You Should Worry Says John Henry Part 3

"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.

Then I went home and told friend wife about it. She approved eagerly because she felt that it might solve the servant problem.

Since we started housekeeping about eight months ago we've averaged two cooks a week. Tuesdays and Fridays are our days for changing chefs. The old cook leaves Monday evening and the new cook arrives Tuesday morning.

Then the new cook leaves on Thursday evening and the newest cook arrives on Friday, and so on, world without end.

Friend wife decided she could herself dip a few parsnips in boiling water without the aid of a European kitchen mechanician.

Vegetarians! What a great idea!

Now she could get out into the sunlight once in a while, instead of standing forever at the hall door as a perpetual reception committee to a frowsy-headed Slavonian exile demanding $35 per and nix on the was.h.i.+ng.

But it was Friday and our latest cook was at that moment annoying the gas range in the kitchen, so why not experiment and find out what merit there is in a vegetarian menu?

The ayes have it--send for the d.u.c.h.ess of Dishwater.

Enter the d.u.c.h.ess, so proud and haughty, with a rolling pin in one hand and a guide to the city of New York in the other. During her idle moments she studied the guide. Even now, and only three weeks from Ellis Island, she knew the city so well that she could go from one situation to another with her eyes closed.

"Ollie," said friend wife, "do you know how to cook vegetables in an appetizing manner?"

[Ill.u.s.tration]

"Of course," answered Ollie, her lips curling disdainfully.

Then I chipped in with, "Very well, Ollie; the members of this household are vegetarians, for the time being. All of us vegetarians, including the dog, so please govern yourself accordingly."

Ollie smiled in a broad Hungarian manner and whispered that vegetarianisms was where she lived.

She confided to us that she could cook vegetables so artistically that the palate would believe them to be _filet mignon_, with champagne sauce.

Then she shook the rolling pin at a picture of friend wife's grandfather, and started in to fool the Beef Trust and put all the butchers out of business.

Dinner time came and we were all expectancy.

The first course was potato soup. Filling but not fascinating.

The second course was potato chips, which we nibbled slightly while we looked eagerly at the butler's pantry.

The next course was French fried potatoes with some shoestring potatoes on the side, and I began to get nervous.

This was followed by a dish of German fried potatoes, some hash-browned potatoes and some potato _saute_, whereupon my appet.i.te got up and left the room.

The next course was plain boiled potatoes with the jackets on, and baked potatoes with the jackets open at the throat, and then some roasted potatoes with Bolero jackets.

I was beginning to see that a man must have in his veins the blood of martyrs and of heroes to be a vegetarian and at the same time I could feel myself fixing my fingers to choke Ollie.

The next course was a large plate of potato salad, and then I fainted.

When I got back Ollie was standing near the table with a sweet smile on each side of her face, waiting for the applause of those present.

"Have you anything else?" I inquired hungrily.

"Oh, yes!" said Ollie. "I have some potato pudding for dessert."

When I got through swearing Ollie was under the stove, my wife was under the table, the dog was under the bed, and I was under the influence of liquor.

I'm cured.

After this my digestive tract will have to fight a sirloin steak every time I get hungry.

Besides, I don't want to live as long as Methuselah. If I did I'd have to learn to tango some time in the 875 years to come--then I'd be just the same as everybody else in the world.

Can you get a flash of Methuselah at the age of 64 taking Tango lessons from Baldy Sloane up at Weisenfeffer's pedal parlors? And then having to survive for 850 years with the dance bug in his dome!

Close the door, Delia; there's a draft.

When Peaches recovered from the shock of my outburst over the potato pudding she said the only way I could square myself was to take her to the very latest up-to-datest hotel in New York for dinner.

That is some task if you live up town, believe me, because they open new hotels in New York now the same as they open oysters--by the dozen.

However, after stuffing my pockets with all my earthly possessions, we hiked forth and steered for the Builtfast--the very latest thing in expensive beaneries.

Directly we entered its polished portals we could see from the faces of the clerks and the clocks that a lot of money changed hands before the Builtfast finally became an a.s.sessment center.