“Yep,” says I. “Sounds enticin’, don’t it?”
“Doubtless you will spend a day or so there?” he goes on.
“Over night, anyway,” says I.
“Hum!” says he. “Then you will hardly fail to meet my brother. He is living at Clam Creek.”
“What!” says I. “Not Broadway Bob?”
“Yes,” says he, “Robert and his wife have been there for nearly two years. At least, that is where I have been sending his allowance.”
“Mrs. Bob too!” says I. “Why—why, say, you don’t mean the one that——”
“The same,” he cuts in. “I know they’re supposed to be abroad; but they’re not, they are at Clam Creek.”
Maybe you’ve heard about the Bob Cathaways, and maybe you ain’t. There’s so many new near-plutes nowadays that the old families ain’t getting the advertisin’ they’ve been used to. Anyway, it’s been sometime since Broadway Bob had his share of the limelight. You see, Bob sort of had his day when he was along in his thirties, and they say he was a real old-time sport and rounder, which was why he was let in so bad when old man Cathaway’s will was probated. All Bob pulls out is a couple of thousand a year, even that being handled first by Brother DeLancey, who cops all the rest of the pile as a reward for always having gone in strong for charity and the perfectly good life.
It’s a case where virtue shows up strong from the first tap of the bell. Course, Bob can look back on some years of vivid joy, when he was makin’ a record as a quart opener, buyin’ stacks of blues at Daly’s, or over at Monte Carlo bettin’ where the ball would stop. But all this ends mighty abrupt.