there was a big crowd on the ferryboat from jersey when she bumped her nose into the pier at new york that morning, but when the gates were thrown open there wasn’t the usual scurry and rush to land that marked the morning arrival. at the front, hugging the rail on the woman’s side was a nice little blonde dressed all in white, even down to her shoes and stockings, and with a complexion of the kind known as peachy, if you have any idea what that is. fastened to her with a strong arm hold was a fellow of about twenty-three—years, not skiddoo, you understand—and he was togged out like a hot sport after a winning fight, or one who had picked the 20 to 1 shot at sheepshead for the first time in his life. top hat, frock coat, white vest, patent leather shoes, pearl tie and gray gloves completed the picture, and it was the surest case of orange blossoms and wedding cake that ever happened.
that was what held the crowd and made a few of them whistle what sounded very much like that old familiar tune of “here comes the bride.”
arm in arm, entirely oblivious of anything in the world except themselves and their own happiness, the couple marched off the boat, heads up in the air and trailed by the grinning bunch, and if ever a case of love’s young dream went around on legs this was surely it.
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they knew as much about new york as a shrewsbury river clam knows about cigarettes, and it didn’t require the services of a head-grabber or a hand-holder to know that they were hunting a honeymoon hostelry.
they had come from the fertile fields of freehold to the land where there are real bathtubs with hot and cold water, and where a chunk of plain calf is soused with gravy, called fricandeau of veal, and charged for at the rate of a dollar a portion.
what was money made for except to spend, especially on occasions of this kind? you’re young but once, and then a little makes you feel like a millionaire and you get value received and five times over for every dollar you peel off the roll. but when time, who is the most wonderful artist in the world, does a few stunts, makes brown hair turn gray and deftly paints in the wrinkles, then the joy of spending goes and pleasure becomes as soggy as a wet sponge. years are the frosts which kill the flowers of hope and ambition, and there are thousands of men who would give millions of dollars if they could but stand off, if only for a brief while, the gray-haired patriarch with the scythe.
just think of the sight of a young bride and groom holding in leash, as it were, a couple of hundred business men who were as anxious to get on the job of making money as a dog is to get a bone, and all of these hard-headed fellows smiling as if each one of them were in the same position as the young fellow who was fast to her arm.
up the street to broadway, where they turned north, and then they were lost to all but two men, and these two were trailing.
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begins to sound like one of old sleuth’s detective stories, doesn’t it? where the villains are always on the job and always being foiled. where it is either a case of murder the child and get the papers or kidnap the girl and marry her so as to get the old man’s fortune. doesn’t that take you back a few years when you used to have those yellow-covered books in your inside pocket and believe every word you read, or are you so unfortunate as to have never lived the life of a real boy, with all its castle building and romancing? you know there are men in this world who still dream of those days, and it doesn’t do them any harm, either.
the two men who were brought into this story a moment ago are still in the game, but they are neither burglars nor kidnappers. they are simply a pair of good fellows with enough money on the side to get anything within reason, and a belief that there are happy days and good people in this world if you only take the trouble to look for them.
“i’ll bet,” said one, “that that kid hasn’t more than a hundred in his clothes, and that he feels as if the world was his to do with as he likes.”
“the world is his if he has as much as a hundred,” returned the other. “that will give him the time of his life for three weeks, and he wouldn’t go back broke, either, unless his home is in london, which it isn’t.”
“she’s a nice-looking girl all right, and from the way they’re heading i should say it would be niagara for theirs.”
“niagara nothing,” retorted his friend, “that is a spot that belongs to the past. our mothers and fathers made it fashionable, but the present generation takes
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to big cities as naturally as a duck takes to water, for they want the busy life and the theatres. the billing and cooing of the newly wed is all done under cover now and they mix with the crowd. you’ll find them taking in the big cafes along the line getting a good look at things they never expect to see again, and these are the things they will be talking about twenty or thirty years from now. make a picture of that couple ahead there in 1926, for instance. he’ll be telling his friends about this day, and the night they went to see joe weber, and he’ll tell how the buildings first impressed him, and then she’ll butt in with:
“‘say, henry, what was the name of the restaurant in new york we went to after we saw that funny show—you know, the place where we had that lobster a la newburg?’
“as long as she lives she’ll talk about lobster a la newburg because it sounds different, you see, and that’s the woman of it.
“then henry will stroke his whiskers and take his corncob pipe out of his mouth and say, as if he had known the place all his life, ‘why, that was shanley’s.’”
“cut it out, for you’re talking like one of denman thompson’s home-made rural drammers,” put in his friend, as he pulled out his cigar case. “you’re always looking for the unusual and the sentimental, so i’ll make you a proposition. let’s get next to this pair of turtle doves and give them the send-off of their lives. we’ll start off with a lunch, then a matinee, after that dinner, from there to a show and then a windup in a blaze of glory with wine and all the trimmings of a wedding feast. you’ve nothing to do, neither have i,
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and maybe if we do the thing up right she’ll name it—if it is a boy—after one of us or both of us, just think of that. there’s fame for you.”
that is how it happened that an hour later a newly-married young couple, under the escort of two young men who were pretty well known around town, were lunching at the waldorf just as if they had known each other for years.
“you see,” one of the hosts was explaining, “we had an invitation to a wedding out of town to-day and we missed the train. we felt as if we wanted to entertain some one in honor of the event and we thought we would ask you. we want you to be our guests from now until 1 o’clock to-morrow morning——”
the young husband glanced uneasily at his wife and she smiled back reassuringly.
the woman, with that unerring female instinct which is born with all females of the human tribe, understood the situation at a glance and was ready for the lark. besides, both hosts were good looking and well dressed and her vanity was touched. she was young enough to be natural and old enough to be appreciative. besides, there were a few healthy drops of sporting blood in her veins, and that tells a good part of the story.
there are cases where details are uninteresting, and while the time from luncheon to near the hour of midnight seemed to the honeymooners one wild carouse yet it was really nothing to those who are familiar with the ways of the world. they had sampled everything within reason from soda to hock, and the happy freehold boy with the silk lid was willing to walk on his hands if anyone had dared him. he had told everyone
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he met all he knew and all he ever expected to know. as for the little lady who had been toasted many times as the “blushing bride,” she had suddenly developed sporting proclivities of a rare character, and she squeezed the hands of both of her hosts with equal impartiality.
confidentially it was rather a dangerous situation, for if the bridegroom had been helped to a few more drinks he wouldn’t have cared whether the place where he was laid away was a bridal couch or the soft side of a board. that was the state of affairs when, calling each other by their first names, so friendly had they become, that they all went up to the apartment of one of the hosts for the wind-up banquet.
“how are you feeling, little sport, getting a head yet?”
“i’m just right, and i’d like to have you for a brother,” she retorted.
“only a brother?”
“perhaps i should have said father.”
which showed that she had a pretty wit, too, as well as a head.
at the table the hosts had multiplied by two and so there were six. the first flash of cocktails set the groom’s head to buzzing a bit and his speech began to be a trifle thick. at the sauterne he had a job to keep his head up straight, and he had no sooner finished his first glass of wine than he excused himself to get a handkerchief. he dropped on a friendly couch in the next room and promptly forgot that he was alive. his wife was no such miserable failure, for she clinked glasses with the rest of them and was entertained so
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well that it seemed as if she forgot she had ever been married.
as the clock on the mantel struck two she was dancing a hornpipe on that end of the table which had been cleared by the soft-footed japanese butler, and what was more she was dancing it well, too. the four hosts were applauding and drinking her health as the best little thoroughbred they had ever met, and in each brain there was a wish that she was anything but a bride, for each of these men, from the oldest to the youngest, was in love.
it was a most curious and remarkable state of affairs, and there was a chance here for a break that might spell ruin to someone. then the patter of the little feet on the tablecloth ceased and she stepped daintily down to chair and floor. the man nearest helped her, and as she alighted he leaned over and kissed her squarely on the lips. the color in her cheeks was accentuated just a trifle as he glanced suddenly around.
“where’s my husband?” she asked.
“with his toes turned up on the couch in the next room and dead to the world. if he was half the sport and good fellow you are he’d be an ace. you ought to have been born in new york, chappie, for you belong there.”
“i think i will go and see him, if you will excuse me,” she said very demurely, and then she went out.
the four hosts drank and talked and smoked and all the talk was of the bride, and it was all complimentary, too. when an hour had passed the butler was sent to see if she would return.
she came back all right, smiling, but there was a change.
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“i think we ought to go now, but i can’t get him up. he’s not used to this sort of thing, you see, and i don’t know what i’m going to do.”
“why, stay right here, of course. we’re all going now and jim, the gorilla who owns the place, is going, too. the shack is yours until you get ready to leave, for you’re all right. how about that, jim?”
“just as you say—she owns it and us, too. give your orders to saki there, and we’ll call and take dinner with you every evening. we hope the boy will be all right in the morning. good-night.”
that’s all.
it seems as if there ought to be more, but there really isn’t.
with one large high absinthe i could make a hair-raising finish, but i have made up my mind to tell only the truth for a change and give my imagination a much needed rest, and this is a truthful story and it happened just as it is put down here.
