Odd Numbers: Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabeFord, Sewell
General
Odd Numbers: Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe
Ford, Sewell
Humorous stories, American; New York (N.Y.) -- Fiction
Does he? Say, for the next couple of hours I had the time of my life
watchin' the maneuvers. First off I expect they must have thought him
kind of cute, same as I did; but it wa'n't long before they begun tryin'
to lose him. If they shifted positions once, they did a dozen times, from
the summerhouse to the rocks, then up to the veranda and back again, with
Harold Burbank taggin' right along and spoutin' his best. He tackles
first one pair, and then the other, until fin'lly they all retreats into
the house. Harold hesitates a little about walkin' through the door after
'em, until I waves my hand cordial.
"Make yourself right to home, Harold," says I. "Keep 'em cheered up."
Not until he drives the girls off to their rooms and has Bobbie and
Charles glarin' murderous at him, does he quit the sport and retire for
supper.
"Come over again this evenin'," says I. "You're makin' a hit."
Harold thanks me some more and says he will. He's a great one to keep his
word too. Bobbie and Marjorie have hardly snuggled up in one end of a
hammock to watch the moon do things to the wavelets before here is
Harold, with a fresh line of talk that he's bent on deliverin' while the
mood is on.
Gettin' no answer from his audience didn't bother him a bit; for passin'
out the monologue is his strong suit. Not to seem partial, he trails down
Charlie and Helen and converses with them too. Course, all this occurrin'
outside, I couldn't watch everything that took place; but I sits in the
lib'ry with Sadie a lot more contented than I'd been before that week.
And when Marjorie drifts in alone, along about nine o'clock, and goes to
drummin' on the piano, I smiles. Ten minutes later Helen appears too; and
it's only when neither of the boys show up that I begins wonderin'. I
asks no questions; but goes out on a scoutin' trip. There's nobody on the
veranda at all. Down by the waterfront, though, I could hear voices, and
I goes sleuthin' in that direction.
"Yes," I could hear Harold sayin' as I got most to the boat landin', "the
phosphorescence that ignorant sailors attribute to electricity in the air
is really a minute marine animal which----"
I expect I'll never know the rest; for just then there's a break in the
lecture.
"One, two, three--now!" comes from Bobbie, and before Harold can let out
a single squeal they've grabbed him firm and secure, one by the heels and
the other by the collar, and they've begun sousin' him up and down off
the edge of the float. It was high tide too.
"Uggle-guggle! Wow!" remarks Harold between splashes.
"That's right," observes Charles through, his teeth. "Swallow a lot of
it, you windbag! It'll do you good."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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