“In a minute,” says I and, seein’ I was up against it anyhow, I thought I might as well do it cheerful. “I’ll be up about six, eh?”
“Chee!” says Swifty Joe, who always has his ear stretched out on such occasions, “you make a noise like you was fixin’ up a date.”
“What good hearin’ you have, Swifty!” says I. “Some day, though, you’ll strain one of them side flaps of yours. Yes, this is a date, and it’s with two of the sportiest female parties that ever dodged an old ladies’ home.”
Excitin’ proposition, wa’n’t it? I spends the next half-hour battin’ my head to think of some first class food parlor where I could cart a couple like this Boston schoolma’am and Cousin Cornelia without shockin’ ’em. There was the Martha Washington; but I knew I’d be barred there. Also there was some quiet fam’ly hotels I’d heard of up town; but I couldn’t remember exactly what street any of ’em was on.
“Maybe Cornelia will have some plans of her own,” thinks I, as I gets into my silk faced dinner jacket and V-cut vest. “And I hope she ain’t wearin’ more’n two thicknesses of crape veil now.”
Well, soon after six I slides out, hops on one of these shed-as-you-enter surface cars, and rides up to the hotel. I’d been holdin’ down one of the velvet chairs in the ladies’ parlor for near half an hour, and was wonderin’ if Cornelia had run out of black headed pins, or what, when I pipes off a giddy specimen in wistaria costume that drifts in and begins squintin’ around like she was huntin’ for some one. Next thing I knew she’d spotted me and was sailin’ right over.
“Oh, there you are!” she gurgles, holdin’ out her hand.
“Excuse me, lady,” says I, sidesteppin’ behind the chair, “but ain’t you tryin’ to tag the wrong party?”
“Why,” says she, lettin’ out a chuckle, “don’t you know me, Mr. McCabe?”
“Not yet,” says I; “but it looks like I would if——Great snakes!”