Torchy As A Pa
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Garvey stares at me sort of dazed. "And here I've been afraid to do
anything but walk around my place wearing gloves and carrying a cane;"
says he. "Afraid of doing something that wasn't genteel, or that would
get the neighbors talking. While these aristocrats do what they please.
They do, don't they!"
"That about states it," says I.
"Do--do you suppose I could do that, too?" he asks.
"Why not?" says I. "You don't stand to lose anything, do you, even if
they do chatter? If I was you I'd act natural and tell 'em to go hang."
"You would?" says he, still starin'.
"To the limit," says I. "What's the fun of livin' if you can't?"
"Say, young man," says Garvey, slappin' his knee. "That listens
sensible to me. Blamed if I don't. And I--I'm much obliged."
And after he's gone Vee comes down from upstairs and wants to know what
on earth I've been talking so long to that Mr. Garvey about.
"Why," says I, "I've been givin' him some wise dope on how to live among
plutes and be happy."
"Silly!" says Vee, rumplin' my red hair. "Do you know what I've made up
my mind to do some day this week? Have you take me for an evening call
on the Garveys."
"Gosh!" says I. "You're some little Polar explorer, ain't you?"
It was no idle threat of Vee's. A few nights later we got under way
right after dinner and drove over there. I expect we were about the
first outsiders to push the bell button since they moved in. But we'd no
sooner rung than Vee begins to hedge.
"Why, they must be giving a party!" says she. "Listen! There's an
orchestra playing."
"Uh-huh!" says I. "Sounds like a jazz band."
A minute later, though, when the butler opens the door, there's no sound
of music, and as we goes in we catches Garvey just strugglin' into his
dinner coat. He seems glad to see us, mighty glad. Says so. Tows us
right into the big drawin' room. But Mrs. Garvey ain't so enthusiastic.
She warms up about as much as a cold storage turkey.
You can't feaze Vee, though, when she starts in to be folksy. "I'm just
so sorry we've been so long getting over," says she. "And we came near
not coming in this time. Didn't we hear music a moment ago. You're not
having a dance or--or anything, are you?"
The Garveys look at each other sort of foolish for a second.
"Oh, no," says Mrs. Garvey. "Nothing of the sort. Perhaps some of the
servants----"
"Now, Ducky," breaks in Garvey, "let's not lay it on the servants."
And Mrs. Garvey turns the color of a fire hydrant clear up into her
permanent wave. "Very well, Tim," says she. "If you _will_ let everybody
know. I suppose it's bound to get out sooner or later, anyhow." And with
that she turns to me. "Anyway, you're the young man who put him up to
this nonsense. I hope you're satisfied."
"Me?" says I, doin' the gawp act.
"How delightfully mysterious!" says Vee. "What's it all about?"
"Yes, Garvey," says I. "What you been up to?"
"I'm being natural, that's all," says he.
"Natural!" snorts Mrs. Garvey. "Is that what you call it?"
"How does it break out?" says I.
"If you must know," says Mrs. Garvey, "he's making a fool of himself by
playing a snare drum."
"Honest?" says I, grinnin' at Garvey.
"Here it is," says he, draggin' out from under a davenport a perfectly
good drum.
"And you might as well exhibit the rest of the ridiculous things," says
Mrs. Garvey.
"Sure!" says Garvey, swingin' back a Japanese screen and disclosin' a
full trap outfit--base drum with cymbals, worked by a foot pedal,
xylophone blocks, triangle, and sand boards--all rigged up next to a
cabinet music machine.
"Well, well!" says I. "All you lack is a leader and Sophie Tucker to
screech and you could go on at Reisenwebers."
"Isn't it all perfectly fascinating?" says Vee, testin' the drum pedal.
"But it's such a common, ordinary thing to do," protests Mrs. Garvey.
"Drumming! Why, out in Kansas City I remember that the man who played
the traps in our Country Club orchestra worked daytimes as a plumber. He
was a poor plumber, at that."
"But he was a swell drummer," says Garvey. "I took lessons of him, on
the sly. You see, as a boy, the one big ambition in my life was to play
the snare drum. But I never had money enough to buy one. I couldn't have
found time to play it anyway. And in Kansas City I was too busy trying
to be a good sport. Here I've got more time than I know what to do with.
More money, too. So I've got the drum, and the rest. I'm here to say,
too, that knocking out an accompaniment to some of these new jazz
records is more fun than I've ever had all the rest of my life."
"I'm sure it must be," says Vee. "Do play once for us, Mr. Garvey.
Couldn't I come in on the piano? Let's try that 'Dardanella' thing?"
And say, inside of ten minutes they were at it so hard that you'd most
thought Arthur Pryor and his whole aggregation had cut loose. Then they
did some one-step pieces with lots of pep in 'em, and the way Garvey
could roll the sticks, and tinkle the triangle, and keep the cymbals and
base drum goin' with his foot was as good to watch as a jugglin' act,
even if he does leak a lot on the face when he gets through.
"You're some jazz artist, I'll say," says I.
"So will the neighbors, I'm afraid," says Mrs. Garvey. "That will sound
nice, won't it?"
"Oh, blow the neighbors!" says Garvey. "I'm going to do as I please from
now on; and it pleases me to do this."
"Then we might as well nail up the front door and eat in the kitchen,
like we used to," says she, sighin'.
But it don't work out that way for them. It was like this: Austin Gordon
was pullin' off one of his puppet shows and comes around to ask Vee
wouldn't she do some piano playin' for him between the acts and durin'
parts of the performance. He'd hoped to have a violinist, too, but the
party had backed out. So Vee tells him about Garvey's trap outfit, and
how clever he is at it, and suggests askin' him in.
"Why, certainly!" says Gordon.
So Garvey pulls his act before the flower and chivalry of Harbor Hills.
They went wild over it, too. And at the reception afterwards he was
introduced all round, patted on the back by the men, and taffied up by
the ladies. Even Mrs. Timothy Garvey, who'd been sittin' stiff and
purple-faced all the evenin' in a back seat was rung in for a little of
the glory.
"Say, Garvey," says Major Brooks Keating, "we must have you and Mrs.
Ballard play for us at our next Country Club dinner dance after the fool
musicians quit. Will you, eh? Not a member? Well, you ought to be. I'll
see that you're made one, right away."
I don't know of anyone who was more pleased at the way things had turned
out than Vee. "There, Torchy!" says she. "I've always said you were a
wonder at managing things."
"Why shouldn't I be?" says I, givin' her the side clinch. "Look at the
swell assistant I've got."
CHAPTER VIII
NICKY AND THE SETTING HEN
Honest, the first line I got on this party with the steady gray eyes and
the poker face was that he must be dead from the neck up. Or else he'd
gone into a trance and couldn't get out.
Nice lookin' young chap, too. Oh, say thirty or better. I don't know as
he'd qualify as a perfect male, but he has good lines and the kind of
profile that had most of the lady typists stretchin' their necks. But
there's no more expression on that map of his than there would be to a
bar of soap. Just a blank. And yet after a second glance you wondered.
You see, I'd happened to drift out into the general offices in time to
hear him ask Vincent, the fair-haired guardian of the brass gate, if Mr.
Robert is in. And when Vincent tells him he ain't he makes no move to
go, but stands there starin' straight through the wall out into
Broadway. Looks like he might be one of Mr. Robert's club friends, so I
steps up and asks if there's anything a perfectly good private sec. can
do for him. He wakes up enough to shake his head.
"Any message?" says I.
Another shake. "Then maybe you'll leave your card?" says I.
Yes, he's willin' to do that, and hands it over.
"Oh!" says I. "Why didn't you say so? Mr. Nickerson Wells, eh? Why,
you're the one who's going to handle that ore transportation deal for
the Corrugated, ain't you?"
"I was, but I'm not," says the chatterbox.
"Eh?" says I, gawpin'.
"Can't take it on," says he. "Tell Ellins, will you?"
"Not much!" says I. "Guess you'll have to hand that to him yourself, Mr.
Wells. He'll be here any minute. Right this way."
And a swell time I had keepin' him entertained in the private office for
half an hour. Not that he's restless or fidgety, but when you get a
party who only stares bored at a spot about ten feet behind the back of
your head and answers most of your questions by blinkin' his eyes, it
kind of gets on your nerves. Still, I couldn't let him get away. Why,
Mr. Robert had been prospectin' for months to find the right man for
that transportation muddle and when he finally got hold of this Nicky
Wells he goes around grinnin' for three days.
Seems Nicky had built up quite a rep. by some work he did over in France
on an engineerin' job. Ran some supply tracks where nobody thought they
could be laid, bridged a river in a night under fire, and pulled a lot
of stuff like that. I don't know just what. Anyway, they pinned all
sorts of medals on him for it, made him a colonel, and when it was all
over turned him loose as casual as any buck private. That's the army for
you. And the railroad people he'd been with before had been shifted
around so much that they'd forgotten all about him. He wasn't the kind
to tell 'em what a whale of a guy he was, and nobody else did it for
him. So there he was, floatin' around, when Mr. Robert happened to hear
of him.
"Must have got you in some lively spots, runnin' a right of way smack up
to the German lines?" I suggests.
"M-m-m-m!" says he, through his teeth.
"Wasn't it you laid the tracks that got up them big naval guns?" I asks.
"I may have helped," says he.
So I knew all about it, you see. Quite thrillin' if you had a high speed
imagination. And you can bet I was some relieved when Mr. Robert blew in
and took him off my hands. Must have been an hour later before he comes
out and I goes into the private office to find Mr. Robert with his chin
on his wishbone and his brow furrowed up.
"Well, I take it the one-syllable champion broke the sad news to you!"
says I.
"Yes, he wants to quit," says Mr. Robert.
"Means to devote all his time to breakin' the long distance no-speech
record, does he?" I asks.
"I'm sure I don't know what he means to do," says Mr. Robert, sighin'.
"Anyway, he seems determined not to go to work for the Corrugated. I did
discover one thing, though, Torchy; there's a girl mixed up in the
affair. She's thrown him over."
"I don't wonder," says I. "Probably he tried to get through a whole
evenin' with her on that yes-and-no stuff."
No, Mr. Robert says, it wasn't that. Not altogether. Nicky has done
something that he's ashamed of, something she'd heard about. He'd
renigged on takin' her to a dinner dance up in Boston a month or so
back. He'd been on hand all right, was right on the spot while she was
waitin' for him; but instead of callin' around with the taxi and the
orchids he'd slipped off to another town without sayin' a word. The
worst of it was that in this other place was the other woman, someone
he'd had an affair with before. A Reno widow, too.
"Think of that!" says I, "Nicky the Silent! Say, you can't always tell,
can you? What's his alibi?"
"That's the puzzling part of it," says Mr. Robert. "He hasn't the ghost
of an excuse, although he claims he didn't see the other woman, had
almost forgotten she lived there. But why he deserted his dinner partner
and went to this place he doesn't explain, except to say that he doesn't
know why he did it."
"Too fishy," says I. "Unless he can prove he was walkin' in his sleep."
"Just what I tell him," says Mr. Robert. "Anyway, he's taking it hard.
Says if he's no more responsible than that he couldn't undertake an
important piece of work. Besides, I believe he is very fond of the girl.
She's Betty Burke, by the way."
"Z-z-zing!" says I. "Some combination, Miss Betty Burke and Nickerson
Wells."
I'd seen her a few times at the Ellinses, and take it from me she's some
wild gazelle; you know, lots of curves and speed, but no control. No
matter where you put her she's the life of the party, Betty is. Chatter!
Say, she could make an afternoon tea at the Old Ladies' Home sound like
a Rotary Club luncheon, all by herself. Shoots over the clever stuff,
too. Oh, a reg'lar girl. About as much on Nicky Wells' type as a hummin'
bird is like a pelican.
"Only another instance," says Mr. Robert, "to show that the law of
opposites is still in good working condition. I've never known Betty to
be as much cut up over anything as she's been since she found out about
Nicky. Only we couldn't imagine what was the matter. She's not used to
being forgotten and I suppose she lost no time in telling Nicky where he
got off. She must have cared a lot for him. Perhaps she still does. The
silly things! If they could only make it up perhaps Nicky would sign
that contract and go to work."
"Looks like a case of Cupid throwin' a monkey wrench into the gears of
commerce, eh?" says I. "How do you size up Nicky's plea of not guilty?"
"Oh, if he says he didn't see the other woman, he didn't, that's all,"
says Mr. Robert. "But until he explains why he went where she was
when----"
"Maybe he would if he had a show," says I. "If you could plot out a
get-together session for 'em somehow----"
"Exactly!" says Mr. Robert, slappin' his knee. "Thank you, Torchy. It
shall be done. Get Mrs. Ellins on the long distance, will you?"
He's a quick performer, Mr. Robert, when he's got his program mapped
out. He don't hesitate to step on the pedal. Before quittin' time that
afternoon he's got it all fixed up.
"Tomorrow night," says he, "Nicky understands that we're having a dinner
party out at the house. Betty'll be there. You and Vee are to be the
party."
"A lot of help I'll be," says I. "But I expect I can fill a chair."
When you get a private sec. that can double in open face clothes,
though, you've picked a winner. That's why I figure so heavy on the
Corrugated pay roll. But say, when I finds myself planted next to
Bubbling Betty at the table I begins to suspect that I've been miscast
for the part.
She's some smart dresser, on and off, Betty is. Her idea of a perfectly
good dinner gown is to make it as simple as possible. All she needs is a
quart or so of glass beads and a little pink tulle and there she is.
There's more or less of her, too. And me thinkin' that Theda Bara stood
for the last word in bare. I hadn't seen Betty costumed for the dinin'
room then. And I expect the blush roses in the flower bowl had nothing
on my ears when it came to a vivid color scheme.
By that time, of course, she and Nicky had recovered from the shock of
findin' themselves with their feet under the same table and they've
settled down to bein' insultin'ly polite to each other. It's "Mr. Wells"
and "Miss Burke" with them, Nicky with his eyes in his plate and Betty
throwin' him frigid glances that should have chilled his soup. And the
next thing I know she's turned to me and is cuttin' loose with her whole
bag of tricks. Talk about bein' vamped! Say, inside of three minutes
there she had me dizzy in the head. With them sparklin', roly-boly eyes
of hers so near I didn't know whether I was butterin' a roll or
spreadin' it on my thumb.
"Do you know," says she, "I simply adore red hair--your kind."
"Maybe that's why I picked out this particular shade," says I.
"Tchk!" says she, tappin' me on the arm. "Tell me, how do you get it to
wave so cunningly in front?"
"Don't give it away," says I, "but I do demonstratin' at a male beauty
parlor."
This seems to tickle Betty so much that she has to lean over and chuckle
on my shoulder. "Bob calls you Torchy, doesn't he?" she goes on. "I'm
going to, too."
"Well, I don't see how I can stop you," says I.
"What do you think of this new near-beer?" she demands.
"Why," says I, "it strikes me the bird who named it was a poor judge of
distance." Which, almost causes Betty to swallow an olive pit.
"You're simply delightful!" says she. "Why haven't we met before?"
"Maybe they didn't think it was safe," says I. "They might be right, at
that."
"Naughty, naughty!" says she. "But go on. Tell me a funny story while
the fish is being served."
"I'd do better servin' the fish," says I.
"Pooh!" says she. "I don't believe it. Come!"
"How do you know I'm primed?" says I.
"I can tell by your eyes," says she. "There's a twinkle in them."
"S-s-s-sh!" says I. "Belladonna. Besides, I always forget the good ones
I read in the comic section."
"Please!" insists Betty. "Every one else is being so stupid. And you're
supposed to entertain me, you know."
"Well," says I, "I did hear kind of a rich one while I was waitin' at
the club for Mr. Robert today only I don't know as----"
"Listen, everybody," announces Betty vivacious. "Torchy is going to tell
a story."
Course, that gets me pinked up like the candle shades and I shakes my
head vigorous.
"Hear, hear!" says Mr. Robert.
"Oh, do!" adds Mrs. Ellins.
As for Vee, she looks across at me doubtful. "I hope it isn't that one
about a Mr. Cohen who played poker all night," says she.
"Wrong guess," says I. "It's one I overheard at Mr. Robert's club while
a bunch of young sports was comparin' notes on settin' hens."
"How do you mean, setting hens?" asks Mr. Robert.
"It's the favorite indoor sport up in New England now, I understand,"
says I. "It's the pie-belt way of taking the sting out of the
prohibition amendment. You know, building something with a kick to it. I
didn't get the details, but they use corn-meal, sugar, water, raisins
and the good old yeast cake, and let it set in a cask! for twenty-one
days. Nearly everybody up there has a hen on, I judge, or one just
coming off."
"Oh, I see!" says Mr. Robert. "And had any of the young men succeeded;
that is, in producing something with--er--a kick to it?"
"Accordin' to their tale, they had," says I. "Seems they tried it out
in Boston after the Harvard-Yale game. A bunch got together in some
hotel room and opened a jug one of 'em had brought along in case Harvard
should win, and after that 10-3 score--well, I expect they'd have
celebrated on something, even if it was no more than lemon extract or
Jamaica ginger."
"How about that, Nicky?" asks Mr. Robert, who's a Yale man.
"Quite possible," says Nicky, who for the first time seems to have his
ears pricked up. "What then?"
"Well," says I, "there was one Harvard guy who wasn't much used to
hitting anything of the sort, but he was so much cheered up over seeing
his team win that he let 'em lead him to it. They say he shut his eyes
and let four fingers in a water glass trickle down without stopping to
taste it. From then on he was a different man. He forgot all about being
a Delta Kappa, whatever that is; forgot that he had an aunt who still
lived on Beacon Street; forgot most everything except that the birds
were singin' 'Johnny Harvard' and that Casey was a great man. He climbed
on a table and insisted on makin' a speech about it. You know how that
home brew stuff works sometimes?"
"I've been told that it has a certain potency," says Mr. Robert, winkin'
at Nicky.
"Anyway," I goes on, seein' that Nicky was still interested, "it seems
to tie his tongue loose. He gets eloquent about the poor old Elis who
had to stand around and watch the snake dance without lettin' out a yip.
Then he has a bright idea, which he proceeds to state. Maybe they don't
know anything about the glorious product of the settin' hen down in New
Haven. And who needs it more at such a time as this? Ought to have some
of 'em up there and lighten their load of gloom. Act of charity. Gotta
be done. If nobody else'll do it, he will. Go out into highways and
byways.
"And he does. Half an hour later he shows up at the home brew
headquarters with an Eli that he's captured on the way to the South
station. He's a solemn-faced, dignified party who don't seem to catch
what it's all about and rather balks when he sees the bunch. But he's
dragged in and introduced as Chester Beal, the Hittite."
"I beg pardon?" asks Nicky.
"I'm only giving you what I heard," says I. "Chester Beal might have
been his right name, or it might not, and the Hittite part was some of
his josh, I take it. Anyway, Chester was dealt a generous shot from the
jug, followin' which he was one of 'em. Him and the Harvard guy got real
chummy, and the oftener they sampled the home brew the more they thought
of each other. They discovered they'd both served in the same division
on the other side and had spent last Thanksgiving only a few miles from
each other. It was real touchin'. When last seen they was driftin' up
Tremont Street arm in arm singin' 'Madelon,' 'Boola-Boola,'
'Harvardiana' and other appropriate melodies."
"Just like the good old days, eh, Nicky?" suggests Mr. Robert.
But Nicky only shakes his head. "You say they were not seen again?" he
demands.
"Not until about 1:30 a. m.," says I, "when they shows up in front of
the Harvard Club on Commonwealth Avenue. One of the original bunch spots
the pair and listens in. The Harvard man is as eloquent as ever. He's
still going strong. But Chester, the Hittite, looks bored and weary.
'Oh, shut up!' says he. But the other one can't be choked off that way.
He just starts in again. So Chester leads him out to the curb and hails
a taxi driver. 'Take him away,' says Chester. 'He's been talking to me
for hours and hours. Take him away.' 'Yes, sir,'says the driver. 'Where
to, sir,' 'Oh, anywhere,' says Chester. 'Take him to--to Worcester.'
'Right,' says the driver, loadin' in his fare."
"But--but of course he didn't really take him all that distance?" puts
in Betty.
"Uh-huh!" says I. "That's what I thought was so rich. And about 10:30
next mornin' a certain party wakes up in a strange room in a strange
town. He's got a head on him like an observation balloon and a tongue
that feels like a pussycat's back. And when he finally gets down to the
desk he asks the clerk where he is. 'Bancroft House, Worcester, sir,'
says the clerk. 'How odd!' says he. 'But--er--? what is this charge of
$16.85 on my bill?' 'Taxi fare from Boston,' says the clerk. And they
say he paid up like a good sport."
"In such a case," says Mr. Robert "one does."
"Worcester!" says Betty. "That's queer."
"The rough part of it was," I goes on, "that he was due to attend a big
affair in Boston the night before, sort of a reunion of officers who'd
been in the army of occupation--banquet and dance afterward--I think
they call it the Society of the Rhine."
"What!" exclaims Betty.
"Oh, I say!" gasps Nicky. Then they look at each other queer.
I could see that I'd made some kind of a break but I couldn't figure out
just what it was. "Anyway," says I, "he didn't get there. He got to
Worcester instead. Course, though, you don't have to believe all you
hear at a club."
"If only one could," says Betty.
And it wasn't until after dinner that I got a slant on this remark of
hers.
"Torchy," says she, "where is Mr. Wells?"
"Why," says I, "I saw him drift out on the terrace a minute ago."
"Alone?" says she.
I nods.
"Then take me out to him, will you?" she asks.
"Sure thing," says I.
And she puts it up to him straight when we get him cornered. "Was that
the real reason why you were in Worcester?" she demands.
"I'm sorry," says he, hangin' his head, "but it must have been."
"Then, why didn't you say so, you silly boy!" she asks.
"How could I, Betty?" says he. "You see, I hadn't heard the rest of the
story until just now."
"Oh, Nicky!" says she.
And the next thing I knew they'd gone to a clinch, which I takes as my
cue to slide back into the house. Half an hour later they shows up
smilin' and tells us all about it.
As we're leavin' for home Mr. Robert gets me one side and pats me on the
back. "I say, Torchy," says he, "as a raconteur you're a great success.
It worked. Nicky will sign up tomorrow."
"Good!" says I. "Only send him where they ain't got the settin' hen
habit and the taxi drivers ain't so willin' to take a chance."
CHAPTER IX
BRINK DOES A SIDESLIP
Mostly it was a case of Old Hickory runnin' wild on the main track and
Brink Hollis being in the way. What we really ought to have in the
Corrugated general offices is one of these 'quake detectors, same as
they have in Washington to register distant volcano antics, so all hands
could tell by a glance at the dial what was coming and prepare to stand
by for rough weather.
For you never can tell just when old Hickory Ellins is going to cut
loose. Course, being on the inside, with my desk right next to the door
of the private office, I can generally forecast an eruption an hour or
so before it takes place. But it's apt to catch the rest of the force
with their hands down and their mouths open.
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