"That bein' the case," says I, "it looks like you'd have to go ahead and break the sad news. What do you want me to do—hold a bucket for the tears?"
Sadie said all she expected of me was to help her forget it afterwards; so we rolls along towards Wigghorn Arms. We'd got within a mile of there when we meets a Greek peddler with a bunch of toy balloons on his shoulder, and in less'n no time at all them crazy-quilt ponies was tryin' to do back somersaults and other fool stunts. In the mix up one of 'em rips a shoe almost off, and Mr. Coachman says he'll have to chase back to a blacksmith shop and have it glued on.
"Oh, bother!" says Sadie. "Well, hurry up about it. We'll walk along as far as Apawattuck Inn and wait there."
It wa'n't much of a walk. The Apawattuck's a place where they deal out imitation shore dinners to trolley excursionists, and fusel oil high balls to the bubble trade. The name sounds well enough, but that ain't satisfyin' when you're real hungry. We were only killin' time, though, so it didn't matter. We strolled up just as fearless as though their clam chowders was fit to eat.
And that's what fetched us up against the Tortonis. They was well placed, at a corner veranda table where no one could miss seein' 'em; and, as they'd just finished a plate of chicken salad and a pint of genuine San José claret, they was lookin' real comfortable and elegant.
Say, to see the droop eyed way they sized us up as we makes our entry, you'd think they was so tired doin' that sort of thing that life was hardly worth while. You'd never guess they'd been livin' in a hall bed room on crackers and bologna ever since the season closed, and that this was their first real feed of the summer, on the strength of just havin' been booked for fifty performances. He was wearin' one of them torrid suits you see in Max Blumstein's show window, with a rainbow band on his straw pancake, and one of these flannel collar shirts that you button under the chin with a brass safety pin. She was sportin' a Peter Pan peekaboo that would have made Comstock gasp. And neither of 'em had seen a pay day for the last two months.
But it was done good, though. They had the tray jugglers standin' around respectful, and the other guests wonderin' how two such real House of Mirthers should happen to stray in where the best dishes on the card wa'n't more'n sixty cents a double portion.
Course, I ain't never been real chummy with Tortoni—his boardin' house name's Skinny Welch, you know—but I've seen him knockin' around the Rialto off'n on for years; so, as I goes by to the next table, I lifts my lid and says, "Hello, Skin. How goes it?" Say, wa'n't that friendly enough? But what kind of a come back do I get? He just humps his eyebrows, as much as to say, "How bold some of these common folks is gettin' to be!" and then turns the other way. Sadie and I look at each other and swap grins.
"What happened?" says she.
"I had a fifteen cent lump of Hygeia passed to me," says I. "And with the ice trust still on top, I calls it extravagant."