In the meantime, though, Durgin has suddenly decided to scratch his entry for that partic’lar Matrimonial Handicap. Not that he’s seriously int’rested in somebody else, but he’s kind of got weary hangin’ around, and he’s seen a few livelier ones than Cornelia, and he feels that somehow him and her have made a great mistake. You know how they’re apt to talk when they get chilly below the ankles? He don’t hand this straight out to Cornelia, mind you, but goes to Mrs. Purdy-Pell and Sadie with the tale, wantin’ to know what he’d better do.
Now I ain’t got any grouch against Durgin. He’s all right, I expect, in his way, more or less of a stiff necked, mealy mouthed chump, I always thought; but they say he’s nice to his old mother, and he’s makin’ good in the law business, and he ain’t bad to look at. The women folks takes his side right off. They say they don’t blame him a bit, and, without stoppin’ to think how Cousin Cornelia is going to feel left alone there on the siding, they get busy pickin’ out new candidates for Durgin to choose from.
Well, that’s the situation when I’m handed this assignment to go and inspect the head of the Purdy-Pells’ obituary department and see if she’s all comfy. Couldn’t have weighed very heavy on my mind; for I don’t think of it until late afternoon, just as I’m startin’ to pull out for home. Then I says to myself that maybe it’ll do just as well if I ring her up on the ’phone at her hotel. She’s in, all right, and I explains over the wire how anxious I am to know if she’s all right, and hopes nobody has tried to kidnap her yet, and asks if there’s anything I can do.
“Why, how kind of you, Mr. McCabe!” says Cornelia. “Yes, I am perfectly well and quite safe here.”
“Good!” says I. And then, seein’ how easy I was gettin’ out of it, I has to pile on the agony a little by addin’, “Ain’t there some way I can be useful, though? No errands you want done, or any place you’d like to be towed around to, eh?”
“Why—why——” says she, hesitatin’. “Oh, but I couldn’t think of troubling you, you know.”
“Why not?” says I, gettin’ reckless. “Just remember that I’d be tickled to death, any time you push the button.”
“We-e-ell,” says she, “we were just wishing, Miss Stover and I, that we did have some gentleman friend who would——”
“Count me in,” says I. “What’s the game? Trip to Woodlawn Cemetery some day, or do you want to be piloted up to Grant’s Tomb?”
No, it wa’n’t either of them festive splurges she had in mind. They wanted a dinner escort for that evenin’, she and Miss Stover. The other lady, she goes on to say, is a school teacher from up Boston way, that she’d made friends with durin’ the summer. Miss Stover was takin’ a year off, for the benefit of her nerves, and before she sailed on her Cook’s trip abroad she thought she’d like to see a little of New York. They’d been tryin’ to knock around some alone, and had got along all right daytimes, but hadn’t dared venture out much at night. So if I wanted to be real generous, and it wouldn’t be too much of a bore, they’d be very thankful if I would——