Wile I and Ella was getting ready for supper I made the remark that I s’posed we’d live in a vale of tears for the next few days.
“No,” said Ella. “Sis is taking it pretty calm. She’s sensible. She says if that could of happened, why the invention couldn’t of been no good after all. And the Williamses probably wouldn’t of give him a plugged dime for it.”
Lady Perkins didn’t only speak to me once afterwards. I seen her setting on the porch one day, reading a book. I went up to her and said: “Hello.” They wasn’t no answer, so I thought I’d appeal to her sympathies.
“Maybe you’re still interested in my dogs,” I said. “They was too far gone and the veter’nary had to order them shot.”
“That’s good,” said Perk, and went on reading.
IV
Only One
About a week after this, the Mrs. made the remark that the Decker wasn’t big enough to hold both she and Perkins.
“She treats us like garbage,” says the Mrs., “and if I stay here much longer I’ll forget myself and do her nose in a braid.”
But Perk left first and saved us the trouble. Her husband was down in Texas looking after some oil gag and he wired her a telegram one day to come and join him as it looked like he would have to stay there all summer. If I’d of been him I’d of figured that Texas was a sweet enough summer resort without adding your wife to it.
We was out on the porch when her ladyship and two dogs shoved off.
“Three of a kind,” said the Mrs.
And she stuck her tongue out at Perk and felt like that made it all even. A woman won’t stop at nothing to revenge insults. I’ve saw them stagger home in a new pair of 3 double A shoes because some fresh clerk told them the 7 Ds they tried on was too small. So anyway we decided to stay on at the Decker and the two gals prettied themselves up every night for dinner in the hopes that somebody besides the headwaiter would look at them twice, but we attracted about as much attention as a dirty finger nail in the third grade.
That is, up till Herbert Daley come on the scene.
Him and Katie spotted each other at the same time. It was the night he come to the Decker. We was pretty near through dinner when the headwaiter showed him to a table a little ways from us. The majority of the guests out there belongs to the silly sex and a new man is always a riot, even with the married ones. But Daley would of knocked them dead anywheres. He looked like he was born and raised in Shubert’s chorus and the minute he danced in all the women folks forgot the feed bag and feasted their eyes on him. As for Daley, after he’d glanced at the bill of fare, he let his peepers roll over towards our table and then they quit rolling. A cold stare from Kate might have scared him off, but if they was ever a gal with “Welcome” embroidered on her pan, she’s it.
It was all I could do to tear Ella and Sis from the dining room, though they was usually in a hurry to romp out to the summer parlor and enjoy a few snubs. I’d just as soon of set one place as another, only for the waitress, who couldn’t quit till we did and she generally always had a date with the big ski jumper the hotel hires to destroy trunks.
Well, we went out and listened a wile to the orchestra, which had brought a lot of new jazz from the Prince of Pilsen, and we waited for the new dude to show up, but he didn’t, and finally I went in to the desk to buy a couple of cigars and there he was, talking to Wurz, the manager. Wurz introduced us and after we’d shook hands Daley excused himself and said he was going upstairs to write a letter. Then Wurz told me he was Daley the horseman.
“He’s just came up from the South,” says Wurz. “He’s going to be with us till the meetings is over at Jamaica and Belmont. He’s got a whale of a stable and he expects to clean up round New York with Only One, which he claims can beat any horse in the world outside of Man o’ War. They’s some other good ones in the bunch, too, and he says he’ll tell me when he’s going to bet on them. I don’t only bet once in a long wile and then never more than $25 at a crack, but I’ll take this baby’s tips as often as he comes through with them. I guess a man won’t make no mistake following a bird that bets five and ten thousand at a clip, though of course it don’t mean much to him if he win or lose. He’s dirty with it.”
I asked Wurz if Daley was married and he said no.
“And listen,” he says: “It looks like your little sister-in-law had hit him for a couple of bases. He described where she was setting in the dining room and asked who she was.”
“Yes,” I said, “I noticed he was admiring somebody at our table, but I thought maybe it was me.”
“He didn’t mention you,” says Wurz, “only to make sure you wasn’t Miss
