"_Moi_? I fly!" says Heiney. "I am distract. I r-r-r-run on ze r-r-r-road. I tear-r-r off my white apron, my white chapeau. Ah, _sacr-r-re nom!_ How my heart is thoomp, thoomp, on my inside! All night I speak to myself: 'You have keel zem all! Ze _belle_ ladies! Ze _pauvre_ shildren! All, you have poi-zon-ed! Zey make to tweest up on ze floor!'

Ah, _diable_! Always I can see zem tweest up!"

"Reg'lar rough on rats carnival, eh?" says I. "Three hundred beautiful ladies and poor children, not to mention a few men, doin' the agony act on the dinin' room floor! There, Jarvis! How'd you like to carry round a movin' picture film like that in your mem'ry? Course, I've tried to explain to Heiney that nothing of the kind ever took place; that the papers would have been full of it; and that he'd been in the jug long before this, if it had. But this is Heiney's own particular pipe dream, and he can't let go of it. It's got tangled up in the works somehow, and nothing I can say will jar it loose. Poor cuss! Look at him! No doubt about its seemin' real to him, is there? And how does your little collection of fleabites show up alongside it; eh, Jarvis?"

But Jarvis, he's gazin' at Heiney as if this lump of moldy sweitzerkase was fascinatin' to look at.

"I beg pardon," says he, "but you say this hotel was at Lake Como?"

Heiney nods his head, then covers his face with his hands, as if he was seein' things again.

"And what was the date of this--this unfortunate occurrence?" says Jarvis.

"Year before the last, in Augoost," says Heiney, shudderin',--"Augoost seven."

"The seventh of August!" says Jarvis. "And was your hotel the Occident?"

"_Oui, oui_!" says Heiney. "_L'Hotel Occident_."

"Guess he means Accident," says I. "What do you know about it, Jarvis?"

"Why," says he, "I was there."

"What?" says I. "Here, Heiney, wake up! Here's one of the victims of your rat poison soup. Does he look as though he'd been through that floor tweestin' orgy?"

With that Heiney gets mighty interested; but he ain't convinced until Jarvis gives him all the details, even to namin' the landlord and describin' the head waiter.

"But ze soup!" says Heiney. "Ze poi-zon-ed soup?"

"It was bad soup," says Jarvis; "but not quite so bad as that. Nobody could eat it, and I believe the final report that we had on the subject was to the effect that a half intoxicated chef had seasoned it with the powdered alum that should have gone into the morning rolls."

"Ze alum! Ze alum! Of zat I nevair think!" squeals Heiney, flopping down on his knees. "Ah, _le bon Dieu! Le bon Dieu_!"

He clasps his hands in front of him and rolls his eyes to the ceilin'.

Say, it was the liveliest French prayin' I ever saw; for Heiney is rockin' back and forth, his pop eyes leakin' brine, and the polly-voo conversation is bubblin' out of him like water out of a bu'sted fire hydrant.

"Ah, quit it!" says I. "This is no camp meetin'."

There's no shuttin' him off, though, and all the let-up he takes is to break off now and then to get Jarvis to tell him once more that it's all true.

"You make _certainement_, eh?" says he. "Nobody was keel?"

"Not a soul," says Jarvis. "I didn't even hear of anyone that was made ill."

"Ah, _merci, merci_!" howls Heiney, beginnin' the rockin' horse act again.

"Say, for the love of Pete, Heiney!" says I, "will you saw that off before you draw a crowd? I'm glad you believe Jarvis, and that Jarvis believes you; but hanged if I can quite swallow any such dopy yarn as that without somethin' more convincin'! All I know about you is that you're the worst floor scrubber I ever saw. And you say you was a cook, do you?"

"Cook!" says Heiney, swellin' up his chest. "I am tell you zat I was ze premier chef. I have made for myself fame. Everywhere in _l'Europe_ zey will tell you of me. For the king of ze Englise I have made a dinner.

_Moi!_ I have invent ze sauce Ravignon. From nozzing at all--some meat scraps, some leetle greens--I produce ze dish ravishment."

"Yes, I've heard bluffs like that before," says I; "but I never saw one made good. Tell you what I'll do, though: In the far corner of the gym, there, is what Swifty Joe calls his kitchenet, where he warms up his chowder and beans. There's a two-burner gas stove, an old fryin' pan, and a coffee pot. Now here's a dollar. You take that out on Sixth-ave. and spend it for meat scraps and leetle greens. Then you come back here, and while Jarvis and I are takin' a little exercise, if you can hash up anything that's fit to eat, I'll believe your whole yarn. Do you make the try?"

Does he? Say, you never saw such a tickled Frenchy in your life. Before Jarvis and me had got nicely peeled down for our delayed boxin' bout, Heiney is back with his bundles, has got the fryin' pan scoured, the gas blazin', and is throwin' things together like a juggler doin' a stage turn.

He sheds the blue jumper, ties a bath towel around him for an apron, makes a hat out of a paper bag, and twists some of that stringy lip decoration of his into a pointed mustache. Honest, he didn't look nor act any more like the wreck that had dragged the mop in there half an hour before than I look like Bill Taft. And by the time we've had our three rounds and a rub down, he's standin' doubled up beside a little table that he's found, with his arms spread out like he was goin' to take a dive.

"_Messieurs_," says he, "eet ees serve."

"Good!" says I. "I'm just about up to tacklin' a hot lunch. What kind of a mess have you got here, anyway, Heiney? Any alum in it? Blamed if I don't make you put away the whole shootin' match if it ain't good!"

How's that? Well, say, I couldn't name it, or say whether it was a stew, fry or an omelet, but for an impromptu sample of fancy grub it was a little the tastiest article I ever stacked up against.

"Why!" says Jarvis, smackin' his lips after the third forkful. "It's _ris de veau_, isn't it?"

"But yes, monsieur!" says Heiney, his face lightin' up. "Eet ees _ris de veau grille, a la financier_."

"And what's that in English?" says I.

"In Englise," says Heiney, shruggin' his shoulders, "eet ees not exist.

Eet ees Parisienne."

"Bully for Paris, then!" says I. "Whatever it might be if it could be naturalized, it touches the spot. I take it all back, Heiney. You're the shiftiest chef that ever juggled a fryin' pan. A refill on the riddy-voo, seal-voo-plate."

Well, what do you guess! Jarvis engages Heiney on the spot, and an hour later they've started for Blenmont, both of 'em actin' like they thought this was a good world to live in, after all.

Yesterday me and Sadie accepts a special invite out there to dinner; and it was worth goin' out to get. From start to finish it was the finest that ever happened. Afterwards Jarvis has Heiney come up from the kitchen and show himself while we drinks his good health. And say, in his white togs and starched linen cap, he's got the chef on the canned goods ads.

lookin' like a hash rustler in a beanery.

As for Jarvis, he's got the pink back in his cheeks, and is holdin' his chin up once more, and when we left in the mornin' he was out bossin' a couple of hundred lab'rers that was takin' that hill in wheelbarrows and cartin' it off where it wouldn't interfere with the lake.

"Shorty," says he, "I don't know how you did it, but you've made me a sane man again, and I owe you more than----"

"Ah, chuck it!" says I. "It was curin' Heiney that cured you."

"Really?" says he. "Then you are a believer in homeopathic psychotherapeutics?"

"Which?" says I. "Say, write that down on my cuff by syllables, will you?

I want to spring it on Swifty Joe."

CHAPTER XIV

A TRY-OUT FOR TOODLEISM

Eh? Yes, maybe I do walk a little stiff jointed; but, say, I'm satisfied to be walkin' around at all. If I hadn't had my luck with me the other day, I'd be wearin' that left leg in splints and bein' pushed around in a wheel chair. As it is, the meat is only a little sore, and a few more alcohol rubs will put it in shape.