Humorous stories, American; New York (N.Y.) -- Fiction; Short stories, American
Sadie said all she expected of me was to help her forget it afterwards;
so we rolls along towards Wigghorn Arms. We'd got within a mile of
there when we meets a Greek peddler with a bunch of toy balloons on his
shoulder, and in less'n no time at all them crazy-quilt ponies was
tryin' to do back somersaults and other fool stunts. In the mix up one
of 'em rips a shoe almost off, and Mr. Coachman says he'll have to
chase back to a blacksmith shop and have it glued on.
"Oh, bother!" says Sadie. "Well, hurry up about it. We'll walk along
as far as Apawattuck Inn and wait there."
It wa'n't much of a walk. The Apawattuck's a place where they deal out
imitation shore dinners to trolley excursionists, and fusel oil high
balls to the bubble trade. The name sounds well enough, but that ain't
satisfyin' when you're real hungry. We were only killin' time, though,
so it didn't matter. We strolled up just as fearless as though their
clam chowders was fit to eat.
And that's what fetched us up against the Tortonis. They was well
placed, at a corner veranda table where no one could miss seein' 'em;
and, as they'd just finished a plate of chicken salad and a pint of
genuine San Jose claret, they was lookin' real comfortable and elegant.
Say, to see the droop eyed way they sized us up as we makes our entry,
you'd think they was so tired doin' that sort of thing that life was
hardly worth while. You'd never guess they'd been livin' in a hall bed
room on crackers and bologna ever since the season closed, and that
this was their first real feed of the summer, on the strength of just
havin' been booked for fifty performances. He was wearin' one of them
torrid suits you see in Max Blumstein's show window, with a rainbow
band on his straw pancake, and one of these flannel collar shirts that
you button under the chin with a brass safety pin. She was sportin' a
Peter Pan peekaboo that would have made Comstock gasp. And neither of
'em had seen a pay day for the last two months.
But it was done good, though. They had the tray jugglers standin'
around respectful, and the other guests wonderin' how two such real
House of Mirthers should happen to stray in where the best dishes on
the card wa'n't more'n sixty cents a double portion.
Course, I ain't never been real chummy with Tortoni--his boardin' house
name's Skinny Welch, you know--but I've seen him knockin' around the
Rialto off'n on for years; so, as I goes by to the next table, I lifts
my lid and says, "Hello, Skin. How goes it?" Say, wa'n't that
friendly enough? But what kind of a come back do I get? He just humps
his eyebrows, as much as to say, "How bold some of these common folks
is gettin' to be!" and then turns the other way. Sadie and I look at
each other and swap grins.
"What happened?" says she.
"I had a fifteen cent lump of Hygeia passed to me," says I. "And with
the ice trust still on top, I calls it extravagant."
"Who are the personages?" says she.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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