Shorty McCabe Read online

  CHAPTER V

  It was that little excursion with Mr. Gordon that puts me up to sendin'over to Williamsburg after Swifty Joe Gallagher, and signin' him as myfirst assistant. Thinks I; if I'm liable to go strollin' off like thatany more, I've got to have someone that'll keep the joint open while I'mgone. I didn't pick Swifty for his looks, nor for his mammoth intellect.But he's as straight as a string, and he'll mind like a setter dog.

  Well, say, it was lucky I got him just as I did. I hadn't much more'nbroke him in before I runs up against this new one. Understand, I ain'tno fad chaser. I don't pine for the sporting-extra life, with a newred-ink stunt for every leaf on the calendar-pad. I got me studio here,an' me real-money reg'lars that keeps the shop runnin', and a few of theboys to drop around now and then; so I'm willing to let it go at that.Course, though, I ain't no side-stepper. I takes what's comin' an' triesto look pleasant.

  But this little hot-foot act with Rajah and Pinckney had me dizzy for afew rounds, sure as ever. And I wouldn't thought it of Pinckney. Why,when he first shows up here I says to myself: "Next floor, Reginald,for the manicure." He was one of that kind: slim, white-livered,feather-weight style of chap--looked like he'd been trainin' on Welchrabbits and Egyptian cigarettes at the club for about a year.

  "Is this Professor McCabe?" says he.

  "You win," says I. "What'll it be? Me class in crochet ain't begun yet."

  He kind of looked me over steady like, and then he passes out a cardwhich says as how he was Lionel Pinckney Ogden Bruce.

  "Do I have my choice?" says I. "Cause if I do I nips onto Pinckney--it'scute. Well, Pinckney, what's doing?"

  He drapes himself on a chair, gets his little silver-headed stickbalanced just so between his knees, pulls his trousers up to high-watermark, and takes an inventory of me from the mat up. And say! when he gotthrough I felt as though he knew it all, from how much I'd weigh in atto where I had my laundry done. Yes, Pinckney had a full set of eyes.They were black; not just ordinary black, same's a hole in a hat, butshiny an' sparklin', like patent leathers in the sun. If it hadn't beenfor them eyes you might have thought he was one of the eight-day kindthat was just about to run down. I ought to have got next to Pinckney'smodel, just by his lamps; but I didn't. I'm learnin', though, and if Ilast long enough I'll be a wise guy some day.

  Well, when Pinckney finishes his census of me he says: "Professor, Iwish to take a private course, or whatever you call it. I would like toengage your exclusive services for about three weeks."

  "Chic, chic!" says I. "Things like that come high, young man."

  Pinckney digs up a sweet little check-book, unlimbers a fountain-pen,and asks: "How much, please?"

  "Seein' as this is the slack season with me, I'll make it fifty per,"says I.

  "Hour or day?" says he.

  Maybe I was breathin' a bit hard, but I says careless like: "Oh, call itfifty a day and expenses."

  Business with the pen. "That's for the first week," says Pinckney, and Isee he'd reckoned in Sunday and all.

  "When can you come on?" says I.

  "I'll begin now, if you don't mind," says he.

  Then it was up to me; so I goes to work. Inside of ten minutes I had afair notion of how Pinckney was put up. He wasn't as skimpy as he'dlooked from the outside, but I saw that it wouldn't be safe to try themitts: I might forget and put a little steam into the punch--then itwould be a case of sweepin' up the pieces.

  "Hold that out," says I, chuckin' him the shot-bag.

  He put it out; but all there was in him was bracin' that arm.

  "What you need," says I, "is a little easy track-work in the open,plenty of cold water before breakfast, and sleep in ten-hour doses."

  "I couldn't sleep five hours at a stretch, much less ten," says he.

  "We'll take something for that," says I.

  We gets together a couple suits of running-togs, sweaters, towels andthings, and goes downstairs where Pinckney has a big plum-coloredhomicide wagon waitin' for him.

  "Tell Goggles to point for Jerome-ave.," says I. "There's a track outthere we can use."

  On the way up Pinckney lets loose a hint or two that gives me an outlinemap of his particular case. He hadn't been hittin' up any real paresispace, so far as I could make out. He'd just been trying to keep evenwith the coupons and dividends that the old man had left him, burnin' itas it came in, and he'd run out of matches. Guess there was a bunch ofmillinery somewhere in the background too, for he was anxious about howhe'd feel around Horse-Show time. Maybe Pinckney had made his plans tobe more or less agreeable about then; but when he got a kinetoscopepicture of himself in a sanitarium he had a scare thrown into him. Nextsome one gives him a tip on the Physical Culture Studio and he pikes forShorty McCabe.

  Well, I've trained a good many kinds, but I'd never tried to pump redcorpuscles into an amateur Romeo before. There was the three-fifty,though, and I sails in.

  "Head up now, elbows in, weight on your toes, an' we're off in a bunch!"says I. "Steady there, take it easy! This ain't no hundred-yard sprint;this is a mile performance. There, that's better! Dog-trot it to thethree-quarters, and if your cork ain't pulled by then you can spurtunder the wire."

  But Pinckney had lost all his ambition before we'd got half round. Atthe finish he was breathin' more air than his wind-tanks had known inmonths.

  "Now for the second lap," says I.

  "What? Around that fence again?" says Pinckney. "Why, I saw all therewas to see last time. Can't we try a new one?"

  "Do you think mile tracks come in clusters?" says I.

  "Why not just run up the road?" asks Pinckney.

  "The road it is," says I.

  We fixed it up that Goggles was to follow along with the goose-cart andhonk-honk the quarters to us as he read 'em on his speed-clock. We werethree miles nearer Albany when we quit, and Pinckney was leakin' like asqueezed sponge.

  "Throw her wide open and pull up at the nearest road-house," says I toGoggles.

  He found one before I'd got all the wraps on Pinckney, and in no time atall we were under the shower. There was less of that marble-slab lookabout Pinckney when he began to harness up again. He thought he couldeat a little something, too. I stood over the block while the man cutthat three-inch hunk from the top of the round, and then I made a mortalenemy of the cook by jugglin' the broiler myself. But Pinckney did morethan nibble. After that he wanted to turn in. Sleep? I had to lift himout at four G. M. The water-cure woke him, though. He tried to beg offon the last few glasses, but I made him down 'em. Then we starts towardsBoston, Goggles behind, and Pinckney discovers the first sunrise he'sseen for years.

  Well, that's the way we went perambulatin' up into the pie-belt. Firstwe'd jog a few miles, then hop aboard the whiz-wagon and spurt forrunning water. We didn't travel on any schedule or try to make anydates. Half the time we didn't know where we were, and didn't care.When bath-tubs got scarce we'd hunt for a pond or a creek in the woods.In one of the side-hampers on the car I found a quick-lunch outfit, so Igets me a broiler, lays in round steak and rye bread, and twice a day Idoes the hobo act over a roadside fire. That tickled Pinckney to death.Nights we'd strike any place where they had beds to let. Pinckney didn'tpunch the mattress or turn up his nose at the quilt patterns. When itcame dark he was glad enough to crawl anywhere.

  Now this was all to the good. Never saw quite so much picnic weatherrattled out of the box all at one throw. And the work didn't break yourback. Why, it was like bein' laid off for a vacation on doublepay--until Rajah butted in and began to mix things.

  We'd pulled into some little town or other up in Connecticut soon aftersun-up, lookin' for soft boiled eggs, when a couple of real gents inlast-year ulsters pipes us off and saunters up to the car. They spotsPinckney for the cash-carrier and makes the play at him.

  It was a hard-luck symposium, of course; but there was more to it thanjust a panhandle touch. They were all there was left of the ImperialConsolidated Circus and Roman Menagerie. They had lost their top andbenches
in a fire, deputy-sheriffs had nabbed the wagons and horses, thecompany was hoofing back to Broadway, and all they had left was Rajah.Would the honorable gentleman come and take a squint at Rajah?

  For why? Well, it was this way: They hated to do it, Rajah being an oldfriend, just like one of the family, you might say, but there wasn'tanything else. They'd just got to hock Rajah to put the ImperialConsolidated in commission again. The worst of it was, these herevillagers didn't appreciate what gilt-edged security Rajah was. But hishonor would see that the two-fifty was nothing at all to lend out for abeggarly week or so on such a magnificent specimen. Why, Rajah was asgood as real estate or Government bonds. As for selling him, tenthousand wouldn't be a temptation. Would the gentlemen just step aroundto the stable?

  It was then I began to put up the odds on Pinckney. I got a wink fromthem black eyes of his, and there was the very divil an' all in 'em,with his face as straight as a crowbar.

  "Certainly," says he, "we'll be happy to meet Rajah."

  They had him moored to one of the floor-beams with an ox-chain aroundhis nigh hind foot. He wasn't as big as all out doors, nor he wasn't anyvest-pocket edition either. As elephants go, he wouldn't have made thewelter-weight class by about a ton. He was what I'd call just a handysize, about two bureaus high by one wide. His iv'ry stoop rails had beensawed off close to his jaw, so he didn't look any more wicked than afoldin'-bed. And his eyes didn't have that shifty wait-till-I-get-looselook they generally does. They were kind of soft, widowy,oh-me-poor-child eyes.

  "He is sad, very sad, about all this," says one of the real gents."Know? Rajah knows almost as much as we do, sir."

  Pinckney took his word for it. "I think I shall accommodate you withthat loan," says he. "Come into the hotel."

  Say, I didn't think you could gold-brick Pinckney as easy as that. Oneof the guys wrote out a receipt and Pinckney shoved it into his pockethandin' over a wad of yellow-backs. They didn't lose any time aboutheadin' southeast, those two in the ulsterets. Then we goes back to haveanother look at Rajah.

  "It's a wonderful thing, professor, this pride of possession," saysPinckney. "Only a few persons in the world own elephants. I am one ofthem. Even though it is only for a week, and he is miles away, I shallfeel that I own Rajah, and it will make me glad."

  Then he winks, so I knows he's just bein' gay. But Rajah didn't seem sogladsome. He was rockin' his head back and forth, and just as we getsthere out rolls a big tear, about a tumblerful.

  "Can't we do something to chirk him up a bit?" says I. "He seems to takeit hard, being hung up on a ticket."

  "There's something the matter with this elephant," says Pinckney, takinga front view of him. "He's in pain. See if you can't find a veterinary,professor."

  Yes, they said there was a horse-doctor knockin' around the countrysomewhere. He worked in the shingle-mill by spells, and then again inthe chair-factory, or did odd jobs. A blond-haired native turned up whowas sure the Doc had gone hog-killin' up to the corners. So I goes backto the stable.

  "I've found out," says Pinckney. "It's toothache. He showed me. Open up,Rajah, and let the professor see. Up, up!"

  Rajah was accommodatin'. He unhinged the top half of his face to give mea private view. We used a box of matches locating that punky grinder.There was a hole in it big enough to drop a pool-ball into. Talk aboutyour chamber of horrors! Think what it must be to be as big as that andfeel bad all over.

  "I never worked in an open-all-night painless shop," says I, "but Ithink I could do something for that if I could tap a drug store."

  "Good," says Pinckney. "We passed one down the road."

  They kept grindstones and stove-polish and dress-patterns there too, butthey had a row of bottles in one corner.

  "Gimme a roll of cotton-battin' an' a quart of oil of cloves," says I tothe man.

  He grinned and ripped a little ten-cent bottle of toothache drops off acard. "It may feel that way, but you'll find this plenty," says he.

  "You get busy with my order," says I. "This ain't my ache, it's Rajah's,and Rajah's an elephant."

  "Sho!" says he, and hands over all he had in stock. I went back on thejump. We made a wad half as big as your head, soaked it in the clove oiland rammed it down with a nail-hammer. It was the _fromage_, all right.And say! Ever see an elephant grin and look tickled and try to say thankyou? The way he talked deaf and dumb with his trunk and shook hands withus and patted us on the back was almost as human as the way a man actswhen the jury brings in "Not guilty." Inside of three minutes Rajah wasthat kinky he tried to do a double-shuffle and nearly wrecked the barn.It made us feel good too, and we stood around there and threw bouquetsat ourselves for what we'd done.

  Then the cook came out and wanted to know should she keep right onboiling them eggs or take 'em off; so we remembers about breakfast.Callin' for a new deal on the eggs, we sent out word for 'em to fix up atub of hot mash for Rajah and told the landlord to give our friend thebest in the stable.

  Rajah was fetchin' the bottom of the tub when we went out to saygood-by. He stretched his trunk out after us as we went through thedoor. We'd climbed into the car and was just gettin' under way when wehears things smash, and looks back to see Rajah, with a section of thestable floor draggin' behind, coming after us on the gallop.

  "Beat it!" says I to Goggles, and he was reachin' for the speed lever,when he sees a town constable, with a tin badge like a stove-lid, pull abrass watch on us.

  "What's the limit?" shouts Pinckney.

  "Ten an hour or ten dollars," says he.

  "Here's your ten and costs," says Pinckney, tossing him a sawbuck. "Goahead, Francois."

  We jumped into that village ordinance at a forty-mile an hour clip andwould have had Rajah hull down in about two minutes, but Pinckney hadto take one last look. The poor old mutt had quit after a few jumps. Hehad squat in the middle of the road, lifted up his trombone frontispieceand was bellowin' out his grief like a calf that has lost its mommer.Pinckney couldn't stand for that for a minute.

  "I say now, we'll have to go back," says he. "That wail would haunt mefor days if I didn't."

  So back we goes to Rajah, and he almost stands on his head, he's so gladto see us again.

  "We'll just have to slip away without his knowing it next time," saysPinckney. "Perhaps he will get over his gratitude in an hour or so."

  We unhitches Rajah from the stable floor and starts back for the hotel.The landlord met us half-way.

  "Don't you bring that critter near my place ag'in!" shouts he. "Take himaway before he tears the house down."

  An' no jollyin' nor green money would change that hayseed's mind. Thewhole population was with him too. While we were jawin' about it, alongcomes the town marshal with some kind of injunction warnin' us to removeRajah, the same bein' a menace to life and property.

  There wa'n't nothing for it but to sneak. We moves out of that burg athalf speed, with old Rajah paddin' close behind, his trunk restin'affectionately on the tonneau-back and a kind of satisfied right-to-homelook in them little eyes of his. Made me feel like a pair of yellowshoes at a dance, but Pinckney seemed to think there was something funnyabout it. "'And over the hills and far away the happy Princess followedhim,' as Tennyson puts it," says he.

  "Tennyson was dead onto his job," says I. "But when do we annex thesteam calliope and the boys in red coats with banners? We ought to havethe rest of the grand forenoon parade, or else shake Rajah."

  "Oh, perhaps we can find quarters for him in the next town, where hehasn't disgraced himself," says Pinckney.

  Pinckney hadn't counted on the telephone, though. A posse with shot-gunsand bench-warrants met us a mile out from the next place and shooed usaway. They'd heard that Rajah was a man-killer and they had broughtalong a pound of arsenic to feed him. After they'd been coaxed frombehind their barricade, though, and had seen what a gentle, confidin'beast Rajah really was, they compromised by letting us take a road thatled into the next county.

  "This is gettin' sultry," says I as we goe
s on the side-track.

  "I am enjoying it," says Pinckney. "Now let's have some road work."

  Say, you ought to have seen that procession. First comes me andPinckney, in running gear; then Rajah, hoofing along at our heels, asjoyous as a chowder party; and after him Goggles, with the benzinewagon. Seems to me I've heard yarns about how grateful dumb beasts couldbe to folks that had done 'em a good turn, but Rajah's act made themtales seem like sarsaparilla ads. He was chock full of gratitude. He wasnutty over it. Seemed like he couldn't think of anything else but thatwholesale toothache of his and how he'd got shut of it. He just adoptedus on the spot. Whenever we stopped he'd hang around and look us over,kind of admirin', and we couldn't move a step but he was there, flappin'his big ears and swingin' his trunk, just as though he was sayin':"Whoope-e-e, me fellers! You're the real persimmons, you are."

  We couldn't find a hotel where they'd take us in that night, so we hadto bribe a farmer to let us use his spare bed rooms. We tethered Rajahto a big apple-tree just under our windows to keep him quiet, and lethim browse on a Rose of Sharon bush. He only ripped off the rain pipeand trod a flower-bed as hard as a paved court.

  At breakfast Pinckney remarks, sort of soothin':

  "We might as well enjoy Rajah's society while we have it. I supposethose circus men will be after him in a few days."

  Then he remembers that receipt and pulls it out. I could see somethingwas queer by the way he screwed up his mouth. He tosses the paper overto me. Say! do you know what them two ulsteret guys had done? They'dgiven Pinckney a bill of sale, makin' over all rights, privileges andgood-will entire.

  "You're it," says I.

  "So it seems," says Pinckney. "But I hardly know whether I've got Rajahor Rajah's got me."

  "If I owned something I didn't want," says I, "seems to me I'd sell it.There must be other come-ons."

  "We will sell him," says Pinckney.

  Well, we tried. For three or four days we didn't do anything else; andsay, when I think of them days they seem like a mince-pie dream. We didour handsomest to make those Nutmeggers believe that they needed Rajahin their business, that he would be handy to have around the place. Butthey couldn't see it. We argued with about fifty horny-handedplow-pushers, showin' 'em how Rajah could pull more'n a string of oxen ablock long, and could be let out for stump-digging in summer, or as asnow-plough in winter. We tried liverymen, storekeepers, summercottagers; but the nearest we came to making a sale was to a brewerwho'd just built a new house with red and yellow fancy woodwork all overthe front of it. He thought Rajah might do for a lawn ornament and makehimself useful as a fountain during dry spells, but when he noticed thatRajah didn't have any tusks he said it was all off. He knew where hecould buy a whole cast-iron menagerie, with all the frills thrown in, athalf the price.

  And we wa'n't holding Rajah at any swell figure. He was on the bargaincounter when the sale began. Every day was a fifty-per-cent. clearancewith us. We were closing out our line of elephants on account ofretiring from business, and Rajah was a remnant.

  But they wouldn't buy. Generally they threatened to set the dogs on us.It was worse than trying to sell a cargo of fur overcoats in Panama. Intime it began to leak through into our heads that Rajah wa'n'tnegotiable. Didn't seem to trouble him any. He was just as glad to bewith us as at first, followed us around like a pet poodle, and got awaywith his bale of hay as regular as a Rialto hamfatter raidin' the freelunch.

  "Is it a life sentence, Pinckney?" says I. "Is this twin foster-brotheract to a mislaid elephant to be a continuous performance? If it is we'dbetter hit the circuit regular and draw our dough on salary day. For me,I'm sick of havin' folks act like we was a quarantine station. Let'sanchor Rajah to something solid and skiddoo."

  But Pinckney couldn't stand it to think of Rajah being left to suffer.He was gettin' kind of sore on the business, just the same. Then heplucks a thought. We wires to a friend of his in Newport to run down tothe big circus headquarters and jolly them into sending anelephant-trainer up to us.

  "A trainer will know how to coax Rajah off," says he, "and perhaps hewill take him as a gift."

  "It's easy money," says I.

  But it wasn't. That duck at Newport sends back a message that coversfour sheets of yellow paper, tellin' how glad he was to get track ofPinckney again and how he must come down right away. Oh, they wantedPinckney bad! It was like the tap of the bell for a twenty-round go withthe referee missin'. Seems that Mrs. Jerry Toynbee was tryin' to pulloff one of those back-yard affairs that win newspaper space--some kindof a fool amateur circus--and they'd got to have Pinckney there tomanage it or the thing would fush. As for the elephant-trainer, he'dforgot that.

  "By Jove!" says Pinckney, real sassy like.

  "That's drawin' it mild," says I. "Would you like the loan of a fewable-bodied cuss-words?"

  "But I have an idea," says Pinckney.

  "Handcuff it," says I; "it's a case of breakin' and enterin'."

  But he didn't have so much loft-room to let, after all. His first movewas to hunt up a railroad station and charter a box-car. We carpets itwith hay, has a man knock together a couple of high bunks in one end,and throws in some new horse-blankets.

  "Now," says Pinckney, "you and I and Rajah will start for Newport on thenight freight."

  "Have you asked Rajah?" says I.

  But Rajah knew all about riding in box-cars. He walked up the plankafter us just like we was a pair of Noahs. Goggles was sent off over theroad with the cart, all by his lonesome.

  I've traveled a good deal with real sports, and once I came back fromSt. Louis with the delegates to a national convention, but this was myfirst trip in an animal car. It wasn't so bad, though, and it was allover by daylight next morning. There wasn't anyone in sight but milkmenand bakers' boys as we drove down Bellevue-ave., with Rajah grippin' therear axle of our cab. I don't know how he felt about buttin' intoNewport society at that time of day, but I looked for a cop to pinch usas second-story men.

  We fetches up at the swellest kind of a ranch you ever saw, iron gatesto it like a storage warehouse, and behind that trees and bushes andlawn, like a slice out of Central Park. Pinckney wakes up thelodge-keeper and after he lets down the bars we pikes around to thestable. It looked more like an Episcopal church than a stable, and wedidn't find any horses inside, anyway, only seven different kinds ofgasoline carts. The stable-hands all seemed to know Pinckney and to beproud of it, but they shied some at Rajah and me.

  "This is part of a little affair I'm managing for Mrs. Toynbee," saysPinckney. "Professor McCabe and Rajah will stay here for a day or two,strictly _in cog._, you know."

  What Pinckney says seemed to be rules and regulations there, so Rajahand I got the glad hand after that. And for a stable visit it was thebest that ever happened. I've stopped at lots of two-dollar houses thatwould have looked like Bowery lodgings alongside of that stable. And oneof the boys thought he could handle the mitts some. Yes, that _in cog._business wasn't so worse, at fifty per.

  All this time Pinckney was as busy as the man at the ticket window, onlydroppin' in once or twice after dark to see if Rajah was stayin' good.The show was being knocked into shape and Pinckney was master ofceremonies. I knew he was goin' to work Rajah in somehow; but he didn'thave any time to put me next and I never tumbled until he'd sprung thetrick.

  About the third day things began to hum around the Toynbee place. A gangof tentmen came with a round top and put it up. They strung a lot ofside-show banners too, and built lemonade-stands in the shrubbery. If ithadn't been for the Johnnie boys in hot clothes strollin' around you'dthought a real one-ring wagon-show had struck town. But say, that bunchof clowns and bum bareback riders had papas who could have given 'em aForepaugh outfit every birthday.

  Early next morning I got the tip from Pinckney to sneak Rajah out of thestable and over into the dressin'-tent. The way that old chap's eyesglistened when he saw the banners and things was a wonder. He sure didknow a heap, that Rajah. He was as excited and anxious as a new c
horusgirl at a fall opening; but when I gave him the word he held himself in.

  Just before the grand entry I got a peek at the house, and it was aswell mob: same folks that you'll see at the Horse Show, only therewasn't no dollar-a-head push to rubber at 'em, as they wa'n't onexhibition. They was just out for fun, and I guess they know how to haveit, seein' that's their steady job.

  Number four on the programme was put down as: "Mr. Lionel Pinckney OgdenBruce, with his wonderfully life-like elephant Rajah." I heard thebarker givin' his song an' dance about the act, and he got a great hand.Then Pinckney goes on and the crowd howls.

  You see, he'd had a loose canvas suit, like pajamas, made for Rajah, andstuffed out with straw. It was painted to look something like elephanthide, but some of the straw had been left sticking through the seams.With Rajah sewed inside of this, he looked like a rank imitation ofhimself.

  "Fake, fake!" they yells at 'em as they showed up. "Who's playing thehind legs, Lionel?" and a lot of things like that. They threw peanutsand apples at Rajah, and generally enjoyed themselves.

  Then all of a sudden Pinckney pulls the puckering string, yanks off thepadding, and out walks old Rajah as chipper as Billy Jerome. Fetch 'em?Well, say! You've seen a gang of school-kids when the sleight-of-handman makes a pass over the egg in the hat and pulls out a live rabbit?These folks acted the same way. They howled, they hee-hawed, theyjumped up and down on the seats.

  They'd been lookin' for the same old elephant with two men inside, thegood old chestnut that they'd been tryin' to laugh over for years, andwhen this philopena was sprung on 'em they were as tickled as a babywith a jack-in-the-box. It wouldn't have got more'n one laugh out of acrowd of every-day folks, but that swell mob just went wild over it. Itwas a new stunt, done special for them by one of their own crowd.

  Was Pinckney it? Why, he was the whole show! They kept him and Rajah inthe ring for half an hour, and they let loose every time Rajah liftedhis trunk or napped his ears. When he got 'em quiet Pinckney made aspeech. He said he was happy to say that the grand door prize, asannounced on the hand-bills, had been drawn by Mrs. Jeremiah Toynbee,and that Rajah was the prize. Would she take it with her, or have itsent?

  You've heard of Mrs. Jerry. She's a real sport, she is. She's the onethat stirred up all that fuss by takin' her tame panther down toBailey's Beach with her. And Mrs. Jerry wasn't goin' back on herreputation or missin' any two-page ads. in the papers.

  "You may send him, please," says Mrs. Jerry.

  Maybe they thought that was all a part of Pinckney's fake. They didn'tknow how hard we'd tried to unload Rajah. We didn't do any lingerin'around. While the show was goin' on we sneaks out of the back of thetent with Rajah and across to the stable. The rest was easy. He'd got soused to seein' me there that I reckon he'd sized it up for my regularhang-out, so when we ties him up fast and slides out easy, one at atime, he never mistrusts.

  "Professor," says Pinckney, "it seems to me that this is an excellentopportunity for us to go away."

  "It's all of that," says I, "and let's make it a quick shift."

  We did. Goggles shook us up some on the way down, but we hit Broadway intime for breakfast.