"Anyway," says Benny, "it ithn't Bill I'm marrying. I don't give a cuth
for him. I'd juth ath thoon marry Mildred if her whole doothed family
wath in jail."
"That settles it, Benny," says Mr. Robert. "If that's the way you feel.
I'll stand by you."
Maybe Aunt Laura wa'n't wild, though, when she finds she can't block the
game. I was handlin' the office switchboard the afternoon she calls Mr.
Robert up to give him the rake-over, and the old girl warms up the wires
until she near has the lightnin' arresters out of business. It comes out
too that she's sore on Benny's bein' married because she sees the finish
of her steady job as boss of the house on the avenue. She can't queer
Mr. Robert though.
"Benny seems to have a clear idea as to just whom he wants to marry,"
says he, "and that's enough for me. If Miss Morgan has a brother in the
penitentiary, and Benny doesn't mind, I'm sure I don't. I've known lots
of fellows who wished their brothers-in-law were in the same place.
Anyway, he'll not trouble us by showing up at the wedding, even if she
did send him an invitation."
That's the kind of a sport Mr. Robert is. He's dead game, and when
you've got him for a friend you'll know who to send for if you should
ever get run in. So we goes along gettin' ready for the weddin' same's
if nothin's happened. It's billed for a church hitch; but there ain't
been any advertisin' done, so they don't expect any crowd. Look when
they has it too--right at lunch time!
"Chee!" says I to Mr. Robert, who's running the thing, "you must be
playin' for a frost. Now if you'd hire one of them Third-ave. halls and
band, you might give 'em somethin' of a send-off; but it'll be hard to
tell this racket from one of these noonday prayin' bees they has down in
the wholesale crock'ry district."
Mr. Robert says that Benny bein' so bashful, and Mildred not knowin'
many folks on East, they wanted to make it as quiet as they could.
"It'll have a pantomime show beat to death on quiet," says I. "Put me on
the door, will you, so's I can keep awake joshin' the sidewalk cop?"
Mr. Robert says he thinks that'll be a good place for me, as they ain't
goin' to let anyone in without a ticket and I'm used to shuntin' cranks.
But say, I'm so rattled when I get inside of that suit they sent around
for me to wear that I don't know whether I'm goin' up or comin' down.
Honest, that coat made me feel like I was wearin' a dress. I didn't mind
the striped pants,--they was all to the good,--but them skirts flappin'
around my knees was the limit.
Think I had the face to spring that outfit on the folks at the boardin'
house? Never in a year! Why, some of them Lizzie girls rangin' the block
would have guyed me out of the borough. I just folds the thing inside
out over my arm, like it was some one's overcoat I was takin' around to
have a button shifted, and when I gets to the church I slides up into
the gallery and makes a quick change. Mr. Robert looks me over and says
no one would guess it was me.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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