"You looked the part," says I. "About one more of those stunts, and Lady Evelyn'll want to adopt the two of us."
"No more," says he. "She must think I'm a milksop. Why, she's got brothers that are officers in the British army, fellows who get themselves shot, and win medals, and all that sort of thing."
Well, I was sorry for Jarvis; for the girl was a good looker, all right, and they'd have mated up fine. But I'm no schatchen. Physical culture's my game, an' I ain't takin' on no marriage bureau as a side line. So we shook hands and called it a canceled contract. Then Jarvis jerks those circus horses out of a bow-knot and rounds the corner on one wheel, while I climbs aboard the choo-choo cars and gets back near Broadway.
I wasn't lookin' to run across Jarvis again, seein' as how me and him has our own particular sets; but 'twasn't more'n three days before he shows up at the Studio. He was lookin' down an' out, too.
"Dropped in for a real rough game of pussy-wants-a-corner," says I, "or shall we make it ring-around-the-rosy?"
"I say, now, Shorty," says he, "if you'd had it rubbed in as hard as I have, you'd let up."
"Heard from Lady Evelyn?" says I.
He kind of groaned and fell into a chair. "I tried to tell her about it," says he; "but she wouldn't listen to a word. She only asked if you were a professor of dancing."
"Hully chee!" says I. "Say, you tell her from me that I'm a cloak-model, an' proud of it. Dancin'-master, eh? Do you stand for a josh like that?"
"Hang me if I do!" says he, jumpin' up and measurin' off three-foot steps across the floor. "The Lady Evelyn's going back to England in a few days, but before she leaves I want her to have a chance to—well, to see that I'm not the sort she thinks I am. And I want you to help me out, professor."