Torchy
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Once when I was extra flush I offers to blow him to a fam'ly circle seat
at "The Bandit Queen"; but he says he thinks he'd better not go.
"Plannin' to have a spin in your new car?" says I.
"Hardly," says he.
"Well, how do you put in your off time, anyway?" says I.
And say, whatcher think? His programme is to light up the gas stove
reg'lar after dinner and fill his head full of truck out of the trade
monthlies and Wall Street columns, postin' himself on Corrugated
business.
"Gettin' ready to give the old man a few private tips?" says I.
"Not until he asks for them," says he.
"Then you've got lots of time," says I. "But it's a punk way of enjoyin'
yourself."
Maybe it was thinkin' about what a dead slow time he was havin' that
gives me the cue to stir up that lovely mess, or perhaps it was because
the thing was sprung on me so unexpected. It come one day when I was
busy drawin' pictures of Piddie on the blotter. I hears a giggle, and
squints up to see a pair that looked as if they'd just broke away from
an afternoon tea. He was a husky youth in a frock coat, with a face like
a full moon and a voice that didn't call for any megaphone. The other
was a her, and she was a bundle of tuttifrutti, the kind you see
floatin' by in sixty horsepowers, all veils and furs and eyes.
"Hello, sonny," says he, swingin' up to the brass gate, wearin' a
four-inch grin. "Where's the Great Skid?"
"Give it up," says I. "Have you tried the Zoo?"
"He-haw!" says he, with the stops all out and a forced draft on. "That's
a good one, that is! But we haven't much time and we're looking for
Skid. Where do you keep him?"
"Say," says I, "we've got a lot of freaks on tap; but we're just out of
Skids. Anything else do?"
Then she comes to the front. "Don't be such a silly, Dicky!" says she.
"It isn't likely they call him that here. Tell the young man it's Bert
Mallory we wish to see."
"You're right, Sis, right as usual," says Dick. "It's Mallory we're
looking for."
"Oh!" says I. "Mister Mallory?"
"There now, Dicky!" says she, pokin' him with her elbow and touchin' off
another giggle. "Didn't I tell you?"
"He-haw!" says Dicky. "Mister Mallory, of course."
But I didn't feel he-hawy a bit; for it was up to me to tow Mallory's
swell college chum and his sister in where the boy was jugglin' the file
cases. And them lookin' for him to be sittin' in a swing chair with his
name painted big on the door! That was when I dug up my fool thought.
"Cards!" says I. "I'll see if Mr. Mallory's got through consultin' with
the general manager."
"Oh!" gurgles Sis. "Doesn't that sound business like, though? I suppose
Skid--er--Mr. Mallory is quite a busy man, isn't he?"
"Busy," says I. "Say, you don't think he has all of us around here to
play marbles, do you, miss?"
Sis, she gets mighty int'rested at that. "He's a very important man now,
isn't he?" says she.
"Chee, yes!" says I. "He's I-double-it around here."
"Isn't that fine?" says Sis. "But I hope he can see us."
"Oh, I'll fix that all right," says I.
With that I slides through two doors and into Mr. Robert's room. He's
still out to lunch, of course, it bein' only about two o'clock; so I
unlocks the corridor door that he don't use and skips across into the
general offices.
"Say," says I to Mallory, "you're wanted in the boss's office. No, not
the old man's; Mr. Robert's. Skin into your coat and come along."
Never fazes him a bit. He just hunches his shoulders, knocks the dust
off his hands, and trots after. When I gets him in there I tells him to
wait a minute, and then I goes out through the right way and lugs in
Dicky and sister.
Was it a surprise party? Well, say! Dicky lets out a roar, makes a
plunge for him, hammers him on the back, works the pump handle, and
talks a blue streak.
"Well, Skiddy, old man, here we are!" says he. "Thought you'd given us
the shake for good, eh? But we heard you'd gone in with the
Corrugated,--saw Blicky in Venice and he told us,--so when we came
ashore we wired father to hold the car over one train for us while we
hunted you up. Sis wouldn't let me come unless she could too. Here, Sis,
it's your turn. Blaze ahead now and give the boy what you said you
would. I'll turn my back."
I didn't, though. Was there any hangin' off about Sis? Not so you'd
notice it. She just steps up and makes a grab for Mallory and----Aw,
say! One like that must be good for chapped lips. If I'm ever handed one
of them kind I won't wash it off for a month. It tickles Dicky most to
death.
"He-haw!" says he, so's the window panes rattle. "She said she'd do it.
And she did, didn't she, eh, Skid?"
Mallory couldn't prove an alibi. He was the worst rattled man I ever
see, and as for blushin'--he got up a color like the lady heroine in a
biff-bang drama. He acted as though he didn't know whether he was
loopin' the loops or having a dream that was too good to be true. Once
or twice he tried to unloosen some remarks; but Sis and Dicky was both
talkin' to once and he never got a show. They was tellin' him how glad
they was to see him again, and what a great man he was, and how Sis was
comin' back to town next month for the rest of the season, and all
that--when right in the middle of it the door opens and in comes Mr.
Robert.
Say, I felt like a noon extra in a bunch of six o'clock editions. I'd
balled things up lovely, I had! Why, the only times a general office
hand ever gets a chance to stand on the Persian rug in the boss's office
is just before he gets the run or is boosted into a five-figure salary.
And here I has a twelve-dollar man usin' it like a public reception
hall! It was what was goin' to happen to Mallory that gave me the
shivers.
"Torchy," says Mr. Robert, "what's all this?"
"S-s-sh!" says I. "It's Old Home Day, and the lady is handin' out
choc'late creams. Wait up; maybe it'll be your turn next."
"But, see here, I don't understand," says he. "Who are these persons,
and why----"
"Ah, say!" says I. "Ain't you got any sportin' blood? Besides, I don't
know the answer myself."
I could of kept that up just about one more round before I'd fell
through a crack; but just as Mr. Robert was framin' up another conundrum
Dicky turns around and spots him.
"Why, hello, Bob!" yells Dicky, as gentle as if he was hailin' someone
across Broadway. "By Jove, though, I forgot all about you being in the
Corrugated too! But of course you are. Sis and I just ran in a minute to
look up Skid. Good old Skid! Great boy, eh, Bob?"
Mr. Robert takes a look over by the window at Mallory, who wasn't seein'
a thing but Sis and wasn't hearin' anything but what she was sayin'--and
she was sayin' a lot.
"Is--is that Skid?" says Mr. Robert.
"Oh, come along now, Bob," says Dicky, pokin' him in the vest playful.
"You don't mean to say you don't know Skid Mallory, the Great Skid, best
quarterback we ever turned out, the one that went through Harvard for
forty-five yards, and that with a broken ankle? Don't know Skid? Why,
say!"
"I take it all back," says Mr. Robert. "Of course I know him; but not so
well as you do, Dicky. I wasn't one of the coaches, you know, and I
haven't kept the run of the team for the last year or two. But I'm glad
to see the Great Skid. How the deuce does he happen to be up here,
though?"
"He-haw!" says Dicky. "That's rich, that is? Shows how much you know of
Corrugated affairs, Bob. Why, man alive, Skid's one of the chaps that's
runnin' your old gent's trust. This is his office you're in now."
"Really!" says Mr. Robert. He takes another look at Mallory, who's deaf
and dumb and blind to everything but Sis, and then he turns for a good
hard look at me.
I grins kind of foolish and nods. Then I jumps behind Dicky and begins
to wigwag over his shoulder for Mr. Robert to keep it up. I didn't know
whether he would or not. I wa'n't sure but what he'd think I'd turned
batty, by the motions I was goin' through; but he's a sport, Mr. Robert
is. He didn't know what was on the card; but he takes a chance.
So Dicky waltzes him over to the pair by the window, and makes Mr.
Robert and Mallory acquainted, and jollies 'em both, and all three of
'em talk football to Mallory, who blushes worse than ever and don't
know which way to turn. They keep that up until Dicky pulls out his
watch, grabs Sis by the arm, and hollers that they've got to make a
break for the Washington Limited. Sis is shakin' good-by with both of
'em at once, when she thinks of somethin' funny.
"Oh, Mr. Robert!" says she. "I want to know which of you is who here,
don't you know. Is it you that works for Skid, or Skid that works for
you?"
"Chee!" thinks I. "That upsets the soup kettle."
Mr. Robert looks at Mallory, and Mallory looks at him. There was no
breakin' away; for she has hold of a hand apiece. Both of 'em makes a
start; but Mr. Robert gets the floor. "Why," says he, "I guess we're
both working for the Corrugated, only one of us works a little harder
than the other."
"Ah!" says Sis, givin' Mallory a smile that was worth payin' money to
see. "I thought so."
The next minute they makes a dash for an elevator goin' down, and that
part of it was over. We'd worked the bluff all the way through, and Sis
has lugged off the idea that Mallory was at the top of the bunch.
But there was Mr. Robert, waitin' to talk Dutch to us.
Mallory he starts in to say that he's sorry for seemin' so cheeky; but
that's about all he can say.
"Ah, cheese it!" says I, buttin' in. "What do you know about it? It was
me put up the game, and if Mr. Robert had loafed another half an hour at
the club like he usually does, there wouldn't have been any mix up. Say,
you leave this to me."
Mallory didn't want to leave it like that; but Mr. Robert was holdin'
the door open for him, so he couldn't do anything else. When we had it
all to ourselves, the boss ranges me up in front of him for the court of
inquiry session.
"Well?" says he, real solemn.
I takes all that in and gives him the wink. "Say," says I, "didn't I
have my nerve with me, though?"
He kind of blinks at that; but it don't fetch him.
"Who's Dicky, your whisperin' friend?" says I.
"Nobody much," says he. "His father's a Senator."
"Well, say, now," says I, "you didn't want me to chase a Senator's son
and a real swell girl like Sis off into a place like the general office
reception room, did you! And wouldn't it have been a nice break if I'd
let out that we was smotherin' the Great Skid under a twelve-dollar
job?"
"Was that why you had the impudence to appropriate my office?" says he.
"That was part of it," says I.
And that gives me an openin' to tell him the whole tale about Mallory,
from the hall bedroom act to the way he'd been postin' himself.
"You think he's a valuable man, do you?" says Mr. Robert.
"Valuable!" says I. "Why, he's all the goods. What if he did learn to
talk Greek once? He's forgettin' it, ain't he? And look at the way he
stands up to trouble! Don't that show there's good stuff in him?"
"Well," says he, "what would you suggest?"
"Ah, say!" says I. "Couldn't you give a guess? Why, if I was you I'd fix
it so that when Sis comes back to town she wouldn't find him on no kid's
job. I'd give him a show to get his name painted on a door somewhere."
"Torchy," says he, punchin' the button for his secretary, "I shouldn't
wonder if we did."
CHAPTER IV
FROSTING THE PROFESS
Chee! but I'm gettin' to be useful! Course, I don't figure out no awful
slump in Corrugated stocks if I should get pettish some day and tell 'em
they'd got to find a new office boy. That ain't the kind of shredded
thought I'm feedin' on. I fit into a lot of places besides the chair
behind the brass gate. Why, I have to put on a sub. three or four times
a week, while I'm spreadin' myself out all over the lot.
It all come of their makin' me special messenger to the boss; for since
old Mr. Ellins has been laid up with toothache in his knee joints
they've been chasin' me up to the Fift'-ave. ranch, with mail, and blank
bonds to be signed, and such truck. And that's how I came to get so
thick with Marjorie.
I was waitin' in the front hall, pipin' off the gorgerifousness, when
some one pushes in through the draperies L. U. E. and I'm discovered.
And, say, she was a magnum, all right! You know the sort of pippins they
pick out to hang up by a string in the fruit store window? Well, that
was her style. Big? She'd fit close in a Morris chair! And she didn't
look more'n eighteen or nineteen, either. For all her width, she was
built on good lines, and if she'd been divided up right there'd been
enough for a pair of as good lookers as you'd want to see.
"O-o-o-o!" says she as she comes in. "See who's here!"
I never says a word, but just twists my toes around the chair legs and
looks into my hat. Not that I'm any afraid of girls; but I wa'n't
feelin' so much to home there as I do in some places, and I didn't want
to make any break. But she wouldn't let it go at that.
"O-o-o-o!" says she again, and as I squints up at her I sees the reg-lar
cut-up looks just bubblin' out.
"G'wan!" says I. "I ain't no curiosity."
"Oh, it is Torchy then, isn't it?" says she.
"You don't think this is a wig I'm wearin', do you?" says I. That's what
I got to expect with hair like mine. The minute my description's given
out everybody's on.
She giggles and says that Brother Robert's been telling her about me.
"I'm Marjorie, you know," says she.
"Well," says I, lookin' her over careful, "you'll do."
I meant it. Mr. Robert's only fair sized; but old man Ellins is a whale,
and I was thinkin' of him when I said that Marjorie was up to
specifications. She seems to think I've handed out a lump of
butterscotch, though, and we gets real chatty.
I don't know what kind of fairy yarns Mr. Robert's been tearin' off at
home about me; but from the start she treats me like I was one of the
fam'ly. And Marjorie was just as nice as she was heavy. She didn't try
to carry any dog; but just blazes ahead and spiels out the talk. I get
next to the fact that she's just home from one of them swell boardin'
schools, where they pump French and music into young lady plutesses at a
dollar a minute, and throw in lessons on how to say "Home, Francois!" to
the chaffeur. This was some kind of a vacation Marjorie was havin', and
she was doin' her best to make every hour count.
Knowin' all that helped me to keep from bein' so much jarred by her next
move. It was a couple of days after, on a Wednesday, and we'd got real
well acquainted, when Marjorie spots me as I was headin' back for the
office after leavin' some things for the boss.
"Torchy," says she, "where's Robert? What was he doing when you left?"
"Give it up," says I. "And, anyway, I ain't supposed to know."
"I'll bet you do, though," says she. "Couldn't you guess?"
"If I did," says I, "I'd guess that he'd just made a run of ten or
twelve and was pushin' up the buttons on the string."
"I don't know what that means," says she.
"Well," says I, "it means that maybe he's playin' billiards at the
club."
"Oh, darn!" says she, real wicked.
It turns out that Brother Robert has said he'd take sister to the
matinee that afternoon, and the date has got clean by him. She wants to
go the worst way, too. Mother wasn't handy, Aunty May had the icebag on
her head, and there wasn't anyone else within reach. Accordin' to the
rules, there'd got to be some one.
"Torchy," says she, "I don't see why you couldn't take me, as well as
anyone else."
"Thanks," says I, "but I don't want to earn my release that way. I've
got 'em trained down to the office so they'll stand for a lot; but me
ringin' in a matinee durin' business hours would sure break the spell."
"Oh, pshaw!" says she. "I can fix that part of it," and off she goes, up
to see puppah.
If she'd come back and said the old man was havin' a fit on the floor, I
wouldn't have been any surprised. But, say, Marjorie must have a pull
accordin' to her weight; for inside of four minutes she comes skippin'
down the front stairs, makin' the gas globes rattle and jigglin' the
pictures on the wall.
"It's all right," says she. "Father says you're to telephone Mr. Piddie
that you won't be back, and then you're to see that I get to the theater
and home again without being kidnapped. I'll be ready in ten minutes."
It was a shame, though, that I missed seein' Piddie when he got the
word. All I could hear was a gasp, like he'd been butted just above the
belt, and then he hung up the receiver. I expect I'll send him to the
nerve repair shop some day.
But you should have seen me and Marjorie sittin' on the broadcloth
cushions and bein' carted down to the theater. I swelled up all I could;
but at that I wa'n't much more'n a dot on the landscape. There's times
when I feel real chesty and can hear my feet make a noise when I walk;
but this wa'n't one of 'em. And when it came to paradin' down the middle
row after the usher, with Marjorie puffin' behind, I felt like one of
them dinky little river tugs towin' a floatin' grain elevator. I was
lookin' for the house to let loose a "Ha-ha!" It didn't, though. They
expect most anything to drift into them afternoon shows.
"Say, Miss Ellins," says I, after she'd squeezed herself into her place,
pinned her feather lid up in front of her, and opened the choc'late
creams, "I've been in such a dream I didn't look at the outside boards
or get a programme. What's doin'--variety or a tumpy-tump show?"
"Why," says she, "this is Shakespeare's 'Romeo and Juliet.'"
"Z-z-z-zing!" says I. "Stung again! Who unloaded the tickets on you?"
What d'ye think, though? She'd picked this show out all by herself, put
up real money for it--and that with two Injun drammers runnin' right on
Broadway! Said she'd seen the same thing half a dozen times before, too.
Aw, say! I couldn't get next to any such batty move as that. And when I
thought how this was my first plunge into a two-dollar chair, it made me
sore.
"Wake me up when it's all over," says I, and settles back for a real
rest.
There's where I hung out the wrong number. That wa'n't any dope drammer
at all. Course, Shakespeare don't know how to ring in burnin' flat
houses, or mill explosions, or any real thrillers like that; but there's
somethin' doin' in his pieces. There was in this one, anyway. It was
quite some time before I got any glimmer of what it was all about; but
before the first act was over I was sittin' up, all right.
"What do you think of her?" says Marjorie.
"The one with the Maxine Elliott eyes and the gushy voice?" says I. "Oh,
I don't call her such a much; but if Romeo wants her as bad as he says
he does, I hope it won't be a case of 'My pa won't let me.' But, say,
what for did they kill off the only real live one they had, that Mr.
Cuteo? Say, he was all to the good, and it was a shame to have him
punctured so quick!"
The parts I liked, though, wa'n't the ones that Marjorie got herself
worked up over. It was the balcony scene she'd come for. When they got
to that she grips the seat in front and glues her eyes on them two that
was swappin' the long, lingerin' breakaway tackles, and every once in
awhile she heaves up a sigh like cuttin' out an airbrake.
After it was all over, and most everybody that counted had swallowed
knockout drops, Marjorie gives me a sidelight on what's been runnin'
through her head.
"I could do that," says she. "I just know I could!"
"Do what?" says I.
"Why, Juliet's part. I've been studying it for months, ever since our
class gave it at school. They wouldn't give me a part then; but just you
wait! I'll show them!"
"You're joshin'," says I.
Honest, I didn't think she meant it. She didn't say any more about it,
and all the way home she was as quiet as a bale of hay.
That was the last I see of Marjorie for near a week. Then, one afternoon
as I was goin' through Tinpan Alley on an errand, I sees the Ellins
carriage pull up, and out she comes.
Now, say, I knew in a minute that wa'n't any place for Marjorie. The
buildin' she goes into is one of them old five-story brownstones, where
they sell wigs in the basement, costumes on the first floor, have a
theatrical agency on the second, and give voice culture and such stuff
above. Among the other signs was one that read, "School of Dramatic Art,
Room 9, Fifth Floor."
"Chee!" says I. "You don't suppose Marjorie's got it that bad, do you?"
First off I thinks I'll chase along and forget I'd seen anything at all.
Then I thinks of what Mr. Robert would say if he knew, and I stops.
Sure, I hadn't been called to play any Buttinsky part; but somehow I
didn't feel right about stayin' out, so the first thing I knows I'm
trailin' up the stairs. There wa'n't any need to do the sleuth act after
Marjorie got started. Anyone on the floor could have heard it; for she
was spoutin' the Juliet lines like a carriage caller, and whenever she
made a rush to the footlights the floor beams creaked. It was enough to
drag a laugh out of a hearse driver. And guess what the guy was tellin'
her!
"Great!" says he. "You're almost as good as Mary Anderson was at her
best, and as for Marlowe, she can't touch you. Excellent, that last
speech! What fire, what expression, what talent! Why, young woman, all
you need is a Broadway production to sweep 'em off their feet! I'll
arrange it for you. It means money, of course; but after the first
cost--fame, nothing but fame!"
Now, how was that for a hot-air blast? Wouldn't that make a short ice
crop if you let it loose up the Hudson?
But it wa'n't what he said, so much as how he was sayin' it, that got me
int'rested. There's some voices you don't have to hear but once to
remember a lifetime, an this was one of that kind. It was one of these
husky baritones, like what does the coonsongs for the punky records they
put into the music boxes at the penny arcades. That was as near as I
could map it for a minute or so while I was tryin' to throw up the
picture of the man behind the voice. And, then it hits me--Professor
Booth McCallum!
Oh, skincho, what a front! Why, when I was on the Sunday editor's door
the professor used to show up reg'lar with some new scheme for winnin'
space. Talk about your self-acting press agents! He had the bunch shoved
to the curb. All he had to bank on was a ten-minute turn at a 14th-st.
continuous house, fillin' in between the trained pig and the strong
lady; but he wanted as much type set about himself as if he'd been Dave
Warfield.
When he couldn't get next to anybody else, he used to give me the
earache tellin' of the times when he played stock in one of Daly's road
comp'nies, and how he had to quit because John Drew was jealous of him.
Then he'd leave his stuff with me and I'd promise to sneak it into the
dramatic notes the first time I found the forms unlocked.
And to think of a hamfatter like McCallum, who's come back from Buffalo
on a brake beam so often that he always sleeps with one arm crooked
around the bedpost, havin' the nerve to call himself a school of
dramatic art! Course, I didn't think Marjorie was so easy as to fall for
a fake like that. She must be stringin' him.
But the minute I see her come out I knew she'd swallowed the hook. I'd
dropped back into the far end of the hall, where it was dark; but as she
walks under the skylight I sees the pleased look on her face, like she
was havin' a view of her lithographs on all the gold frames in the
subway. I waits until McCallum shuts himself in to throw bouquets at his
picture in the glass, and then I slips down just in time to catch
Marjorie as she's climbin' into the carriage.
"Is this the lady that's entered for the heavyweight Juliet
championship?" says I, tryin' to break the news to her gentle.
It shook her up a good deal, just the same. Her face gets the color of
an auction flag, and she jounces down on the seat in a way that makes
the springs flat out like bed slats.
"Why, Torchy!" says she. "Where did you come from, and what do you
mean?"
"Oh, I've taken out a butt-in license," says I. "I'm on, Miss Ellins. I
wa'n't invited to the rehearsal; but I was there."
"Listening outside?" says she.
"Uh-huh," says I.
"Oh, Torchy!" says she. "Did you hear how lovely the professor talked of
the way I did it?"
"About your havin' Julia Marlowe sewed in a sack? Sure thing," says I.
"But you mustn't tell anyone," says she.
"I wouldn't want the job," says I. "I can draw a diagram of the riot
there'll be when mommer and popper get the bulletin."
"I don't care," says Marjorie. "They never want me to do anything. It's
always, 'Oh, Marjorie, you're too big.' In summer I can't go bathing
because they say I'm a sight in a bathing suit, and in winter they won't
let me skate because they're afraid I'll break through. The boys won't
dance with me, and the girls shut me out of basketball. But Professor
McCallum has been perfectly dear. He said right away that I wasn't a bit
too stout to be an actress. I'm not, either! Why, I weigh less than two
hundred, with my jacket off; honest, I do! He liked my voice, too. And
this was only my third lesson. Anyway, I'd just love to play Juliet, and
I mean to do it!"
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