WHERE SPOTTY FITTED IN
Also we have a few home-grown varieties that ain’t listed frequent. And the pavement products are apt to have most as queer kinks to ’em as those from the plowed fields. Now take Spotty.
“Gee! what a merry look!” says I to Pinckney as he floats into the studio here the other day. He’s holdin’ his chin high, and he’s got his stick tucked up under his arm, and them black eyes of his is just sparklin’. “What’s it all about?” I goes on. “Is it a good one you’ve just remembered, or has something humorous happened to one of your best friends?”
“I have a new idea,” says he, “that’s all.”
“All!” says I. “Why, that’s excuse enough for declarin’ a gen’ral holiday. Did you go after it, or was it delivered by mistake? Can’t you give us a scenario of it?”
“Why, I’ve thought of something new for Spotty Cahill,” says he, beamin’.
“G’wan!” says I. “I might have known it was a false alarm. Spotty Cahill! Say, do you want to know what I’d advise you to do for Spotty next?”
No, Pinckney don’t want my views on the subject. It’s a topic we’ve threshed out between us before; also it’s one of the few dozen that we could debate from now until there’s skatin’ on the Panama Canal, without gettin’ anywhere. I’ve always held that Spotty Cahill was about the most useless and undeservin’ human being that ever managed to exist without work; but to hear Pinckney talk you’d think that long-legged, carroty-haired young loafer was the original party that philanthropy was invented for.
Now, doing things for other folks ain’t one of Pinckney’s strong points, as a rule. Not that he wouldn’t if he thought of it and could find the time; but gen’rally he has too many other things on his schedule to indulge much in the little deeds of kindness game. When he does start out to do good, though, he makes a job of it. But look who he picks out!
Course, I knew why. He’s explained all that to me more’n once. Seems there was an old waiter at the club, a quiet, soft-spoken, bald-headed relic, who had served him with more lobster Newburg than you could load on a scow, and enough highballs to float the Mauretania in. In fact, he’d been waitin’ there as long as Pinckney had been a member. They’d been kind of chummy, in a way, too. It had always been “Good morning, Peter,” and “Hope I see you well, sir,” between them, and Pinckney never had to bother about whether he liked a dash of bitters in this, or if that ought to be served frappe or plain. Peter knew, and Peter never forgot.