After the signing of the contract, Cassius and his companions retired to the harbor to wait till I had made the arrangements. Late that night, very late (about five o'clock), a small tug pulled up to the island and out came one Hawser Dawson. I can truthfully say that Hawser is the mouldiest looking animal ever to set foot upon dry land. Or wet water, for that matter. He is so filthy that his clothes stand up by themselves when he takes them off at night. And the smell! WHEWWW!! Hawser Dawson smells like Mrs. Murphy didn't get home with the eggs in time. He is dirty, smelly, and dumb besides, but he is loyal and one of the best tugboat captains that ever tripped on a two inch line.
We had arranged to get the Aardvark and his buddies into the country under cover but I had forgotten to mention to Hawser how big the group was. When Hawser saw the elephant he almost fainted. His ship, which was as leaky as Stalin's head wouldn't carry that load. It could hardly carry Hawser himself. So we arranged to hang the Aardvark and the elephant under the ship while the Valkyries and myself rode upstairs.
But not only did Dawson get paid twice as much as he should have, he wanted the Aardvark and Rubin the elephant to work their way in. He whispered something to Cassius and Rubin and then came aboard. When the elephant and our hero were slung under the ship, the leaky tub sank so low into the water that it was wetter on the bridge than it was under the ship. We got under way shortly and as we sailed around under cover of darkness we heard a weird sound. It was a systematic metallic whonking under the boat. When we asked Dawson what the noise was, he told us that the Aardvark and Rubin were working their way over by cleaning barnacles off the bottom of the tugboat with their teeth. I almost fainted when I heard this. Our future star, the brightest new personality in years ... scraping barnacles! Oh no!
After breaking a steel pipe over Dawson's head, we got the Aardvark into the ship and started chipping the remnants of his work from his bicuspids. It was about this time that we got into the small dock that Hawser had told us would be waiting. We dragged the slightly defunct sea captain out of the ship, got Rubin out from under and proceeded to enter the United States of America, which as you know has been renamed since by some people, the United States of Aardvark. One of the reasons is because of what happened in the Drunken Cockroach Nightclub. Oh was that a queer night. It happened on the same evening we got into the States....
CHAPTER 5
IN THE DRUNKEN COCKROACH
We got the Aardvark settled quickly in a hotel near the center of town and then decided to go out and eat someplace. Hawser Dawson wanted to go along till he got his money and since he wanted it in cash and the banks didn't open till the next day we decided to let him tag along. There was but one stipulation: that he take a bath. This almost broke Stinky's heart but he consented and when he met us in the lobby a few hours later, he was (as he termed it) "disgustingly filthy clean."
Rubin was looking quite elegant in a rented tux which was a size sixty-seven. The Schwartz girls were absolutely ravishing in their two evening gowns that were strapless, hemless, backless, topless, bottomless, frontless, and with a plunging neckline.
But the really dashing one was Cassius Q Aardvark. He was decked out in a conservative green and red suit with a yellow tie, spats, a cane, top hat and the perennial lavender earmuffs. We could never understand it but the newspapers said the next day that about fifty cases of color blindness and shock were brought into the hospital raving about an Aardvark with a top hat and earmuffs.
That was really a queer night. We started out at the Stork Club. Sherm Billingsley had gotten wind of the Aardvark and had a special room reserved with a wall knocked out for the elephant Rubin. The men were practically fawning all over the Schwartz Valkyries who calmly broke Champagne bottles over their heads and continued to stay by their erstwhile pal, the Aardvark. After we had gotten well well placed I looked at the Aardvark. He was holding sway like a royal Sultan, complete with dancing girls. The young blade was surrounded by the chorus line and was having a rough time with them. But he had eyes only for the Schwartz sisters. They sat there exchanging guttural sounds.