Humorous stories, American; New York (N.Y.) -- Fiction; Short stories, American
I hears the Bishop groan and flop on a seat behind me. Honest, it was
straight! Dick and Jimmy was a couple of discards, old Grubby was
another, and inside of a minute blamed if she hadn't mentioned a
fourth, that was planted somewhere on the other side. Course, for a
convention there wouldn't have been a straight quorum; but there was
enough answerin' roll call to make it pass for a reunion, all right.
And it was a peach while it lasted. The pair of has-beens didn't have
long to stay, one havin' to get back to Chicago and the other bein'
billed to start on a yachtin' trip. They'd just run over to say by-by;
and tell how they was plannin' an annual dinner, with the judges and
divorce lawyers for guests. Yes, yes, they was a jolly couple, them
two! All the Bishop could do was lay back and fan himself as he
listens, once in awhile whisperin' to himself, "My, my!" As for Ferdy,
he looked like he'd been hypnotised and was waitin' to be woke up.
The pair was sayin' good-bye for the third and last time, when in
rushes a high strung, nervous young feller with a pencil behind his ear
and a pad in his hand.
"Well, Larry, what is it now?" snaps out Madam Brooklini, doin' the
lightnin' change act with her voice. "I am engaged, you see."
"Can't help it," says Larry. "Got fourteen reporters and eight
snapshot men waiting to do the sailing story for the morning editions.
Shall I bring 'em up?"
"But I am entertaining two of my ex-husbands," says the lady, "and----"
"Great!" says Larry. "We'll put 'em in the group. Who's the other?"
"Oh, that's only Ferdy," says she. "I haven't married him yet."
"Bully!" says Larry. "We can get half a column of space out of him
alone. He goes in the pictures too. We'll label him 'Next,' or
'Number Five Elect,' or something like that. Line 'em up outside, will
you?"
"Oh, pshaw!" says Madam Brooklini. "What a nuisance these press agents
are! But Larry is so enterprising. Come, we'll make a splendid group,
the four of us. Come, Ferdy."
"Reporters!" Ferdy lets it come out of him kind of hoarse and husky,
like he'd just seen a ghost.
But I knew the view that he was gettin'; his name in the headlines, his
picture on the front page, and all the chappies at the club and the
whole Newport crowd chucklin' and nudgin' each other over the story of
how he was taggin' around after an op'ra singer that had a syndicate of
second hand husbands.
"No, no, no!" says he. It was the only time I ever heard Ferdy come
anywhere near a yell, and I wouldn't have believed he could have done
it if I hadn't had my eyes on him as he jumps clear of the corner,
makes a flyin' break through the bunch, and streaks it down the deck
for the forward companionway.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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