"Why, Mish La Tour!" says Rudie. "Don't drink a dropsh! Never toush it."
And with that he give a sigh of disappointment in me which made the place smell like a bar-room!
"But of coush I'll shee if itsh down stairsh!" he says.
Well, there was no use in arguing with him, I could see that all right, all right, but I left him know I wasn't swallowing any such a poor alibi as his own word.
"All right, you second-hand shock absorber!" I says. "Maybe I can't jolt the truth out of you, but I will hand you one small piece of information before you take your reluctant departure. You'll find that whiskey or the cops will. And if they don't get me a judgment against you, one will come from heaven, that's a cinch, for you not only got the stuff, but you took it off a returning soldier which is a bigger crime than mere patriotic stealing would be," I says. "You wait and see what'll happen to you if you don't come across! We got a long score to settle, we have, and right always wins out in the end, and that's my middle name!"
Well, he went away very proud and hurt to think I would suspect him of such a crime, he being that kind of a drunk. Do you get me? Of course! Gosh! How I do hate to see a person in liquor; really, I think prohibition will be a good thing for all of us, and was myself only storing up a little, for exceptional reasons. And when a person begins talking about federal prohibition and their constitutional rights I can't help but wonder why they don't consider it in the physical as well as the political sense.
Well, anyways, it was a blow to lose that Old Home, and awful irritating on top of Maude. And then, while pulling myself into one of these new accident-policy-destroying narrow skirts which belongs with what is through courtesy called my new walking suit, the hall-girl brought the mail and Musette give it to me in the midst of my negligee and struggles and I stopped dead when I seen the first letter, for it was marked "Soldier's Mail" and only one which has some one expected home and at the same time welcome, can know how that particular mark thrills. Musette observed me register joy so she registers it too, and I tore open the envelope forgetting the skirt which had a death-grip on my knees, and opened up the page in Jim's dear handwriting.
Did you ever come to a time in your life where you had one trouble on top of another until it seemed like nothing more could possibly happen except maybe the end of the world, and then something still worse was pulled on you? You have! Well, this letter was pretty near the end of the world to me—at least a distinct postponement of anything which could with any truth be called living. For Jim wasn't coming back with the 70th after all! As I read his words in that dear boyish handwriting of his which he never had time to learn to write better, being like myself quicker with his feet than hands, my eyes filled with tears and I stumbled to the day-bed as good as I could with the skirt, and sat down. It seemed he had been put in charge of some special work in Paris and it might be six months before he'd get sent home! Six months! And me getting all ready for a second honeymoon inside of six weeks! And instead of being out in the wholesome country with me at Saratoga or Long Beach or Niagara Falls or some place, he would be in Paris! That was what I had to face and any woman will readily understand my feelings.
Believe you me, I didn't care for Maude or the Old Home or the contract or anything for over three-quarters of a hour. And I had to wash my face and powder my nose three times after I was finally dressed on account of breaking down again when just completed.