You Should Worry Says John Henry
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YOU SHOULD WORRY SAYS JOHN HENRY
by
GEORGE V. HOBART
Illustrations by Edward Carey
G. W. Dillingham Company
Publishers New York
Copyright, 1914, by
G. W. Dillingham Company
All rights reserved
The author reserves all stage rights, which includes moving pictures.
Any infringement of copyright will be dealt with according to law.
_You Should Worry_
Press of J. J. Little & Ives Co. New York
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. You Should Worry About a Tango Lesson 5
II. You Should Worry About an Automobile 28
III. You Should Worry About Dieting 45
IV. You Should Worry About Getting a Goat 64
V. You Should Worry About Being in Love 78
VI. You Should Worry About Snap-Shots 97
VII. You Should Worry About the Servants 108
VIII. You Should Worry About Auction Bridge 130
IX. You Should Worry About Getting the Grip 142
X. You Should Worry About a Musical Evening 158
YOU SHOULD WORRY
CHAPTER I
YOU SHOULD WORRY ABOUT A TANGO LESSON
The idea originated with Bunch Jefferson. You can always count on Bunch
having a few freak ideas in the belfry where he keeps his butterflies.
Bunch and his wife, Alice, live out in Westchester County, about half a
mile from Uncle Peter's bungalow, where friend wife and I are spending
the winter.
The fact that Uncle Peter and Aunt Martha had decided to give us a party
was the inspiration for Bunch's brilliant idea.
"Listen, John," he Macchiavellied; "not one of this push out here knows
a thing about the Tango. Most of them have a foolish idea that it's a
wicked institution invented by the devil, who sold his patent rights to
the Evil-Doers' Association. Now, I'll tell you what we'll do, John:
we'll put them wise. We'll take about two lessons from a good instructor
in town and on the night of the party we'll make the hit of our lives
teaching them all to Tango--are you James to the possibilities?"
"It listens like a good spiel," I agreed; "but will a couple of lessons
be enough for us?"
"Sure," he came back; "we're not a couple of Patsys with the pumps! We
can learn enough in two lessons to make good in this Boob community.
Why, we'll start a Tango craze out here that will put life and ginger in
the whole outfit and presently they'll be putting up statues in our
honor."
Well, to make a long story lose its cunning, we made arrangements next
day with Ikey Schwartz, Dancing Instructor, to explain the mysteries of
this modern home-wrecking proposition known as the Tango, and paid him
in advance the sum of $100.
It seemed to me that a hundred iron men in advance was a nifty little
price for two lessons, but Bunch assured me the price was reasonable on
account of the prevalence of rich scholars willing to divide their
patrimony with anybody who could teach their feet to behave in time to
the music.
We made an appointment to meet Ikey at his "studio" for our first lesson
the following afternoon. Then we hiked for home on the 4.14, well
pleased with our investment and its promise of golden returns.
That night Bunch and Alice were over to our place for dinner. After
dinner Bunch and I sat down by the log fire in the Dutch room, filled
our faces with Havana panatellas, and proceeded to enjoy life in
silence.
Into the next room came Alice and Peaches and sat down for their usual
cackle.
Bunch and I started from our reveries when we heard Alice say to
Peaches, "You don't know what a source of comfort it has been to me to
realize that Bunch doesn't know a blessed thing about the Tango or any
of those hatefully intimate new dances!"
"The same with me, Alice," friend wife chirped in. "I believe if John
were to suddenly display the ability to dance the Tango I'd be
broken-hearted. Naturally, I'd know that he must have learned it with a
wicked companion in some lawless cabaret. And if he frequented cabarets
without my knowledge--oh, Alice, what _would_ I do?"
I looked at Bunch, he looked at me, and then we both looked out the
window.
"For my part," Alice went on, "I trust Bunch so implicitly that I don't
even question his motive when he telephones me he has to take dinner in
town with a prospective real estate customer."
"And I know enough of human nature," Peaches gurgled, "to be sure that
if either one of them could Tango he would be crazy to show off at home.
I think we're very lucky, both of us, to have such steady-going
husbands, don't you, Alice?"
At this point Aunt Martha buzzed into the other room and the cackle took
on another complexion.
In the meantime Bunch and I had passed away.
"It's cold turkey," I whispered.
"I've been in the refrigerator for ten minutes and I'm chilled to the
bone," Bunch whispered back.
"Can we get our coin away from Ikey?" I asked.
"We can try," Bunch sneezed.
The next afternoon we had Ikey Schwartz for luncheon with us at the St.
Astorbilt. The idea being to dazzle him and get a few of the iron men
back.
"Leave everything to me," Bunch growled as we shaved our hats and
Indian-filed to a trough.
"A quart of Happysuds," Bunch ordered. "How about it, Ikey?"
Ikey flashed a grin and tried to swallow his palate, so it wouldn't
interfere with the wet spell suggested by Bunch.
Ikey belonged to the "dis, dose and dem" push.
Every long sentence he uttered was full of splintered grammar.
Every time Ikey opened his word-chest the King's English screamed for
help, and literature got a kick in the slats.
He was short and thin, but it was a deceptive thinness. His capacity for
storing away free liquids was awe-inspiring and a sin.
I think Ikey must have been hollow from the neck to the ankles, with
emergency bulkheads in both feet.
His nose was shaped like a quarter to six o'clock. It began in the
middle and rushed both ways as hard as it could. One end of it ducked
into his forehead and never did come out.
His interior was sponge-lined, and when the bartenders began to send
them in fast, Ikey would lower an asbestos curtain to keep the fumes
away from his brain.
Nobody ever saw Ikey at high tide.
There was surely something wrong with Ikey's switchboard, because he
could wrap his system around more Indian laughing-juice without getting
lit up than any other man in the world.
But Ikey was the compliments of the season, all right, all right.
Ikey had spent most of his life being a Bookmaker, and when the racing
game went out of fashion he sat down and tried to think what else he
could do. Nothing occurred to him until one day he discovered that he
could push his feet around in time to music, so he became a dancing
instructor and could clean up $1,000 per day if the bartenders didn't
beckon too hard.
The luncheon had been ordered and Bunch was just about to switch the
conversation around to the subject of rebates when suddenly his eyes
took on the appearance of saucers, and tapping me on the arm he gasped,
"Look!"
I looked, and beheld Peaches, Alice and Aunt Martha sailing over in our
direction.
With a whispered admonition to Bunch to keep Ikey still, I went forward
to meet friend wife, her aunt and Alice.
They were as much surprised as I was.
"It was such a delightful day that Aunt Martha couldn't resist the
temptation to do a little shopping," Peaches rattled on; "and then we
decided to come here for a bit of luncheon--hello, Bunch! I'm _so_ glad
to see you! John, hadn't we better take another table so that your
friendly conference may not be interrupted?"
I hastened to assure Peaches that it wasn't a conference at all. We had
met Mr. Schwartz quite by accident. Then I introduced Ikey to the
ladies.
He got up and did something that was supposed to be a bow, but you
couldn't tell whether he was tying his shoe or coming down a stepladder.
When Ikey tried to bend a Society double he looked like one of the
pictures that goes with a rubber exerciser, price 75 cents.
After they had ordered club sandwiches and coffee I explained to Peaches
and the others that Mr. Schwartz was a real estate dealer. Ikey began to
swell up at once.
"Bunch and I are going in a little deal with Mr. Schwartz," I explained.
"He knows the real estate business backwards. Mr. Schwartz has a fad
for collecting apartment houses. He owns the largest assortment of
People Coops in the city. All the modern improvements, too. Hot and cold
windows, running gas and noiseless janitors. Mr. Schwartz is the
inventor of the idea of having two baths in every apartment so that the
lessee will have less excuse for not being water broke."
Ikey never cracked a smile.
"In Mr. Schwartz's apartment houses," I continued, while Bunch kicked my
shins under the table, "you will find self-freezing refrigerators and
self-leaving servants. All the rooms are light rooms, when you light the
gas. Two of his houses overlook the Park and all of them overlook the
building laws. The floors are made of concrete so that if you want to
bring a horse in the parlor you can do so without kicking off the
plaster in the flat below. Every room has folding doors, and when the
water pipes burst the janitor has folding arms."
"Quit your joshing, John! you'll embarrass Mr. Schwartz," laughed Bunch
somewhat nervously, but Ikey's grin never flickered.
"Is Mr. Schwartz deaf and dumb?" Peaches whispered.
"Intermittently so," I whispered back; "sometimes for hours at a time he
cannot speak a word and can hear only the loudest tones."
Aunt Martha heard my comment on Ikey's infirmity and was about to
become intensely sympathetic and tell him how her brother's wife was
cured when Bunch interrupted loudly by asking after Uncle Peter's
health.
"Never better," answered Aunt Martha. "He has spent all the morning
arranging the program of dancing for our little party. He insists upon
having the Virginia Reel, the old-fashioned waltz, the Polka and the
Lancers. Uncle Peter has a perfect horror of these modern dances and
Peaches and Alice and I share it with him." Then she turned to Ikey:
"Don't you think these modern dances are perfectly disgusting?"
Poor Ikey looked reproachfully at the old lady a second, then with
gathering astonishment he slid silently off the chair and struck the
floor with a bump.
Aunt Martha was so rattled over this unexpected effort on Mr. Schwartz's
part that she upset her coffee and Ikey got most of it in the back of
the neck.
When peace was finally restored the old lady came to the surface with an
envelope which had been lying on the table near her plate.
"Is this your letter, John?" she asked, and then, arranging her glasses,
read with great deliberation, "Mr. I. Schwartz, Tango Teacher, care of
Kumearly and Staylates' Cabaret, New York."
Peaches and Alice went into the ice business right away quick.
Aunt Martha, in pained surprise, looked at me and then at Bunch, and
finally focused a steady beam of interrogation upon the countenance of
Mr. Schwartz.
Ikey never whimpered.
Then Bunch took the letter from the open-eyed Aunt Martha and leaped to
the rescue while I came out of the trance slowly.
"It's too bad Mr. Schwartz forgot his ear trumpet," Bunch said quickly,
and Ikey was wise to the tip in a minute.
Peaches sniffed suspiciously, and I knew she had the gloves on.
"Mr. Schwartz's affliction is terrible," she said with a chill in every
word. "How did you converse with him before our arrival?"
"Oh! he understands the lip language and can talk back on his fingers,"
I hastened to explain, looking hard at Ikey, whose masklike face gave no
token that he understood what was going on.
"I thought I understood you to say Mr. Schwartz is a real estate
dealer!" Peaches continued, while the thermometer went lower and lower.
"So he is," I replied.
"Then why does his correspondent address him as a Tango Teacher?" friend
wife said slowly, and I could hear the icebergs grinding each other all
around me.
"I think I can explain that," Bunch put in quietly. Then with the utmost
deliberation he looked Ikey in the eye and said, "Mr. Schwartz, it's
really none of my business, but would you mind telling me why you, a
real estate dealer, should have a letter in your possession which is
addressed to you as a Tango Teacher? Answer me on your fingers."
[Illustration]
Ikey delivered the goods.
In a minute he had both paws working overtime and such a knuckle
twisting no mortal man ever indulged in before.
"He says," Bunch began to interpret, "that the letter is not his. It is
intended for Isadore Schwartz, a wicked cousin of his who is a victim of
the cabaret habit. Mr. Schwartz is now complaining bitterly with his
fingers because his letters and those intended for his renegade cousin
become mixed almost every day. These mistakes are made because the
initials are identical. He also says that--he--hopes--the--presence--
of--this--particular--letter--in--his--possession--does--not--offend--
the--ladies--because--while--it--is--addressed--to--a--tango-teacher--
the--contents--are--quite--harmless--being--but--a--small--bill--from--
the--dentist."
Ikey's fingers kept on working nervously, as though he felt it his duty
to wear them out, and the perspiration rolled off poor Bunch's forehead.
"Tell him to cease firing," I said to Bunch; "he'll sprain his fingers
and lose his voice."
Ikey doubled up all his eight fingers and two thumbs in one final shout
and subsided.
"I'm afraid we'll miss the 5.18 train if we don't hurry," said Peaches,
and I could see that the storm was over, although she still glanced
suspiciously at poor Ikey.
"And, Bunch, you and John can come home with us now, can't you?" Alice
asked as they started to float for the door.
Then Ikey cut in as we started to follow the family parade, "I'm hep to
the situation. It's a cutey, take it from little Ikey. I'll have to
charge you $8 for the sudden attack of deafness; then there's $19 for
hardships sustained by my finger joints while conversing. The rest of
the 100 iron men I'm going to keep as a souvenir of two good-natured
ginks who wouldn't know what to do with a Tango if they had one."
As we pulled out of the Mayonnaise Mansion I looked back at Ikey to
thank him with a farewell nod.
He was halfway under the table, holding both hands to his sides and
making funny faces at the carpet.
CHAPTER II
YOU SHOULD WORRY ABOUT AN AUTOMOBILE
Say! did you ever have to leave the soothing influence of your own
rattling radiators in the Big City and go romping off to a rich
relation's for the week-end?
Well, don't do it, if you can help it, and if you can't help it get back
home as soon as possible.
When Uncle Gilbert Hawley sent us an invitation to run up to
Hawleysville for a day or two I looked at Peaches and she looked at
me--then we both looked out the window.
We knew what a wildly hilarious time we'd have splashing out small talk
to the collection of human bric-a-brac always to be found at Uncle
Gilbert's, but what is one going to do when the richest old gink in the
family waves a beckoning arm?
I'll tell you what one is going to do--one is going to take to one's
o'sullivans, beat it rapidly to a choo-choo, and float into Uncle
Gilbert's presence with a business of being tickled to death--that's
what one is going to do.
You know Nature has a few immutable laws, and one is that even a rich
old uncle must in the full course of time pass on and leave nephews and
nieces. Leave them what? Ah! that's it! Where's that timetable?
Hawleysville is about forty miles away on the P. D. & Q., and it is some
burg. Uncle Gilbert wrote it all himself.
Uncle Gilbert has nearly all the money there is in the world. Every time
he signs a check a national bank goes out of existence. He tried to
count it all once, but he sprained his wrists and had to stop.
On the level, when he goes into a bank all the government bonds get up
and yell, "Hello, Papa!"
When he cuts coupons it's like a sheep shearing.
He has muscles all over him like a prizefighter just from lifting
mortgages.
When Peaches and I finally reached the Hawley mansion on the hill we
found there a scene of great excitement. Old and distant relations were
bustling up and down the stone steps, talking in whispers; servants with
scared faces and popping eyes were peeping around the corner of the
house, and in the roadway in front of a sobbing automobile stood Uncle
Gilbert and Aunt Miranda, made up to look like two members of the Peary
expedition at the Pole.
After the formal greetings we were soon put hep to the facts in the
case.
"You see, John," bubbled Aunt Miranda, while a pair of green goggles
danced an accompaniment on her nose, "your Uncle Gilbert loaned the
money to a man to open a garage in Hawleysville. But automobilists
never got any blowouts or punctures going through here because there
isn't a saloon in the town, so the garage failed and the man left town
in an awful hurry, and all your Uncle Gilbert got for the money he
loaned was this car. We've been four years making up our minds to buy
one and now we have one whether we want it or not."
"Fine!" I said; "going out for a spin, Uncle Gilbert?"
"Possibly," he answered, never taking his eyes off the man-killer in
front of him, which stood there trembling with anger.
"What car is it?" I inquired politely.
"It's a Seismic," Uncle Gilbert said.
"Oh, yes, of course; made by the Earthquake Brothers in
Powderville--good car for the hills, especially coming down," I
volunteered. "Know how to run it?"
"I guess so; I was always a good hand at machinery," Uncle Gilbert
answered.
"Don't you think you should have a chauffeur?" Peaches suggested.
"Chauffeur! Why?" Uncle Gilbert snapped back; "what do I want with one
of those fellows sitting around, eating me out of house and home."
Now you know why he has so much money.
"We'll be back in a little while," Aunt Miranda explained; "just make
yourselves at home, children."
Uncle Gilbert continued to eye the car for another minute, then he
turned to me and said, "Want to try it, John?"
"Nix, Uncle Gilbert," I protested; "what would the townspeople say? You
with a new motor car, afraid to run it yourself, had to send to New York
for your nephew--nix! Where's your family pride?"
"My family pride is all right," answered Uncle Gilbert; "but there's a
lot of contraptions in that machine I don't seem to recognize."
"Oh, that's all right; you're a handy little guy with machinery," I
reminded him. "Hop in now and break forth. Don't let the public think
that you're afraid to blow a Bubble through the streets of your native
town. The rubber sweater buttoned to the chin and the Dutch awning over
the forehead for yours, and on your way!"
Finally and reluctantly Uncle Gilbert and Aunt Miranda climbed into the
kerosene wagon and I gave him his final instructions.
"Now, Uncle Gilbert," I said, "grab that wheel in front of you firmly
with both hands and put one foot on the accelerator. Now put the other
foot on the rheostat and let the left elbow gently rest on the
deodorizer. Keep the rubber tube connecting with the automatic fog
whistle closely between the teeth and let the right elbow be in touch
with the quadruplex while the apex of the left knee is pressed over the
spark coil and the right ankle works the condenser."
Uncle Gilbert grunted. "Why don't you put my left shoulder blade to
work," he muttered; "it's the only part of my anatomy that hasn't got a
job."
"John," whispered the nervous Aunt Miranda, "do you really think your
Uncle Gilbert knows enough about the car?"
"Sure," I answered, and I was very serious about it. "Now, Uncle
Gilbert, keep both eyes on the road in front of you and the rest of your
face in the wagon. Start the driving wheels, repeat slowly the name of
your favorite coroner, and leave the rest to Fate!"
And away they started in the Whiz Wagon.
Before they had rolled along for half a mile through town the machine
suddenly began to breathe fast, and then, all of a sudden, it choked up
and stopped.
"Will it explode?" whispered Aunt Miranda, pleadingly.
"No," said Uncle Gilbert, jumping out; "I think the cosmopolitan has
buckled with the trapezoid," and then, with a monkey wrench, he crawled
under the hood to see if the trouble was stubbornness or appendicitis.
Uncle Gilbert took a dislike to a brass valve and began to knock it with
the monkey wrench, whereupon the valve got mad at him and upset a pint
of ancient salad oil all over his features.
When Uncle Gilbert recovered consciousness the machine was breathing
again, so he jumped to the helm, pointed the bow at Tampico, Mex., and
began to cut the grass.
Alas! however, it seemed that the demon of unrest possessed that
Coal-oil Coupe, for it soon began to jump and skip, and suddenly, with a
snort, it took the river road and scooted away from town.
Uncle Gilbert patted it on the back and spoke soothingly, but it was no
use.
Aunt Miranda pleaded with him to keep in near the shore, because she
was getting seasick; but her tears were in vain.
"You must appear calm and indifferent in the presence of danger,"
muttered Uncle Gilbert as they rushed madly into the bosom of a flock of
cows.
[Illustration]
But luck was with them, for with a turn of the wrist Uncle Gilbert
jumped the machine across the road, and all he could feel was the sharp
swish of an old cow's tail across his cheek as they rushed on and out of
that animal's life forever.
Aunt Miranda tried to be brave and to chat pleasantly. "How is Wall
Street these days?" she asked, and just then the machine struck a stone
and she went up in the air.
"Unsettled," answered Uncle Gilbert when she got back, and then there
was an embarrassing silence.
To try to hold a polite conversation, on a motor car in full flight is
very much like trying to repeat the Declaration of Independence while
falling from a seventh-story window.
Then, all of a sudden, the machine struck a chord in G, and started for
Newfoundland at the rate of 7,000,000 miles a minute.
Aunt Miranda threw her arms around Uncle Gilbert's neck, he threw his
neck around the lever, the lever threw him over, and they both threw a
fit.
Down the road ahead of them a man and his wife were quarreling. They
were so much in earnest that they did not hear the machine sneaking
swiftly up on rubber shoes.
As the Benzine Buggy was about to fall upon the quarreling man and wife
Uncle Gilbert squeezed a couple of hoarse "Toot toots" from the horn,
whereupon the woman in the road threw up both hands and leaped for the
man. The man threw up both feet and leaped for the fence.
The last Aunt Miranda saw of them they were entering their modest home
neck and neck, and the divorce court lost a bet.
Then the machine began to climb a telegraph pole, and as it ran down the
other side Aunt Miranda wanted to know for the tenth time if it would
explode.
"How did John tell you to handle it?" she shrieked, as the Rowdy Cart
bit its way through a stone fence and began to dance a two-step over a
strange man's lawn.
"The only way to handle this infernal machine is to soak it in water,"
yelled Uncle Gilbert as they hit the main road again.
"I don't see what family pride has to do with it; there isn't a soul
looking," moaned Aunt Miranda.
"Oh if I could only be arrested for fast riding and get this thing
stopped," wailed Uncle Gilbert as they headed for the river.
"Let me out, let me out," pleaded Aunt Miranda, and the machine seemed
to hear her, for it certainly obliged the lady.
I found out afterwards that in order to make good with Aunt Miranda the
machine jumped up in the air and turned a double handspring, during the
course of which friend Uncle and his wife fell out and landed in the
most generous inclined mud puddle in that part of the state.
Then the Buzz Buggy turned around and barked at them, and with an
excited wag of its tail scooted for home and left them flat.
Late that evening Uncle Gilbert explained that there would have been no
trouble at all if he had removed a defective spark plug.
But I think if Uncle Gilbert would go to Dr. Leiser and have his
parsimony removed he'd have more fun as he breezes through life.
Peaches thinks just as I do, but she won't say it out loud--she's a fox,
that Kid.
CHAPTER III
YOU SHOULD WORRY ABOUT DIETING
I was complaining to some of my friends in the Club the other evening
because a germ General Villa had begun to attack the outposts of my
digestive tract when a nut in the party began to slip me a line of talk
about a vegetable diet.
I didn't fall for it until he proved to me that Kid Methuselah had
prolonged an otherwise uneventful life and was enabled to make funny
faces at the undertakers until he reached the age of 914 simply because
he ate nothing but dandelion salad, mashed potatoes and stewed prunes.