Odd Numbers

Durgin got there, too, which was more or less of a surprise to all hands, and actually broke in as partner in a good firm. Then it was a case of Durgin waitin’ for Cornelia; for about that time the relations got to droppin’ off in one-two-three order, and she seemed to think that so long as she’d started in on the job of ridin’ in the first carriage, she ought to see it through.

Whether it was foolish of her or not, ain’t worth while debatin’ now. Anyhow, she stuck to it until the last one had cashed in, puttin’ Durgin off from month to month and year to year. Then it turns out that the last of the bunch, Uncle Theodore, had left her a good-sized wad that Purdy-Pell had always supposed was comin’ to him, but which he didn’t grudge to Cornelia a bit.

So there she was, all the lingerin’ ones off her hands, and her sportin’ a bank account of her own. She’s some tired out, though; so, after sendin’ Durgin word that they might as well wait until fall now, she hikes off to some little place in New Hampshire and spends the summer restin’ up. Next she comes down unexpected and hits New York.

In the meantime, though, Durgin has suddenly decided to scratch his entry for that partic’lar Matrimonial Handicap. Not that he’s seriously int’rested in somebody else, but he’s kind of got weary hangin’ around, and he’s seen a few livelier ones than Cornelia, and he feels that somehow him and her have made a great mistake. You know how they’re apt to talk when they get chilly below the ankles? He don’t hand this straight out to Cornelia, mind you, but goes to Mrs. Purdy-Pell and Sadie with the tale, wantin’ to know what he’d better do.

Now I ain’t got any grouch against Durgin. He’s all right, I expect, in his way, more or less of a stiff necked, mealy mouthed chump, I always thought; but they say he’s nice to his old mother, and he’s makin’ good in the law business, and he ain’t bad to look at. The women folks takes his side right off. They say they don’t blame him a bit, and, without stoppin’ to think how Cousin Cornelia is going to feel left alone there on the siding, they get busy pickin’ out new candidates for Durgin to choose from.

Well, that’s the situation when I’m handed this assignment to go and inspect the head of the Purdy-Pells’ obituary department and see if she’s all comfy. Couldn’t have weighed very heavy on my mind; for I don’t think of it until late afternoon, just as I’m startin’ to pull out for home. Then I says to myself that maybe it’ll do just as well if I ring her up on the ’phone at her hotel. She’s in, all right, and I explains over the wire how anxious I am to know if she’s all right, and hopes nobody has tried to kidnap her yet, and asks if there’s anything I can do.

“Why, how kind of you, Mr. McCabe!” says Cornelia. “Yes, I am perfectly well and quite safe here.”

“Good!” says I. And then, seein’ how easy I was gettin’ out of it, I has to pile on the agony a little by addin’, “Ain’t there some way I can be useful, though? No errands you want done, or any place you’d like to be towed around to, eh?”

“Why – why – ” says she, hesitatin’. “Oh, but I couldn’t think of troubling you, you know.”

“Why not?” says I, gettin’ reckless. “Just remember that I’d be tickled to death, any time you push the button.”

“We-e-ell,” says she, “we were just wishing, Miss Stover and I, that we did have some gentleman friend who would – ”

“Count me in,” says I. “What’s the game? Trip to Woodlawn Cemetery some day, or do you want to be piloted up to Grant’s Tomb?”

No, it wa’n’t either of them festive splurges she had in mind. They wanted a dinner escort for that evenin’, she and Miss Stover. The other lady, she goes on to say, is a school teacher from up Boston way, that she’d made friends with durin’ the summer. Miss Stover was takin’ a year off, for the benefit of her nerves, and before she sailed on her Cook’s trip abroad she thought she’d like to see a little of New York. They’d been tryin’ to knock around some alone, and had got along all right daytimes, but hadn’t dared venture out much at night. So if I wanted to be real generous, and it wouldn’t be too much of a bore, they’d be very thankful if I would —

“In a minute,” says I and, seein’ I was up against it anyhow, I thought I might as well do it cheerful. “I’ll be up about six, eh?”

“Chee!” says Swifty Joe, who always has his ear stretched out on such occasions, “you make a noise like you was fixin’ up a date.”

“What good hearin’ you have, Swifty!” says I. “Some day, though, you’ll strain one of them side flaps of yours. Yes, this is a date, and it’s with two of the sportiest female parties that ever dodged an old ladies’ home.”

Excitin’ proposition, wa’n’t it? I spends the next half-hour battin’ my head to think of some first class food parlor where I could cart a couple like this Boston schoolma’am and Cousin Cornelia without shockin’ ’em. There was the Martha Washington; but I knew I’d be barred there. Also there was some quiet fam’ly hotels I’d heard of up town; but I couldn’t remember exactly what street any of ’em was on.

“Maybe Cornelia will have some plans of her own,” thinks I, as I gets into my silk faced dinner jacket and V-cut vest. “And I hope she ain’t wearin’ more’n two thicknesses of crape veil now.”

Well, soon after six I slides out, hops on one of these shed-as-you-enter surface cars, and rides up to the hotel. I’d been holdin’ down one of the velvet chairs in the ladies’ parlor for near half an hour, and was wonderin’ if Cornelia had run out of black headed pins, or what, when I pipes off a giddy specimen in wistaria costume that drifts in and begins squintin’ around like she was huntin’ for some one. Next thing I knew she’d spotted me and was sailin’ right over.

“Oh, there you are!” she gurgles, holdin’ out her hand.

“Excuse me, lady,” says I, sidesteppin’ behind the chair, “but ain’t you tryin’ to tag the wrong party?”

“Why,” says she, lettin’ out a chuckle, “don’t you know me, Mr. McCabe?”

“Not yet,” says I; “but it looks like I would if – Great snakes!”

And honest, you could hardly have covered my face cavity with a waffle iron when I drops to the fact that it’s Cousin Cornelia. In place of the dismal female I’d been expectin’, here’s a chirky party in vivid regalia that shows class in every line. Oh, it’s a happy days uniform, all right, from the wide brimmed gauze lid with the long heliotrope feather trailin’ over one side, to the lavender kid pumps.

“Gee!” I gasps. “The round is on me, Miss Cornelia. But I wa’n’t lookin’ for you in – in – ”

“I know,” says she. “This is the first time I’ve worn colors for years, and I feel so odd. I hope I don’t look too – ”

“You look all to the skookum,” says I.

It wa’n’t any jolly, either. There never was any real sharp angles to Cornelia, and now I come to reckon up I couldn’t place her as more’n twenty-six or twenty-seven at the outside. So why shouldn’t she show up fairly well in a Gibson model?

“It’s so good of you to come to our rescue,” says she. “Miss Stover will be down presently. Now, where shall we go to dinner?”

Well, I see in a minute I’ve got to revise my plans; so I begins namin’ over some of the swell grillrooms and cafes.

“Oh, we have been to most of those, all by ourselves,” says Cornelia. “What we would like to see to-night is some real – well, a place where we couldn’t go alone, out somewhere – an automobile resort, for instance.”

“Whe-e-ew!” says I through my front teeth. “Say, Miss Cornie, but you are gettin’ out of the bereft class for fair! I guess it’s comin’ to you, though. Now jest let me get an idea of how far you want to go.”

“Why,” says she, shruggin’ her shoulders, – “how is it you put such things? – the limit, I suppose?”

“Honest?” says I. “Then how about Clover Blossom Inn?”

Heard about that joint, haven’t you? Of course. There’s a lot of joy-ride tank stations strung along Jerome-ave. and the Yonkers road; but when it comes to a genuine tabasco flavored chorus girls’ rest, the Clover Blossom has most of the others lookin’ like playgrounds for little mothers. But Cornie don’t do any dodgin’.

“Fine!” says she. “I’ve read about that inn.” Then she hurries on to plan out the details. I must go over to Times Square and hire a nice looking touring car for the evening. And I mustn’t let Miss Stover know how much it costs; for Cornelia wants to do that part of it by her lonely.

“The dinner we are to go shares on,” says she.

“Couldn’t think of it,” says I. “Let that stand as my blow.”

“No, indeed,” says Cornelia. “We have the money all put aside, and I sha’n’t like it. Here it is, and I want you to be sure you spend the whole of it,” and with that she shoves over a couple of fives.

I couldn’t help grinnin’ as I takes it. Maybe you’ve settled a dinner bill for three and a feed for the shofer at the Clover Blossom; but not with a ten-spot, eh?

And while Cornelia is goin’ back in the elevator after the schoolma’am, I scoots over to get a machine. After convincin’ two or three of them leather capped pirates that I didn’t want to buy their blamed outfits, I fin’lly beats one down to twenty-five and goes back after the ladies.

Miss Stover don’t turn out to be any such star as Cornelia; but she don’t look so much like a suffragette as I expected. She’s plump, and middle aged, and plain dressed; but there’s more or less style to the way she carries herself. Also she has just a suspicion of eye twinkle behind the glasses, which suggests that perhaps some of this programme is due to her.

“All aboard for the Clover Blossom!” says I, handin’ ’em into the tonneau; “that is, as soon as I run in here to the telephone booth.”

It had come to me only at that minute what a shame it was this stunt of Cornelia’s was goin’ to be wasted on an audience that couldn’t appreciate the fine points, and I’d thought of a scheme that might supply the gap. So I calls up an old friend of mine and has a little confab.

By the time we’d crossed the Harlem and had got straightened out on the parkway with our gas lamps lighted, and the moon comin’ up over the trees, and hundreds of other cars whizzin’ along in both directions, Cornelia and her schoolma’am friend was chatterin’ away like a couple of boardin’ school girls. There’s no denyin’ that it does get into your blood, that sort of ridin’. Why, even I begun to feel some frisky!

And look at Cornelia! For years she’d been givin’ directions about where to put the floral wreaths, and listenin’ to wills being read, and all summer long she’d been buried in a little backwoods boardin’ house, where the most excitin’ event of the day was watchin’ the cows come home, or going down for the mail. Can you blame her for workin’ up a cheek flush and rattlin’ off nonsense?

Clover Blossom Inn does look fine and fancy at night, too, with all the colored lights strung around, and the verandas crowded with tables, and the Gypsy orchestra sawin’ away, and new parties landin’ from the limousines every few minutes. Course, I knew they’d run against perfect ladies hittin’ up cocktails and cigarettes in the cloak room, and hear more or less high spiced remarks; but this was what they’d picked out to view.

So I orders the brand of dinner the waiter hints I ought to have, – little necks, okra soup, broiled lobster, guinea hen, and so on, with a large bottle of fizz decoratin’ the silver tub on the side and some sporty lookin’ mineral for me. It don’t make any diff’rence whether you’ve got a wealthy water thirst or not, when you go to one of them tootsy palaces you might just as well name your vintage first as last; for any cheap skates of suds consumers is apt to find that the waiter’s made a mistake and their table has been reserved for someone else.

But if you don’t mind payin’ four prices, and can stand the comp’ny at the adjoinin’ tables, just being part of the picture and seeing it from the inside is almost worth the admission. If there’s any livelier purple spots on the map than these gasolene road houses from eight-thirty p. m. to two-thirty in the mornin’, I’ll let you name ’em.

Cornelia rather shies at the sight of the fat bottle peekin’ out of the cracked ice; but she gets over that feelin’ after Miss Stover has expressed her sentiments.

“Champagne!” says the schoolma’am. “Oh, how perfectly delightful! Do you know, I always have wanted to know how it tasted.”

Say, she knows all about it now. Not that she put away any more’n a lady should, – at the Clover Blossom, – but she had tackled a dry Martini first, and then she kept on tastin’ and tastin’ her glass of fizz, and the waiter keeps fillin’ it up, and that twinkle in her eye develops more and more, and her conversation gets livelier and livelier. So does Cornelia’s. They gets off some real bright things, too. You’d never guess there was so much fun in Cornie, or that she could look so much like a stunner.

She was just leanin’ over to whisper something to me about the peroxide puffed girl at the next table, and I was tryin’ to stand bein’ tickled in the neck by that long feather of hers while I listens, and Miss Stover was snuggled up real chummy on the other side, when I looks up the aisle and sees a little group watchin’ us with their mouths open and their eyebrows up.

Leadin’ the way is Pinckney. Oh, he’d done his part, all right, just as I’d told him over the wire; for right behind him is Durgin, starin’ at Cornelia until he was pop eyed.

But that wa’n’t all. Trust Pinckney to add something. Beyond Durgin is Mrs. Purdy-Pell – and Sadie. Now, I’ve seen Mrs. McCabe when she’s been some jarred; but I don’t know as I ever watched the effect of such a jolt as this. You see, Cornelia’s back was to her, and all Sadie can see is that wistaria lid with the feather danglin’ down my neck.

Sadie don’t indulge in any preliminaries. She marches right along, with her chin in the air, and glues them Irish blue eyes of hers on me in a way I can feel yet. “Well, I must say!” says she.

“Eh?” says I, tryin’ hard to put on a pleased grin. “So Pinckney brought you along too, did he? Lovely evenin’, ain’t it?”

“Why, Sadie?” says Cornelia, jumpin’ up and givin’ ’em a full face view. And you should have seen how that knocks the wind out of Sadie.

“Wha-a-at!” says she. “You?”

“Of course,” says Cornie. “And we’re just having the grandest lark, and – Oh! Why, Durgin! Where in the world did you come from? How jolly!”

“Ain’t it?” says I. “You see, Sadie, I’m carryin’ out instructions.”

Well, the minute she gets wise that it’s all a job that Pinckney and I have put up between us, and discovers that my giddy lookin’ friend is only Cousin Cornelia doin’ the butterfly act, the thunder storm is all over. The waiter shoves up another table, and they plants Durgin next to Cornie, and the festivities takes a new start.

Did Durgin boy forget all about them chilly feet of his? Why, you could almost see the frost startin’ out before he’d said a dozen words, and by the time he’d let the whole effect sink in, he was no nearer contractin’ chilblains than a Zulu with his heels in the campfire.

What pleases me most, though, was the scientific duck I made in the last round. We’d gone clear through the menu, and they was finishin’ up their cordials, when I spots the waiter comin’ with a slip of paper on his tray as long as a pianola roll.

“Hey, Pinckney,” says I, “see what’s comin’ now!”

And when Pinckney reached around and discovers what it is, he digs down for his roll like a true sport, never battin’ an eyelash.

“You would ring in the fam’ly on me, would you,” says I, “when I’m showin’ lady friends the sights?”

CHAPTER VIII

DOPING OUT AN ODD ONE

Say, notice any deep sea roll about my walk? No? Well, maybe you can get the tarry perfume as I pass by? Funny you don’t; for I’ve been a Vice Commodore for most three weeks now. Yes, that’s on the level – belay my spinnaker taffrail if it ain’t!

That’s what I get for bein’ one of the charter members of the Rockhurst Yacht Club. You didn’t, eh? Well, say, I’m one of the yachtiest yachters that ever jibbed a gangway. Not that I do any sailin’ exactly; but I guess Sadie and me each paid good money for our shares of club stock, and if that ain’t as foolish an act as you can find in the nautical calendar, then I’ll eat the binnacle boom.

Course, this Vice Commodore stunt was sort of sprung on me; for I’d been such an active member I didn’t even know the bloomin’ clubhouse was finished until here the other day I gets this bulletin from the annual meetin’, along with the programme for the openin’ exercises.

“Gee!” says I. “Vice Commodore! Say, there must be some mistake about this.”

“Not at all,” says Sadie.

“Sure there is,” says I. “Why, I hardly know one end of a boat from the other; and besides I ain’t got any clubby habits. They’ve been let in wrong, that’s all. I’ll resign.”

“You’ll do nothing of the sort!” says Sadie. “When I took all that trouble to have you win over that ridiculous Bronson-Smith!”

“Eh?” says I. “Been playin’ the Mrs. Taft, have you? In that case, I expect I’ll have to stay with it. But, honest, you can look for a season of perfectly punk Vice Commodorin’.”

As it turns out, though, there ain’t one in ten members that knows much more about yachtin’ than I do. Navigatin’ porch rockers, orderin’ all hands up for fancy drinks, and conductin’ bridge whist regattas was their chief sea-goin’ accomplishments; and when it come to makin’ myself useful, who was it, I’d like to know, that chucked the boozy steward off the float when he had two of the house committee treed up the signal mast?

I suspect that’s how it is I’m played up so prominent for this house warmin’ episode. Anyway, when I arrives there on the great night – me all got up fancy in a double breasted serge coat, white flannel pants, and cork soled canvas shoes – I finds they’ve put me on the reception committee; and that, besides welcomin’ invited guests, I’m expected to keep one eye peeled for outsiders, to see that nobody starts nothin’.

So I’m on deck, as you might say, and more or less conspicuous, when this Larchmont delegation is landed and comes stringin’ up. It was “Ahoy there, Captain This!” and “How are you, Captain That?” from the rest of the committee, who was some acquainted; and me buttin’ around earnest tryin’ to find someone to shake hands with, when I runs across this thick set party in the open front Tuxedo regalia, with his opera hat down over one eye and a long cigar raked up coquettish from the sou’west corner of his face.

Know him? I guess! It’s Peter K. Tracey; yes, the one that has his name on so many four-sheet posters. Noticed how he always has ’em read, ain’t you? “Mr. Peter K. Tracey presents Booth Keene, the sterling young actor.” Never forgets that “Mr.”; but, say, I knew him when he signed it just “P. Tracey,” and chewed his tongue some at gettin’ that down.

Them was the days when he’d have jumped at the chance of managin’ my ring exhibits, and he was known in sportin’ circles as Chunk Tracey. I ain’t followed all his moves since then; but I know he got to handlin’ the big heavyweights on exhibition tours, broke into the theatrical game with an animal show that was a winner, and has stuck to the boxoffice end ever since.

Why shouldn’t he, with a half ownership in a mascot Rube drama that never has less than six road companies playin’ it, and at least one hit on Broadway every season? I admit I was some surprised, though, to hear of him buyin’ a house on Fifth-ave. and makin’ a stab at mixin’ in society. That last I could hardly believe; but here he was, and lookin’ as much jarred at findin’ me as I was to see him.

“Well, I’ll be hanged!” says I. “Chunk Tracey!”

“Why, hello, Shorty!” says he, and neither one of us remembers the “Charmed to see yuh, old chappy” lines we should have been shootin’ off. Seems he’d been towed along with a bunch of near-swells that didn’t dare treat him as if he really belonged, and he was almost frothin’ at the mouth.

“Talk about your society folks!” says he. “Why, – blankety blank ’em! – I can go down the Rialto any afternoon, pick up a dozen people at twenty-five a week, drill ’em four days, and give a better imitation than this crowd ever thought of putting up!”

“Yes; but look who you are, Chunk,” says I.

“I know,” says he.

And he meant it too. He always was about the cockiest little rooster in the business; but I’d rather expected eight or ten years of ups and downs in the theatrical game, bein’ thrown out of the trust and crawlin’ back on his knees would have tempered him down some.

You couldn’t notice it, though. In fact, this chesty, cocksure attitude seemed to have grown on him, and it was plain that most of his soreness just now come from findin’ himself in with a lot of folks that didn’t take any special pains to admit what a great man he was. So, as him and me was sort of left to flock by ourselves, I undertook the job of supplyin’ a few soothin’ remarks, just for old time’s sake. And that’s how it was he got rung in on this little mix-up with Cap’n Spiller.

You see, the way the committee had mapped it out, part of the doin’s was a grand illumination of the fleet. Anyway, they had all the craft they could muster anchored in a semicircle off the end of the float and trimmed up with Japanese lanterns. Well, just about time for lightin’ up, into the middle of the fleet comes driftin’ a punk lookin’ old sloop with dirty, patched sails, some shirts and things hangin’ from the riggin’, and a length of stovepipe stickin’ through the cabin roof. When the skipper has struck the exact center, he throws over his mud hook and lets his sail run.

Not bein’ posted on the details, I didn’t know but that was part of the show, until the chairman of my committee comes rushin’ up to me all excited, and points it out.

“Oh, I say, McCabe!” says he. “Do you see that?”

“If I didn’t,” says I, “I could almost smell it from here. Some new member, is it?”

“Member!” he gasps. “Why, it’s some dashed old fisherman! We – we cawn’t have him stay there, you know.”

“Well,” says I, “he seems to be gettin’ plenty of advice on that point.” And he was; for they was shoutin’ things at him through a dozen megaphones.

“But you know, McCabe,” goes on the chairman, “you ought to go out and send him away. That’s one of your duties.”

“Eh?” says I. “How long since I’ve been official marine bouncer for this organization? G’wan! Go tell him yourself!”

We had quite an argument over it too, with Peter K. chimin’ in on my side; but, while the chappy insists that it’s my job to fire the old hooker off the anchorage, I draws the line at interferin’ with anything beyond the shore. Course, it might spoil the effect; but the way it struck me was that we didn’t own any more of Long Island Sound than anyone else, and I says so flat.

That must have been how the boss of the old sloop felt about it too; for he don’t pay any attention to the howls or threats. He just makes things snug and then goes below and starts pokin’ about in his dinky little cabin. Judgin’ by the motions, he was gettin’ a late supper.

Anyway, they couldn’t budge him, even though half the club was stewin’ about it. And, someway, that seemed to tickle Chunk and me a lot. We watched him spread his grub out on the cabin table, roll up his sleeves, and square away like he had a good appetite, just as if he’d been all by himself, instead of right here in the midst of so many flossy yachtsmen.

He even had music to eat by; for part of the programme was the turnin’ loose of one of these high priced cabinet disk machines, that was on the Commodore’s big schooner, and feedin’ it with Caruso and Melba records. There was so much chatterin’ goin’ on around us on the verandas, and so many corks poppin’ and glasses clinkin’, that the skipper must have got more benefit from the concert than anyone else. At last he wipes his mouth on his sleeve careful, fills his pipe, and crawls out on deck to enjoy the view.

It was well worth lookin’ at too; for, although there was most too many clouds for the moon to do much execution, here was all the yachts lighted up, and the clubhouse blazin’ and gay, and the water lappin’ gentle in between. He gazes out at it placid for a minute or so, and then we see him dive down into the cabin. He comes back with something or other that we couldn’t make out, and the next thing I knows I finds myself keepin’ time with my foot to one of them lively, swingin’ old tunes which might have been “The Campbells Are Coming” or might not; but anyway it was enough to give you that tingly sensation in your toes. And it was proceedin’ from the after deck of that old hulk.