Sewell Ford

“ But say, Torchy, honest to goodness, is Broadway like this all the time now?"
"No," says I. "They're goin' to have a Y.W.C.A. convention here next week and I expect that'll stir things up quite a bit."
"Sorry," says Amby, "but I shan't be here."
"No?" says I.
"Pos-i-tively," says Ambrose. "'Chita and I will be on our way back by that time; back to good old Buenos Ayres, where there's more doing in a minute than happens the whole length of Broadway in a month. And listen, old son; when we open a bottle something besides the pop will come out of it." ”

“ I says to Ambrose.
"Swell!" says he. "I remember giving a little dinner for four there once when we opened—"
"Yes, I know," says I. "Here's the taxi."
Did look like kind of a jolly bunch, too, down there in the old dining-room—orchestra jabbin' away, couple of real Jap girls floatin' around with cigars and cigarettes, and all kinds of glasses on the tables. But you should have seen Amby's jaw drop when he grabs the wine list and starts to give an order.
"What the blazes is a grenadine cocktail or—or a pineapple punch?" he demands. ”

“ I—I suppose I'm fired, sir?"
"Eh?" says Old Hickory, scowlin' at him fierce. "Fired? No. Boys who have a dislike for lying to mother are too scarce. Besides, anyone who can beat a curb broker at his own game ought to be valuable to the Corrugated some day. Mr. Piddie, see that this young man is promoted as soon as there's an opening. And—er—I believe that is all, gentlemen."
As me and Piddie trickle out into the general offices Piddie whispers awed: "Wonderful man, Mr. Ellins! Wonderful!"
"How clever of you to find it out, Piddie," says I. "Did you get the hunch from Vincent's mother?" ”

“ When we piled off the express at Wilkes-Barre I charters a flivver taxi, and after a half hour's drive with a speed maniac who must have thought he was pilotin' a DeHaviland through the clouds we're landed in the middle of this forsaken, one horse dump, consistin' of a double row of punk tenement blocks and a sprinklin' of near-beer joints that was givin' their last gasp. I tried out three prominent citizens before I found one who savvied English.
"Sure!" says he. "Joe Bruzinski? He must be the mine boss by Judson's yet. First right hand turn you take and keep on the hill up." ”

“ You see, just because I've happened to pull a few winnin' acts where I had the breaks with me he's fond of playin' me up as a wizard performer in almost any line. Course, a good deal of it is just his josh, but somehow it ain't a habit I'm anxious to cure him of. Yet when he bats this domestic crisis up to me—this case of Stella Flynn—I did think it was pushin' the comedy a bit strong.
"No," says I, "I'm no miracle worker."
"Pooh, Torchy!" says Vee. "Who's saying you are? But at least you might try to suggest something. You think you're so clever at so many things, you know." ”

“ Robert, "but I fear I am too busy just now to——"
"Bah!" snorts Waddy. "You can attend to business any time—tomorrow, next week, next month. But the lovely Marcelle may be sailing within forty-eight hours."
"Well, what do you expect me to do?" demands Mr. Robert. "Want me to scuttle the steamer?"
"I want you to help me find Joe Bruzinski," says Waddy.
Mr. Robert throws up both hands and groans. "Here, Torchy," says, he, "take him away.72 Listen to his ravings, and if you can discover any sense——"
"But I tell you," insists Waddy, "that I must find Bruzinski at once." ”

“ There must be something queer about me."
"Not so awfully queer," says Vee. "You're lonesome, that's all."
"No more than I am, I'm sure," says Lucy Lee. "I wonder if there are many others?"
"Only two or three million more," says I. "That's why the cabarets and movie shows are so popular."
That starts us talking over what there was for folks to do in New York evenings, and while we can dope out quite a lot of different ways of passin' the time between 8 p. m. and midnight, nearly every one is so expensive that the average young couple can't afford to tackle 'em more'n once a week or so. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Yes, that was the program we followed. And without the aid of a guide we located this Umpty Umpt street. The number is about half way down the block that runs from upper Broadway to Riverside Drive. It's one of the narrow streets, you know, and the scenery is just as cheerful as a section of the Hudson River tube on a foggy night. Nothing but seven-story apartment buildings on either side; human hives, where the only thing that can be raised is the rent, which the landlord attends to every quarter. ”

“ As for Vee, she seemed to get her lines and business perfect from the start. Somehow young mothers do. She knew how to handle the youngster right off; how to hold him and what to say to him when he screwed up his face and made remarks to her that meant nothing at all to me. ”

“ Maybe you don't remember my tellin' you about Lucy Lee, the Virginia butterfly we took in over the week-end once and how I had to scratch around one Saturday to find some male dinner mate for her, and picked this hard-boiled egg from the bond room, one of these buddin' John D.'s who keeps an expense account and shudders every time he passes a millinery store or thinks what two orchestra seats and a double taxi fare would set him back. And, the female being the more expensive of the species, he has trained himself to be girl proof. ”

“ Honest, it's lucky the times she's decided to cross me off as one of her heirs don't show on me anywhere or I'd be notched up like a yardstick, and if I'd done any worryin' over these spells of hers I'd be an albino from the ears up. But when she starts castin' the cold eye at Richard Hemmingway I almost works up that guilty feelin' and wonders if maybe I ain't some to blame.
"You ain't overlookin, the fact, are you, Auntie," I suggests, "that he's about 100 per cent. boy? He's full of pep and jump and go, same as Buddy, and he's just naturally got to let it out." ”

“ You wouldn't call the young lady a heart-breaker exactly, for her mouth is cut kind of generous and her big eyes are wide set and serious; but you might guess that she was a decent sort and more or less sociable. In fact she's starin' across the ten feet or so of air space watchin' our maneuvers kind of interested and wistful.
"Who's your neighbor?" asks Vee.
"I'm sure I haven't an idea," says Lucy Lee. "I see her a lot, of course. She spends as much time in her kitchen as I do, even more. Usually she seems to be alone."
"Why don't you speak to her some time?" suggests Vee. ”

“ As a book agent he had quite a flow of language, but I doubt if he ever ran up against a real golf nut before. Inside of half a minute Dowd was off in high gear, tellin' him about that wonderful game he played with Old Hickory when he was under the control of the spirit of the great Sandy McQuade. At first Schott looks kind of dazed, like a kid who's been foolin' with a fire hydrant wrench and suddenly finds he's turned on the high pressure and can't turn it off. Three or four times he makes a stab at breakin' in and urgin' the fountain pen on Dowd, but he don't have any success. ”

“ Ellins. "You'll have a chance to start in fresh, with your own ideas."
"I—I beg pardon?" says Brink, starin' puzzled.
"You're good at play organizing, aren't you," goes on Old Hickory. "Well, here's an opportunity to spread yourself. One of the manufacturing units we control out in Ohio. Three thousand men, in a little one-horse town where there's nothing better to do in their spare time than go to cheap movies and listen to cheaper walking delegates. I guess they need you more than we do in the bond room. Organize 'em as much as you like. Show 'em how to play. ”

“ Robert.
"Minnie who?" demands Old Hickory.
"Why, from Minnehaha?" says I, and I can hear Piddie gasp at my pullin' anything like that on the president of the Corrugated Trust.
Old Hickory must have heard him, too, for he shrugs his shoulders and remarks to Piddie solemn: "Even brilliant intellects have their dull spots, you see. But wait. Presently this spasm of third rate comedy will pass and he will evolve some apt conclusion. He will tell us who sent me a Ha, ha! message on a golf ball, and why. Eh, Torchy?" ”

“ I heard him sketchin' some of 'em out to Old Hickory.
"The trouble with most young fellows," says he, "is that they're brought up too soft. Kick 'em out and let 'em rustle for themselves. That's what I had to do. Made a man of me. Now take Hartley. He's twenty-five and has had it easy all his life—city and country home, college, cars to drive, servants to wait on him, and all that. What's it done for him? Why, he has no more idea of how to make a dollar for himself than a chicken has of stirring up an omelette. ”

“ Course, our books are always in such shape that they're welcome to paw 'em over all they like. That's easy enough. But, still, there's no sense in lettin' 'em nose around too free. Might dig up something they could ask awkward questions about. So Old Hickory sees to it that them inspectors has a good time, which means a suite of rooms at the Plutoria for a week, with dinners and theatre parties every night. And now with this Volstead act being pushed so hard it's kind of inconvenient gettin' a crowd of men into the right frame of mind. ”

“ One knows that nothing whatever is going to happen."
"Ye-e-es," says I, draggy. "And yet, you can't always tell."
"Can't always tell what?" demands Auntie.
"About things not happenin' out here," says I.
"But, Torchy," says Vee, "what could possibly happen here; that is, like those things in town?"
I shrugs my shoulders and shakes my head.
"How absurd!" says Vee.
Auntie gives me one of them cold storage looks of hers. "I have usually noticed," says she, "that things do not happen of themselves. Usually some one is responsible for their happening." ”

“ Somewhat self-centered, Ellins. He's always counting his own score and seldom notices what others are making.
"Not until we had finished the 12th, which I won with an easy 3, did Staples, who was keeping score, seem to realize what had happened. 'Hello!' he calls to Rutter. 'They've got us beaten.' 'No,' says Rutter. 'Can't be possible!' 'But we are,'insists Staples. 'Thirteen200 points down and twelve to go. It's all over. Dowd, here, is playing like a crazy man.'
"And then the spell, or whatever it was, broke. I flubbed my drive, smothered my brassie shot, and heeled my third into the woods. ”

“ Your cook, is she?"
"No such luck," says I. "The boss's, or I wouldn't be so free with the expense money. And listen, Madame; there's another ten in it if the spirits do their job well."
"Grateful words, my son," says she. "But these high-class servants are hard to handle these days. They are no longer content to see the cards laid out and hear their past and future read. Even a simple trance sitting doesn't satisfy. They must hear bells rung, see ghostly hands waved, and some of them demand a materialized control. But they are so few! And my faithful Al Nekkir has left me." ”

“ She was Miss Mae Collins, of Kansas City, originally, and Zecchi was either the second or third of her hubbies, or hobbies, whichever you'd care to call 'em. A lively, flighty female, Countess Zecchi, who lives in a specially decorated suite at the Plutoria, sports a tiger cub as a pet, and indulges in other whims that get her more or less into the spotlight.
Her particular hunch on this occasion was that she must have her portrait done by a real Bohemian artist, and offhand she gives F. Hallam the job.
"You must paint me as Psyche," says she. "I've always wanted to be done as Psyche. ”

“ Plenty of roofs in sight, from five to ten stories lower than the Corrugated buildin', but no mashie maniac in evidence. And while they're scoutin' around I takes another squint at the ball.
"Say, Mr. Ellins," I calls out, "if it was238 shot from a roof how do you dope out this grass stain on it?"
"Eh?" says Old Hickory. "Grass stain! Must be an old one. No, by the green turban of Hafiz, it's perfectly fresh! Even a bit of moist earth where the fellow took a divot. Young man, that knocks out your roof practice theory. ”

“ 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.118
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?" ”