I tried to; but it was a strain. If anyone else had put it up to me that Sadie Sullivan, with a roll of real money as big as a bale of cotton, could lose her nerve just because she didn't have a visitin'-list, I'd have told 'em to drop the pipe. She was giving me straight goods, though. Why, her lip was tremblin' like a lost kid's.

"Chuck it!" says I. "For a girl that had a whole bunch of Johnnies on the waitin' list, and her with only one best dress to her name at the time, you give me an ache. I don't set up for no great judge of form and figure; but my eyesight's still good, I guess, and if I was choosin' a likely looker, I'd back you against the field."

That makes her grin a little, and she pats my hand kind of sisterly like. "It isn't men I want, you goose; it's women--my own kind," says she, and the next minute she gives me the nudge and whispers: "Now, watch--the one in the chiffon Panama."

"Shiff which?" says I. But I sees the one she means--a heavy-weight person, rigged out like a dry-goods exhibit and topped off with millinery from the spring openin', coming toward us behind a pair of nervous steppers. She had her lamps turned our way, and I hears Sadie give her the time of day as sweet as you please. She wasn't more'n six feet off, either; but it missed fire. She stared right through Sadie, just as if there'd been windows in her, and then turned to cuddle a brindle pup on the seat beside her.

"Acts like she owed you money," says I.

"We swapped tales of domestic woe for two weeks at Colorado Springs season before last," said Sadie; "but it seems that she's forgotten.

That's Mrs. Morris Pettigrew, whose husband--"

"That one?" says I. "Why, she ain't such a much, either. I know folks that think she's a joke."

"She feels that she can't afford to recognize me on Fifth-ave., just the same. That's where I stand," says Sadie.

"It's a crooked deal, then," says I.

And right there I began to get a glimmer of the kind of game she was up against. Talk about freeze-outs!

"I'll show her, though, and the rest of 'em!" says Sadie, stickin' out her cute little chin. "I'm not going to quit yet."

"Good for you!" says I. "It's a pastime I ain't up in at all; but if you can ever find use for me behind the scenes anywhere, just call on."

"I will, Shorty," says she, "and right now. Come on down to Sherry's with me for luncheon."

"Quit your kiddin'," says I. "You don't want to queer the whole program at the start. I'd be lost in a place like that--me in a sack suit and round-top dicer! Why, the head waiter'd say 'Scat!' and I'd make a dive under the table."

She said she didn't care a red apple for that. She wanted to sail in there and throw a bluff, only she couldn't go alone, and she guessed I'd do just as I was.

Course, I couldn't stand for no fool play of that kind; but seein' as she was so dead set on the place, I said we'd make it a 'leven-o'clock supper, after the theatre; but it must be my blow.

"I've got the clothes that'll fit into a night racket," says I, "and besides, I've got to get a few points first."

"It's a go," says she.

So we made a date, and Sadie drops me at the Studio. I goes right to the 'phone and calls up Pinckney at the club. Didn't I tell you about him?

Sure, that's the one. You wouldn't think though, to see him and me tappin' each other with the mitts, that he was a front ranker in the smart push. But he's all of that. He's a pacemaker for the swiftest bunch in the world. Say, if he should take to walkin' on his hands, there wouldn't be no men's shoes sold on Fifth-ave. for a year.

Well, he shows up here about an hour later, lookin' as fresh as though he'd just come off the farm. "Did you say something about wanting advice, Shorty?" says he.

"I did," says I.

"Religious, or otherwise?" says he. "But it makes no difference; I'm yours to command."

"I don't ask you to go beyond your depth," says I. "It's just a case of orderin' fancy grub. I'm due to blow a lady friend of mine to the swellest kind of a supper that grows in the borough; no two-dollar tabble-doty, understand; but a special, real-lace, eighteen-carat feed, with nothing on the bill of fare that ain't spelled in French."

"Ah!" says he, "something like _Barquettes Bordellaise_, _poulet en ca.s.serole_, _fraises au champagne_, and so on, eh?"

"I was about to mention them very things," says I. "But my memory's on the blink. Couldn't you write 'em down, with a diagram of how they look, and whether you spear 'em with a fork, or take 'em in through a straw?"

"Why, to be sure," says he. So he did, and it looked something like this:

"_Consomme au fumet d'estaragon_ (chicken soup--big spoon).

"_Barquettes Bordellaise_ (marrow on toast, with mushrooms--fork only).

"_Fonds d'artichauts Monegosque_ (hearts of artichokes in cream sauce--fork and breadsticks)."

There was a lot more to it, and it wound up with some kind of cheese with a name that sounded like breakin' a pane of gla.s.s.

I threw up my hands at that. "It's no go," says I. "I couldn't learn to say all that in a month. How would it do for me to slip the waiter that program and tell him to follow copy?"

"We'll do better than that?" says Pinckney. "Where's your 'phone?"

Pretty soon he gets some one on the wire that he calls Felix, and they has a heart-to-heart talk in French for about ten minutes.

"It's all arranged," says he. "You are to hand my card to the man at the door as you go in, and Felix will do the rest. Eleven-fifteen is the hour. But I'm surprised at you, Shorty. A lady, eh? Ah, well! In the spring the young man's fancy gently turns--"

"Ah, say!" says I. "There ain't no call for any funny cracks about this.

You know me, and you can guess I'm no Willie-boy. When I get a soft spot in my head, and try to win a queen, it'll be done on the dead quiet, and you won't hear no call for help. But this is a different proposition.

This is a real lady, who's been locked out by the society trust, and who takes an invite from me just because we happened to know each other when we was kids."

"Oh-ho!" says Pinckney, snappin' them black eyes the way he does when he gets real waked up. "That sounds quite romantic."

"It ain't," says I. "It's just as reg'lar as takin' your aunt to a sacred concert."

He seemed to want to know the details, though; so I told him all about Sadie, and how she'd been ruled out of her cla.s.s by a lot of stiffs who wa'n't one-two-sixteen with her, either for looks or lucre.

"And it's a crooked decision," says I. "Maybe Sadie wasn't brought up by a Swedish maid and a French governess from Chelsea, Ma.s.s.; but she's on velvet now, and she's a real hand-picked pippin, too. What's more, she's a nice little lady, with nothin' behind her that you couldn't print in a Sunday-school weekly. All she aims to do is to travel with the money-burners and be sociable. And say, that's natural, ain't it?"

"It's quite human," says Pinckney, "and what you've told me about her is very interesting. I hope the little supper goes off all right. Ta-ta, Shorty."

Well, it began frosty enough; for when it came to pilotin' a lady into that swell mob, I had the worst case of stage-fright you ever saw. Say, them waiters is a haughty-lookin' lot, ain't they? But after we'd found Felix, and I'd pa.s.sed him a ten-spot, and he'd bowed and sc.r.a.ped and towed us across the room like he thought we held a mortgage on the place, I didn't feel quite so much as if I'd got into the wrong flat.

I did have something of a chill when I caught sight of a sheepish-looking cuss in the gla.s.s. He looked sort of familiar, and I was wondering what he'd done to be ashamed of, when I sees it was me.

Then I squints around at the other guys and say, more'n half of 'em wore the same kind of a look. It was only the women that seemed right to home. There wasn't one in sight that didn't have her chin up and her shoulders back, and carrying all the dog the law allows. They treated them stiff-necked food-slingers like they was a lot of wooden Indians.

You'd see 'em pilin' their wraps on one of them lordly gents just as if he was a chair. Then they'd plant themselves, spread out their dry-goods, peel off their elbow gloves, and proceed to rescue the cherry from the bottom of the gla.s.s.

And Sadie? Well, say, you'd thought she'd never had a meal anywhere else in her life. The way she bossed Felix around, and sized up the other folks, calm as a Chinaman, was a caution. And talk! I never had so much rapid-fire conversation pa.s.sed out to me all in a bunch before. Course, she was just keepin' her end up, and makin' believe I was doing my share, too. But it was a mighty good imitation. Every now and then she'd tear off a little laugh so natural that I could almost swear I'd said something funny, only I knew I hadn't opened my head.

As for me, I was busy tryin' to guess what was under the silver covers that Felix kept bringin' in, and rememberin' what Pinckney had said about forks and spoons. Say, I suppose you've been up against one of those little after-the-play-is-over suppers that they serve behind the lace curtains on Fifth-ave.; but this was my first offense. Little suppers! Honest, now, there was more'n I'd want if I hadn't been fed for a week. Generally I can worry along with three squares a day, and when I do feel like havin' a bite before I hit the blankets, a _sweitzerkase_ sandwich does me. But this affair had seven acts to it, and everyone was a mystery.

"Why, I didn't know you were such an epicure," says Sadie.

"Me either," says I; "but I'd never let myself loose before. Have some more _pulley_ from the _carrousell_ and help yourself to the--the other thing."

"Shorty, tell me how you managed it," says she.