CHAPTER VI.
JOHN HENRY GETS A SETBACK.
Dinner was nearly over that evening at Uncle Peter's villa in Ruraldene when suddenly the doorbell rang violently and two minutes later the servant announced that Mr. and Mrs. Cornelius McGowan were in the parlor.
First I decided to faint; then I changed my mind and tried to figure out which would be the most cruelly effective way of killing Bunch Jefferson.
Uncle Peter resented the unexpected arrival of these strangers, because he wanted to sit around and have the home folks tell him how sick he was.
"I'd like to know what Bunch Jefferson means by sending his relatives over to us on a Sunday evening," my wife's uncle snapped. "Why doesn't he worry old Bill Grey with them, eh? It's bad enough for me to have to sneeze my head off before my own people, but I'll be dod bimmed if I'm going to sit around the parlor and play solos on my bronchial tubes for the edification of strangers—no, sir!"
Uncle Peter sniffled off to his apartments, and Peaches said she'd try to entertain the visitors.
I concluded to help her some.
Skinski arose from the sofa and greeted us with his most elaborate bow.
Ma'moselle Dodo didn't Society very much.
She sat in the middle of the room and sang soft lullabys to a hold-over.
"Mr. Jefferson, my nephew," Skinski was saying, "insisted that we should hit the suburban trail and locate your shack. Here's a note from nephew Bunch for you."
Skinski handed me the note with a face as solemn as a monkey-wrench, and I read it:
CITY, Sunday P.M.
DEAR JOHN—I send herewith the two rosebuds. As a favor to your old pal please treat my beloved relatives with every consideration and make a fuss over them. You know you told them in the restaurant to come and see you. They want to make good and will stay a week if you insist.
With kindest regards,
BUNCH.
P. S. Don't drag Aunt Flora into any literary discussions—she might hand you something. Her favorite author is Pommery Sec., the chap who writes all those frothy books.
B.
"I wish you could have seen our place in the day-time," Peaches was saying to Skinski when I finished reading Bunch's get-back. "We think it's delightful out here. Did you, have much trouble in finding the place?"
"Nay, lady fair," Skinski replied; "no trouble at all. Nephew
Bunch came as far as the front door with us."
"What!" exclaimed the astonished Peaches.
"Yes," Skinski concluded; "he even saved us the hardship of ringing the bell. Oh! he's a thoughtful relative, Bunch is."
Clara J. looked at me, I looked at Skinski, he looked at Dodo, and she looked at the piano and said thoughtfully, "You betcher sweet!"
"The idea of Bunch coming to our front door and then rushing off again without seeing anybody," gasped Peaches, "what does it mean?"
"Alice lives only half a mile away and possibly Bunch was running behind his schedule," I suggested.
Just then Aunt Martha and Uncle Peter came in the parlor, and presently I grabbed a chance to say a few words to Skinski on the side:
"If my family circle ever gets wise that you and the Queen of Laughter over there are excess baggage it'll be to the cabbage patch for mine," I whispered.
"I'm on," Skinski whispered back. "Never a break from yours mysteriously, believe me. We wouldn't have come out at all if your partner hadn't insisted. He was so hot to have us butt in here and hand your heart a flutter that I just couldn't resist his pleading voice. It's a catchy jest, all right, and it's making me laugh. The way you two ducks josh each other is pitiful, but your secret is safe with me, Manager. I won't make no bad breaks, and Dodo won't ever open her talk-trap. She never talks off the stage. On the stage, say! she has the most elegant line of language that ever left the pipes. Leave it all to me, Manager, and I'll see that the McGowan family makes an awful hit with your fireside companions."
And Skinski kept his word.
He skilfully led Uncle Peter around to a discussion of sleight-of-hand, and two minutes later the Wonder Worker was dragging the coal shovel and the vinegar cruet out of the Mayor's inside pockets, to the intense mystification and delight of the old gentleman.
Uncle Peter was wearing a small diamond pin in his cravat and quite by accident the setting became loose and the stone dropped to the floor.
The old gentleman became very much concerned about it and we all started to look for it.
"Wait a minute!" said Skinski; "the spark fell in your left-hand vest pocket."
Uncle Peter looked at him blankly. "Impossible, why, there's nothing there but this box of quinine pills for my cold."
"Open it," said Skinski, and Uncle Peter did so.
"How many of those do you usually take in a day?" asked Skinski.
"Four," replied the puzzled old gentleman.
"Drop four of them in your left hand," ordered Skinski.
Uncle Peter's right hand trembled a bit, with the result that five of the quinines fell into his left hand.
"If you counted money the way you count pills you'd quit loser," chuckled Skinski. "Put four of those dizzy-wizzys back in the box."
The old gentleman did so.
"Now take your penknife and open the pill you didn't put back," commanded Skinski.
Uncle Peter obeyed instructions, and he nearly choked with astonishment when his diamond came to view.
It was a neat bit of work and Skinski became a solid success with
Uncle Peter.
"Did I understand you to say, Mr. McGowan, that you are a commission merchant in Springfield, Ohio?" the Mayor asked Skinski when the applause had subsided.
"I'm a used to was," Skinski corrected. "There was a time when I commished for fair, but the bogie man caught me and I lose all I had. Since then I've been trying to sell a gold mine I own out in the Blue Hills."
I tried to sidetrack Skinski and lead him away from the smoking room, but Uncle Peter insisted upon hearing more about those dreamland gold mines.
"I've got the documents and everything to prove that my claim is all the goods," Skinski rattled on. "All it needs is the capital to work it and it's a bonanza, sure—isn't it, Dodey—I mean Flo!"
"You betcher sweet!" she answered, whereupon Peaches and Aunt
Martha had a fit of coughing which lasted three minutes.
Then Uncle Peter coaxed Skinski off in a corner and there they hobnobbed for fifteen minutes while my wife and her aunt and I tried to get cheerful and chatty with "Aunt Flo," but we only succeeded in dragging from her four reluctant "You betcher sweets!"
Presently Uncle Peter and Skinski shook hands about something, and five minutes later Bunch's "relatives" took their departure to the accompaniment of much internal applause on my part.
"Mr. McGowan is a very accomplished gentleman," Uncle Peter decided; "but handicapped by a most depressing wife, most depressing. The Blue Hills, eh! the Blue Hills! Now, I wonder——"
Then he began to whistle softly and went into the dining-room.
Monday morning, bright and early, I met Bunch, and we buried the hatchet.
"I hope my beloved relatives didn't disgrace me while sojourning in your midst," he chuckled.
"Not at all," I answered airily. "Why, Uncle Cornelius was the hit of the season with Uncle Peter, though, of course, Aunt Flora didn't make good with that 'You betcher sweet!' monologue of hers. How could she? Even at that, she stands better with me than some conversational queens I know who get so busy with the gab they make me dizzy."
About noon Bunch and I ducked for New Rochelle to do a bit of advance work for our show.
Nobody knew us in the town, so we posed as Cameron & Connolly,
owners of the Great Hall of Illusions, and Managers of the World
Wonder and Magic King, Signor Beppo Petroskinski, and Ma'moselle
Dodo, the Oriental Queen of Mystery.
Pretty hot line of goods, eh?
We handed out the salve thing to all the paper lads and they were for us good and plenty.
After our publicity department had been in operation for about four hours we began to see the neighbors sit up and notice us, and we figured on about a $1,000 opening.
"The show will cost us about $80 a day," Bunch financed, with a strangle hold on a big green lead pencil. "Let's see! expenses say $500 a week at the outside. Now, let's strike a low average and say we play to $800 a night; that's $4,800 a week, and two matinees at, say $200, that's $5,000 on the week, eh, John! That gives us a clean profit of $1,500 apiece for the three of us—oh, aces!"
"It looks good to me. Bunch," I agreed, and then we went out and ordered some more three-sheets and a flock of snipe.
We spent the whole day in New Rochelle, and I reached home tired, but enthusiastic.
"John," said Clara J. when we were alone after dinner, "Uncle Peter says if you will let him have that $5,000 by Thursday or Friday he will invest it where the returns will be enormous!"
"Sure," I answered, and I could feel my ears getting pale; "I'll hand it over to him Thursday or Friday—if you think it's best not to invest it in that new house."
"Oh! I really do!" she hurried back. "You know Uncle Peter is so careful and so clever with his investments. He told me in strictest confidence only this morning that he would more than double your money in six months. Isn't that perfectly splendid!"
"Is that the wonderful secret you threatened me with?" I asked mournfully.
"Oh no!" she replied; "I can't tell you that till Wednesday evening—I promised not to."
I guess I didn't sleep very well that night, for I had dreams of Uncle Peter chasing me with a club all over a theatre and making me hop every seat in the orchestra, while Ma'moiselle Dodo sat perched on the balcony rail and screamed, "You betcher sweet!"