the villagers to sleep with the Boula-Boula song. Perfectly harmless fun – if the highways was kept clear. All the frat crowd said he was a good fellow, and it was a shame to bar him out from takin’ a degree just on account of his layin’ down on a few exams. But that’s what the faculty did, and the folks at home was wild.

Dyke had been back and on the unclassified list for nearly a year now, and the prospects of his breakin’ into the divinity school was growin’ worse every day. He’d jollied Mr. Mallory into lettin’ him have a little two-cylinder roadster, and his only real pleasure in life was when he could load a few old grads on the runnin’ board and go off for a joy ride.

But after the old man had spent the cost of a new machine in police court fines and repairs, even this little diversion was yanked away. The last broken axle had done the business, and the nearest Dyke could come to real enjoyment was when he had the price to charter a pink taxi and inspire the chauffeur with highballs enough so he’d throw her wide open on the way back.

Not bein’ responsible for Dyke, I didn’t mind having him around. I kind of enjoyed the cheerful way he had of tellin’ about the fam’ly boycott on him, and every time I thinks of Aunt Elvira still havin’ him framed up for a comer in the Bishop class, I has to smile.

You see, having gone so far with their fairy tales, the Mallorys never got a chance to hedge; and, accordin’ to Dyke, they was all scared stiff for fear she’d dig up the facts some day, and make a new will leavin’ her rentroll to the foreign missions society.

Maybe it was because I took more or less interest in him, but perhaps it was just because he wanted company and I happened to be handy; anyway, here the other afternoon Dyke comes poundin’ up the stairs two at a time, rushes into the front office, and grabs me by the arm.

“Come on, Shorty!” says he. “Something fruity is on the schedule.”

“Hope it don’t taste like a lemon,” says I. “What’s the grand rush?”

“Aunt Elvira is coming down, and she’s called for me,” says Dyke, grinnin’ wide. “She must suspect something; for she sent word that if I wasn’t on hand this time she’d never come again. What do you think of that?”

“Aunty’s got a treat in store for her, eh?” says I, givin’ Dyke the wink.

“I should gurgle!” says he. “I’m good and tired of this fake Bishop business, and if I don’t jolt the old lady out of that nonsense, I’m a duffer. You can help some, I guess. Come on.”

Well, I didn’t exactly like the idea of mixin’ up with a fam’ly surprise party like that; but Dyke is so anxious for me to go along, and he gets me so curious to see what’ll happen at the reunion, that I fin’lly grabs my coat and hat, and out we trails.

It seems that Aunt Elvira is due at the Grand Central. Never having tried the subway, she’s come to town just as she used to thirty years ago: drivin’ to Kingsbridge station, and takin’ a Harlem river local down. We finds the whole fam’ly, includin’ Mr. and Mrs. Craig Mallory, and their two married daughters, waitin’ outside the gates, with the gloom about ’em so thick you’d almost think it was a sea turn.

From the chilly looks they shot at Dyke you could tell just how they’d forecasted the result when Aunt Elvira got him all sized up; for, with his collar turned up and his green hat slouched, he looks as much like a divinity student as a bulldog looks like Mary’s lamb. And they can almost see them blocks of apartment houses bein’ handed over to the heathen.

As for Mr. Craig Mallory, he never so much as gives his only son a second glance, but turns his back and stands there, twistin’ the ends of his close cropped gray mustache, and tryin’ to look like he wa’n’t concerned at all. Good old sport, Craig, – one of the kind that can sit behind a pair of sevens and raise the opener out of his socks. Lucky for his nerves he didn’t have to wait long. Pretty soon in pulls the train, and the folks from Yonkers and Tarrytown begin to file past.

“There she is!” whispers Dyke, givin’ me the nudge. “That’s Aunt Elvira, with her bonnet on one ear.”

It’s one of the few black velvet lids of the 1869 model still in captivity, ornamented with a bunch of indigo tinted violets, and kept from bein’ lost off altogether by purple strings tied under the chin. Most of the rest of Aunty was obscured by the hand luggage she carries, which includes four assorted parcels done up in wrappin’ paper, and a big, brass wire cage holdin’ a ragged lookin’ gray parrot that was tryin’ to stick his bill through the bars and sample the passersby.

She’s a wrinkled faced, but well colored and hearty lookin’ old girl, and the eyes that peeks out under the rim of the velvet lid is as keen and shrewd as a squirrel’s. Whatever else she might be, it was plain Aunt Elvira wa’n’t feeble minded. Behind her comes a couple of station porters, one cartin’ an old-time black valise, and the other with his arms wrapped around a full sized featherbed in a blue and white tick.

“Gee!” says I. “Aunty carries her own scenery with her, don’t she?”

“That’s Bismarck in the cage,” says Dyke.

“How Bizzy has changed!” says I. “But why the feather mattress?”

“She won’t sleep on anything else,” says he. “Watch how pleased my sisters look. They just love this – not! But she insists on having the whole family here to meet her.”

I must say for Mr. Mallory that he stood it well, a heavy swell like him givin’ the glad hand in public to a quaint old freak like that. But Aunt Elvira don’t waste much time swappin’ fam’ly greetin’s.

“Where is Dyckman?” says she, settin’ her chin for trouble. “Isn’t he here?”

“Oh, yes,” says Mr. Mallory. “Right over there,” and he points his cane handle to where Dyke and me are grouped on the side lines.

“Here, hold Bismarck!” says Aunty, jammin’ the brass cage into Mr. Mallory’s arm, and with that she pikes straight over to us. I never mistrusted she’d be in any doubt as to which was which, until I sees her look from one to the other, kind of waverin’. No wonder, though; for, from the descriptions she’d had, neither of us came up to the divinity student specifications. Yet it was something of a shock when she fixes them sharp old lamps on me and says:

“Land to goodness! You?”

“Reverse!” says I. “Here’s the guilty party,” and I pushes Dyke to the front.

She don’t gasp, or go up in the air, or throw any kind of a fit, like I expected. As she looks him over careful, from the sporty hat to the wide soled shoes, I notices her eyes twinkle.

“Hum! I thought as much!” says she. “Craig always could lie easier than he could tell the truth. Young man, you don’t look to me like a person called to hold orders.”

“Glad of it, Aunty,” says Dyke, with a grin. “I don’t feel that way.”

“And you don’t look as if you had broken down your health studying for the ministry, either!” she goes on.

“You don’t mean to say they filled you up with that?” says Dyke. “Hee-haw!”

“Huh!” says Aunty. “It’s a joke, is it? At least you’re not afraid to tell the truth. I guess I want to have a little private talk with you. Who’s this other young man?”

“This is Professor McCabe,” says Dyke. “He’s a friend of mine.”

“Let him come along, too,” says Aunty. “Perhaps he can supply what you leave out.”

And, say, the old girl knew what she wanted and when she wanted it, all right! There was no bunkoin’ her out of it, either. Mr. Mallory leads her out to his brougham and does his best to shoo her in with him and Mrs. Mallory and away from Dyke; but it was no go.