Humorous stories, American; New York (N.Y.) -- Fiction; Short stories, American
And then, as I was tryin' to give Sadie the get-away sign, we hears a
deep honk outside, and I sees the folks across the way stretchin' their
necks out. In a minute there's a scamperin' in the halls like a
stampede at a synagogue, and we hears the "Ah-h-hs!" coming up from
below. We all makes a rush for the front and rubbers out to see what's
happenin'. By climbin' on a chair and peekin' over the top of the lady
Kate's hair puffs, I catches a glimpse of a big yellow and black bodied
car, with a footman in a bearskin coat holdin' open the door.
"Oh-o-o-oh! look what's here?" squeals eight little Dillons in chorus.
You couldn't blame 'em, either, for the hat that was bein' squeezed out
through the door of the car was one of these Broadway thrillers, four
feet across, and covered with as many green ostrich feathers as you
could carry in a clothes basket. What was under the feather lid we
couldn't see. Followin' it out of the machine comes somethin' cute in
a butter colored overcoat and a brown derby. In a minute more we gets
the report that the procession is headed up the stairs, and by the time
we've grouped ourselves around the room with our mouths open, in they
floats.
In the lead, wearin' the oleo coat with yellow silk facin's, was a
squizzled up little squirt with rat eyes and a mean little face about
as thick as a slice of toast, and the same colour. His clothes,
though, is a pome in browns and yellows, from the champagne tinted No.
3 shoes to the tobacco coloured No. 5 hat, leavin' out the necktie,
which was a shade somewhere between a blue store front and a bottle of
purple ink.
Even if I hadn't seen the face, I could have guessed who it was, just
by the get-up. Course, there's been a good many noisy dressers
floatin' around the grill room district this winter, but there always
has to be one real scream in every crowd; and this was it.
"If it ain't Shrimp!" says I.
"Hello, Shorty!" says he, in that little squeak of his.
And at that some one swoops past me. There's a flapping of green silk
skirt, and Mother Dillon has given him the high tackle.
"Aloysius! My little 'Loyshy!" she squeals.
And say, you could have pushed me over with one finger. Here I'd been
hearin' for the last two seasons about this jock that had come up from
stable helper in a night, and how he'd been winning on nine out of
every ten mounts, and how all the big racing men was overbiddin' each
other to get him signed for their stables. Some of Pinckney's sportin'
friends had towed Shrimp into the Studio once or twice, and besides
that I'd read in the papers all about his giddy wardrobe, and his big
Swede valet, and the English chorus girl that had married him. But in
all this talk of Sadie's about the Dillon fam'ly, I'd never so much as
guessed that Aloysius, the stray, was one and the same as Shrimp Dillon.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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