"Oh-o-o-oh! look what's here?" squeals eight little Dillons in chorus.
You couldn't blame 'em, either, for the hat that was bein' squeezed out through the door of the car was one of these Broadway thrillers, four feet across, and covered with as many green ostrich feathers as you could carry in a clothes basket. What was under the feather lid we couldn't see. Followin' it out of the machine comes somethin' cute in a butter colored overcoat and a brown derby. In a minute more we gets the report that the procession is headed up the stairs, and by the time we've grouped ourselves around the room with our mouths open, in they floats.
In the lead, wearin' the oleo coat with yellow silk facin's, was a squizzled up little squirt with rat eyes and a mean little face about as thick as a slice of toast, and the same colour. His clothes, though, is a pome in browns and yellows, from the champagne tinted No. 3 shoes to the tobacco coloured No. 5 hat, leavin' out the necktie, which was a shade somewhere between a blue store front and a bottle of purple ink.
Even if I hadn't seen the face, I could have guessed who it was, just by the get-up. Course, there's been a good many noisy dressers floatin' around the grill room district this winter, but there always has to be one real scream in every crowd; and this was it.
"If it ain't Shrimp!" says I.
"Hello, Shorty!" says he, in that little squeak of his.
And at that some one swoops past me. There's a flapping of green silk skirt, and Mother Dillon has given him the high tackle.
"Aloysius! My little 'Loyshy!" she squeals.
And say, you could have pushed me over with one finger. Here I'd been hearin' for the last two seasons about this jock that had come up from stable helper in a night, and how he'd been winning on nine out of every ten mounts, and how all the big racing men was overbiddin' each other to get him signed for their stables. Some of Pinckney's sportin' friends had towed Shrimp into the Studio once or twice, and besides that I'd read in the papers all about his giddy wardrobe, and his big Swede valet, and the English chorus girl that had married him. But in all this talk of Sadie's about the Dillon fam'ly, I'd never so much as guessed that Aloysius, the stray, was one and the same as Shrimp Dillon.
Here he was, though, in the Dillon flat, with Mother Dillon almost knockin' his breath out pattin' him on the back, and all the little Dillons jumpin' around and yellin', "Uncle 'Loyshy, Uncle 'Loyshy!" and Kate and Maggie and Nora waitin' their turns; and the rest of us, includin' old Larry and me and Sadie, lookin' foolish. The only one that acts like he wa'n't surprised is Pinckney.