“What’s the matter, Jerry? You seem perturbed. You have the aspect of one whom Fate has smitten in the spiritual solar plexus, or of one who has been searching for the leak in Life’s gaspipe with a lighted candle. What’s wrong?”
“Curtains!”
Jimmy, through long absence from his native land, was not always able to follow Jerry’s thoughts when concealed in the wrappings of the peculiar dialect which he affected.
“I get you not, friend. Supply a few footnotes.”
“I’ve been fired.”
Jimmy sat up. This was no imaginary trouble, no mere -malaise- of the temperament. It was concrete, and called for sympathy.
“I’m awfully sorry,” he said. “No wonder you aren’t rollicking. How did it happen?”
“That half-portion Bill Taft came joshing me about my beezer till it got something fierce,” explained Jerry. “William J. Bryan couldn’t have stood for it.”
Once again Jimmy lost the thread. The wealth of political allusion baffled him.
“What’s Taft been doing to you?”
“It wasn’t Taft. He only looks like him. It was that kid Ogden up where I work. He came butting into the gym, joshing me about–makin’ pers’nal remarks till I kind of lost my goat, and the next thing I knew I was giving him his!” A faint gleam of pleasure lightened the gloom of his face. “I cert’nly give him his!” The gleam faded. “And after that–well, here I am!”
Jimmy understood now. He had come to the boarding-house the night of his meeting with Jerry Mitchell on Broadway, and had been there ever since, and frequent conversations with the pugilist had put him abreast of affairs at the Pett home. He was familiar with the -personnel- of the establishment on Riverside Drive, and knew precisely how great was the crime of administering correction to Ogden Ford, no matter what the cause. Nor did he require explanation of the phenomenon of Mrs. Pett dismissing one who was in her husband’s private employment. Jerry had his sympathy freely.
“You appear,” he said, “to have acted in a thoroughly capable and praiseworthy manner. The only point in your conduct which I would permit myself to criticise is your omission to slay the kid. That, however, was due, I take it, to the fact that you were interrupted. We will now proceed to examine the future. I cannot see that it is altogether murky. You have lost a good job, but there are others, equally good, for a man of your calibre. New York is crammed with dyspeptic millionaires who need an efficient physical instructor to look after them. Cheer up, Cuthbert, for the sun is still shining!”
Jerry Mitchell shook his head. He refused to be comforted.
“It’s Miss Ann,” he said. “What am I going to say to her?”
“What has she got to do with it?” asked Jimmy, interested.
For a moment Jerry hesitated, but the desire for sympathy and advice was too strong for him. And after all there was no harm in confiding in a good comrade like Jimmy.
“It’s like this,” he said. “Miss Ann and me had got it all fixed up to kidnap the kid!”
“What!”
“Say, I don’t mean ordinary kidnapping. It’s this way. Miss Ann come to me and we agree that the kid’s a pest that had ought to have some strong-arm keep him in order, so we decide to get him away to a friend of mine who keeps a dogs’ hospital down on Long Island. Bud Smithers is the guy to handle that kid. You ought to see him take hold of a dog that’s all grouch and ugliness and make it over into a dog that it’s a pleasure to have around. I thought a few weeks with Bud was what the doctor ordered for Ogden, and Miss Ann guessed I was right, so we had it all framed. And now this happens and balls everything up! She can’t do nothing with a husky kid like that without me to help her. And how am I going to help her if I’m not allowed in the house?”
Jimmy was conscious of a renewed admiration for a girl whom he had always considered a queen among women. How rarely in this world did one find a girl who combined every feminine charm of mind and body with a resolute determination to raise Cain at the slightest provocation!