How about him, eh?—the two-spot of clubs in billiard cloth and buttons at the door. There's no tellin' what the Studio'll have next—maybe a sidewalk canopy and a carriage caller. Swifty Joe's gettin' ambitious. Me gettin' mixed up with that Newport push has gone to Swifty's head like a four-line notice does to the pompadour of a second row chorus girl. First off he says it's a shame I don't have a valet.
"Say," says I, "don't it keep me busy enough remindin' you that I'm still able to wear my own clothes, without puttin' on an extra hand?"
But after this last stunt he broke out again; so we compromised on Congo. I thought Swifty'd had him made to order, uniform and all; but he says he found him, just as he stands, doin' the stray act over on Sixth-ave. He'd come up from New Orleans with a fortune-tellin' gent that had got himself pinched for doing a little voudoo turn on the side, and as Congo didn't have much left but his appetite, I put him on the pay-roll at two per and found. And say, I'm stung, at that. To look at him you'd think a ham sandwich would run him over; but he's got a capacity like a shop-lifter's pocket. For three days I tried to feed him up on the retail plan, and then I let out the contract to a free-lunch supply concern.
Sure, it gives the joint kind of a swell look, havin' him on the door, and if it didn't act the same on Swifty's head I wouldn't kick.
On the dead now, I don't care so much about loomin' up in the picture. There's them that it suits down to the ground, and that shows up well in front; and then again, there's a lot of people gets the spot light on 'em continual who'd be better off in the shade. I'm a top-gallery boy, by rights, and that's where you'll find me most of the time; but now and then I get dragged down into the wings with a note. Yes, yes, I'm just back after one of them excursions.
You see, after we'd shunted Sadie's Baron back on to the goulash circuit, where he belonged, and Sadie and Pinckney had got over their merry fit and skipped off to wake up another crowd of time assassinators, at Rockywold, or some such place as that, I says to myself, "Shorty," says I, "you stick to the physical-culture game and whittle out the by-plays."
That's just what I was doin', too, when an A. D. T. shows up with a prepaid josh from Pinckney, givin' me a special invite to run out and help 'em celebrate.
"Any come-back?" says the boy.
"No, sonny," says I; "you can cut the wire."
Say, Pinckney means all right, and he's done me some good turns; but that don't put me in his class, does it? Nay, nay, says I. Here's one dinner party that I ducks. And with that I gets busy on one of my reg'lars who's bein' trained to go against two months of foreign cookin'. I hadn't more'n finished with him, though, when there comes another yellow envelop. This one was from Sadie, and it was a hurry call. She didn't say much; but I could see heel-prints of trouble all over it.