III
UP AGAINST BENTLEY
Say, where's Palopinto, anyway? Well neither did I. It's somewherearound Dallas, but that don't help me any. Texas, eh? You sure don'tmean it! Why, I thought there wa'n't nothin' but one night stands downthere. But this Palopinto ain't in that class at all. Not much! It'sa real torrid proposition. No, I ain't been there; but I've been upagainst Bentley, who has.
He wa'n't mine, to begin with. I got him second hand. You see, hecome along just as I was havin' a slack spell. Mr. Gordon--yes,Pyramid Gordon--he calls up on the 'phone and says he's in a hole.Seems he's got a nephew that's comin' on from somewhere out West totake a look at New York, and needs some one to keep him from fallin'off Brooklyn Bridge.
"How's he travellin'," says I; "tagged, in care of the conductor?"
"Oh, no," says Mr. Gordon. "He's about twenty-two, and able to takecare of himself anywhere except in a city like this." Then he wants toknow how I'm fixed for time.
"I got all there is on the clock," says I.
"And would you be willing to try keeping Bentley out of mischief untilI get back?" says he.
"Sure as ever," says I. "I don't s'pose he's any holy terror; is he?"
Pyramid said he wa'n't quite so bad as that. He told me that Bentley'dbeen brought up on a big cattle ranch out there, and that now he wasboss.
"He's been making a lot of money recently, too," says Mr. Gordon, "andhe insists on a visit East. Probably he will want to let New York knowthat he has arrived, but you hold him down."
"Oh, I'll keep him from liftin' the lid, all right," says I.
"That's the idea, Shorty," says he. "I'll write a note telling him allabout you, and giving him a few suggestions."
I had a synopsis of Bentley's time card, so as soon's he'd had a chanceto open up his trunk and wash off some of the car dust I was waitin' atthe desk in the Waldorf.
Now of course, bein' warned ahead, and hearin' about this cattle ranchbusiness, I was lookin' for a husky boy in a six inch soft-brim andleather pants. I'd calculated on havin' to persuade him to take offhis spurs and leave his guns with the clerk.
But what steps out of the elevator and answers to the name of Bentleyis a Willie boy that might have blown in from Asbury Park or FarRockaway. He was draped in a black and white checked suit that youcould broil a steak on, with the trousers turned up so's to show theopenwork silk socks, and the coat creased up the sides like it was madeover a cracker box. His shirt was a MacGregor plaid, and the bandaround his Panama was a hand width Roman stripe.
"Gee!" thinks I, "if that's the way cow boys dress nowadays, no wonderthere's scandals in the beef business!"
But if you could forget his clothes long enough to size up what was in'em, you could see that Bentley was a mild enough looker. There's lotsof bank messengers and brokers' clerks just like him comin' over fromBrooklyn and Jersey every mornin'. He was about five feet eight, andskimpy built, and he had one of these recedin' faces that looked likeit was tryin' to get away from his nose.
But then, it ain't always the handsome boys that behaves the best, andthe more I got acquainted with Bentley, the better I thought of him.He said he was mighty glad I showed up instead of Mr. Gordon.
"Uncle Henry makes me weary," says he. "I've just been reading aletter from him, four pages, and most of it was telling me what not todo. And this the first time I was ever in New York since I've been oldenough to remember!"
"You'd kind of planned to see things, eh?" says I.
"Why, yes," says Bentley. "There isn't much excitement out on theranch, you know. Of course, we ride into Palopinto once or twice amonth, and sometimes take a run up to Dallas; but that's not likegetting to New York."
"No," says I. "I guess you're able to tell the difference between thisburg and them places you mention, without lookin' twice. What isDallas, a water tank stop?"
"It's a little bigger'n that," says he, kind of smilin'.
But he was a nice, quiet actin' youth; didn't talk loud, nor go throughany tough motions. I see right off that I'd been handed the wrong setof specifications, and I didn't lose any time framin' him up accordin'to new lines. I knew his kind like a book. You could turn him loosein New York for a week, and the most desperate thing he'd find to dowould be smokin' cigarettes on the back seat of a rubberneck waggon.And yet he'd come all the way from the jumpin' off place to have alittle innocent fun.
"Uncle Henry wrote me," says he, "that while I'm here I'd better takein the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and visit St. Patrick's Cathedraland Grant's Tomb. But say, I'd like something a little livelier thanthat, you know."
He was so mild about it that I works up enough sympathy to last an S.P. C. A. president a year. I could see just what he was achin' for.It wa'n't a sight of oil paintin's or churches. He wanted to be ableto go back among the flannel shirts and tell the boys tales that wouldmake their eyes stick out. He was ambitious to go on a regular cut up,but didn't know how, and wouldn't have had the nerve to tackle it aloneif he had known.
Now, I ain't ever done any red light pilotin', and didn't have anynotion of beginnin' then, especially with a youngster as nice and greenas Bentley; but right there and then I did make up my mind that I'dsteer him up against somethin' more excitin' than a front view of GraceChurch at noon. It was comin' to him.
"See here, Bentley," says I, "I've passed my word to kind of look afteryou, and keep you from rippin' things up the back here in little oldNew York; but seein' as this is your first whack at it, if you'llpromise to stop when I say 'Whoa!' and not let on about it afterwardsto your Uncle Henry, I'll just show you a few things that they don'thave out West," and I winks real mysterious.
"Oh, will you?" says Bentley. "By ginger! I'm your man!"
So we starts out lookin' for the menagerie. It was all I could do,though, to keep my eyes off'm that trousseau of his.
"They don't build clothes like them in Palopinto, do they?" says I.
"Oh, no," says Bentley. "I stopped off in Chicago and got this outfit.I told them I didn't care what it cost, but I wanted the latest."
"I guess you got it," says I. "That's what I'd call a night edition,base ball extra. You mustn't mind folks giraffin' at you. They alwaysdo that to strangers."
Bentley didn't mind. Fact is, there wa'n't much that did seem to fazehim a whole lot. He'd never rode in the subway before, of course, buthe went to readin' the soaps ads just as natural as if he lived inHarlem. I expect that was what egged me on to try and get a rise outof him. You see, when they come in from the rutabaga fields and thewheat orchards, we want 'em to open their mouths and gawp. If they do,we give 'em the laugh; but if they don't, we feel like they wasthrowin' down the place. So I lays out to astonish Bentley.
First I steers him across Mulberry Bend and into a Pell-st. chop sueyjoint that wouldn't be runnin' at all if it wa'n't for the Sagadahocand Elmira folks the two dollar tourin' cars bring down. With all theChinks gabblin' around outside, though, and the funny, letterin' on thebill of fare, I thought that would stun him some. He just lookedaround casual, though, and laid into his suey and rice like it was aplate of ham-and, not even askin' if he couldn't buy a pair ofchopsticks as a souvenir.
"There's a bunch of desperate characters," says I, pointin' to a tablewhere a gang of Park Row compositors was blowin' themselves to aplatter of chow-ghi-sumen.
"Yes?" says he.
"There's Chuck Connors, and Mock Duck, and Bill the Brute, and One EyedMike!" I whispers.
"I'm glad I saw them," says Bentley.
"We'll take a sneak before the murderin' begins," say I. "Maybe you'llread about how many was killed, in the mornin' papers."
"I'll look for it," says he.
Say, it was discouragin'. We takes the L up to 23rd and goes acrossand up the east side of Madison Square.
"There," says I, pointin' out the Manhattan Club, that's about aslively as the Subtreasury on a Sunday, "that's Canfield's place. We'dgo in and see 'em buck the
tiger, only I got a tip that Bingham's goin'to pull it to-night. That youngster in the straw hat just goin' in isReggie."
"Well, well!" says Bentley.
Oh, I sure did show Bentley a lot of sights that evenin', includin' awild tour through the Tenderloin--in a Broadway car. We winds up at aroof garden, and, just to give Bentley an extra shiver, I asks thewaiter if we wa'n't sittin' somewhere near the table that Harry andEvelyn had the night he was overcome by emotional insanity.
"You're at the very one, sir," he says. Considerin' we was ten blocksaway, he was a knowin' waiter.
"This identical table; hear that, Bentley?" says I.
"You don't say!" says he.
"Let's have a bracer," says I. "Ever drink a soda cocktail, Bentley?"
He said he hadn't.
"Then bring us two, real stiff ones," says I. You know how they'remade--a dash of bitters, a spoonful of bicarbonate, and a bottle ofclub soda, all stirred up in a tall glass, almost as intoxicatin' asbuttermilk.
"Don't make your head dizzy, does it?" says I.
"A little," says Bentley; "but then, I'm not used to mixed drinks. Wetake root beer generally, when we're out on a tear."
"You cow boys must be a fierce lot when you're loose," says I.
Bentley grinned, kind of reminiscent. "We do raise the Old Harry oncein awhile," says he. "The last time we went up to Dallas I drank threedifferent kinds of soda water, and we guyed a tamale peddler so that apoliceman had to speak to us."
Say! what do you think of that? Wouldn't that freeze your blood?
Once I got him started, Bentley told me a lot about life on the ranch;how they had to milk and curry down four thousand steers every night;and about their playin' checkers at the Y. M. C. A. branch evenin's,and throwin' spit balls at each other durin' mornin' prayers. I'dalways thought these stage cow boys was all a pipe dream, but I nevergot next to the real thing before.
It was mighty interestin', the way he told it, too. They get prizesfor bein' polite to each other durin' work hours, and medals forspeakin' gentle to the cows. Bentley said he had four of them medals,but he hadn't worn 'em East for fear folks would think he was proud.That gave me a line on where he got his quiet ways from. It was thetrainin' he got on the ranch. He said it was grand, too, when a crowdof the boys came ridin' home from town, sometimes as late as eleveno'clock at night, to hear 'em singin' "Onward, Christian Soldier" andtunes like that.
"I expect you do have a few real tough citizens out that way, though,"says I.
"Yes," said he, speakin' sad and regretful, "once in awhile. There wasone came up from Las Vegas last Spring, a low fellow that they calledSanta Fe Bill. He tried to start a penny ante game, but we discouragedhim."
"Run him off the reservation, eh?" says I.
"No," says Bentley, "we made him give up his ticket to our annualSunday school picnic. He was never the same after that."
Well, say, I had it on the card to blow Bentley to a Welsh rabbit afterthe show, at some place where he could get a squint at a bunch of ournight bloomin' summer girls, but I changed the program. I took himaway durin' intermission, in time to dodge the new dancer that Broadwaywas tryin' hard to be shocked by, and after we'd had a plate of icecream in one of them celluloid papered all-nights, I led Bentley backto the hotel and tipped a bell hop a quarter to tuck him in bed.
Somehow, I didn't feel just right about the way I'd been stringin'Bentley. I hadn't started out to do it, either; but he took things inso easy, and was so willin' to stand for anything, that I couldn't keepfrom it. And it did seem a shame that he must go back without any tallyarns to spring. Honest, I was so twisted up in my mind, thinkin'about Bentley, that I couldn't go to sleep, so I sat out on the frontsteps of the boardin' house for a couple of hours, chewin' it all over.I was just thinkin' of telephonin' to the hotel chaplain to call onBentley in the mornin', when me friend Barney, the rounds, comes along.
"Say, Shorty," says he, "didn't I see you driftin' around town earlierin the evenin' with a young sport in mornin' glory clothes?"
"He was no sport," says I. "That was Bentley. He's a Y. M. C. A. ladin disguise."
"It's a grand disguise," says Barney. "Your quiet friend is surelivin' up to them clothes."
"You're kiddin'," says I. "It would take a live one to do credit tothat harness. When I left Bentley at half-past ten he was in theelevator on his way up to bed."
"I don't want to meet any that's more alive than your Bentley," sayshe. "There must have been a hole in the roof. Anyway, he shows up onmy beat about eleven, picks out a swell cafe, butts into a party ofsoubrettes, flashes a thousand dollar bill, and begins to buy wine foreveryone in sight. Inside of half an hour he has one of his new madelady friends doin' a high kickin' act on the table, and when themanager interferes Bentley licks two waiters to a standstill and doesup the house detective with a chair. Why, I has to get two of my mento help me gather him in. You can find him restin' around to thestation house now."
"Barney," says I, "you must be gettin' colour blind. That can't beBentley."
"You go around and take a look at him," says he.
Well, just to satisfy Barney, I did. And say, it was Bentley, allright! He was some mussed, but calm and contented.
"Bentley," says I, reprovin' like, "you're a bird, you are! How did ithappen? Did some one drug you?"
"Guess that ice cream must have gone to my head," says he, grinnin'.
"Come off!" says I. "I've had a report on you, and from what you'vegot aboard you ought to be as full as a goat."
He wa'n't, though. He was as sober as me, and that after absorbin' aquart or so of French foam.
"If I can fix it so's to get you out on bail," says I, "will you quitthis red paint business and be good?"
"G'wan!" says he. "I'd rather stay here than go around with you anymore. You put me asleep, you do, and I can get all the sleep I wantwithout a guide. Chase yourself!"
I was some sore on Bentley by that time; but I went to court the nextmornin', when he paid his fine and was turned adrift. I starts in withsome good advice, but Bentley shuts me off quick.
"Cut it out!" says he. "New York may seem like a hot place to Rubeslike you; but you can take it from me that, for a pure joy producer,Palopinto has got it burned to a blister. Why, there's more doing onsome of our back streets than you can show up on the whole length ofBroadway. No more for me! I'm goin' back where I can spend my moneyand have my fun without bein' stopped and asked to settle before I'vehardly got started."
He was dead in earnest, too. He'd got on a train headed West before Icomes out of my dream. Then I begins to see a light. It was a gooddeal of a shock to me when it did come, but I has to own up thatBentley was a ringer. All that talk about mornin' prayers and Sundayschool picnics was just dope, and while I was so busy dealin' out josh,to him, he was handin' me the lemon.
My mouth was still puckered and my teeth on edge, when Mr. Gordon getsme on the 'phone and wants to know how about Bentley.
"He's come and gone," says I.
"So soon?" says he. "I hope New York wasn't too much for him."
"Not at all," says I; "he was too much for New York. But while you wasgivin' him instructions, why didn't you tell him to make a noise like ahornet? It might have saved me from bein' stung."
Texas, eh? Well, say, next time I sees a map of that State I'm goin'to hunt up Palopinto and draw a ring around it with purple ink.