“They’ll get a cold reception from me,” she says.
But between the curves and the fear o’ Palm Beach not bein’ so exclusive as it used to be, she couldn’t eat no supper, and I had another big meal.
The next mornin’ we landed in Jacksonville three hours behind time and narrowly missed connections for St. Augustine by over an hour and a half. They wasn’t another train till one-thirty in the afternoon, so we had some time to kill. I went shoppin’ and bought a shave and five or six rickeys. The Wife helped herself to a chair in the writin’ room of one o’ the hotels and told pretty near everybody in Chicago that she wished they was along with us, accompanied by a pitcher o’ the Elks’ Home or the Germania Club, or Trout Fishin’ at Atlantic Beach.
W’ile I was gettin’ my dime’s worth in the tonsorial parlors, I happened to look up at a calendar on the wall, and noticed it was the twelfth o’ February.
“How does it come that everything’s open here today?” I says to the barber. “Don’t you-all know it’s Lincoln’s birthday?”
“Is that so?” he says. “How old is he?”
III
We’d wired ahead for rooms at the Alcazar, and when we landed in St. Augustine they was a motorbus from the hotel to meet us at the station.
“Southern hospitality,” I says to the Wife, and we was both pleased till they relieved us o’ four bits apiece for the ride.
Well, they hadn’t neither one of us slept good the night before, w’ile we was joltin’ through Georgia; so when I suggested a nap they wasn’t no argument.
“But our clo’es ought to be pressed,” says the Missus. “Call up the valet and have it done w’ile we sleep.”
So I called up the valet, and sure enough, he come.
“Hello, George!” I says. “You see, we’re goin’ to lay down and take a nap, and we was wonderin’ if you could crease up these two suits and have ’em back here by the time we want ’em.”
“Certainly, sir,” says he.
“And how much will it cost?” I ast him.
“One dollar a suit,” he says.
“Are you on parole or haven’t you never been caught?” says I.
“Yes, sir,” he says, and smiled like it was a joke.
“Let’s talk business, George,” I says. “The tailor we go to on Sixty-third walks two blocks to get our clo’es, and two blocks to take ’em to his joint, and two blocks to bring ’em back, and he only soaks us thirty-five cents a suit.”
“He gets poor pay and he does poor work,” says the burglar. “When I press clo’es I press ’em right.”
“Well,” I says, “the tailor on Sixty-third satisfies us. Suppose you don’t do your best this time, but just give us seventy cents’ worth.”
But they wasn’t no chance for a bargain. He’d been in the business so long he’d become hardened and lost all regard for his fellow men.
The Missus slept, but I didn’t. Instead, I done a few problems in arithmetic. Outside o’ what she’d gave up for postcards and stamps in Jacksonville, I’d spent two bucks for our lunch, about two more for my shave and my refreshments, one for a rough ride in a bus, one more for gettin’ our trunk and grips carried round, two for havin’ the clo’es pressed, and about half a buck in tips to people that I wouldn’t never see again. Somewheres near nine dollars a day, not countin’ no hotel bill, and over two weeks of it yet to come!
Oh, you rummy game at home, at half a cent a point!
When our clo’es come back I woke her up and give her the figures.
“But today’s an exception,” she says. “After this our meals will be included in the hotel bill and we won’t need to get our suits pressed only once a week and you’ll be shavin’ yourself and they won’t be no bus fare when we’re stayin’ in one place. Besides, we can practise economy all spring and all summer.”
“I guess we need the practise,” I says.
“And if you’re goin’ to crab all the time about expenses,” says she, “I’ll wish we had of stayed home.”
“That’ll make it unanimous,” says I.
Then she begin sobbin’ about how I’d spoiled the trip and I had to promise I wouldn’t think no more o’ what we were spendin’. I might just as well of promised to not worry when the White Sox lost or when I’d forgot to come home to supper.
We went in the dinin’ room about six-thirty and was showed to a table where they was another couple settin’. They was husband and wife, I guess, but I don’t know which was which. She was wieldin’ the pencil and writin’ down their order.
“I guess I’ll have clams,” he says.
“They disagreed with you last night,” says she.
“All right,” he says. “I won’t try ’em. Give me cream-o’-tomato soup.”
“You don’t like tomatoes,” she says.
“Well, I won’t have no soup,” says he. “A little o’ the bluefish.”
“The bluefish wasn’t no good at noon,” she says. “You better try the bass.”
“All right, make it bass,” he says. “And them sweetbreads and a little roast beef and sweet potatoes and peas and vanilla ice-cream and coffee.”
“You wouldn’t touch sweetbreads at home,” says she, “and you can’t tell what they’ll be in a hotel.”
“All right, cut out the sweetbreads,” he says.
“I should think you’d have the stewed chicken,” she says, “and leave out the roast beef.”
“Stewed chicken it is,” says he.
“Stewed chicken and mashed potatoes and string beans and buttered toast and coffee. Will that suit you?”
“Sure!” he says, and she give the slip to the waiter.
George looked at it long enough to of read it three times if he could of read it once and then went out in the kitchen and got a trayful o’ whatever was handy.
But the poor guy didn’t get more’n a taste of anything. She was watchin’ him like a hawk, and no
