"Dennis, you low-county bog-trotter," says I, "about all I've heard out of you since I was knee high was how you was achin' to quit the elevator and get back to diggin' and cuttin' grass, same's you used to do on the old sod. Now here's a chance to make good."
Well, say, that was the only time I ever talked ten minutes with Dennis Whaley without bein' blackguarded. He'd been fired off the elevator the week before and had been job-huntin' ever since. As for Mother Whaley, when she saw a chance to shake three rooms back and a fire-escape for a place where the trees has leaves on 'em, she up and cried into the corned beef and cabbage, just for joy.
"I'll send the keys in the mornin'," says I. "Then you two pack up and go out there to Nightingale Cottage and open her up. If it's fit to live in, and you don't die of lonesomeness, maybe I'll run up once in a while of a Sunday to look you over."
You see, I thought it would be a bright scheme to hang onto the place for a year or so, before I tries to unload. That gives the Whaleys what they've been wishin' for, and me a chance to do the weekend act now and then. Course, I wa'n't lookin' for no complications. But they come along, all right.
It was on a Saturday afternoon that I took the plunge. You know how quick this little old town can warm up when she starts. We'd had the Studio fans goin' all the mornin', and the first shirtwaist lads was paradin' across Forty-second street with their coats off, and Swifty'd made tracks for Coney Island, when I remembers Primrose Park.
I'd passed through in expresses often enough, so I didn't have to look it up on the map; but that was about all. When I'd spoiled the best part of an hour on a local full of commuters and low-cut high-brows, who killed time playin' whist and cussin' the road, I was dumped down at a cute little station about big enough for a lemonade stand. As the cars went off I drew in a long breath. Say, I'd got off just in time to escape bein' carried into Connecticut.
I jumps into a canopy-top surrey that looks like it had been stored in an open lot all winter, and asks the driver if he knows where Nightingale Cottage is.
"Sure thing!" says he. "That's the place Shorty McCabe's bought."
"Do tell!" says I. "Well, cart me out to the front gate and put me off."
It was a nice ride. If it had been a mile longer I'd had facts enough for a town history. Drivin' a depot carriage was just a side issue with that Primrose blossom. Conversin' was his long suit. He tore off information by the yard, and slung it over the seat-back at me like one of these megaphone lecturers on the rubber-neck wagons. Accordin' to him, Aunt 'Melie had been a good deal of a she-hermit.