“All right,” says I. “But it’s all up to her, don’t you forget.”
With that I chases down to Madison Square, catches Snick just startin’ out with a load of neck stretchers, gives him the number, and tells him to show up prompt at nine-thirty. And I wish you could have seen the joy that spread over his homely face. Even the store eye seemed to be sparklin’ brighter’n ever.
Was he there? Why, as we goes in to dinner at eight o’clock, I catches sight of him and Hermy holdin’ down chairs in the reception room. Well, you know how they pull off them affairs. After they’ve stowed away about eleventeen courses, from grapefruit and sherry to demitasse and benedictine, them that can leave the table without wheel chairs wanders out into the front rooms, and the men light up fresh perfectos and hunt for the smokin’ den, and the women get together in bunches and exchange polite knocks. And in the midst of all that some one drifts casually up to the concert grand and cuts loose. That was about the programme in this case.
Hermy was all primed for his cue, and when Mrs. Purdy-Pell gives the nod I sees Snick push him through the door, and in another minute the thing is on. The waiter’s uniform was a tight fit, all right; for it stretches across his shoulders like a drumhead. And the shirt studs wa’n’t mates, and the collar was one of them saw edged laundry veterans. But the general effect was good, and Hermy don’t seem to mind them trifles at all. He stands up there lookin’ big and handsome, simpers and smiles around the room a few times, giggles a few at the young lady who’d volunteered to do the ivory punishing, and then fin’lly he gets under way with the Toreador song.
As I say, when it comes to gems from Carmen, I’m no judge; but this stab of Hermy’s strikes me from the start as a mighty good attempt. He makes a smooth, easy get-away, and he strikes a swingin’, steady gait at the quarter, and when he comes to puttin’ over the deep, rollin’ chest notes I has feelin’s down under the first dinner layer like I’d swallowed a small thunder storm. Honest, when he fairly got down to business and hittin’ it up in earnest, he had me on my toes, and by the look on Sadie’s face I knew that our friend Hermy was going some.
But was all the others standin’ around with their mouths open, drinkin’ it in? Anything but! You see, some late comers had arrived, and they’d brought bulletins of something rich and juicy that had just happened in the alimony crowd,—I expect the event will figure on the court calendars later,—and they’re so busy passin’ on the details to willin’ ears, that Hermy wa’n’t disturbin’ ’em at all. As a matter of fact, not one in ten of the bunch knew whether he was makin’ a noise like a bullfighter or a line-up man.
I can’t help takin’ a squint around at Snick, who’s peekin’ in through the draperies. And say, he’s all but tearin’ his hair. It was tough, when you come to think of it. Here he’d put his whole stack of blues on this performance, and the audience wa’n’t payin’ any more attention to it than to the rattle of cabs on the avenue.
Hermy has most got to the final spasm, and it’s about all over, when, as a last straw, some sort of disturbance breaks out in the front hall. First off I thought it must be Snick Butters throwin’ a fit; but then I hears a voice that ain’t his, and as I glances out I sees the Purdy-Pell butler havin’ a rough house argument with a black whiskered gent in evenin’ clothes and a Paris model silk lid. Course, everyone hears the rumpus, and there’s a grand rush, some to get away, and others to see what’s doin’.
“Let me in! I demand entrance! It must be!” howls the gent, while the butler tries to tell him he’s got to give up his card first.
And next thing I know Snick has lit on the butler’s back to pull him off, and the three are havin’ a fine mix-up, when Mr. Purdy-Pell comes boltin’ out, and I’ve just offered to bounce any of ’em that he’ll point out, when all of a sudden he recognizes the party behind the brunette lambrequins.