“What’s he doing there?”
“I don’t know. Maybe, he’s walking; maybe, he’s sitting in the ditch.”
Gee-gee stared, but she could see only a big shadowy form; she couldn’t make out Bob’s features. “The boob’s got bees,” she confided to Gid-up, and then more imperatively: “Are you going to get off your perch and let us in?”
“Beg to be excused,” muttered Bob. “Hack over there! Quick! Before some one else gets it.”
That started them away. The teeny-weeny steps encompassed, accelerando, the distance between Bob and his old friend, the hackman who had laughed at what he supposed were Bob’s eccentricities. The hackman got down and hoisted in the grips.
“Where to?” he said.
Bob listened expectantly. He feared what was coming.
“Mrs. Ralston’s,” answered Gee-gee haughtily. At the same time Gid-up threw away her gum. She would have to practise being without it.
Bob drearily watched the hack roll away. He refused another offer of a fare—this time from a bibulous individual who had supped, not wisely, but too well—and nearly got into a fight because the bibulous individual was persistent and discursive. Then Bob walked away; he didn’t think where he was going; he only wanted to get away from that chauffeur job. What would come of these new developments, he wondered? The temperamental young thing was “peeved,” and the ponies (not equine) had come galloping into the scene at the critical moment.
He tried to account for their presence. Undoubtedly it was a coup of Mrs. Dan’s. When she learned that dear Dan was bringing counter-influence to bear upon her witnesses, she arranged to remove them. She brought them right into her own camp. How? Gee-gee and Gid-up did a really clever and fairly refined musical and dancing act together. Mrs. Ralston frequently called upon professional talent to help her out in the entertaining line. It is true, Gee-gee and Gid-up were hardly “high enough up,” or well enough known, to commend themselves ordinarily to the good hostess in search of the best and most expensive artists, but then Mrs. Dan may have brought influence to bear upon Mrs. Ralston. And Mrs. Clarence may have seconded Mrs. Dan’s efforts. They may have said Gee-gee and Gid-up were dashing and different, and would be, at least, a change. They may have exaggerated the talents of the pair and pictured them as rising stars whom it would be a credit for Mrs. Ralston to discover. The hostess was extremely good-natured and liked to oblige her friends, or to comply with their requests.