Читать книгу The Woman Gives - Owen Johnson - Страница 8
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ОглавлениеThere was only one thing in life that bothered Tootles greatly, and that was the getting out of bed in the morning. It was high noon by a shaft of sunlight that beat persistently on his Wellingtonian nose, when he finally determined to try the influence of mind over matter according to a method all his own.
“I see myself skipping gracefully over to the wash-basin,” he said aloud.
The Mind was attentive, but Matter did not bulge. He decided to modify the test.
“I see myself standing proudly on my own feet by the side of my bed.”
Still no result.
“I see one of my legs thrust from the covers,” he persisted, in the line of the best psychopathic suggestion. Immediately, one lavender pajama emerged. “I see both of my legs out. I see myself raising myself to a sitting position,” he continued triumphantly, and, suiting the action to the word, he sat bolt upright. At the same moment, King O’Leary rose to a sitting position. They confronted each other thus drowsily a moment, and then smiled, and the smile seemed to descend over the accidental meeting with the binding cement of friendship.
“Well, Santa Claus, how are you?” said Tootles, with the superior cruelty of the teetotaler.
King O’Leary made a wry face, and ran his hand nervously through his hair.
“Was I pretty bad last night?”
“My boy, I thought you were charming,” said Tootles, encouragingly, “particularly when you put me to bed and hung up my stocking. Mother couldn’t have done it more gently.”
“Good Lord, I don’t get that way once in a dog’s age!” said King O’Leary, rather ashamed; and he asked, nervously: “Did I get to shooting off my mouth?”
“You talked,” said Tootles, descending, “but you kept a tight lip. You said nothing you didn’t want to, old cockywax.”
This seemed to reassure O’Leary. He rose, shaking himself together, and his glance fell on the three suspended socks bulging grotesquely.
“Did I do that?” he said, with a wan smile.
“Don’t you remember playing Santa Claus up and down the hall?”
“No; but I remember something about riding miles and miles in an elevator.”
Flick Wilder now began to return, talking violently and flopping about in the last stages of a nightmare.
“Whoa there! Catch him! Hold on to him! Don’t let go of him—head off that camel!”
“Wake up!” said Tootles, shaking him. “Where do you think you are?”
“Where’s Sassafras?” said Flick frantically, betwixt the dream and the reality. “Good Lord, I thought that elevator had broken loose—riding him down Broadway, when he turned into Elsie, the camel!”
He stared at King O’Leary a moment in confusion, and then a light dawned.
“Oh, hello! Well, King, you’re the real guy. How are you?”
“Fine,” said King O’Leary, as cheerfully as such answers are given the morning after.
“Art, you may start the coffee,” said Flick, yawning. “What’s that—oranges?”
“You don’t remember decorating the hall?” said Tootles, lighting the percolator.
“I do,” said Flick, whose memory was remarkable. He added sternly: “King, the infant has stolen our Christmas presents—presents we gave the floor. All our kind intentions are beaten by this son of a thief.”
“I may have taken away the Christmas presents,” said Tootles unfeelingly, “but I was thinking of Christmas breakfast, likewise Christmas lunch and Christmas dinner.”
King O’Leary immediately, with an air of great apprehension, dove into his clothes, while they awaited the result of the search with increasing anxiety.
O’Leary straightened up, displaying a last remaining handful of small coin.
“Shake yourself,” said Flick, alarmed.
“You fed one greenback to a cab-horse down at the Café Boulevard,” said Tootles, trying to be helpful.
“Seventy-nine cents,” said King O’Leary ruefully.
“You can buy a lot of peanuts for that,” said Flick, “and, believe me, peanuts are nourishing.”
“Beans are cheap, so is macaroni,” said Tootles, considering. “We might get three twenty-five-cent lunches at Brannigan’s bar.” By this, O’Leary understood that he was definitely adopted by virtue of the axiom of what was his was theirs. “Brannigan’s a friend of mine. Might stretch it a little if I offered to paint his portrait. What did you give Sassafras?”
“Fifty cents, of course.”
“Every time you got into the elevator?”
“By Jove, that’s so.”
“Great system of yours, Flick. Sassafras has got six of it. Of course, we might murder Sassafras,” said Tootles unfeelingly. “Never mind; there’s the stockings. They’re full of nuts.”
O’Leary went to them and emptied them on the table, perceiving the letter for the first time. He took it up, looking at it suspiciously.
“I don’t like these things,” he said, frowning.
“Neither do I,” said Tootles. “They send you a bill nowadays like a billet-doux.”
Flick began to repeat, doubtfully.
“Bill—billet-doux; billet-doux—bill.”
“What are you doing now?” said Tootles, perceiving Flick resorting to his note-book.
“I might work up that elevator story,” said Wilder, who had abandoned the pun. “There’s a meal in that.”
“Yes; but that’s to-morrow,” said Tootles.
“Kick me,” said O’Leary, all at once, staring at the open letter.
“Perfectly willing to, but why?” said Tootles, approaching.
“Kick me—bite me—stick a pin in me,” said O’Leary wildly.
“Wish it was that fellow Drinkwater,” said Tootles, who availed himself, however, of the first alternative.
“Then I am awake,” said O’Leary solemnly. “Listen.”
Perceiving that something startling had happened, they gathered around while O’Leary read:
South Washington, Oklahoma.
King O’Leary.
Dear Sir:
By the will of your second cousin, Halloran O’Leary, deceased October last, I am directed to transmit to each of the beneficiaries so as to reach them on Christmas day exactly, the sum of one thousand dollars ($1000), which I enclose.
Sincerely yours,
McDavitt & Courtney,
Attorneys.
“Let me read it,” said Flick, while Tootles gazed anxiously at King O’Leary, in doubt as to the effect on his heart. Then they all sat down and looked at each other.
“Say something,” said Flick angrily, at last.
“I feel like praying,” said Tootles weakly. “I believe I’ll believe in Santa Claus.”
They examined the letter again, passing it from hand to hand, turning it over and over in a sort of stupefaction, without finding a flaw. Even the draft was at sight on a New York bank.
“King,” said Flick reverently, “never let me hear you curse Christmas again.”
“Never again.” He gazed at the check overwhelmed. “My Lord, how can we ever spend that money!”
“Art and Literature will help you,” said Tootles cheerfully.
The problem was a terrific one. They all sat down to think again.
“Boys, we’ve brought each other luck,” said King O’Leary, with a sudden glow. “Here’s my proposition: If you like me as I like you, I’ll move my old tune-box in to-night and pay a year’s rent.”
Flick and Tootles first shook his hand with emotion, giving him, so to speak, the accolade, and then protested.
“You’re one of us, but nix on that rent idea. I’m firmly against that,” said Tootles. “Suppose we went up in smoke?”
“But how the deuce, then, are we to get away with it?” said King O’Leary, frowning. “If I invest it, some one else will get it. By golly, this time I’m going to have a run for my money! We must do the thing up in a big way—one grand splash. We might move over to the St. Regis and take the bridal suite.”
Flick was visibly impressed at this possibility of entering society, but Tootles turned the idea aside with the suggestion of a superior craftiness.
“And after it’s gone, what good will it do you? No, no; spend it where it will leave grateful memories,” he said wisely. “Keep it right around the block.”
“Them’s is wise words,” said Flick, yielding at once. “Tootles, you lack a heart, but you’re wise. It’s a wonder, though, you didn’t gum it all by stealing those oranges.”
“Pooh! I’m not superstitious,” said Tootles, while King O’Leary was still immersed in the distressing problem of how to get rid of the perplexing windfall.
“I am,” said Flick, “for let me tell you right now that this is the reward of virtue, my virtue. You needn’t throw up your hands. It’s what comes of having a kind heart. Yes, even toward elevators—always remember the milk of human kindness,” continued Flick, looking at Tootles reproachfully.
“Right you are,” said King O’Leary, with conviction, for his faith was of the simplest. And suddenly he exploded: “Flick, you’ve found it. By golly, son, I’ll tell you now how we’ll start to crack that check!”
“How?”
“We’ll have a Christmas of our own—a tree with presents for every one, and a Christmas dinner with a turkey and a pig—yes, sir, a roast pig!” His eyes began to snap as he enlarged upon his idea. “Boys, we’ll have them in, every lonely mother’s son of them—daughters, too! We’ll have an orchestra and decorate the studio—By jingo, we’ll give the old place the greatest shebang these regions have ever known!”
“King O’Leary,” said Tootles rapturously, “tell me the truth—are you Santa Claus?”
An hour later there was deposited at the door of each room along the hall, to the amazement of each occupant, the following card, jointly composed and decorated with Christmas designs by Tootles, in which a tree, a turkey, and a roast pig disported:
WHY BE GLUM?
GET TOGETHER AND SWAT THAT GROUCH!
MR. ST. GEORGE KIDDER, MR. FLICK WILDER,
AND MR. KING O’LEARY
INVITE YOU TO A LITTLE CHRISTMAS OF
THEIR OWN
ONE GLITTERING, GUZZLING GORGE,
including a monster TURKEY and a genuine roast PIG,
prepared absolutely regardless of expense.
CHRISTMAS DINNER AT 7
CHRISTMAS TREE AT 9.
CHRISTMAS DANCE AT 10.
MR. FLICK WILDER will carve the roast pig;
MR. KING O’LEARY will tickle the ivories;
MR. ST. GEORGE KIDDER will amuse.
COME AND ENJOY YOURSELVES
STAY AWAY AND BE DAMNED.
R. S. V. P.
