"Professeur McCabby—" says he.
"Don't," says I. "You make me feel like I'd been transplanted into French and was runnin' a hack-line. Call it McCabe—a-b-e, abe."
"One thousand pardons," says he, and tries again. This time he gets it—almost, and I lets him spiel away. Oh, mama! but I wish I could say it the way he did! It would let me on the Proctor circuit, if I could. But boiled down and skimmed, it was all about how I was a kind of safety-deposit vault for everything he had to live for.
"My hopes, my fortune, my happiness, the very breath of my living, it is all with you," says he as a windup, hittin' a Caruso pose, arms out, toes in, and his breath comin' hard.
How was that for news from home? I did some swift surmisin', and then I says, soothin' like: "Yes, I know; but don't take on about it so. They're all right, just as you handed 'em over; only I asked me friend the Sarge to lock 'em up till you called. We'll walk around and see the Sarge right away."
"Ah!" says he, battin' his noble brow, "you do not comprehend. You make to laugh. And me, I come to you from the adorable Sadie."
"Sadie?" says I. "Sadie Sullivan that was?"
He bows and grins.
"If you've got credentials from Sadie," says I, "it's all right. Now, what's doing? Does she want me to match samples, or show you the sights along the White Lane?"
"Ah, the adorable Sadie!" says he, rollin' his eyes, and puffin' out his cheeks like he was tryin' the lung-tester. "I drive with her, I walk with her, I sit by her side—one day, two day, a week. Well, what happens? I am charm, I am fascinate, I am become her slave. I make to resist. I say to myself: 'You! You are of the noble Austrian blood; the second-cousin of your mother is a grand duke; you must not forget.' Then again I see Sadie. Pouff! I have no longer pride; but only I luff. It is enough. I ask of her: 'Madam Deepworth, where is the father of you?' She say he is not. 'Then the uncle of you?' I demand. She say: 'I'm shy on uncles.' 'But to who, then,' I ask, 'must I declare my honorable passion?' 'Oh,' she say, 'tell it to Shorty McCabe.' Ha! I leap, I bound! I go to M. Pinckney. 'Tell me,' I say, 'where is to be found one Shorty McCabe?' And he sends me to you. I am come."