Shorty McCabe Part 9

"Shorty, you remember that old castle of ours?"

"You don't think I've been struck with softenin' of the brain, do you?"

says I. "That'll be the last thing I'll forget. What's happened to it?"

"It's mine," says he.

"G'way!" says I. "They couldn't force you to take it."

"I've bought it," says he. "I cabled over an offer, and the Count has accepted."

"Goin' to blow it up?" I says.

"I hope," says he, gettin' a little red under the eyes, "to spend my honeymoon there; that is, if the Princess Padova--"

"The who?" says I. "Oh, you mean the lady brigandess?"

"If the Princess Padova," says he, keepin' straight on, "doesn't prefer some other place. We sail to-morrow."

"Then--then--" says I, catchin' my breath, "you've done it?"

It was silly askin' him. Why, it stuck out all over his face. I don't know what I said next, but it didn't matter much. He was too far up in the air to hear anything in particular. Just as we shakes hands though, he pa.s.ses me an envelope and says:

"Shorty, I wish you'd take this down to my lawyer next Monday morning.

It's a little matter I haven't had time to fix up."

"Sure," says I. "I'll tie up any loose ends. And don't forget to give my regards to old Vincenzo."

Say, I s'pose I'd ought to told him what a mark he'd made of himself, takin' a chance with any such wild-rose runnin' mate as that; but somehow it seemed all right, for him. I couldn't get a view of the Boss mated up with any silk-lined, city-broke girl. I guess Miss Padova was about his style, after all; and I reckon it would take a man like him to manage one of her high flyin' kind. Anyway, I'm glad he got her.

I was sorry to lose the Boss, though. "It's me to go back to trainin'

four flush comers again," says I, when he'd gone. And say, I wa'n't feelin' gay over the prospect. Some of these mitt artists is nice, decent boys, but then again you'll find others that you can't take much pride in.

You see, I'd been knockin' around for months with someone who was clean all the way through--washed clean, spoke clean, thought clean--and now there was no tellin' what kind of a push I'd fall in with. You've had a peek at trainin' camps, eh? Them rubbers is apt to be a scousy lot. It was the goin' back to eatin' with sword swallowers that came hardest, though. I can stand for a good many things, but when I sees a guy loadin' up his knife for the shovel act, I rubs him off my list.

I was goin' over all this, on the way down to the office of that lawyer the Boss wanted me to see. I'd met him a few times, so when I sends in my name there wa'n't any waitin' around in the ante-room with the office boy.

"Bring Mr. McCabe right in," says he. "Mister McCabe," mind you. He's one of those wiry, brisk little chaps, with x-ray eyes, and a voice like a telephone bell. "Ah, yes!" says he, takin' the letter. "I know about that--some stock I was to turn into cash. Franklin!" he sings out.

Franklin comes in like he'd come through a tube. "Bring me Mr. McCabe's bank book."

"Bank book!" says I. "I guess you've dipped into the wrong letter file.

I don't sport any bank book."

"Perhaps you didn't yesterday," says he, "but to-day you do."

And say, what do you think the Boss had gone and done? Opened an account in my name, and fatted it up good and sweet, as a starter.

"But he didn't owe me anything like that," says I.

"A difference of opinion, Mr. McCabe," says the lawyer. "'For services rendered,' that was the way his instructions to me read. I sold the stock and made the deposit to your credit. That's all there is to it.

Good day. Call again."

And the next thing I knew I was goin' down in the elevator with me fist grippin' that bank book like it was a life raft. First off I has to go and have a look at the outside of that bank. That's right, snicker. But say, I've had as much dough as that before, only I'd always carried it in a bundle. There's a lot of difference. Every tinhorn sport has his bundle, you know; but it's only your real gent that can flash a check book. I could feel my chest swellin' by the minute.

"Shorty," says I, "you've broke into a new cla.s.s. Now you've got to make good."

And how do you s'pose I begins? Why, I hires one of these open faced cabs by the hour, and tells the chap up top to take me up Fifth ave. I wanted to think, and there ain't any better place for brain exercise than leanin' back in a hansom, squintin' out over the foldin' doors. I'd got pretty near up to the Plaza before I hooks what I was fis.h.i.+n'

after. It came sudden, too.

It was like this: Whilst I was sparrin' secretary to the Boss I'd met up with a lot of his crowd, and some of 'em had tried the gloves on with me. I didn't go in for sluggin' their blocks off, just to show 'em I could do it. There's no sense in that, unless you're out for a purse.

Sparrin' for points is the best kind of fun, and for an all 'round tonic it can't be beat. They liked the way I handled 'em, and they used to say they wished they could take a dose of that medicine reg'lar, same as the Boss did.

"And that's just the chance I'm goin' to give 'em," says I.

With that I heads back for Forty-second street, picks out a vacant floor I'd noticed, and signs a lease. Inside of a week I has the place fixed up with mat, chest weights, and such; lays in a stock of soft gloves, buys a medicine ball or two, gets me some cards printed, and has me name done in gold letters on the ground gla.s.s. Boxin' instructor? Not on your accident policy. Nor private gym., either.

PROFESSOR M'CABE'S STUDIO OF PHYSICAL CULTURE

That's the way the door plate reads. It may be a bluff, but it scares off the cheap muggs that would hang around a boxin' school. They don't know what it means, any more'n if it was Chinese.

Well, when I gets things all in shape I gives out word to some of those gents, and before I'd been runnin' a fortnight I'd booked business enough to see that I'd struck it right. What's the use monkeyin' with comers when you can take on men that's made their pile? They're a high-toned lot, too, and they don't care what it costs, so long as I keeps 'em in shape. Some of 'em don't put on the mitts at all, but most of 'em works up to that.

Now there was Mr. Gordon. Sure, Pyramid Gordon. But I'll have to tell you about the game he stacks me up against. I'd had him as a reg'lar for about a month--Mondays, Wednesdays and Sat.u.r.days, from five to six--and he was just gettin' so he knew what real livin' was, when somethin'

breaks loose down on the street that makes him forget everything but the figures on the tape. So he quits trainin'. About ten days later he drops in one afternoon, with fur on his tongue, and his eyes lookin' like a couple of cold fried eggs.

"Are you comin' or goin', Mr. Gordon?" says I.

"Where, Shorty?" says he.

"Hospital," says I.

He grinned a little, the kind of grin a feller wears when he's bein'

helped to his corner, after the count.

"I know," says he; "but when you've been sitting for two weeks on a volcano, Shorty, wondering whether it would blow you up, or open and let you fall in, you're apt to forget your liver."

"It ain't apt to forget you, though," says I. "Shall we have a little session right now?"

And then he springs his proposition. He'd got to go to Was.h.i.+ngton and back inside of the next two breakfasts, and he wanted me to go along, some on account of his liver, but mostly so's he could forget that he was still on the lid. His private car was. .h.i.tched to the tail of the Flyer, and he had just forty-five minutes to get aboard. Would I come?

"If I'm wiped out by the time we get back," says he, "I'll make you a preferred creditor."

"I'll take chances on that," says I.

They did do the trick to Pyramid once, you know; but they'd never got him right since. They had him worried some this time, though. You could tell that by the way he smiled at the wrong cues, and combed his deacon whiskers with his fingers. They're the only deacon whiskers I ever had in the Studio. Used to make me nervous when I hit 'em, for fear I'd drive 'em in. But he's dead game, Pyramid is, whether he's stoppin'

mitts, or buckin' the Upright Oil push. So I grabs a few things off the wall, and we pikes for the ferry.

"Where's the other parties?" says I, when I'd sized up the inside of the Adeline. There was room enough for a minstrel troupe.