A lot of folks was already on the ground. They was swells too, and they was floatin' around so thick that it was two or three minutes before I gets a view of what was sittin' under the big yellow sik lamp shade in the corner. Say, who do you guess? Swifty Joe! Honest, for a minute I thought I must be havin' a nerve spasm and seein' things that wa'n't so. But it was him, all right; big as life, and lookin' as prominent as a soap ad. on the back cover of a magazine.
There was plenty of shady places in the room that he might have picked, but he has hunted out the bright spot. He's sittin' on one of these funny cross legged Roman stools, with his toes turned in, and them grid-iron pants pulled up to show about five inches of MacGregor plaid socks. And he has a satisfied look on his face that I couldn't account for no way.
Course, I thinks right off that he's broke into the wrong ranch and is waitin' for some one to come and show him the way out. And then, all of a sudden, I begins to remember things. You know, it was Swifty that Cornelia Ann used to get to pose for her when she had the top floor back in our building. She made an embossed clay picture of him that Joe used to gaze at by the hour. And once he showed me her photo that she'd given him. Then there was the special invite he'd been tellin' me about. Not bein' used to gettin' such things, he'd mistook that card to her studio openin' as a sort of private billy ducks, and he'd built up a dream about him and her havin' a hand-holdin' session all to themselves.
"Great cats!" thinks I. "Can it be Cornelia Ann he's gone on?"
Well, all you had to do to get the answer was to watch Swifty follow her around with his eyes. You'd thought, findin' himself in a bunch of top-notchers like that, and rigged out the way he was, he'd been feelin' like a green strawb'ry in the bottom of the basket. But nothin' of that kind had leaked through his thick skull. Cornie was there, and he was there, dressed accordin' to his own designs, and he was contented and happy as a turtle on a log, believin' the rest of us had only butted in.
I was feelin' all cut up over his break, and tryin' to guess how Cornelia was standin' it, when she floats up to me and says:
"Wasn't it sweet of Mr. Gallagher to come? Have you seen him?"
"Seen him!" says I. "You don't notice any bandage over my eyes, do you? Notice the get up. Why, he looks like a section of a billboard."
"Oh, I don't mind his clothes a bit," says she. "I think he's real picturesque. Besides, I haven't forgotten that he used to pose for me when hiring models meant going without meals. I wish you would see that he doesn't get lonesome before I have a chance to speak to him again."
"He don't look like he needed any chirkin' up," says I; "but I'll go give him the howdy."