Читать книгу Round Up: The Stories of Ring W. Lardner - Lardner Ring - Страница 14

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“Well,” said the Doctor briskly, “how do you feel?”

“Oh, I guess I’m all right,” replied the man in bed. “I’m still kind of drowsy, that’s all.”

“You were under the anesthetic an hour and a half. It’s no wonder you aren’t wide awake yet. But you’ll be better after a good night’s rest, and I’ve left something with Miss Lyons that’ll make you sleep. I’m going along now. Miss Lyons will take good care of you.”

“I’m off at seven o’clock,” said Miss Lyons. “I’m going to a show with my G. F. But Miss Halsey’s all right. She’s the night floor nurse. Anything you want, she’ll get it for you. What can I give him to eat, Doctor?”

“Nothing at all; not till after I’ve been here tomorrow. He’ll be better off without anything. Just see that he’s kept quiet. Don’t let him talk, and don’t talk to him; that is, if you can help it.”

“Help it!” said Miss Lyons. “Say, I can be old lady Sphinx herself when I want to! Sometimes I sit for hours—not alone, neither—and never say a word. Just think and think. And dream.

“I had a G. F. in Baltimore, where I took my training; she used to call me Dummy. Not because I’m dumb like some people—you know—but because I’d sit there and not say nothing. She’d say, ‘A penny for your thoughts, Eleanor.’ That’s my first name—Eleanor.”

“Well, I must run along. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Good-by, Doctor,” said the man in bed, as he went out.

“Good-by, Doctor Cox,” said Miss Lyons as the door closed.

“He seems like an awful nice fella,” said Miss Lyons. “And a good doctor, too. This is the first time I’ve been on a case with him. He gives a girl credit for having some sense. Most of these doctors treat us like they thought we were Mormons or something. Like Doctor Holland. I was on a case with him last week. He treated me like I was a Mormon or something. Finally, I told him, I said, ‘I’m not as dumb as I look.’ She died Friday night.”

“Who?” asked the man in bed.

“The woman; the case I was on,” said Miss Lyons.

“And what did the doctor say when you told him you weren’t as dumb as you look?”

“I don’t remember,” said Miss Lyons. “He said, ‘I hope not,’ or something. What could he say? Gee! It’s quarter to seven. I hadn’t no idear it was so late. I must get busy and fix you up for the night. And I’ll tell Miss Halsey to take good care of you. We’re going to see ‘What Price Glory?’ I’m going with my G. F. Her B. F. gave her the tickets and he’s going to meet us after the show and take us to supper.

“Marian—that’s my G. F.—she’s crazy wild about him. And he’s crazy about her, to hear her tell it. But I said to her this noon—she called me up on the phone—I said to her, ‘If he’s so crazy about you, why don’t he propose? He’s got plenty of money and no strings tied to him, and as far as I can see there’s no reason why he shouldn’t marry you if he wants you as bad as you say he does.’ So she said maybe he was going to ask her tonight. I told her, ‘Don’t be silly! Would he drag me along if he was going to ask you?’

“That about him having plenty of money, though, that’s a joke. He told her he had and she believes him. I haven’t met him yet, but he looks in his picture like he’s lucky if he’s getting twenty-five dollars a week. She thinks he must be rich because he’s in Wall Street. I told her, I said, ‘That being in Wall Street don’t mean nothing. What does he do there? is the question. You know they have to have janitors in those buildings just the same like anywhere else.’ But she thinks he’s God or somebody.

“She keeps asking me if I don’t think he’s the best looking thing I ever saw. I tell her yes, sure, but between you and I, I don’t believe anybody’d ever mistake him for Richard Barthelmess.

“Oh, say! I saw him the other day, coming out of the Algonquin! He’s the best looking thing! Even better looking than on the screen. Roy Stewart.”

“What about Roy Stewart?” asked the man in bed.

“Oh, he’s the fella I was telling you about,” said Miss Lyons. “He’s my G. F.’s B. F.”

“Maybe I’m a D. F. not to know, but would you tell me what a B. F. and G. F. are?”

“Well, you are dumb, aren’t you!” said Miss Lyons. “A G. F., that’s a girl friend, and a B. F. is a boy friend. I thought everybody knew that.

“I’m going out now and find Miss Halsey and tell her to be nice to you. But maybe I better not.”

“Why not?” asked the man in bed.

“Oh, nothing. I was just thinking of something funny that happened last time I was on a case in this hospital. It was the day the man had been operated on and he was the best looking somebody you ever saw. So when I went off duty I told Miss Halsey to be nice to him, like I was going to tell her about you. And when I came back in the morning he was dead. Isn’t that funny?”

“Very!”

“Well,” said Miss Lyons, “did you have a good night? You look a lot better, anyway. How’d you like Miss Halsey? Did you notice her ankles? She’s got pretty near the smallest ankles I ever saw. Cute. I remember one day Tyler—that’s one of the internes—he said if he could just see our ankles, mine and Miss Halsey’s, he wouldn’t know which was which. Of course we don’t look anything alike other ways. She’s pretty close to thirty and—well, nobody’d ever take her for Julia Hoyt. Helen.”

“Who’s Helen?” asked the man in bed.

“Helen Halsey. Helen; that’s her first name. She was engaged to a man in Boston. He was going to Tufts College. He was going to be a doctor. But he died. She still carries his picture with her. I tell her she’s silly to mope about a man that’s been dead four years. And besides a girl’s a fool to marry a doctor. They’ve got too many alibis.

“When I marry somebody, he’s got to be a somebody that has regular office hours like he’s in Wall Street or somewhere. Then when he don’t come home, he’ll have to think up something better than being ‘on a case.’ I used to use that on my sister when we were living together. When I happened to be out late, I’d tell her I was on a case. She never knew the difference. Poor sis! She married a terrible oil can! But she didn’t have the looks to get a real somebody. I’m making this for her. It’s a bridge table cover for her birthday. She’ll be twenty-nine. Don’t that seem old?”

“Maybe to you; not to me,” said the man in bed.

“You’re about forty, aren’t you?” said Miss Lyons.

“Just about.”

“And how old would you say I am?”

“Twenty-three.”

“I’m twenty-five,” said Miss Lyons. “Twenty-five and forty. That’s fifteen years’ difference. But I know a married couple that the husband is forty-five and she’s only twenty-four, and they get along fine.”

“I’m married myself,” said the man in bed.

“You would be!” said Miss Lyons. “The last four cases I’ve been on was all married men. But at that, I’d rather have any kind of a man than a woman. I hate women! I mean sick ones. They treat a nurse like a dog, especially a pretty nurse. What’s that you’re reading?”

“ ‘Vanity Fair,’ ” replied the man in bed.

“ ‘Vanity Fair.’ I thought that was a magazine.”

“Well, there’s a magazine and a book. This is the book.”

“Is it about a girl?”

“Yes.”

“I haven’t read it yet. I’ve been busy making this thing for my sister’s birthday. She’ll be twenty-nine. It’s a bridge table cover. When you get that old, about all there is left is bridge or cross-word puzzles. Are you a puzzle fan? I did them religiously for a while, but I got sick of them. They put in such crazy words. Like one day they had a word with only three letters and it said ‘A e-longated fish’ and the first letter had to be an e. And only three letters. That couldn’t be right. So I said if they put things wrong like that, what’s the use? Life’s too short. And we only live once. When you’re dead, you stay a long time dead.

“That’s what a B. F. of mine used to say. He was a caution! But he was crazy about me. I might of married him only for a G. F. telling him lies about me. And called herself my friend! Charley Pierce.”

“Who’s Charley Pierce?”

“That was my B. F. that the other girl lied to him about me. I told him, I said, ‘Well, if you believe all them stories about me, maybe we better part once and for all. I don’t want to be tied up to a somebody that believes all the dirt they hear about me.’ So he said he didn’t really believe it and if I would take him back he wouldn’t quarrel with me no more. But I said I thought it was best for us to part. I got their announcement two years ago, while I was still in training in Baltimore.”

“Did he marry the girl that lied to him about you?”

“Yes, the poor fish! And I bet he’s satisfied! They’re a match for each other! He was all right, though, at that, till he fell for her. He used to be so thoughtful of me, like I was his sister or something.

“I like a man to respect me. Most fellas wants to kiss you before they know your name.

“Golly! I’m sleepy this morning! And got a right to be, too. Do you know what time I got home last night, or this morning, rather? Well, it was half past three. What would mama say if she could see her little girl now! But we did have a good time. First we went to the show—‘What Price Glory?’—I and my G. F.—and afterwards her B. F. met us and took us in a taxi down to Barney Gallant’s. Peewee Byers has got the orchestra there now. Used to be with Whiteman’s. Gee! How he can dance! I mean Roy.”

“Your G. F.’s B. F.?”

“Yes, but I don’t believe he’s as crazy about her as she thinks he is. Anyway—but this is a secret—he took down the phone number of the hospital while Marian was out powdering her nose, and he said he’d give me a ring about noon. Gee! I’m sleepy! Roy Stewart!”

“Well,” said Miss Lyons, “how’s my patient? I’m twenty minutes late, but honest, it’s a wonder I got up at all! Two nights in succession is too much for this child!”

“Barney Gallant’s again?” asked the man in bed.

“No, but it was dancing, and pretty near as late. It’ll be different tonight. I’m going to bed just the minute I get home. But I did have a dandy time. And I’m crazy about a certain somebody.”

“Roy Stewart?”

“How’d you guess it? But honest, he’s wonderful! And so different than most of the fellas I’ve met. He says the craziest things, just keeps you in hysterics. We were talking about books and reading, and he asked me if I liked poetry—only he called it ‘poultry’—and I said I was wild about it and Edgar M. Guest was just about my favorite, and then I asked him if he liked Kipling and what do you think he said? He said he didn’t know; he’d never kipled.

“He’s a scream! We just sat there in the house till half past eleven and didn’t do nothing but just talk and the time went like we was at a show. He’s better than a show. But finally I noticed how late it was and I asked him didn’t he think he better be going and he said he’d go if I’d go with him, so I asked him where could we go at that hour of night, and he said he knew a roadhouse just a little ways away, and I didn’t want to go, but he said we wouldn’t stay for only just one dance, so I went with him. To the Jericho Inn.

“I don’t know what the woman thought of me where I stay, going out that time of night. But he is such a wonderful dancer and such a perfect gentleman! Of course we had more than one dance and it was after two o’clock before I knew it. We had some gin, too, but he just kissed me once and that was when we said good night.”

“What about your G. F., Marian? Does she know?”

“About Roy and I? No. I always say that what a person don’t know don’t hurt them. Besides, there’s nothing for her to know—yet. But listen: If there was a chance in the world for her, if I thought he cared anything about her, I’d be the last one in the world to accept his intentions. I hope I’m not that kind! But as far as anything serious between them is concerned, well, it’s cold. I happen to know that! She’s not the girl for him.

“In the first place, while she’s pretty in a way, her complexion’s bad and her hair’s scraggy and her figure, well, it’s like some woman in the funny pictures. And she’s not peppy enough for Roy. She’d rather stay home than do anything. Stay home! It’ll be time enough for that when you can’t get anybody to take you out.

“She’d never make a wife for him. He’ll be a rich man in another year; that is, if things go right for him in Wall Street like he expects. And a man as rich as he’ll be wants a wife that can live up to it and entertain and step out once in a while. He don’t want a wife that’s a drag on him. And he’s too good-looking for Marian. A fella as good-looking as him needs a pretty wife or the first thing you know some girl that is pretty will steal him off of you. But it’s silly to talk about them marrying each other. He’d have to ask her first, and he’s not going to. I know! So I don’t feel at all like I’m trespassing.

“Anyway, you know the old saying, everthing goes in love. And I—— But I’m keeping you from reading your book. Oh, yes; I almost forgot a T. L. that Miss Halsey said about you. Do you know what a T. L. is?”

“Yes.”

“Well, then, you give me one and I’ll give you this one.”

“But I haven’t talked to anybody but the Doctor. I can give you one from myself. He asked me how I liked you and I said all right.”

“Well, that’s better than nothing. Here’s what Miss Halsey said: She said if you were shaved and fixed up, you wouldn’t be bad. And now I’m going out and see if there’s any mail for me. Most of my mail goes to where I live, but some of it comes here sometimes. What I’m looking for is a letter from the state board telling me if I passed my state examination. They ask you the craziest questions. Like ‘Is ice a disinfectant?’ Who cares! Nobody’s going to waste ice to kill germs when there’s so much of it needed in high-balls. Do you like high-balls? Roy says it spoils whisky to mix it with water. He takes it straight. He’s a terror! But maybe you want to read.”

“Good morning,” said Miss Lyons. “Did you sleep good?”

“Not so good,” said the man in bed. “I——”

“I bet you got more sleep than I did,” said Miss Lyons. “He’s the most persistent somebody I ever knew! I asked him last night, I said, ‘Don’t you never get tired of dancing?’ So he said, well, he did get tired of dancing with some people, but there was others who he never got tired of dancing with them. So I said, ‘Yes, Mr. Jollier, but I wasn’t born yesterday and I know apple sauce when I hear it and I bet you’ve told that to fifty girls.’ I guess he really did mean it, though.

“Of course most anybody’d rather dance with slender girls than stout girls. I remember a B. F. I had one time in Washington. He said dancing with me was just like dancing with nothing. That sounds like he was insulting me, but it was really a compliment. He meant it wasn’t any effort to dance with me like with some girls. You take Marian, for instance, and while I’m crazy about her, still that don’t make her a good dancer and dancing with her must be a good deal like moving the piano or something.

“I’d die if I was fat! People are always making jokes about fat people. And there’s the old saying, ‘Nobody loves a fat man.’ And it’s even worse with a girl. Besides people making jokes about them and don’t want to dance with them and so forth, besides that they’re always trying to reduce and can’t eat what they want to. I bet, though, if I was fat, I’d eat everything in sight. Though I guess not, either. Because I hardly eat anything as it is. But they do make jokes about them.

“I’ll never forget one day last winter, I was on a case in Great Neck and the man’s wife was the fattest thing! So they had a radio in the house and one day she saw in the paper where Bugs Baer was going to talk on the radio and it would probably be awfully funny because he writes so crazy. Do you ever read his articles? But this woman, she was awfully sensitive about being fat and I nearly died sitting there with her listening to Bugs Baer, because his whole talk was all about some fat woman and he said the craziest things, but I couldn’t laugh on account of she being there in the room with me. One thing he said was that the woman, this woman he was talking about, he said she was so fat that she wore a wrist watch on her thumb. Henry J. Belden.”

“Who is Henry J. Belden? Is that the name of Bugs Baer’s fat lady?”

“No, you crazy!” said Miss Lyons. “Mr. Belden was the case I was on in Great Neck. He died.”

“It seems to me a good many of your cases die.”

“Isn’t it a scream!” said Miss Lyons. “But it’s true; that is, it’s been true lately. The last five cases I’ve been on has all died. Of course it’s just luck, but the girls have been kidding me about it and calling me a jinx, and when Miss Halsey saw me here the evening of the day you was operated, she said, ‘God help him!’ That’s the night floor nurse’s name. But you’re going to be mean and live through it and spoil my record, aren’t you? I’m just kidding. Of course I want you to get all right.

“But it is queer, the way things have happened, and it’s made me feel kind of creepy. And besides, I’m not like some of the girls and don’t care. I get awfully fond of some of my cases and I hate to see them die, especially if they’re men and not very sick and treat you half-way decent and don’t yell for you the minute you go out of the room. There’s only one case I was ever on where I didn’t mind her dying and that was a woman. She had nephritis. Mrs. Judson.

“Do you want some gum? I chew it just when I’m nervous. And I always get nervous when I don’t have enough sleep. You can bet I’ll stay home tonight, B. F. or no B. F. But anyway he’s got an engagement tonight, some directors’ meeting or something. He’s the busiest somebody in the world. And I told him last night, I said, ‘I should think you’d need sleep, too, even more than I do because you have to have all your wits about you in your business or those big bankers would take advantage and rob you. You can’t afford to be sleepy,’ I told him.

“So he said, ‘No, but of course it’s all right for you, because if you go to sleep on your job, there’s no danger of you doing any damage except maybe give one of your patients a bichloride of mercury tablet instead of an alcohol rub.’ He’s terrible! But you can’t help from laughing.

“There was four of us in the party last night. He brought along his B. F. and another girl. She was just blah, but the B. F. wasn’t so bad, only he insisted on me helping him drink a half a bottle of Scotch, and on top of gin, too. I guess I was the life of the party; that is, at first. Afterwards I got sick and it wasn’t so good.

“But at first I was certainly going strong. And I guess I made quite a hit with Roy’s B. F. He knows Marian, too, but he won’t say anything, and if he does, I don’t care. If she don’t want to lose her beaus, she ought to know better than to introduce them to all the pretty girls in the world. I don’t mean that I’m any Norma Talmadge, but at least—well—but I sure was sick when I was sick!

“I must give Marian a ring this noon. I haven’t talked to her since the night she introduced me to him. I’ve been kind of scared. But I’ve got to find out what she knows. Or if she’s sore at me. Though I don’t see how she can be, do you? But maybe you want to read.”

“I called Marian up, but I didn’t get her. She’s out of town but she’ll be back tonight. She’s been out on a case. Hudson, New York, that’s where she went. The message was waiting for her when she got home the other night, the night she introduced me to Roy.”

“Good morning,” said Miss Lyons.

“Good morning,” said the man in bed. “Did you sleep enough?”

“Yes,” said Miss Lyons. “I mean no, not enough.”

“Your eyes look bad. They almost look as if you’d been crying.”

“Who? Me? It’d take more than—I mean, I’m not a baby! But go on and read your book.”

“Well, good morning,” said Miss Lyons. “And how’s my patient? And this is the last morning I can call you that, isn’t it? I think you’re mean to get well so quick and leave me out of a job. I’m just kidding. I’m glad you’re all right again, and I can use a little rest myself.”

“Another big night?” asked the man in bed.

“Pretty big,” said Miss Lyons. “And another one coming. But tomorrow I won’t ever get up. Honest, I danced so much last night that I thought my feet would drop off. But he certainly is a dancing fool! And the nicest somebody to talk to that I’ve met since I came to this town. Not a smart Alex and not always trying to be funny like some people, but just nice. He understands. He seems to know just what you’re thinking. George Morse.”

“George Morse!” exclaimed the man in bed.

“Why yes,” said Miss Lyons. “Do you know him?”

“No. But I thought you were talking about this Stewart, this Roy.”

“Oh, him!” said Miss Lyons. “I should say not! He’s private property; other people’s property, not mine. He’s engaged to my G. F. Marian. It happened day before yesterday, after she got home from Hudson. She was on a case up there. She told me about it night before last. I told her congratulations. Because I wouldn’t hurt her feelings for the world! But heavens! what a mess she’s going to be in, married to that dumb-bell. But of course some people can’t be choosey. And I doubt if they ever get married unless some friend loans him the price of a license.

“He’s got her believing he’s in Wall Street, but I bet if he ever goes there at all, it’s to sweep it. He’s one of these kind of fellas that’s got a great line for a little while, but you don’t want to live with a clown. And I’d hate to marry a man that all he thinks about is to step out every night and dance and drink.

“I had a notion to tell her what I really thought. But that’d only of made her sore, or she’d of thought I was jealous or something. As if I couldn’t of had him myself! Though even if he wasn’t so awful, if I’d liked him instead of loathed him, I wouldn’t of taken him from her on account of she being my G. F. And especially while she was out of town.

“He’s the kind of a fella that’d marry a nurse in the hopes that some day he’d be an invalid. You know, that kind.

“But say—did you ever hear of J. P. Morgan and Company? That’s where my B. F. works, and he don’t claim to own it neither. George Morse.

“Haven’t you finished that book yet?”