Ella didn’t speak for a wile. Then she says: “Well, if you’re going to forget your marriage vows and flirt with an old hag like she, I guess two can play at that little game. They’s several men round this hotel that I like their looks and all as they need is a little encouragement.”
“More than a little, I guess,” says I, “or else they’d of already been satisfied with what you and Kate has give them. They can’t neither one of you pretend that you been fighting on the defense all week, and the reason you haven’t copped nobody is because this place is a hotel, not a home for the blind.”
I wrapped a piece of newspaper round the bottle and started for the door. But all of a sudden I heard snuffles and stopped.
“Look here,” I said. “I been kidding you. They’s no need for you to get sore and turn on the tear ducks. I’ll tell you how this thing happened if you think you can see a joke.”
So I give her the truth, and afterwards I says: “They’ll be plenty of time for you and Kate to get acquainted with the dame, but I don’t want you tagging in there with me tonight. She’d think we was too cordial. Tomorrow morning, if you can manage to get up, we’ll all three of us go out on the porch and lay for her when she brings the whelps back from their hike. She’s sure to stop and inquire about my kennel. And don’t forget, wile she’s talking, that we got a couple of yaphounds that’s suffering from blanny, and if she asks any questions let me do the answering, as I can think a lot quicker. You better tell Kate the secret, too, before she messes everything up, according to custom.”
Then I and the Mrs. come downstairs and her and Katie went out to listen to the music wile I beat it to the red card room. I give Perkie the bottle of rash poison and she thanked me and said she would have the dogs’ governess slap some of it onto them in the morning. She was playing bridge w’ist with another gal and two dudes. To look at their faces they wasn’t playing for just pins. I had sense enough to not talk, but I stood there watching them a few minutes. Between hands Perk introduced me to the rest of the party. She had to ask my name first. The other skirt at the table was a Mrs. Snell and one of the dudes was a Doctor Platt. I didn’t get the name of Lady Perkins’ partner.
“Mr. Finch,” says Perk, “is also a dog fancier. But his dogs is sick with a disease called blanny and he’s got them over to the dog hospital at Haverton.”
“What kind of dogs?” asked Platt.
“I never heard of the breed before,” says Perk. “They’re yaphounds.”
“They raise them in South Dakota,” I says.
Platt gives me a funny look and said: “I been in South Dakota several times and I never heard of a yaphound neither; or I never heard of a disease named blanny.”
“I s’pose not,” says I. “You ain’t the only old-fashioned doctor that left themself go to seed when they got out of school. I bet you won’t admit they’s such a thing as appendicitis.”
Well, this got a laugh from Lady Perkins and the other dude, but it didn’t go very big with Doc or Mrs. Snell. Wile Doc was trying to figure out a comeback I said I must go and look after my womenfolks. So I told the party I was glad to of met them and walked out.
I found Ella and Katie in the summer parlor, and they wasn’t alone. A nice-looking young fella named Codd was setting alongside of them, and after we was introduced Ella leaned over and w’ispered to me that he was Bob Codd, the famous aviator. It come out that he had invented some new kind of an aeroplane and had came to demonstrate it to the Williams Company. The company—Palmer Williams and his brother, you know—they’ve got their flying field a couple miles from the hotel. Well, a guy with nerve enough to go up in one of them things certainly ain’t going to hesitate about speaking to a strange gal when he likes their looks. So this Codd baby had give himself an introduction to my Mrs. and Kate, and I guess they hadn’t sprained an ankle running away from him.
Of course Ella wanted to know how I’d came out with Lady Perkins. I told her that we hadn’t had much chance to talk because she was in a bridge game with three other people, but I’d met them and they’d all seemed to fall for me strong. Ella wanted to know who they was and I told her their names, all but the one I didn’t get. She squealed when I mentioned Mrs. Snell.
“Did you hear that, Sis?” she says to Kate. “Tom’s met Mrs. Snell. That’s the woman, you know, that wears them funny clothes and has the two dogs.”
“You’re describing every woman in the hotel,” I said.
“But this is the Mrs. Snell,” said the wife. “Her husband’s the sugar man and she’s the daughter of George Henkel, the banker. They say she’s a wonderful bridge player and don’t never play only for great big stakes. I’m wild to meet her.”
“Yes,” I said, “if they’s one person you should ought to meet, it’s a wonderful bridge player that plays for great big stakes, especially when our expenses is making a bum out of our income and you don’t know a grand slam from no dice.”
“I don’t expect to gamble with her,” says Ella. “But she’s just the kind of people we want to know.”
Well, the four of us set there and talked about this and that, and Codd
